Useful Idiots
Politics • Comedy
80s Grooves that Explained the News w/ Touré
The tracks of the decade that show the love, pain, and resilience of Black music
June 16, 2023
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We’re throwing it back to the 1980s with Touré, host of the excellent new podcast Being Black: The 80s (70s and 90s to follow), which breaks down some of the most impactful Black music of the decade, including what was happening in Black America at each moment in time.

We listen to Dianna Ross, Public Enemy, Tracy Chapman, Stevie Wonder and more as Touré explains the Black culture history that led to the iconic songs, not just how they reflect the stories of the time, but how they ushered, or forced, in a new era of revolution.

Touré, who was a cohost of MSNBC’s The Cycle and a writer for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and The New Yorker, deep dives into the rich political and cultural history of Black life and music, including the influences of gay liberation, the power of MLK, mass incarceration, and the crack epidemic.

It’s a fascinating musical episode of Useful Idiots that you won’t want to miss.

And watch the full version where things get political: Touré, whose past as an MSNBC host can’t be hidden forever, debates Katie and Aaron on Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, and Obama. It’s a heated back and forth that seems to only prove the power of music, because no matter the disagreements on political issues, the tunes we listen to bring everyone back together. Listen and groove along with us.

Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Cornel West Blows Jake Tapper’s Mind.

Watch the full interview here:

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Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

00:01:17
"Shameful" New York Times Changes Headline to Protect Sanctions

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

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Emphasized "Dancing with 88

I have altered space here—   to

a rupture in the silent fabric,

where every atom reclaims its song.

A change, seen on my 90° angle,

becomes the pivot of a daring ballet,

the precise intersection where fate unspools.

In that crisp right-angle lie the secrets

of all absorbed twilight and reborn dawns,

a moment where geometry becomes prophecy,

transmuting static lines into dynamic rhythms,

inviting the cosmos to twirl in unexpected arcs.

And then—

I find myself dancing with 88,

a numeral of resonance, a muse of mystery.

It whispers in binary beats,

each pulse a portal leading into

symphonies scribbled on the canvas of space-time.

This is no choreographed routine,

but a wild, liberated waltz

where dimensions bend and merge—

where the old order crumbles

under the heat of relentless transformation

and every step unearths a layer of being.

At that 90° juncture,

the universe unfolds like a secret map,

revealing uncharted realms in every fracture,

while 88 becomes the score for a cosmic ballet,

...

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Good to be part of the community. I think that Aaron and Katie do a brilliant job in these hellish times when such great in - depth research and reporting are essential.

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A telling screenshot of today's episode
A telling screenshot from today's episode

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