Mike Elk on Frontline Worker Rights, Joe Emersberger on Pandemic Sanctions

CounterSpin

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(photo: Earl Dotter/Oxfam America)

This week on CounterSpin: Elite US media would have you know they celebrate and appreciate frontline workers. But what happens when those workers try and speak for themselves, try to get past the "hero" label and demand conditions that don't require them to choose, heroically, between going to work and staying safe and healthy? What would it look like to call corporate media's bluff on their sudden, serious respect for working people who didn't start being important because there's a contagious disease going around? We'll talk about action for workers rights with Mike Elk, senior labor reporter and founder of Payday Report.

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(photo: Ebrahim Noroozi)

Also on the show: There's a lot going on, and it's hard to stay focused on all of it. But the US has an inward and an outward face; and even as we are now justifiably focused on what's going on within our borders, we still are accountable for what's being done in our name outside of them. And that includes, among other things, devastating economic sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, ensuring that they will have a harder time protecting their citizens from the pandemic. We'll talk about that with writer Joe Emersberger.

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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at thinking of the unthought of.

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