Time To Say Goodbye - Gig work, Afghanistan, “The Chair”

Hello from a reunited pod squad!

This week, we gab about a welcome court ruling on California’s Proposition 22 gig-work law, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Sandra Oh’s new Netflix show.

(0:00): Tammy on why Prop 22 was ruled unconstitutional and what it means for workers’ rights across the US

(7:10): How to understand what’s happening in Afghanistan in the context of our long wars in the region

(44:45): What “The Chair” says about Asian American TV, austerity politics in higher ed, race and generational divides, and the (cancel) culture wars.

Thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter.



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Time To Say Goodbye - Neoliberalism’s end + “China”: Jake Werner

Hello from a Chinese ghost city!

It’s just Andy this week, speaking with my friend academic-activist Jake Werner (@jwdwerner) on how to make sense of the current ideological shift in US and global politics and especially the hostile rhetoric between US and Chinese elites.

(0:00) We talk about the recent spate of “big spending” bills pushed by Biden and the Democrats, supporting infrastructure (“hard” and “soft”) and industrial policy. Is this a break from “neoliberal” ideology? And also, what was “neoliberalism” about anyway?

(17:40) Some of the biggest proponents for new, big-government programs are also the loudest critics of China and Chinese competition. What’s going on with purported leftists who supported Bernie but are hawkish on China? And is that really so bad?

(45:40) We discuss a different way of thinking about China today on its own terms, reviewing its tumultuous 40-year encounter with a US-centered global system and what changed in 2008. How can we eschew approaches centered “national” and “cultural essence” and instead look at shared global dynamics between China, the US, and the rest of the world? (Jake outlined these ideas recently in this talk).

(1:13:20) Finally, Jake’s pitch for “progressive globalization,” something he is fighting for through his organization Justice is Global (along with friend of the show Tobita Chow!). Why is the US-China relationship so crucial for the next phase in world history, from climate change to Covid to equitable growth? What’s the response in DC? How can listeners become more active? (also: tankies catching strays)

Some pieces by Jake:

“Only the Left can Save Globalization Now,” with Eric Levitz, New York Magazine (2021)

“U.S.-China: Progressive Internationalist Strategy Under Biden” Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung with Tobita Chow (2021)

“Why Confrontation With China Threatens the Progressive Agenda,” The Nation (2019)

“China is cheating at a rigged game,” Foreign Affairs (2018)

And recommended reading from Jake: “The US-China Rivalry Is About Capitalist Competition” by Ho-Fung Hung, Jacobin (2020)

note: I tried to edit out the sounds of sickness throughout, but some had to be left in, sorry! It’s not Covid, I swear!

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Time To Say Goodbye - Live music and a “good hang” with No-No Boy’s Julian Saporiti and Emilia Halvorsen

Hello from back in July, when Tammy recorded this special live episode in Portland, Oregon! The occasion was the new album, “1975,” by No-No Boy.

No-No Boy is Julian Saporiti, a folk and rock musician from Nashville whose PhD dissertation has taken the form of an extended song cycle about Asian America. Julian and his partner, Emilia Halvorsen, an aspiring lawyer who co-produced and sings on “1975,” talked with Tammy about the folk tradition, US empire, travels in the Mountain West, ethnomusicology, the struggle for immigrants’ rights, Asian-American and mixed-race identities, John Okada, and Jens Lekman. They also performed two brand-new tunes.

The songs you’ll hear in this episode:

* “Imperial Twist,” No-No Boy, 1975 (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)

* “St. Denis or Bangkok, From a Hotel Balcony,” 1975

* “Yuiyo Bon Odori,” Nobuko Miyamoto, 120,000 Stories (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)

* “The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming,” 1975

* “No No Boy,” The Spiders (Philips, 1966)

* “Disposable Youth,” No-No Boy, 1942 (2018)

* “Pilgrims,” 1975

* “St. Michael,” Little Monk Panda Scout aka Julian and Emilia

* “Panda Scout,” Little Monk Panda Scout

Thanks for listening and supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Get in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter, and props to all the Angelenos who came to our recent Discord-goes-IRL picnic!



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Time To Say Goodbye - Shooting arrows at an archer + landlord politics

Hello from Tammy’s DIY SUV camper!

This week, we bring you talk of Korean archery, feminism, and misogyny. Plus, the terrifying end of the US eviction moratorium and what politicians and activists are doing about it.

* An San, South Korea’s triple gold medalist in archery, has been attacked by men’s rights activists for… having short hair. Why are so many young men so misogynistic? So mixed up in right-wing politics? What is the character of new Korean feminism and its homegrown #MeToo movement?

* US politics, a case study: Cori Bush and The Squad (who actually seem to care about tenants’ rights) vs. Nancy Pelosi (who just found out that the eviction moratorium was about to end).

Thanks for supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Please be in touch via email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter.



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Time To Say Goodbye - The Young Congee Marx

Hello from Philly, Berkeley, and Pasadena!

This week, we talk about the Tokyo Olympics, food appropriation in Oregon, and Raoul Peck’s film The Young Karl Marx (2017).

* What are people protesting in Tokyo? In this pandemic moment, who are the Olympics for? Plus: props to young women weightlifters and skateboarders.

* Why are Asian Americans so mad about congee? (And why are white restaurateurs in Oregon so prone to getting in race trouble?)

* What did “The Communist Manifesto” mean in the time and place it was written? Does its analysis apply today? Why did Peck make this movie? (good film review here). Bonus: brief comparison to another origin-story biopic Amadeus (1984).

(For more on the women’s work around these famous men, Tammy recommends biographies of Eleanor Marx, Karl’s daughter, and the French film Mozart’s Sister.)

