Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Shanti Singh along with René Christian Moya, California-based housing rights activists extraordinaire, for a deep dive into Proposition 21, the statewide rent control expansion up for popular referendum in next week’s elections. Shanti, who is based in San Francisco, is a leader in DSA SF’s Housing Committee, the former deputy data director for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign in California, and currently serves as the legislation and communications coordinator for the statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together. René is based out of Los Angeles, formerly of the LA Tenants Union and is the Campaign Director for the Yes on 21 campaign.
René, Shanti, and Kumars begin by outlining the looming eviction crisis which has already begun thanks in part to the Trump administration’s so-called moratorium at the federal level. René, who was last on the show discussing Prop 10, the previous iteration of Prop 21, explains how the new ballot measure differs in terms of specifics, and why the political situation is more favorable than in the 2018 midterms. The gang talks about the real estate industry’s $70 million, Republican-aligned campaign to defeat the proposal as well as Prop 21’s biggest backer, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. They round out the conversation on a positive note, discussing Shanti’s work with the elderly residents of SF’s Midtown Park Apartments, who just concluded the longest rent strike in the city’s history.
Follow René on Twitter @rcmoya84 and find out more or get involved in the final push, visit yeson21ca.org. You can follow Shanti on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support their work at tenantstogether.org.
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Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Nora Barrows-Friedman, associate editor at the Electronic Intifada and cohost of the Electronic Intifada Podcast as well as The Brief, along with Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Estee Chandler, founder of that group’s Los Angeles chapter, producer of Middle East in Focus and Middle East Minute+ on KPFK, and host of the upcoming podcast called The Breakout Room with Estee Chandler. After sharing her personal path to Palestine solidarity activism, including her career in Hollywood as an actor and visual effects artist, Estee introduces listeners to the saga surrounding The Lobby – USA, a four-part Al Jazeera documentary exposing Israel’s covert influence operations in the United States that remains largely unseen almost three years after its completion due to a successful pressure campaign from the Israel lobby to get the government of Qatar to censor the film, later obtained and released by the Electronic Intifada.
The gang discusses the context of the surge in repression of the Palestine solidarity movement after 2014, when an initial wave of victories for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns were followed by a critical mass of activists explicitly linking white supremacy in the US and Israel-Palestine at the protests sparked by the police killing of Michael Brown. Estee explains what the documentary reveals about the strategy and methods of Israel lobby organizations as well as the close relationships between them and the Israeli government.
To RSVP for the special screening of the 1 hour supercut (plus a Q&A to follow) this Thursday October 15, go to jvp.org/LobbyCampusCut.
You can follow Estee on Twitter at @caliactivist and keep up with her organizing with JVP Los Angeles @JVP_LA. You can follow Nora @norabf, and check out the Electronic Intifada podcast at electronicintifada.net as well as The Brief at thebriefpodcast.com and wherever pods are cast.
If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!
As a special treat, we've unlocked our recent sporting edition of Delete Your Account AFTER HOURS. Kumars was joined once again by Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op, who host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their weekly collaboration with Means TV.
The Sams give listeners a rundown of newsworthy events in the worlds of sports and politics, including the hijacked NBA players’ strike over the killings of James Blake and other black victims of police and vigilante violence, a campaign to organize the first tennis players’ union that leaves much to be desired, and the Big Ten buckling to pressure from conservatives to proceed with the college football season in the face of rising COVID-19 numbers at universities. The gang rounds out the hour nerding out about soccer, dissecting their memories of World Cups past, their favorite players, and their varying degrees of hatred for the USMNT.
You can follow Sam Sacks on Twitter @SamSacks and the official District Sentinel account tweets @TheDCSentinel. Subscribe to Means TV to keep up with their antics every week, but Means Morning News is also available to nonmembers, in audio-only form, wherever pods are cast.
Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two veterans of arguably the first successful video game worker strike in history, writer Krissy Perez and returning guest Emma Kinema. Krissy is the most senior writer for Lovestruck, a mobile visual romance novel game distributed by the US subsidiary of Japanese developer Voltage Inc. and played by millions worldwide, and a member of Voltage Organized Workers (VOW). Emma Kinema is a former game developer, one of the founders of Game Workers Unite, and currently serves as Campaign Lead for the CODE-CWA, the Communications Workers of America's initiative to organize unions in the North American tech industry.
Krissy gives listeners a lay of the land at Voltage USA, explaining how the Lovestruck writers’ famously prolific output has come at the cost of brutally tight deadlines and industry-low pay. The gang walks through a timeline of the VOW strike, which lasted 3 weeks and ended in a decisive win, securing the workers substantial pay raises among other concessions. Krissy and Emma reflect on the Voltage workers’ messaging making it clear that they are all members of marginalized genders and/or sexualities, and what worker power means to Lovestruck’s heavily female and queer fanbase.
You can follow Krissy on Twitter @kepmakingwords, Emma @EmmaKinema, CODE @CODE_CWA and the Lovestruck writers @VOW_Together.
If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!