The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Good morning, on today's show, Michael Joseph Roberto, author of The Coming of the American Behemoth: The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920–1940. Roberto traces his definition of fascism to the American financial system in 1920s. Life in America in the 1920s was the epicenter of capitalism, this is period of great prosperity for Americans. The financial system during this period consolidated and became the most essential actor in the American economy, something most every American depended on. While most American understand fascism as a bottom-up and petite bourgeois movement like what transpired in Italy and Germany, Roberto argues that American fascism is a top-down, namely protecting the interest of Big Business. This American fascism involved the extreme concentration of money and power in corporate monopolies, bent government policy to serve the nation’s wealthiest citizens, contributed to the suffering of the Great Depression, and also included fascism’s characteristic efforts to control public perception.

And in the Fun Half: how to risk the imagination of new kind of possibility, Kamala Harris smoking mids, Mick Mulvaney says we cannot rule out a second shut down at the end of the week, the "unwilling to work" part of AOC's Green New Deal, Northam calls slavery "indentured servants," according to Joe Crowley AOC is who she is because of him, Elizabeth Warren officially announces her presidential campaign, Jamie Raskin asks Matt Whitaker if Sheldon Adelson is behind his former non-profit the  Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, Rep. Veronica Escobar explains why the "Remain in Mexico" is such a awful policy for any asylum seeker, Charlie Kirk has a boomer problem, the wall is now ICE detention bed, plus your calls and IMs!

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Direct download: 2-11-19-Michael_Roberto-pub.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:44pm EDT

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