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 the official death toll in Gaza soars to more than 8,500, with 5,500 children likely dead, and US-backed Israel prepares for a ground invasion, we bring you Part 2 of our analysis of the forces at wor ..read more

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 various Jewish voices for peace- Dr. Norman Finkelstein, Holocaust survivor Dr. Gabor Maté, Jewish Voices for Peace as well as historians of holocaust and genocide who describe why what's happening now i ..read more

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. While feigning the need to cut federal spending across the board, military spending and funding for fossil fuel projects actually increased, while the US government slashed the budgets of the minuscule federal f ..read more

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 derailments to date. Norfolk Southern averages approximately 164 derailments and three hazardous material releases per year. This Ohio disaster was only exceptional–only widely reported – because of the incredi ..read more

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 well as the role the US government played in shutting down this strike- stripping workers of their democratic rights.  We take you through the timeline of railroad negotiations over the last thr ..read more

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 and human rights.  In this dire situation, we use a class-based lens to look at who, in our system of racial capitalism, has had access to reproductive rights throughout US history and who has nev ..read more

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 becomes more and more of a permanent US proxy state, we look at Biden’s threats against China as a history of peaceful US-China relations is shattered. We also look at Biden’s escalating rhetoric agains ..read more

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 how the story we hear in the western media has been mostly propaganda and that Crimea was not invaded by Russia, but voted by general ballot to join Russia. The same is true of the independent republi ..read more

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 against the world's poor and working classes, and against the natural world. The fact that this crucial political history is omitted by the mainstream corporate media is no accident. It is deliberately ..read more

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 government that delivers for people inoculates them against the appeals of fascist demagogues." - Nathan J. Robinson We can see, throughout recent world history, when economic inequality is surging and work ..read more