Sociopathic Society, Bully Nation; Interview with Charles Derber

Broadcast 2/7/2018 at 12:01 AM EST (50 Listens, 36 Downloads, 2806 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

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Charles Derber, professor in the Department of Sociology, Boston College and author of 20 books, including Bully Nation, Sociopathic Society, and Welcome to the Revolution, and The Pursuit of Attention.

First, youre a sociology professor. What does that bring to the table thats different?

Next, in our correspondence, you wrote to me, saying,
the Left since the sixties has abandoned the class politics of
bottom up organizing and moved toward identity politics. This has created a tremendous opening for right wing populism with its own perverted
appeal to workers while allowing them to exploit their own white nationalist identity politics.


Could you define what identity politics is is and the issues you have with it?

The Democrats, of course, have been top down for decades (and the Clintons really exacerbated this)

so part of the challenge is also how to to build a relation between bottom-up movements on the streets with a Democratic Party that is locked into Wall St.

We might want to talk about "united fronts" as they face prospects of authoritarian and Neo-fascist regimes including Trumpism.

the core of universalizing resistance is to bring together a currently fragmented Left in a coordinated anti-systemic struggle against top down capitalist economics and intersectional power hierarchies involving capitalism, militarism, race, and gender/gender orientation, and immigrants. This requires serious restructuring of our current bottom movements both in their vision and organization.

What are issues that will make progressive candidates stand out from more centrist DNC candidates?

Institutionalized Bullying built into our cultural systems.

Systemic roots of bullying
School, capitalism, militarism, empire

Capitalism needs 99% of the population to be submissive to authority.
Bullying disguised as beneficent

Bullying is at root authoritarian

Cultural conservative warriors?

Environmental bullying"animals and nature.
Antibullying culture/ cultures

Role of the family in bullying" both haven and heart of a heartless world
Family as battlefield in the culture wars.
Perkins, LeHaye, Dobson, Santorum

Redefining who is a bully"kind of a history of bullying
The worst forms

Solutions to bullying

You talk about a new kind of protest and resistance in your book coming out this summer"Welcome to the Revolution.
Systemic Power"defining the system

Sociopathic society, systems, culture, capitalism, foreign policy
Sociocide is under way

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