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Delete Your Account Podcast

Delete Your Account is a new podcast hosted by journalist Roqayah Chamseddine and her plucky sidekick Kumars Salehi. Every week they will talk about important stories from the worlds of politics and pop culture, both on and off-line, in a way that will never bore you.
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Now displaying: July, 2018
Jul 25, 2018

On this episode, Kumars interviews Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the anti-war org Code Pink, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, author of 10 books including “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control” and her new primer “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Kumars talks to Medea about her life in the anti-war movement, beginning with protesting the Vietnam War as a high school student. We learn about the founding of Code Pink during the Bush years, and discuss the failings and successes of the mobilizations against the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. Despite failing to stop the wars, the Bush-era anti-war movement definitely changed the way the wars were fought, saving civilian lives by placing heightened scrutiny on those authorizing and carrying out atrocities. Bush-era anti-war organizing also certainly impacted US military plans for Syria and Iran. Medea talks about her continued anti-war activism during the Obama administration, sharing stories of separate confrontations of Obama and then-CIA Director John Brennan over their role in the criminal US drone program. We discuss the difficulties in replicating, let alone surpassing, the work of Bush-era organizers in the face of a renewed threat of war with Iran, given the huge amount of organizational capacity focused on Trump's many domestic assaults. We also talk about Medea's new book outlining major events in Iranian history, and why increasing tensions between the US and Iran led her to write it.

Follow Medea on Twitter at @medeabenjamin. Also follow @codepink.

A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Jul 17, 2018

On this episode, Kumars and Roqayah are joined by some of their favorite guests to celebrate 100 episodes of Delete Your Account! We hear from @prisonculture, @modernistwitch, @KrangTNelson, @AliAbunimah, and @BrettPain and @MurderBryan of @StreetFightWCRS. Since we would be nothing without the love and support of our listeners, we also invite our biggest fan and most constructive critic on the show for a discussion you won't want to miss! (It's Kumars' mom, y'all, we talk to Kumars' mom.)

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Jul 9, 2018

On this episode, Kumars and Roqayah are joined by Ryan Shapiro, a PhD student and transparency researcher at MIT. Ryan talks about his past work as an activist in the animal rights movement and as a scholar of government repression of animal rights activists, research described by the FBI as having the potential to cause “irreparable damage to national security”. He shares his extensive history of animal rescue operations, including rescuing animals from factory farms and thwarting whale poachers. We hear about the impact of the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which designates investigative journalists and animal rescuers seeking to uncover and remedy animal abuse in the meat and dairy industry as terrorists. "Ecoterrorism" is considered the #1 domestic terror threat while ever increasing white supremacist violence continues to be ignored. 

Ryan explains why Department of Justice calls him the “most prolific” Freedom of Information Act or FOIA requester, including uncovering evidence of CIA involvement in Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and the FBI cover-up of a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston leaders. We also discuss Property of the People, the transparency nonprofit Ryan co-founded to file FOIA claims and challenge the government in court. Ryan, Roqayah and Kumars end by discussing their personal attitudes as leftists towards veganism and animal rights, including reflecting on the tensions between animal rights organizers and other corners of the left.

Follow Ryan on Twitter at @_rshapiro and Property of the People at @PropOTP.

A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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