Biden Kicks The Can Down The Road on Student Loan Debt

How Progressives Scuttled Build Back Better, LAPD and Gentrifiers Hand In Hand, The Winter Solstice and Time Of Renewal

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Pascal Robert, commentator with Black Agenda Report and Co-Host of the This Is Revolution Podcast to discuss the scuttling of the Build Back Better bill by the Congressional Progressive Caucus by caving to demands to decouple it from the infrastructure bill, how the Congressional Black Caucus and James Clyburn are also behind the failure of the Build Back Better bill, and how policies that purport to close the racial wealth gap often leave working and poor Black people behind.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Shakeer Rahman, attorney and organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition to discuss the surveillance and policing of poor and working communities of color in Los Angeles, how the LAPD’s surveillance program connects to real estate developers and gentrification, and the surveillance of Nipsey Hussle and his neighborhood by the LAPD.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Iyelli Icheli, Director of the African American Studies Institute, and History professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Prince George’s Community College to discuss how celebrations of Christmas and the winter solstice are connected to ancient traditions celebrating the return of light, how the winter has traditionally acted as a reset period and why values such as family are so deeply ingrained into our celebrations, and the importance of reconnecting with ideas of renewal and embracing hope.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Josh Gomez, producer for By Any Means Necessary to discuss the extended pause of student loan debt repayment and why that isn’t enough to stop the impending crisis, how the Biden administration shies away from spending money on an adequate COVID response or other essentials of life but gladly rains money on the US military to kill and maim working and poor people abroad, and the reasons behind the decline in population growth and why the facts of life that we are presented with do not have to be.

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