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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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Jul 28, 2022

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined from the top of the hour by Aaron Thorpe, Jamie Peck and Jorge Rocha, hosts of the podcast Everybody Loves Communism. Aaron is a cohost of the Trillbilly Workers Party podcast and organizes with the Democratic Socialists of America in Atlanta, Jamie is a veteran of The Majority Report and the Antifada and organizes with North Brooklyn DSA, and Jorge is a NYC-based organizer with DSA and serves on the International Committee. 

Aaron, Jamie and Jorge open the proceedings by sharing stories of how they were radicalized before elaborating on some of the highlights from their regular discussions of Marxist theory and socialist history. The gang touches on two classical texts from Marx as well as the socialist feminism of Alexandra Kollontai, exploring the defining features of capitalism and how communists have broken with liberal conceptions of equality, including the relationship between socialism and liberation for women and queer folks. 

You can follow Aaron on Twitter @borgposting, Jamie @Jamie_Elizabeth and Jorge @LineGoesDown, and the show account @ELCPod, and you can find Everybody Loves Communism on Patreon and wherever you get your podcasts.

Jun 30, 2022

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by housing justice and tenant advocates Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal and returning guest Shanti Singh. Tracy, making their Delete Your Account debut, is a writer and cofounder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union whose book Abolish Rent is forthcoming from Verso Books. Shanti, formerly deputy data director of for the Bernie Sanders campaign in California, serves as Legislative and Communications Coordinator for Tenants Together as well as on the board of the San Francisco Community Land Trust. 

The gang discusses the flood of evictions underway in California, how today’s capitalism needs mass homelessness to function, what a YIMBY is, the success of tenant organizing in LA, the facts behind the recall of San Francisco’s reform-minded District Attorney Chesa Boudin, how the LA mayoral race will impact the city’s unhoused population, and more. 

Follow Tracy on Twitter @two_evils and Shanti @uhshanti. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, find out how to get involved with the LA Tenants Union at latenantsunion.org, and if you’re elsewhere in California, check out Tenants Together at tenantstogether.org. And make sure to read Tracy’s article published for The New Republic titled “Inside LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex”

As mentioned in the introduction, a list of abortion funds most urgently in need of financial support can be found here

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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Jun 5, 2022

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Paris Marx, author of Road Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation out July 5th from Verso Books and host of the hit podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, where they cover the intersections of labor, tech and finance.

Paris and Kumars discuss the significance of the union drive currently gaining momentum at Apple stores across the US, the recent victory of the nation’s first major US video game union at Activision Blizzard’s Raven Software, the limits of the current push by governments and corporations to produce electric vehicles for mass consumption, what could cause the crypto bubble to pop for good, and why Elon Musk can’t stop committing fraud.

Keep up with Paris’s work by following them on Twitter @ParisMarx and listening to Tech Won’t Save Us, and pre-order your copy of Road to Nowhere here.

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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

May 22, 2022
This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined once again by Sam Knight and Sam Sacks, founders of the District Sentinel news co-op and hosts of the podcast District Sentinel Radio. Sam Knight is a reporter and editor for Truthout.org and a writer on Means TV’s Means Morning News, anchored by Sam Sacks. 

The guys spend the hour breaking down recent labor, finance and economic headlines, from the unionization campaigns at Amazon, Starbucks and beyond to the baby formula shortage, the recent collapse of the cryptocurrency market and the possibility of a recession.  

Follow the Sams on Twitter @SamSacks and @TheDCSentinel. Subscribe to Means TV to watch Means Morning News every weekday and to hear full episodes of District Sentinel Radio, subscribe on Patreon at patreon.com/districtsentinel.

May 12, 2022
Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined for the hour by Tamika Turner, a reproductive rights advocate and former Associate Director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and returning guest Christine O’Donovan-Zavada, a reproductive rights organizer in northeastern Pennsylvania. 

