Crawdads and Taters: Red State Rebels

In the response to the LA anti-ICE protests, a large number of Democrats have called for peaceful non-violence in the spirit of MLK Jr. We review the history of the Civil Rights movement and how change actually took place. And we come to the conclusion that today's Democrats are the white moderate that MLK Jr warned us about. This includes progressive darlings Bernie Sanders and AOC, who recently...

In Part 2 of this series, we focus on foreign policy. In Part 1, we explained how Trump and his oligarchs enrich themselves off the backs of the world’s poor and working-class at home. But in the case of foreign policy, Trump’s plans involve the blatant pillaging and exploitation of other country’s sovereign lands and resources. And again, this was prepared by the Biden regime and the sell-out dem...

In our first episode during Trump’s second term, we look at a short (but not comprehensive) list of horrors that the Trump MAGA coalition has unleashed on the US public and how the groundwork for this horror show was laid down by the Biden regime, along with decades of corporate Democratic failures to build any kind of real opposition to the fascist-leaning movements of the Republican Party. In fa...

In this post-mortem election breakdown, we look at bourgeois liberal and Democratic establishment reactions to Harris' spectacular electoral failure. We analyze a liberal pattern of maliciously blaming voters and spewing false narratives about why people vote the way they do. We also examine the material impacts on US voters from the Democrats' own policies of economically abandoning the working c...

After a bit of a hiatus, Crawdads & Taters is back to discuss the 2024 Presidential election, the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the limits of real political change under a capitalist, imperialist economic system. While identity politics are being sold to us as a smokescreen for progressive change, duping the public into believing that Kamala (as a black woman) will be the hope and change w...

In this episode, we talk again about Fascism because we have entered into a Primary Election cycle where leftists of all stripes will once again be cajoled, harassed and even trolled by the neoliberal establishment to Vote Blue No Matter Who– in order to avoid Donald Trump and “Fascism.”  Many liberals feel entitled to attack leftists at election time because by their shallow, liberal definition,...

Please consider making an urgently-needed donation to Crawdads & Taters, as we are ramping up coverage during this genocide. As we find ourselves in the midst of an information war, where critical voices are being censored, banned and bombed, we need your support now more than ever. Please become a subscriber for as little as $3/month at patreon.com/crawdadsandtaters. Episode Description: As t...

In Part One one of our series on Palestine, we review the horrific events since October 7th as the death toll in Gaza reaches nearly 6,000. We analyze the US role in funding and providing political cover for Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid and genocide in the occupied territories of Palestine. We explore the history of Israel as a settler colonial regime that began in 1948. We hear from var...

As of recording this episode, the Hollywood Labor Strike is entering its seventh week. It's the first time actors and screenwriters have been on strike together since 1960. And while 87 percent of SAG-AFTRA union members make less than $26,000/year, Barbie and Oppenheimer, together, have so far grossed $1.83 billion at the box office. This is the real-life backdrop for the release of these two...

In this episode, we explore the manufactured debt-ceiling crisis of June 2023. Sold to the US public as a financial emergency that required immediate action in order to avoid impending doom and "the scourge of default," we look at what the debt-ceiling negotiations actually resulted in: a giant cash giveaway to big business, the war industry, fossil fuel companies and the ruling class. W...

In this episode, we take a deep look at the Norfolk Southern train derailment in Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 3rd, and how this incident is connected to the corporate management of the railways– a topic that we dove into, in depth, in our last episode, Off The Rails. The United States averages 1,700 train derailments per year. Since the disaster in East Palestine, there have been dozens more derailment...

In this first episode of 2023, in the midst of ongoing US wars, pandemics and record inflation, we take a deep look at "the railroad strike that wasn't" in December 2022. In this US political moment, we see an uptick of strikes, walkouts and labor organizing inside the United States. And we feel it's crucial to hear from railroad workers directly in order to understand their working conditions, as...

With the midterms coming up in a few days, the Democratic Party is promising to codify Roe v. Wade IF and only IF they win big in the midterms, even though they already have the majority in the House and the Senate, and the Presidency. Meanwhile far-right Christian fascists, in the streets as well as those sitting on the Supreme Court, are threatening to take away even more of our basic economic a...

As Congress has approved almost $70 billion now in Ukraine spending and a more-than $800 billion US military budget for 2023, we look at the costs of "Forever Wars" - the financial, political, and ecological costs. And we examine how global capitalism, as a political-economic system, is becoming more and more dependent upon war-making to sustain itself. As the new Cold War rages on, and Ukraine be...

In Part 2 of our series on Ukraine, we pick up with the history of Ukraine starting with the aftermath of the Maidan Coup in 2014. The post-coup government in Ukraine with hand-picked Prime Minister Yatsenyuk cozied up to the EU, IMF, and US and enacted a law targeting the Russian language. These actions led to widescale protests in predominantly Russian speaking areas of Ukraine. We explain ...

In Part I of our Ukraine series, we take a deep dive into the history of US interventionism in Ukraine from the dissolution of the Soviet Union to the present. We feel that this history provides essential context for understanding the current US position in reigniting a Cold War with Russia (and China). As leftists, we know that capitalist wars are always waged on behalf of the ruling class and ag...

In this episode, we want to expand on our last episode, where we described what neoliberalism is, and the resulting economic inequality and class resentment that has been brewing across the global political spectrum, following 40-plus years of global capitalism and neoliberalism. Today, we want to make the case for why opposing neoliberalism is necessary in order to defeat fascism.  "A govern...

Crawdads and Taters have an impromptu discussion on the definition of Neoliberalism, a few ways it has played out in the US and global economy, and how it paves the way for modern-day fascism. Episode Notes Border Deaths Operation Gatekeeper and the Birth of Border Militarization From 1994-2014, over 10,000 refugees have died attempting to cross the border. Crossing Over: Enrique Morales, Founder...

In this second part of a two-part series on Critical Race Theory, Crawdads & Taters review the way CRT, like many once-radical US social movements, has been largely captured by neoliberalism and its funding institutions, stripping it of its original class politics and its revolutionary potential for broad-based political transformation. We also review popular anti-racist literature like Ibram...

In this first part of a two-part series on Critical Race Theory, Crawdads & Taters discuss what Critical Race Theory is, who's behind the war on Critical Race Theory, who's profiting from it, and how US public education is again being endangered by white-supremacist authoritarian movements to white-wash history. We also discuss how this "white-lash" fits into a broader US political terrain whe...

We look at how Democratic bills like HR-1, while purporting to rescue “democracy” from Republican attacks on voting rights, simultaneously increase the corporate funding of our elections, shifting more power to the ruling-class and further eliminating the chances of third parties to meaningfully participate in the US electoral system. We also talk about the Ratchet effect and the Overton Window, u...

Crawdads & Taters briefly review the new film Judas and the Black Messiah , as well as recent news revelations about Fred Hampton's assassination. With so much media coverage around the Black Panthers lately, why do we never hear about the Panthers' founding ideology as a Marxist, socialist organization? Fifty-plus years after Hampton's murder, why is it still taboo to tell the truth about who...

Your Crawdads and Taters hosts interview each other to answer the question: Why this podcast, and why now? Erin McCarley is an independent photographer, journalist and filmmaker, based in the foothills outside Denver, Colorado. With a master’s degree in photojournalism from UT Austin, her still photography, videos and writing have been published by Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Due...