Local and state governments spend $1 billion annually to market the lottery, and in return Americans spend $70 billion each year on lottery tickets alone, 6 times what they spend going to movies. Almost all of it comes from people with low incomes, and the lower their incomes are, the more people play the lottery. When unemployment goes up, so do lottery sales. Lotteries marketed to the poor have taken the place of tax revenue extracted in more egalitarian ways.
Hosts Nina Shirazi and Adam Johnson talk to John Balzarini, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware State University and Les Bernal National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.
This week we discuss the bipartisan consensus on punitive immigration policies and a community organizing solidarity event in the Bronx and call for freedom of a political prisoner. But first we talkā¦
Frank Chapman and Hatem Abudayyeh join us from Chicago to discuss the city council vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and update us on events in Palestine and in Chicago.
Aly Wane is on the advisory board of the Immigrant Justice Network. He joins us from Syracuse, New York to discuss the failure of the recent immigration bill and the bipartisan consensus on punitiveā¦
We're joined by Kevin Steele and Raven, two organizers of the Spirit of Mandela Coalition and About the People. We discuss their work and the "People's Senate Giveback & Genocide Conventionā¦
The nations that brag the most about "democracy" routinely ignore the will of their people. Support for Israel's war crimes in Gaza is but one example of this phenomenon.
