SocialCast(e)

Prior to about 1980, when Republican president Ronald Reagan started chipping away at economic gains made by the middle and working class, workers' unions fought for many of the laws that exist to protect workers today. Why are they disappearing, and why is it so important not to let them?

While Derek Chauvin stands trial for the murder of George Floyd, there has been an officer involved shooting every day. As always, Black and Brown bodies lie at our feet while murderous cops go about their lives. Derek and Lance revisit policing in America to talk more about why it's vitally important for us to abolish the police once and for all.

For a lot of people, our self-worth is pretty closely tied to how much money we make doing the work we do. In this episode, we talk about why such a narrow definition of worth is not only a bad idea, but one that we should look at very skeptically.

In the United States today, any of our 614 billionaires could apply their immense wealth to solving things like hunger and food insecurity or houselessness. But America prides itself on letting everyone make as much money as they can and then hoard it like a dragon. This removal of resources from the national economy has devastating consequences for the American working class. Let's talk about why.

Eating is one of the most absolutely essential things human beings do. Without food, we die pretty quickly. So why do we allow 34 million people to go hungry each year?

In this episode, we discuss why capitalism is just awful for survival and how we can take steps to reduce food insecurity for ourselves and those around us.

In almost every city in America, there are vacant housing units that sit for months waiting for people to move in. There are also hundreds of people living outside, on the streets, in tents. In this episode, we dive into why housing should be seen as an essential human right, as well as what utilities are essential to modern existence and why they should be handled as such.

The US spends $3.8 trillion on healthcare each year, yet in every comparison we have the lowest ranking for the healthcare we pay for. Join us for a deep-dive into the various ways US healthcare fails Americans and how universal healthcare is the only policy that makes sense.

Universal Basic Income is getting a LOT of attention, but what's the idea behind it? Lance and Derek explore the whys and hows of UBI.

Continuing our conversation about criminal punishment reform, in this episode we talk about why prison abolition work is a vital component to the socialist platform.

 

Featuring new intro/outro music by Borys Kozielski via Freesound.org.

"Defund the police" and "abolish the police" are hot button statements, but is there logic behind them? In this episode, we deep dive into the origins of the police, their history, the thought process behind police abolition, and what America could look like in a police-less future.