|
Background Briefing: December 7, 2020
The Battle Between the Haves and the Have-Nots Over Who Gets the Vaccine at an Affordable Price
We begin with the standoff between the developing world and the developed world over manufacture and distribution of Covid vaccines with 82% of Pfizer’s and 78% of Moderna’s new vaccines already sold to rich countries. Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, joins us to discuss the op-ed he co-authored at The New York Times “Want Vaccines Fast? Suspend Intellectual Property Rights.” We discuss the battle at the WTO between India and South Africa and the U.S. and the European Union over the right to manufacture much cheaper generic versions of the vaccines, the R&D for which have been largely underwritten by the U.S. and European taxpayers. Furthermore China has its own Covid vaccine and it may end up being more available at much cheaper prices to Africa and Latin America while negotiations at the WTO drag on.
The Journalist Who Asked Giuliani Whether He Is a Crook
Then we go to Atlanta to speak with the journalist who asked Rudy Giuliani whether he had asked Trump to pardon him and whether he is a crook. Lauren Windsor, the Executive Producer of The Undercurrent, a grassroots political news program who blogs under the name Lady Libertine, joins us to discuss how two days later, she and the Georgia State House legislators who spent seven hours with Giuliani who was trying to get the Georgia Senate to overturn the state’s election for Trump, learned that Trump’s lawyer had tested positive for Covid and is now at Georgetown University
Hospital.
Socialism’s Contribution to American Justice and Equity and the Socialist Awakening Underway
Then finally, with a robotic Kelly Loeffler in Sunday’s Senate runoff election debate in Georgia with the Reverend Warnock endlessly labelling her opponent a radical liberal constantly throwing the S-word at him branding him a “socialist”, we speak with John Judis, the author of a new book, just out, The Socialist Awakening:
What’s Different Now About the Left. He joins is to discuss American socialism’s long history from Eugene Debs to Bernie Sanders and explain the contributions of socialists to American struggles for justice and equity.
Please click here to support Background Briefing with a tax-deductible donation.
Also available on
|
|
|
|
|
Apple Podcasts
|
Google Play
|
Stitcher
|
Soundcloud
|
|
