Naomi Klein: Pandemic Capitalism and the Black Lives Matter Protests

Naomi Klein: Pandemic Capitalism and the Black Lives Matter Protests

Plus Zoë Carpenter on Portland, and Ivy Meeropol on Roy Cohn.

Start Making Sense and Jon Wiener
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The pandemic has slowed the speed of life under capitalism, Naomi Klein suggests in her recent conversation with Katrina vanden Heuvel—and that has created greater empathy and solidarity, expressed in the unprecedented support for the Movement for Black Lives. But the “Screen New Deal”—the virtual classroom and workplace—are bringing greater isolation and increasing corporate power.

Plus: Zoë Carpenter reports from Portland on the ominous developments there involving federal agents in camouflage in the streets attacking protesters—over the objections of local and state officials—which Trump says he will take to other Democratic cities.

Also: how Roy Cohn gave us Donald Trump: Ivy Meeropol talks about her new documentary on Roy Cohn, Bully. Coward. Victim. It’s playing now on HBO on demand.

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Start Making Sense Start Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.  


Jon Wiener Jon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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