Tamika, Christine and Kumars discuss the limits of the status quo under Roe v. Wade, the practical implications of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion overturning it, how it will affect the most vulnerable people in both Republican and Democratic-controlled states, and what the Democrats’ fucking problem is. Tamika and Christine round out the hour by sharing where they find inspiration for the future of the fight for abortion rights and how you can help on every front.

Follow Tamika on Twitter @prettycritical and Christine @queenozymandias. You can donate to Christine’s fundraiser for the Western PA Fund for Choice here and find a local abortion fund in your state here.

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!!!

Apr 21, 2022

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Tamara K. Nopper, who is a writer, editor, and professor of sociology whose research focuses on the intersection of economic, racial, and gender inequality, with emphasis on globalization, and urban development, among other areas.

Tamara helps us understand the power of data literacy, especially when examining racialized violence, and why excessive dependence on crime data has reinforced racial inequality.

Tamara also discusses the risk of deploying crime data in feeding into carceral frameworks, even when they appear to confirm abolitionist arguments.

We also learn more about the history of data analysis, and the importance of examining the work of W.E.B Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, both of whom pioneered their own respective methods of sociological data analysis that we still benefit from today.

Keep up with Tamara’s work by following her on Twitter @TamaraNopper.

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!!!

Apr 13, 2022
This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts

This week, Roqayah and Kumars welcome back independent writer and media critic Adam Johnson for a rundown of the most pernicious tropes in US media coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamJohnsonNYC, listen to Citations Needed and subscribe to The Column at thecolumn.substack.com.

Feb 16, 2022
This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by first-time guest Shireen Al-Adeimi and returning guest Ken Klippenstein for an in-depth discussion of the ongoing war in Yemen.
 
Shireen is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University who has advocated for an end to the humanitarian catastrophe facing the country of her birth on Al Jazeera and in the pages of Current Affairs Magazine, Al Bawaba, and In These Times, and she has a new piece out on Business Insider called “Biden has merely rebranded the brutal war against Yemen”. Ken is a DC-based investigative reporter who has covered government misdeeds and corporate malfeasance for a wide array of publications and is now with The Intercept, where his latest scoop details the Biden administrations internal debate on reinstating Trump’s terror designation for Ansarallah, more commonly known as the Houthis.
 
Shireen and Ken recap the history of how US and Saudi intervention in the Yemeni civil war created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, how Trump made the war his own, how Biden is following Trump’s lead, the often overlooked role of the United Arab Emirates, and the way to end it.
 
Follow Shireen on Twitter @shireen818 and Ken @kenklippenstein.
Jan 31, 2022
This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Nick Estes, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and Melanie Yazzie, members of the Red Nation’s Bordertown Violence working group and coauthors of Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation. Nick is an indigenous author, and member of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate nation. Nick is also an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a cofounder of The Red Nation, a revolutionary Native-led community organization and cohosts the podcast of the same name. Nick is also the author of Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, and writer at The Red Nation.

Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and she was the first Diné, or Navajo, scholar ever to get a PhD in History. Jennifer chairs the Navajo Human Rights Commission. She is the author of Reclaiming Dine History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita.

Melanie Yazzie is Diné and a professor of American Studies as well as Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Melanie organizes with The Red Nation, cohosts the Red Power Hour podcast, and she is also the lead editor of the journal Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society

We discuss the collective process that went into developing Red Nation Rising, and what makes it an important source for those wishing to understand Native communities and the intersections between issues like gender, class, and resistance to bordertown violence. 

Melanie, Jennifer, and Nick describe the failures of academic institutions when it comes to addressing Native issues, and the importance of not just centering Native voices but going beyond simple tokenization.

We learn of the violence facing indigenous organizers, including a lynch mob that targeted Jennifer, threatening her multiple times and publishing her home address.

We also examine the issue of bordertown violence, and how the United States continues to attack Native territories, and how bordertowns are "key front lines in the long struggle for Native liberation from US colonial control."

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!!!

