In Episode 238 [17] of the CounterVortex podcast [18], Bill Weinberg takes stock of the Democratic ticket's new vice presidential candidate Tim Walz [19] and the role he played as Minnesota governor in two of the major activist struggles in the North Star State over the past years—the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising [20], which began in Minneapolis; and the fight against Line 3 [21], which delivers [22] Canadian shale oil [23] to US markets, and imperils the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe [24] indigenous people.
MAGA excoriates [26] Walz for his supposed coddling [27] of the "rioters" in 2020, when in fact [28] the National Guard troops he mobilized committed human rights abuses [29]. On the other hand, he did open a civil rights investigation [30] into the Minneapolis police department, finally resulting in a consent decree [31] mandating "changes to address race-based policing." Similarly, Walz capitulated [32] to the oil interests on Line 3, which went operational [33] in 2021. But despite this betrayal, he has won plaudits from progressives [34] for his policies in support of labor and decarbonization of the state economy. And the cannabis legalization bill [35] he signed in 2023 expicitly recognizes the sovereign powers of Native American nations, allowing a cannabis economy [36] to take hold on the state's Anishinaabe lands.
Listen on SoundCloud [17] or via Patreon [25].
Production by Chris Rywalt [37]
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