Jimmy Dore, joined by Steve Oh and Stef Zamorano talk about the gig economy, and making a living wage. Perseverance porn in the media. Jimmy and Steve on their growing pains. Interviews with Randy Wiengarten, head of the teachers union, on NPR and Brent Welder, a Justice Democrat candidate in Kansas. Martin Luther King Jr. and the economic oppression.

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Minnesota is NOT right across the border from KS. It is, however, right across the border from Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakota Territories (yes, we should make it one state, since 12 people live there, total)
I HATE those “Fivver” ads! (And sometimes they play before Jimmy’s YouTube vids)… I especially hate it when she tears up the little girl’s picture… Yeah! — That’s how to prove you’re a tough and successful entrepreneur — Destroy an innocent little child’s artwork! Why don’t you really climb the corporate ladder and tear the wings off butterflies?!
when will the episode from yesterday be uploaded?
Teachers that want more funding for education and better opportunities for children are just socio-economic terrorists, right?
Teachers have to work an unpaid internship.
Doordash, Grubhub, Lyft and Uber don’t even cover people car insurance wise. They only cover when you have a person or food in the car. You have to buy separate coverage. If you don’t buy extra insurance and your car insurer finds out you do ride share, they drop you.
Steve, it’s not human nature to be competitive and individualistic as we are here. There have been many societies where collaboration is the norm. One thing about individualistic societies is that they are not sustainable and therefore are doomed. Check out this zeitgeist movement film; a lot of great info here. Perhaps a prelude to reading the Peter Joseph book. Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlPs10GSJjQ
If you read any of Martin Luther King Jr’s books, like Strength to Love, you will find out he was extremely intelligent – an Einstein himself, and one of the greatest christians and most loving, good people in history.
He had power because he was the best of everything. The Spirit of God rushed through that man’s spirir – Intelligence, Love; Strength, Hope, Forgiveness, Militant Pacifism – he was not just a Saint but a Scientist.
His Reason, Logic, and Intelligence was a shocking surprise to me as I read his writings. I only ever thought he was a Black Man’s Savior – a civil rights token. Then I learned he was one of our greatest Scientists. Amazing Brain.
Dr King was the first Aggressive Progressive of the 20th century whose wisdom includes the knowledge of centuries before and is well on its way to going as far beyond his time.
I recommend reading Why We Can’t Wait, which includes King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and Harry Belafonte’s 2011 autobiography My Song.
You know PBS anchorwoman Judy Woodruff is from Oklahoma. Haven’t heard anything constructive from her yet about how inhumane her state has been treating its teachers for over ten years, 75% of whom are women like herself. Maybe she needs to quit talking to the likes of David Brooks and Mark Shields.
I used to clean houses for a living back in the late seventies and eighties. Every time i tried to raise my rates to a livable wage, my clients would tell me, “Why should I pay you ten dollars an hour when I can pay a Mexican $3.50?” I was so upset I couldn’t think of any comeback. It was so wrong, nobody can live on $3.50 much less the barely $7 an hour I was making back then. And this was after telling me that I was the best house cleaner they ever had. And it seems that no matter what job I had or how hard I worked and how good I was at the job I was doing, I could never get ahead and have always had to scrap by.
Love AP! Great show as always, thanks guys & TYT. Definitely my favorite show on the network.
The Gig Economy is also global. This drives freelance wages down to wages equivalent with the Philippines and Bangladesh. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. As an American, I need to charge $20-50 per hour for writing, editing, design work and marketing content. I’ve worked for UpWork, mostly and elance (which are now one company) . They used to add 10% to an hourly or job rate that the client had to pay. Now, they charge 22%, which forces freelancers to drive down their compensation even further to remain competitive. If I weren’t receiving Widow’s benefits from Social Security, I would probably be homeless. Couldn’t possibly survive on the freelance work. The best year I had doing this was 2011 — $12,000.
And BTW, you spend an hour or so at least in the back and forth between even taking the job. If it only pays you $50 bucks, and takes 2 hours to do, you’re making about $10 an hour until the next time. If they want changes, you’re down to about $7.50.
I really love how AP focused on a feature (i.e., gig economy and Fiverr) vs. as much topical news. Excellent, hope that’s something we’ll see more of.
Now if only TYT could get their shit together and give us four APs a month (with or without Jimmy – how about letting Ron Placone host?) – and get the stuff uploaded in a reasonable time.
Jimmy, I think it’s great that you promote unions, but what about a more permanent fix to our economy, such as worker owned cooperatives? I get the impression that they can be better than unions and can even beat corporate business competitively as long as there is a clear and fair balance of how profits are distributed.