Jan 20, 2022

This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by labor and tech reporter extraordinaire Edward Ongweso Jr., a staff writer at Vice’s Motherboard and cohost of This Machine Kills, a podcast about the political economy of tech.

Ed starts off talking about his union’s landmark victory in contract negotiations with Vice Media and picks up where his previous appearance left off, sharing his thoughts on Uber’s alleged profitability as well as the future of laws like Prop 22. The gang talks about recent revelations of congressional insider trading before going all the way down the tech rabbithole to discuss NFTs, the metaverse, Elon Musk being named Time’s Person of the Year, why cryptocurrency might cause the next global economic crisis, the billionaire space race, and the concept of techno-feudalism. 

You can hear more of Ed on podcast This Machine Kills. You can follow Ed on Twitter @bigblackjacobin and follow his coverage of all things tech, labor, finance over at Vice’s Motherboard

Dec 17, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi. Lara us Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the George Washington University, and the secretary and president-elect of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology. She is also co-editor of Studies in Gender & Sexuality and of Counterspace in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Lara also serves on the advisory board to the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network and Psychoanalysis for Pride.

Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies and Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project at William & Mary, where he is also Professor of Arabic Studies in the Asian and Middle East Studies Program, Arabic Program, and Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies Program. Stephen is also the author of Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine (with Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar), Arab Imago: A Social History of Portrait Photography, 1860-1910, and Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims and Foundations of Modern Arab Identity.

Lara and Stephen describe how their work has changed since the pandemic, and unpack the frequently overlooked pitfalls of face-to-face communication and the sanitisation of our daily human experiences. 

We discuss the framework guiding their research into and documentation of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation—threaded with insight from Palestinian clinicians while centering the stories of non-clinical Palestinians.

Lara and Stephen help clarify the origins of not only colonial psychology, but the revolutionary work of psychiatrist and Marxist Frantz Fanon, arguably the architect of what is now called liberation psychology.

We also go over cases of colonial psychological warfare as well as the methods used by Israel's settler colonial state to disrupt and destroy Palestinian life.

You can follow Lara on Twitter @blackflaghag and buy the Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine from Routledge, and wherever fine books are sold.

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!!!

Nov 17, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Sarah Lazare, reporter and web editor for In These Times and the coauthor, with her late father Peter Lazare, of the new novel Testimony, a political thriller out now from Strong Arm Press. Sarah introduces listeners to her formative experiences in organizing and independent media, including her father’s legacy of socialist union organizing as well as her own history in the so-called “anti-globalization” and antiwar movements. The gang then dives into a (spoiler free!) preview of Testimony, discussing its main themes and sources of inspiration, why leftists are natural detectives, and the importance of international solidarity to radical politics in the imperial core. 

Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahLazare, keep up with her reporting at In These Times and order Testimony via Strong Arm Press

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!!!

Oct 29, 2021

This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts

This week, Roqayah and Kumars celebrate Halloween on the After Hours feed with friends of the show Bryan Quinby, Donald Borenstein and Mattie Lubchansky. Bryan is the co-host of Street Fight Radio, alongside Brett Payne, and the cocreator and costar of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV. Donald is a freelance journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared on Means TV. Mattie Lubchansky is the associate editor of The Nib and the author of the Antifa Super Soldier Cookbook as well as the upcoming graphic novel Boys Weekend.

The gang discusses Halloween traditions from candy to costumes before sharing their favorite scary movies and formative horror viewing experiences. Bryan, Donald and Mattie play a spine-tingling new game, and ring in the holiday with some spooky stories.

Follow Donald on Twitter @Boringstein, Mattie @Lubchansky and Bryan @murderxbryan.

Oct 20, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Kooper Caraway, president of the South Dakota Federation of Labor, he’s also the former statewide representative for AFSCME Council 65, which represents workers in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. Previously, Kooper worked with the American Federation of Teachers and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Kooper joins us to discuss the wave of strikes sweeping across the United States: over 10,000 John Deere workers, 1,400 Kellogg’s cereal factory workers, over 24,000 nurses and healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente, and many more.

