The Marc Steiner Show

With thousands of Israeli and Palestinian civilians slaughtered in the past week alone, with the total blackout and bombing of civilians in Gaza happening this very moment, with Israeli government officials speaking in openly genocidal terms, and with US warships moving into the Mediterranean Sea, the permanent war between occupier and occupied has boiled over into a terrifying, new, and even more...

There's a contradiction inherent in how Israel reckons with its atrocities against Palestinians. On one hand Israel's leaders and their supporters call for the genocide of Palestinians, such as this past weekend when Israel's Defense Minister announced a blockade of Gaza, referring to its residents as "human animals." On the other hand, the grisly truth of Israeli war crimes must stay out of sight...

Spain's elections on July 23 yielded a surprise result that's left the country without a government for more than 10 weeks now. While the conservative Partido Popular (PP) won the most votes, no clear majority was established. The far-right party Vox also made significant gains, and has established ruling coalitions with PP at the local level. Yet nationally, left and center-left forces have manag...

The question of historical and present antisemitism is at the heart of Zionism, though not always in the ways supporters of Israel would believe. In the effort to shield Israel from criticism of occupation and apartheid, organizations such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance have attempted to advance a broad, sweeping definition of antisemitism that includes all criticism of Israel...

Symbols of the Old West are almost unquestionably associated with the right wing in this day-in-age. Yet the real history of the Wild West is more complicated. Take the 19th century Fence Cutting Wars in Texas, a state-wide, interracial armed movement against the encroachments of big ranchers backed up by the Texas Rangers in instating a new regime of private property on the territory. David Grisc...

Since 9/11, US wars have become widespread, everyday affairs that most Americans know next to nothing about. The largest wars like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have a limited place in public consciousness, but the dozens of secret operations taking place across the planet are alien to most of us. How does the war machine work today, and how do government, the media, and new technologies help to obs...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com In a special crossover moment for The Real News, Dave Zirin of Edge of Sports joins The Marc Steiner Show for an installment of 'Not In Our Name'—a series of conversations and reflections from the Jewish diaspora on Palestinian liberation. In a meandering conversation, Dave and Marc discuss their own personal journeys through the many si...

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom has been rightfully memorialized as an iconic moment in American history, particularly as the venue for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. Yet a deeper look at the March on Washington can offer a richer understanding of what made the Civil Rights Movement possible, and what organizers today can emulate in the ongoing struggle for racial a...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/india-and-israels-fascists-are-in-cahoots-can-hindu-and-jewish-progressives-form-an-alliance-too Warnings of rising fascism have emanated from India for years as the Hindutva, or Hindu nationalist, movement under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unleashed escalating religious and caste-based violence in "the world's largest democracy." T...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/on-israel-and-palestine-public-opinion-is-finally-changing-when-will-us-policy-change-with-it “The shift in US public opinion toward Palestine and Israel has been dramatic over the last decade, especially transformative in the last few years,” Phyllis Bennis recently wrote in The Nation. “US polls have been shifting since the mid-2000s,...

Max Elbaum talks about blocking the fascist threat and building real grassroots power. Max Elbaum is on the editorial board of Convergence Magazine and is the co-editor, with Linda Burnham and Maria Poblet, of Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections . Studio Production: Cameron Granadino Post-Production: David Hebden Help us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by foll...

Dr. Cornel West's decision to run for President has been embraced with enthusiasm by some on the left, and met with groans of disapproval by others. Disputes over the merits of Dr. West's candidacy have often pivoted on the question of whether it is more effective for him to run as a third-party candidate or as a Democrat. In a recent piece for The Nation , Bhaskar Sunkara and D.D. Guttenplan make...

The near-constant barrage of climate disasters pummeling the US is having an unforeseen political effect. As FEMA struggles to keep up with the magnitude and frequency of disasters, far right militias like the Oath Keepers are filling the vacuum to build trust and organize. In a recent article for Grist , Zoya Teirstein looks at what these efforts looked like on the ground in Houston in the wake o...

In the past year, the city of Jenin in the West Bank has become a particularly sharp thorn in the side of the Israeli occupation. On July 4th and 5th, Israeli forces swept into Jenin Refugee Camp in an attempt to suppress a rising armed resistance emanating from the area. Despite slaughtering 12 Palestinians, Israel accomplished little of military value in the operation, failing to flush out resis...

Inequality lies at the heart of contemporary American politics—from the dizzying power of corporations and the billionaire class to the racialized and gendered dimensions of wealth and income disparities. Yet the question of economic justice, as well as the struggle to attain it, also has long historical roots. Mark Paul joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss his new book, The Ends of Freedom: Rec...

Over 800 anti-LGBTQ bills have either been passed or are on the docket in 27 states, according to the organization Human Rights Campaign . Much of this legislation targets transgender people in particular, focusing on gender-affirming medical care, public education, and the presence of gender nonconforming people in public space. As a result, schools, healthcare, and public space have been dragged...

Shasta County, California has become a laboratory for far-right activists in search of power. The county has long been a Republican outpost in a blue state, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, local politics have taken a hard right turn. A recall election in 2022 swept a moderate Republican majority from the County Board of Supervisors in favor of a new class of extremists. Buoyed by popular disconte...

White vigilante terror is older than the United States itself. The lawful use of violence by white citizens to establish political supremacy can be found throughout US history—from slavery and Indian killings to lynchings. Today, figures such as George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse, and most recently, Daniel Penny, carry on this shameful American tradition. And the far right can't get enough of it....

TRNN show host Marc Steiner's Rise of the Right series has followed the ascendance of far-right political forces domestically and internationally. In a special episode of The Marc Steiner Show, TRNN Editor-in-Chief takes the mic to put Marc in the hot seat. From a childhood in Baltimore among family members who had survived the Holocaust, Marc's activism in the 1960s and 70s took him from the rank...

Jeff Sharlet has been studying and reporting on far-right movements in the US for decades, but something feels different now. From Waco and Ruby Ridge in the ‘90s to the 2014 Bundy family standoff with the federal government in Nevada, from the rise of Donald Trump to the “martyrdom” of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed raiding the Capitol on Jan. 6, from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to COV...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/for-us-extractivism-is-lethal-the-ongoing-colonial-violence-of-resource-extraction-in-latin-america From the defeat of the coup government in Bolivia, the election of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, and the rise of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, to the historic election of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and the return of Lula in Brazil, lef...

The debate on a just future to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine has often pivoted around the question of a two-state or one-state solution. In a recent article for Foreign Affairs , four longtime proponents of the two-state solution make the case for why such an approach is no longer viable. Despite whatever high-minded ideals may have once motivated the search for a two-state solution, suc...

The debt ceiling debate is back. On May 1, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the US government could default on its debts as soon as June 1. The debt ceiling debate has been a perennial feature of American politics over the last two decades—ever since the national deficit began to balloon as an effect of the Bush Jr. administration's War on Terror and tax cuts for the wealthy. During the...

Click here to read the transcript Attacks on LGBTQ rights, abortion access, and movements for racial justice aren't exclusive to any one state in the union. But Texas is certainly a place where state officials and vigilantes are working hand-in-hand to bring about a dangerous new future. Texas-based journalists Andrea Grimes and Steven Monacelli join The Marc Steiner Show to explain where Texas is...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/the-ron-desantis-counter-revolution-is-about-stopping-floridas-progressives Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, "Florida" has become synonymous with attacks on LGBTQ rights, public schools, and unions. Yet this offensive isn't only driven by hatred and ideology. It's also about curbing the power of Florida's progressives—power that was building stead...