Jimmy, Stef, and Steve are an awesome panel. Malcolm Y was a very nice fit, but change is the only constant in life.
Returning at the 44 minute mark, Steve “reminds” Jimmy he is on AP not TJDS. Returning at the 53 minute mark, Jimmy busts Steve’s balls. Am I wrong? This is the shit that created the TYTArmy. Tell the truth and live life at the same time.
Can anyone tell me where the segment clips are that I can share?? The TYT first & 2nd hour have clips on YouTube of each segment that can be shared but I am not finding the Aggressive Progressive ones. I wanted to share some from the last 2 episodes but the most recent thing I can find on YouTube is from 2 months ago..
it would be nice if TYT decided to hire people who actually understood how the internet work instead of using their $20 mil to hire a bunch of executives sucking on their own buttholes.
how the internet works* (it’d also be nice if we had the ability to edit comments)
such a good show. i think AP should be *guaranteed* every week even if Jimmy & Steve can’t make it. i think there are enough strong progressives associated with these folks to make it work
In the first week that Aggressive Progressives I said in comments that I would watch this show every week. And I have done so. I love every episode.
Preapared for a controversial statement? I commend to to the world: Steve Oh for president.
My work is done.
also let me just add that a logo (at least a good one that will still look good 20 years after it’s been created) is worth well more than $250 so whoever threw out that figure is off the mark too. logos generally can be worth anywhere from $1,000 to upwards of $5,000 depending on the client and can take weeks to months to create if you’re doing it properly with multiple iterations and actually putting a good chunk of thought into it. while some can be banged out more quickly and for cheaper, that’s not exactly the norm. so fiverr is even worse than it seems.
THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR GOING AFTER FIVERR! i REALLY wish more people besides the new yorker would but this is at least uplifting to see. as a creative professional myself of over a decade and a half, fiverr’s shitty ass business model has royally fucked up the freelance market and my ability to get clients from other websites (such as thumbtack) that used to be useful but have since been overrun by fiverr meth-heads who will do anything badly for $5. it’s horrible. and then these techbro run companies have the balls to call US techbros in their advertising? fuck the fuck off. i hope all of these asshole “disruptor” BS gig economy companies go out of business in a fucking fire. i’ve got a 5 year old kid to raise – being strung out on coffee and never sleeping IS NOT GOING TO HELP ME DO THAT.
I’m a fan of this show. Haven’t miss a single one so far.
The citizens today are members of a cult! Disparity between the rich and poor, predatory capitalism, perseverance porn, the future will indeed prove we ARE mutilated and mangled beyond repair, backwards and horrible. In order to subscribe to today’s economic dilemma “capitalism”, obviously takes a cult mentality. The definition of a cult being a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing. How does it feel to know? Believing you are a level headed, clear minded, independent thinker and be bamboozled to being a member of a cult and endorse principals and practices that are against your own best interest and the interests of a majority of citizens in our nation? Personally, I have never celebrated any rich person, ever. I view the wealthy as selfish, egotistical, mentally and emotionally void. Admittedly I am of a minority position. This dilemma is why the citizens of other, more advanced nations, perceive us and wonder, “why don’t the Americans want it as good as we have it?” Keep drinking the kool aid. The kool aid knows, it knows what’s best for us! And, it’s so darn sweet. Ignorance is bliss!
Listening to Dr. King one realizes he was far ahead of his time
WE LOVE AGGRESSIVE PROGRESSIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was an AMAZING SHOW.
TYT’s latest upgrades have destroyed the audio. It’s super distracting when the audio cracks and squeaks any time someone raises their voice even a little bit.
This is the race to the bottom, and most of us lose the race.
I think this was one of the best AP in a long time! Thanks for talking about the gig economy. I love that Aggressive Progressives are talking a real societal issue where people take exploitation for granted.
I think these who write about workers who walk X number of miles or still go to work after injuries need the read the Jungle
I’m so glad you guys at The Young Turks are around, because before I discovered you, I thought I was slowly going nuts! As in “I’ve been struggling for so long, getting nowhere, and well, just what is the matter with me, and everyone I know. ” There’s a Frank Zappa quote that goes something like “if we could just get ahead, we’d be ahead”. I think it’s worth considering our literature and pop culture; with the zombie films, vampire books, and fifty shades of grey, because stuff like that really took off during the gilded age and now is back in vogue. We’ve retreated from New Deal, Great Society capitalism to not even parasitic capitalism, but vampiric capitalism. Keep up the good work, because although we progressives might be losing, at least we now know we’re not alone.
check out Nomiki Konst’s excellent interview recently with gig economy expert Robert Hockett — very educational.
Logos don’t go for a fiver. You can set your own price.
