‘The Debt Ceiling Is a Completely Pointless Contrivance’
“What they really want out of all this is to basically hold the American economy hostage, so that they can extort…key spending cuts.”
Janine Jackson
‘This Media Is Meant to Change People, and It Does’
“People…think that this media just attracts those who already have these beliefs…. But I know for a fact that’s not necessarily true.”
‘The Thing That’s Made the Union Strong Is to Privilege the Lowest Paid’
“People are fighting for public infrastructure, making demands, not just about wages, but also bargaining for the common good.”
‘People Who Don’t Support Abortion Ignore the Science and the Safety’
“We have decades of scientific medical research establishing that medication abortion is safe, effective and widely accepted.”
Starbucks ‘Workers and Consumers Have the Same Foe’
Janine Jackson interviewed journalist Saurav Sarkar about Starbucks organizing for the April 7, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Janine Jackson: Who remembers back in 2000 when the New York Times announced that they had—quoting the paper now—“agreed to the sale of the New York Times newspapers in Starbucks […]
‘The US Incarcerates More Immigrants Than Anywhere Else in the World’
Janine Jackson interviewed Detention Watch Network’s Silky Shah about the fire at the Ciudad Juárez detention center for the March 31, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Janine Jackson: While it was a nightmare, the March 27 fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, that killed at […]
‘Medicare Advantage Has Never Delivered on the Promise’
“Traditional Medicare has always cost less. It’s always served seniors more consistently. But it doesn’t place ads.”
‘Media and Government Excuses Are Basically Intertwined’
“High-quality media outlets in the United States of America basically served as conveyor belts for pro-war propaganda.”
‘People Have Been Protesting Against Cop City Since We Found Out About It’
“Domestic terrorism charges are purposely meant to put fear in the heart of organizers…not only on this issue, but in future issues.”
‘The Whole System Is Stacked Against a Person With a Disability’
“Undoing that entangled web of policies that really focus on keeping people with disabilities in poverty is extraordinarily difficult.”
‘Let’s Target Job Creation to These Forgotten Places and People’
“Because a lot of Black joblessness is not counted in the unemployment rate, we still have a massive need for jobs in Black communities.”
‘The Water Crisis Is a Manifestation of Jim Crow Politics’
“If there was really investigative reporting around what happened in Mississippi, folks would see a pattern of theft and extraction.”
‘Punitive Enforcement Does Not Save Lives, or Reduce Drug Supply’
“We need to make sure that people who use drugs are armed with information that will keep them safe and that will keep them alive.”
‘Gigi Sohn Has Faced Relentless Smear Campaigns, Some Funded by the Telecom Industry’
“Senate Democrats…have been pretty slow to stand up and speak out and condemn these attacks for what they are.”
‘Everyone Has a Right to Electricity and Heat’
“If just 12 utilities took 1% of their dividends that they paid out to shareholders…that could have prevented disconnections.”
You Don’t Stop Police Killings by Calling them ‘Fatal Encounters’
Describing repeated police murder of Black people as “fatal encounters,” the New York Times works to soften a blow that shouldn’t be softened.
‘We Can Pay for What We Decide to Pay For’
“You read very little about taxation as a good thing. It’s always the attacks on taxation, and the reporters act as stenographers.”
‘The Cry Is “Lumumba Lives”—His Ideas, His Principles’
“The same forces that were at play in the ’60s to remove Lumumba are at play today in terms of keeping the Congolese from advancing.”
‘We Live in a New World Where Accountability Barely Exists’
“If public officials know they’ll never be held accountable, then they never have to actually do anything other than serve the powerful.”
NYT Moves to ‘Stack the Deck of Justice’ Against Its Subscribers
Another company silently snuck a forced arbitration clause into its terms of service—and that company is the New York Times.