We discuss the tactics being deployed by employers—like attempting to hire non-union workers—and why it's imperative that workers hold the line and continue to fight back.

Kooper explains the optimism present among workers, and how this has driven a new generation of union members and organizers. 

Follow Kooper on Twitter @KooperCaraway.

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!!!

Sep 27, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by immigration attorney and returning guest Sophia Gurulé, policy counsel and staff attorney with the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project at the Bronx Defenders, a public defender nonprofit in New York City. Sophia was also involved in the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project in Dilley, Texas where she helped provide legal services to asylum-seeking women and children and advocated for an end to family detention.

Sophia sheds light on the Biden administration’s mass deportation of Haitian refugees and how right-wing judges anointed by the Federalist Society are keeping the most draconian Trump policies in place. The gang also picks up where Sophia’s last interview left off, discussing Biden’s immigration plan and its shortcomings, Bill Clinton’s immigration legacy and the history of the prison-to-deportation pipeline, and why movements for climate justice, workers’ rights and prison-industrial complex abolition can’t shy away from the demand to abolish borders.

You can follow Sophia on Twitter @s_phia_ and find out more about the work of organizations like Haitian Bridge Alliance, Grassroots Leadership and Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

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!!!

Sep 11, 2021

This is a free clip of our Patreon-only episode with Brett and Bryan of Street Fight Radio. Subscribe at Patreon to hear the rest!

On this episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by the hosts of Street Fight Radio, Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby. 

Brett and Bryan update us on their latest post-pandemic lifestyle choices—from Bryan's weight loss to Brett's flashy new paint job—and what types of hedonistic misadventures they've been up to. 

The gang also gets into the spooky season a little early by talking aliens, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Brett and Bryan try their luck at another game of Ohio or Nohio.

Finally, we learn why Bryan thinks "wrestling is back" thanks to the AEW, and how the WWE has failed audiences and wrestlers, paving the wave for a more exciting and creative world of wrestling.

Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain and Bryan @murderxbryan. You can also follow the official Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS.

Aug 20, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by socialist congressional candidate and political organizer Imani Oakley, formerly legislative director for New Jersey Working Families, deputy chief of staff in the New Jersey State Assembly, and constituent advocate in the US Senate. She is also the first Dean of Movement Building at the Movement School and recently declared her candidacy in New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, challenging four-term incumbent Donald Payne Jr. in the June 2022 Democratic primary. 

Imani describes the experiences that galvanized her to get involved in policy making at the highest levels of government while pushing her further and further to the left, from witnessing police brutality in her neighborhood to working in the district office of Senator Cory Booker. Imani also talks about her work at Working Families, where she took on New Jersey’s wildly corrupt ballot design, protesting the Biden administration’s eviction inaction with Cori Bush on the Capitol steps, her vision for housing policy, her opponent’s warm relations with ICE, and how she’s taking on the notoriously entrenched New Jersey political machine. 

You can follow Imani on Twitter @ImaniOakleyNJ10 and donate or find out more about how to get involved in her campaign at oakleyforcongress.com.

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!!!

Aug 12, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Shanti Singh and René Christian Moya. Shanti is the Legislative and Communications Director for the statewide tenants rights organization Tenants Together. René is an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union and campaign coordinator for ACCE, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

Shanti and René join us to discuss the consequences of evictions in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, and how the eviction moratorium has played out for renters. We examine the impact of the moratorium, the lack of tenancy protections, and the displacement of the homelessness in California.

The crew also discusses the nefarious ties between members of the real estate industry and property owners and their efforts to further criminalize the unhoused communities in California.

Follow René on Twitter @rcmoya84 and you can also visit the LA Tenants Union’s website at join.latenentsunion.org to become a member. You can follow Shanti on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support their work at tenantstogether.org.

