MMT candidate 7: John Swoboda in OK-01

Welcome to Activist #MMT candidate interview number seven, hosted by Ramona Massachi (Twitter/@RamonaMassachi) and co-hosted by me. Today, Ramona talks with John Swoboda, who's running to represent Oklahoma's first Congressional district. (Here's a list of all MMT candidate interviews.) John decided to run after moving to the Tulsa area and discovering a lack of progressive policy agenda, but, thankfully, also an active and supportive progressive community. As a whole however, the area is highly conservative. A major challenge for John is communicating ideas he believes strongly, without needlessly alienating those who strongly disagree. John's views have only been further validated by MMT, which he specifically, and aggressively, learned for this interview. He started by reading The Deficit Myth, and then several academic papers, including Warren Mosler and Mat Forstater's 2005 The Natural Rate of Interest Is Zero, Stephanie Kelton's 1998 Hierarchy of Money, Abba Lerner's 1943 Functional Finance and the Federal Debt, and others as you'll find in this post: Several good first academic papers to learn MMT (for the layperson). Ramona and I are quite proud to not only support these candidates, but demand that they be better. We are grateful to John for being so open minded and enthusiastic. You can support John's candidacy by visiting swobodaforcongress.com and @SwobodaOk on Facebook and Twitter. You'll also find a link to donate to his campaign in the show notes. (A big thanks to Beyond the Spectrum for the "MMT Candidate" logo.) There are three goals of this MMT candidate interview series: the first is to support and give a platform to candidates who care about all people, and because of this, are ignored by the so-called news outlets that are, in reality, news of, by, and for the rich. The second goal is to determine what these candidates need to beat corrupt opponents supported by a corrupt party in a corrupt campaign finance system, and especially, once in office, to avoid becoming corrupted themselves. Finally, the third goal is to create a community of like minded, MMT-aware candidates who can support each other through their campaigns, and especially once in office. The latter is in order to remain focused on what really matters, which is all their constituents, in an environment where there is overwhelming pressure to focus only on the needs, favors, promises, and especially money of big donors – both in and out of their district. If you're a candidate and would like to be interviewed by Ramona, please contact her directly on Twitter at @RamonaMassachi, or me at [email protected]. If there's a candidate you would like to see interviewed by Ramona, please let us know, and please recommend us to them! This candidate interview series is above and beyond Activist #MMT's regular episodes. If you like what you hear and would like to support this interview series and this podcast, please consider becoming a monthly patron at patreon.com/activistmmt. And now, onto our conversation with candidate for Oklahoma's first Congressional district, John Swoboda. Enjoy.