(And Andy laoshi suggests reading the original Marx from the film: Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1846) on the “young Hegelians”; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Proudhon; and ofc what we simply call “The Manifesto” (1848)).

We were stoked to meet so many of you at our recent IRL in Berkeley. If you want to take part in such events and our raging Discord, join our membership club at Substack or Patreon. And please get in touch via Twitter or email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com).

Thank you!



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Time To Say Goodbye - Haiti and Cuba, COVID Delta, and Listener Qs

Hello!

This week: two pressing topics from the news and listener questions.

First, we talk about the political crises in Haiti and Cuba and questions of U.S. empire and intervention. Though military invasions have become less savory, on Monday, U.S. officials still informally dictated Haiti’s choice for interim president. We place the news in geographic and historical context and draw connections to East Asia. Also: the hallowed place of the Haitian and Cuban revolutions for leftists (and academics), the logic of anti-imperialist and “decolonial” politics (think Latin American tankie-ism), and how best to understand the Caribbean today.

Second, we discuss the spiraling numbers of Covid infections and hospitalizations among unvaccinated people in the U.S., especially in Black and Latino communities. How do these numbers square with mainstream media coverage of the unvaccinated? Is race the best framing? How bad will things get in the next few months? 

Not to mention how horribly things are going in the Global South, thanks to vaccine apartheid

Finally, some listener questions:

* Brinda asks for reading recommendations. (Andy’s is a follow-up on the CRT episode: a feature on Chris Rufo in The New Yorker). 

* Daffodilly asks about “the academy” and “academia.”

* And So Long, Lillian asks about intra-Asian (inter-Asian?) matrimony. (There are some studies!)

Please share, contact us, and subscribe!

* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com

* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod

* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod

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Time To Say Goodbye - Steel, Care, PMCs: historian Gabe Winant

Hello!

A guest episode today: Andy talks with U Chicago historian Gabriel Winant (@gabrielwinant) about his new book, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. We discuss capitalism and neoliberalism, what’s going on with the U.S. socialist movement, and class fissures within the professional ranks. 

Check out Gabe’s other writing in many places, including Dissent, n+1, The Nation, and Jacobin!  

0:00 – Pittsburgh, discussions of class, Gabe’s journey, Marxism, and the rumored “history of capitalism” trend in the academy.

20:00 – We dig into The Next Shift: steel in non-nostalgic terms, the difference between steel and healthcare (or manufacturing versus service), how nursing homes became so marginalized, and the strategic sectors for struggle today (healthcare? education?). 

1:04:50 – Gabe’s 2019 essay on the “professional-managerial class”: revisiting Barbara and John Ehrenreich’s invention of the term in 1977, how it applies today, and why the only people who talk about the PMC are themselves the PMCest of PMCs?

Watch out for bonus content later this week! The podsquad will be back again soon.

Please share, contact us, and subscribe!

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* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod

* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod

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Time To Say Goodbye - Sports talk radio: NO-lympics + diversity “pressure” at ESPN

Hello, and welcome to Asian American Sports Talk radio—from the site of the 2032 Olympics!

Three topics today:

First, the Chinese Communist Party held a massive centennial celebration last week (here’s Andy talking about it), and China-watchers pounced on one phrase from Xi Jinping’s speech: that haters would suffer “broken heads and spilled blood” (頭破血流). Hey, imperialist pigs, nothing to see here!

(8:20) Second, we discuss the racist origins, wasteful history, and cruel policies of the Olympic Games, ahead of the Tokyo games this month (and LA 2024, baby!). Also: some nostalgia for the 1988 Seoul Games, less so for Beijing 2008, and some proposals for how to continue watching some people run really fast in the future—but sustainably!

(53:10) Finally, we weigh in on revelations that ESPN journalist Rachel Nichols criticized the promotion of colleague Maria Taylor on “diversity” grounds, as detailed by Kevin Draper in the Times. We talk about the meaning of “hard work,” private conversations, media no-nos, and how to talk about diversity (or not) in 2021.

Please share, contact us, and subscribe!

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Time To Say Goodbye - The Fight to End Single Family Zoning and the YIMBY/NIMBY/PHIMBY War with Darrell Owens

Hello!

Today’s episode is about housing, the fight to end single-family zoning, YIMBYs, NIMBYs and PHIMBYs. Our guest today was Darrell Owens, a housing activist and policy analyst. We went through a lot — Berkeley’s recent unanimous initiative to end single-family zoning, asked the inevitable questions about whether this would actually help make Berkeley more affordable, talked a bit about the PHIMBY movement (Public Housing in My Backyard), the pragmatic limitations of all housing work, and much more. Give it a listen!

- Jay

Related Reading:

Darrell’s Twitter: @idothethinking

How Berkeley Beat Back NIMBYs in NYTimes Opinion

Who are the PHIMBYs? in LA Mag

An interview with Ananya Roy



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Time To Say Goodbye - Click, buy, suffer? Plus listener questions

Hello from Tammy’s 104-degree podcast studio!

This week, we talk about the nightmare of piled-up container ships on the West coast, why Covid has triggered these crises along the global supply chain, a bit of logistics history, and the dire ecological future that awaits us.

Also, for the first time in a while, some listener questions:

* Are there racial aspects to Yang’s mayoral downfall? Or do Yang’s two campaigns tell us something about the difference between appealing to Asians versus a wider public?

* More on the “Asian pessimism” discussion from last week?

* Any social-justice wins to be happy about?

Thanks to Stephanie, Sam, and Cliff for their questions! And thanks to all of you for listening and subscribing. Stay cool!

Please share, contact us, and subscribe!

* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com

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