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!!!

Aug 1, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by labor and tech reporter extraordinaire Edward Ongweso Jr., a staff writer at Vice’s Motherboard and cohost of This Machine Kills, a podcast about the political economy of tech. 

Ed shares a bit about his own history as an organizer, which saw him involved in the successful campaign to pass the country's first ride-hail vehicle license cap for drivers in New York City, before expanding on his reporting about the nationwide strike of Uber and Lyft drivers on July 21. The gang discusses the package of antitrust legislation targeting the tech sector currently waiting for a floor vote in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the PRO Act reportedly included in Democrats’ Senate infrastructure bill and how they would impact labor struggles in the gig economy. Ed explains why Uber’s business model is not what it seems and that it is unprofitable by design, situating the company’s practices in the context of the possibility of a tech bubble in the stock market and its implications for the broader economy. The gang rounds out the conversation by zooming in on US-based tech entrepreneurs’ predatory and increasingly devastating push for the adoption of cryptocurrencies by vulnerable populations worldwide. 

You can follow Ed on Twitter @bigblackjacobin and keep up with his staggeringly prolific reporting at Motherboard as well as his podcast, This Machine Kills

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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Jul 26, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by grassroots organizer and abolitionist Mariame Kaba, known best as @prisonculture on Twitter. Mariame, whose work focuses primarily on dismantling the prison industrial complex, is also the founder of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-founded a number of other organizations including the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women.

Mariame describes the impact that mutual aid has had during the pandemic, and how mutual aid functions as an act of solidarity, especially during times of crisis when communities are left without resources. We also discuss her new, New York Times bestselling book "We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing And Transforming Justice" and the abolitionist principles that help guide her work.

The crew also examines the emotional satisfaction and fallout behind high profile cases like those of Bill Cosby and Derek Chauvin, and why retribution and revenge are not the same as justice.

You can follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture. For more details on the mutual aid toolkit make sure to visit The Big Door Brigade.

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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Jun 11, 2021
Enjoy this free teaser of our interview with Sarah Jaffe. Subscribe at Patreon to hear the whole thing!
 
This week Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest and labor journalist extraordinaire Sarah Jaffe, cohost of Dissent Magazine’s Belabored podcast and the author of two books: Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and a new book out this year from Hurst and Bold Type Books, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone.
 
The gang starts off with the latest on the Palestinian general strike and takes stock of how the BDS movement has shifted US political discourse on Israeli apartheid before moving across the pond as Sarah explains the role of anti-Palestinian propaganda in the UK Labour Party. Sarah debunks business owners’ claims of a “labor shortage” in the US and takes a sober look at the state of the labor movement today before ending on a sporting note.
 
Follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahljaffe, keep up with her work on her personal website sarahljaffe.com and workwontloveyouback.org, check out the Belabored podcast, and don’t forget to pick up a copy of Work Won’t Love You Back.
Jun 3, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined—from Ramallah, Palestine—by Rawan Eid and Fathi Nimer, creators of the resource hub Decolonize Palestine. Previously, Rawan organized for Students for Justice in Palestine and the Democratic Socialists of America. After moving to Palestine, she began working for a feminist organization in Ramallah and attending meetings at a local youth group dedicated to sharing Palestinians’ stories and providing a space for discussion. Fathi Nimer is a political scientist, activist, and a former teaching fellow at the Democracy and Human Rights program at Birzeit University.

Rawan and Fathi describe the lessons they've drawn from their personal lives in creating Decolonize Palestine, and how the long arm of Israeli apartheid has impacted and dictated their day to day experiences—from accessing identification cards, the difficulties they face in traveling to Jerusalem from their home in Ramallah, and even something as simple as having a pet.

We examine how far the discourse on Palestine has shifted in the last few years, and recent weeks after the recent massacre in Gaza, and what this means for efforts to confront the occupation both on the ground in occupied Palestine and elsewhere in the world. Fathi describes how academic work has been stymied by the occupation, including calculated efforts by Israel to prevent countless students from leaving the blockaded Gaza Strip in order to study abroad.