Re: The Civil War, and non-slave-owners fighting in it: I can totally see then what I see now, this belief that “I am fighting for this because one day, I’ll be successful enough that I’ll have my own slaves.” Just a thought.
Also, at the time, the church had a lot of power, and was easily co-opted by the state (still true in some parts today, especially red states with evangelicals and the like, but it is now just one institution to court as opposed to THE institution), so if the state got the church to advocate for joining the war, wrapping it all in a “that’s what Jesus would want” bow, that’s what the flock would do, since volunteer brainwashing is why people went to churches. And you know, still go…
On that note, we are equipped in this society with an education system that inoculates us from a lot (but not enough!) of the tactics of manipulation. We learn history. We learn logic. We learn to not be dependent on other people’s minds for decision making, by learning enough that we can do most basic things on our own. If you don’t even complete grade school, which was fairly common, then you have a lot less autonomy over your own life.
Finally, the general population was almost certainly told a different version than “we are doing this for the slaves”. Could be as simple as saying “they hate us for our values”. Hmmm, sounds familiar.
Also, team sports! “We’re the good guys because, well of course we are. And since they oppose us, they are the bad guys with nothing but ill will.”
there is a common perception today that abortion (Roe vs Wade) is the catalyst that propelled White Evangelicals into becoming a political force… not so.
The issue that mobilized White Evangelicals was Desegregation. They were agin’ it. They began becoming a political force in reaction against Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.
I’ve long been bemused by the visceral hatred so many Evangelicals display against Jimmy Carter — it seems they would be more fond of a president who was so vocally Christian. Then I learned the ground-zero of their antipathy for him — he refused to allow Bob Jones University to have tax-exempt status or enjoy tax breaks, because Bob Jones U had a whites-only admission policy.
Bingo. That made him a traitor to The Southern Cause (white supremacy).
Yeah, I love Carter. As far as recent history is concerned, he’s the only one who comes to mind that I thought authentically wanted to do right by the American people as opposed to having some self-serving interest. The other possibility is JFK, but despite all the talk about his assassination, I have never looked deeply enough to know whether he was truly a man of the people, or an elite liberal with a ton of charm, or something in between.
kriggs, like you, I have not done the research, but I think RFK was more the man-of-the-people than his brother. I think Bobby pushed him, but I could be wrong.
Deb-n-Cal, I never considered the origins of White Evangelicals’ political activism. The whole Roe-vs-Wade excuse passed right by me. Now, the segregation reasoning makes sense in the context of the origins of slavery. The Church determined blacks did not have souls so they could be enslaved. As history unfolded with the slave economy developing in the South and the subsequent Civil War, emancipation, and Jim Crow, I’m sure there were other social-conditioning factors that helped to make desegregation particularly egregious to the White Evangelicals. Looking at contemporary history, it is easy to determine racism is a more powerful motivator than abortion!
This may be a bad comment since I cannot reference the time and date I read about Evangelicals who’s divorce rate and abortion rate is no better than those they criticize incessantly. An inconvenient truth they manage to disassociate themselves from. So I Google to find some info and their divorce rate is higher than the national average. Abortion is commonplace among the same group in unwanted or out of marriage pregnancies. So … the real deal just may be the whole Civil Rights thing. Pretty shabby!
People sending back plagiarised stuff for $5:
Reminds me of the old Soviet Union joke: They pretend to pay me and I pretend to work.
What goes around …..
Look into this further. This is the Puritanical viewpoint that the conservative, evangelical, and right-wing has adopted. Puritans had this belief that they lived to serve god, reproduce, and work. Only that, there was no enjoyment, only servitude. Even a womans worth was based on how many children she had. This country and its corporations has hid this in a uniquely deceptive way, they have taken what they have deem wholesome values and used it to make you a slave.
The gig economy is a scam developed by oligarchs to exploit workers.
Wanted to mention to Steve and Jimmy that gall bladder symptoms are very similar to heartburn symptoms but can usually be distinguished, so google that. It’s not uncommon for gall bladders to start having problems…
Hell yes, Jimmy Door playing near me on my Birthday? Portland tickets purchased immediately! Wooo~ Best Birthday ever!! Haha
I just got my tickets too and my birthday is in mid-June. Super excited that Steve and Stef will be there too, can’t wait! Plus, such a great time to be up north in Portland in the longest days of the year.
DISGUSTING! MAKING A PREGNANT WOMAN WORK! that just abhorrent!
11116198669m@gmail.com, especially when you consider mother mortality rates: 26.4 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Other first world nations are in single digits: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, UK, Australia, Sweden! (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death)
Agreed :) Great Job
Yeah Wednesday release! TYT is getting better.