Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Is Too Little, Too Late

Lawsuit Alleges CIA Spied On Assange Allies, An Update on the War In Ukraine, AIPAC Defeats Highlights Lessons of Solidarity

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Mohamed Elmaazi, a UK-based freelance journalist, and contributor to numerous outlets including The Dissenter, Jacobin, The Canary and Electronic Intifada to discuss a recently filed lawsuit alleging an extensive surveillance operation by the CIA to spy on Julian Assange while he was staying in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, how this lawsuit could impact the ongoing efforts by the US government to extradite Assange to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act for the crime of journalism, and how the lawsuit could factor into the political decision to continue to prosecute Assange.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by international affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda to discuss the fighting around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the constantly shifting story provided by the Ukrainian government on what is going on at the plant, the extreme danger posed by the shelling and attacks launched by Ukrainian forces against the plant that could cause a nuclear disaster, recent escalation in sabotage committed by Ukrainian forces on Russian military equipment in Crimea and in mainland Russia, and what Russia’s advances in the eastern part of Ukraine mean for the conflict.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Mark Fancher, human rights attorney and writer to discuss the intervention of AIPAC in a recent Democratic congressional primary and why they got involved, how AIPAC’s influence is felt even when their preferred candidate does not win the election they intervene in, the important lessons of the power of solidarity among oppressed peoples that AIPAC’s intervention demonstrates, and why transnational solidarity against imperialism undermines the electoral system which is built to deny oppressed peoples of their needs.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Richard Wolff, Economist and Professor at the New School University and author of the book “The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics Or Itself” to discuss the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act and why it is too little and too late to do anything for working and poor people, how the ideology and language of “the market” incentivizes inflation by siphoning resources in shortage to the richest people, the integration of the military-industrial complex into the US economy and the inextricable link between imperialism and capitalism, and why collective political struggle is the only way we can confront class warfare waged by the rich.

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