We also discuss Israel's historical media censorship inside occupied Palestine and the state's violent attacks on journalists and those engaging in political activity. Rawan and Fathi highlight the recent wave of lynchings of Palestinians and the IDF's mass arrests in Lydd, named "Operation Law and Order" and how this is meant to send a message to Palestinians across occupied Palestine that should they rise up in protest that the state will respond with force.

Finally, the crew talks about ways you can get involved and resources you can access to get better informed about the situation on the ground as well as the historical context that brought us here today.

Follow Rawan on @RiverToSea48, and Fathi @AManInTheSun. For your go-to resource on all things Palestine make sure to visit decolonizepalestine.com and support their work at patreon.com/decolonizepalestine

List of Palestine-related donation causes:

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Palestine Red Crescent Society 

BuildPalestine

Middle East Children’s Alliance

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Al Makassed Hospital/Jerusalem Hospitals

United Palestinian Appeal 

Taawon

Political resources:

Palestine Youth Movement

National Students for Justice in Palestine 

US Campaign for Palestinian rights 

Adalah Legal Center 

Al Haq

BDS

Adalah-NY campaign for boycott of Israel

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!!!

May 28, 2021

Kumars and Roqayah are joined this week by India Walton, a registered nurse, community organizer and candidate for mayor of Buffalo, New York. She is a founder and former executive director of Fruit Belt community land trust, an historic grassroots housing justice organization, and also former lead community organizer for Open Buffalo’s Opportunity and Justice coalition. She’s already picked up endorsements from the Democratic Socialists of America and New York’s Working Families Party. They call her the unofficial Mayor of Buffalo, she’s just looking to make it super official.

We talk to India about her ideas for transforming the city of Buffalo, including her ideas around policing and public safety, housing, food access, COVID response and more.

If you want to support India's campaign, you can volunteer or donate.

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!!!

May 20, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Sydney Ghazarian and first timer Ashik Siddique, both climate organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America’s Ecosocialist Working Group and coordinators for DSA’s Green New Deal and PRO Act campaigns. Syd is the Los Angeles-based founder of the Ecosocialist Working Group and previously came on the show to tackle everything from racism in the environmentalist movement to what we can learn from indigenous-led pipeline blockades, as well as her article in In These Times outlining an agenda for escalating climate organizing through labor tactics. Ashik serves on the steering committee of the Ecosocialist Working Group and is a research analyst with the National Priorities Project, an initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. 

After Ashik shares a bit about his personal path to organizing and the left, the gang jumps into the history of US labor law and breaks down how the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House of Representatives in 2020 and again on March 9, 2021, would fundamentally alter it, from legalizing secondary strikes to extending labor protections to undocumented immigrants. Syd and Ashik discuss the emerging coalition between unions and the socialist left, as well as the concrete ways the PRO Act would have impacted the unionization efforts of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama.

Visit proact.dsausa.org to sign up for phone banking in states whose senators do not yet support the bill. 

Follow Ashik on Twitter @ahSHEEK and Syd @SydneyAzari. You can also follow the DSA Ecosocialist Working Group @DSAecosocialism and find out more about how to get involved in this campaign as well as their future efforts here

To keep up with what is happening in Palestine and to learn more about ways you can help, visit the Electronic Intifada and Decolonize Palestine.

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May 11, 2021

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again from the top of the hour by Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby, hosts of Street Fight Radio and the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV, in their first appearance on the show since November. The gang catches up, discussing Biden banning blunts and recent innovations in the field of getting high. Brett and Bryan talk about the community response in Columbus to the police murder of Ma’Khia Bryant before tackling electoral politics, identity politics, and the banality of J.D. Vance

Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan at @murderxbryan, and the Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS, and as always you can hear Street Fight Radio 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!!!

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