Lessons From MLK and What “Beyond Vietnam” Tells Us About Ukraine

Staten Island Amazon Workers Win Union Election, Congress Threatens Sanctions Regime on Ethiopia and Eritrea, The Need For Social Housing

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Luis Feliz Leon, staff writer for Labor Notes to discuss the recent victory of workers in forming a union at the JFK8 Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, what this victory means for the broader labor movement and the struggles at other Amazon warehouses, the novel organizing tactics that the union organizers used and how they differ from traditional union organizing tactics, and the lessons that come out of this effort for labor organizing and organizing in general.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Nebiyu Asfaw, co-founder of the Ethiopian American Development Council to discuss attempts in Congress to impose a new sanctions regime on Ethiopia and Eritrea in response to the ongoing civil conflict in Ethiopia, the skewed representation of the conflict in Ethiopia and how this sanctions regime would derail efforts for peace and devastate the Ethiopian and Eritrean people, the real story of the conflict in Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front’s history in the region, and the importance of the pan-African scope of resistance to western intervention on the African continent.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect to discuss how social housing can provide a solution to the housing crisis in the US, how a universally-available social housing program would also have wide-ranging social benefits beyond just housing people, why income-restricted public housing carries a stigma and how segregation and defunding of public housing programs has contributed to that stigma, and why there’s an aversion to social housing in the US.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by James Early, Former Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution and board member of the Institute for Policy Studies to discuss the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “Beyond Vietnam” speech and how it relates to current questions of peace in the crisis over Ukraine, how Martin Luther King Jr.’s Christianity motivated him to challenge institutions like capitalism and imperialism and what lessons that commitment holds for organizing today, and how the many changes that have happened in the world since Dr. King’s speech have sharpened his analysis.

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