Ukraine War: Russia, the United States, and the Nature of Imperialism
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2022
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the world enters a new phase of major power conflict, it is crucial to understand the character of the Russian government and the role it plays on the world stage. Is Russia an imperialist power, equivalent to countries like the United States, France or the UK? How has the imperialist world system been set up – and is Russia in the club, or out?
Brian is joined by Ben Norton. He is a journalist and editor of Multipolarista. You can find his work at BenNorton.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Weeks after the Russian military operation or invasion into Ukraine, the United States has |
| 0:08.6 | united almost all of the major capitalist powers to impose draconian economic sanctions |
| 0:15.9 | designed to evict Russia from the world economy. |
| 0:21.4 | We need a new system. |
| 0:23.0 | We need a new society. |
| 0:24.9 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not |
| 0:30.2 | only realizable, but an imperative necessity. Welcome to this week's episode of The Real Story on the Socialist Program. |
| 1:00.3 | I'm your host, Brian Becker. |
| 1:02.1 | Today we'll be talking with Ben Norton. |
| 1:04.8 | Ben is a journalist and editor of the outlet, Multipolarista. |
| 1:08.8 | You can check out all of his work at Ben norton.com. Ben, welcome back to |
| 1:14.0 | the socialist program. It's a pleasure to be here, longtime listener, first time guest. It's one of |
| 1:19.1 | my favorite programs. So thanks for having me, Brian. Thank you. Well, I guess I forgot that this is |
| 1:24.6 | your first time on the socialist program. I know you've been a guest on |
| 1:28.1 | Breakthrough News. You've been a guest on my former podcast. But welcome. Ben, we know you are |
| 1:33.9 | carefully following the events in Ukraine. Also, as a journalist located in Latin America, you have a |
| 1:41.3 | perspective that's not simply based on what people think in the United |
| 1:46.1 | States or what the U.S. media is saying. I mean, you have a general view that's more universal |
| 1:51.9 | than that. One of the things that I think is so important is that at this moment, there are |
| 1:58.7 | demonstrations taking place in Europe and in the United States, |
| 2:03.7 | especially in those two places, opposing the Russian war in Ukraine. |
| 2:10.1 | Some of the people at the demonstrations are openly calling for NATO to function as an air force for Ukraine. In other words, they're calling for |
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