“The stakes right now are really high when it comes to queer and trans life. I can say in terms of my own lifetime, I haven't felt like it has been this dangerous ever,” says journalist Melissa Gira Grant. In this episode, Kelly talks with Gira Grant about right-wing attacks on trans people, Republican school board takeovers, and how the right’s “groomer” discourse has expanded to include queer people, drag performers, and public school teachers. You can find a transcript and show notes (includi...
Aug 25, 2022•55 min•Season 5Ep. 2
“Framing health as a personal responsibility doesn't work. And it's one of the greatest tricks that capitalism has ever pulled,” says author and podcaster Beatrice Adler-Bolton. In this episode, Adler-Bolton and host Kelly Hayes discuss the extractive nature of the U.S. health care system, the dominance of COVID nihilism, and why we cannot give up on universal health care. You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to supp...
Aug 11, 2022•59 min•Season 5Ep. 1
“It is about 5:30 in Alabama on the first morning of there being no legal abortion when our clinic should be open. And it's probably not an exaggeration to say that this is the point where I broke,” said Robin Marty, Director of Operations at the West Alabama Women’s Center. In this episode, Kelly talks with Marty, as well as Rafa Kidvai, the director the Repro Legal Defense Fund, and Ash Williams, who is an organizer and abortion doula in Asheville, North Carolina, about what happens next and w...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 20Ep. 21
“Get with your people … and just take a second to appreciate yourself for the ways in which you are surviving a truly unprecedented time,” says organizer Tanuja Jagernauth. In this episode, Jagernauth and Kelly discuss the work of cultivating hope amid catastrophe and how activists can craft a vision for action. This episode is the second installment in a three-part conversation about the practice of hope. You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movem...
Jun 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 4Ep. 20
“We have to be thinking and dreaming and planning really expansively … because when Roe falls, band-aid solutions are not going to be enough,” says Meghan Daniel, a support coordinator with the Chicago Abortion Fund. In this episode of Movement Memos, Daniel and host Kelly Hayes talk about the end of Roe, abolishing police and prisons and how funding abortions builds power. You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to sup...
Jun 16, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 19
“Alabama was able to pass a felony ban on healthcare, essentially, potentially punishing doctors and parents with up to 10 years in prison for providing or supporting trans people in accessing medically necessary and life-saving medical treatment [and] it barely registered on any mainstream news.” In this episode, Kelly talks with activist and attorney Chase Strangio about worsening attacks on trans youth and the “extreme violence” of the current political moment. Links to educational and organi...
Jun 09, 2022•56 min•Season 4Ep. 18
“The people who want to harm, subjugate and destroy us have not been deterred by warnings that their political vision is too radical, or even impossible. We cannot afford to restrict our own aspirations in the face of such enemies." In this episode, Kelly talks with author Shane Burley discuss the connection between attacks on abortion rights and the barrage of anti-trans laws that have passed in recent months. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If y...
Jun 03, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 17
“It's time to get clarity and we can actively create that clarity. This is the time to find our alignment,” says activist Tanuja Jagernauth. In these challenging times, how are activists and organizers holding onto hope? In this episode, Kelly talks with organizer and healing justice practitioner Tanuja Jagernauth about the maintenance of hope as a discipline. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can donate he...
May 26, 2022•53 min•Season 4Ep. 16
“We are in truly dire straits right now. We are overwhelmed. We are overrun,” says Robin Marty, Communications Director for the West Alabama Women's Center and author of The New Handbook For a Post-Roe America. In this episode of Movement Memos, Robin and Kelly talk about how people can prepare, personally and politically, for the realities of a post-Roe world. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can donate h...
May 19, 2022•46 min•Season 4Ep. 15
“This strategy of making fetal protection more important than the lives and freedom of women and other pregnant people began with the prosecutions of Black women, who were pregnant and using drugs,” says Dorothy Roberts, author of Torn Apart and Killing The Black Body. In this episode Kelly and Dr. Roberts and host Kelly Hayes discuss the leaked draft SCOTUS opinion that would end Roe and how the child welfare system will ramp up family separations in a post Roe world. If you need a transcript, ...
May 12, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 14
“We want a world where people are supported, where our people are not made forcibly vulnerable to violence, and where interventions occur long before someone goes missing." In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with and Morning Star Gali talk about how Indigenous abolitionists are addressing the crisis of missing and murdered women, girls and two spirit people. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can...
Apr 28, 2022•54 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Our entrenched, public reactions and political rituals around mass shootings are growing shorter, as these nightmare scenarios become an almost normalized aspect of the U.S. landscape. In this episode, Kelly talks with author and educator Patrick Blanchfield about what isn’t working, why and what we need to do instead. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonate If you would like to r...
Apr 22, 2022•59 min•Season 4Ep. 12
“For anybody who is caught up in the systems that are shaped by extractive capitalism and organized violence, there is a cumulative and compounded effect on their persons and their lives,” says scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Gilmore talks with Kelly Hayes about prison abolition, the climate crisis, and what must be done. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can d...
Apr 14, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Season 4Ep. 11
“The Pentagon has a blanket exemption from all global climate agreements – in effect, a license to kill the natural world without consequence,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Kelly and Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua discuss the U.S. military’s role in environmental devastation and explore lessons from the campaign to shut down the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on the island of O'ahu – and what activists and organizers can learn from this struggle. If you need a transcript, you can find that o...
Mar 24, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 10
“None of us know where this is going,” says author and activist Dean Spade. “It's not looking good, but what do I want to spend the rest of my life doing? Being fully alive, being with other people, being in it together, taking risks, being really, really caring, [and] learning to love people even if they annoy me.” In the spring of 2020, the U.S. saw an unprecedented wave of mutual aid projects in response to the pandemic. What became of that energy, and what lessons have organizers learned fro...
Mar 17, 2022•54 min•Season 2Ep. 9
“I think we can reframe and re-understand the immigrant rights movement, not just as one of many movements, but something that is fundamentally connected to how we remake the world,” says Harsha Walia. In this episode, Kelly and Border & Rule author Harsha Walia talk about the plight of Black students fleeing Ukraine, borders, the climate crisis, and taking action in these times. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the sho...
Mar 10, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 8
While officials spin false narratives blaming violent crime on bail reform, and police insist too many people are getting out of jail, conditions in U.S. jails and prisons remain nightmarish. In this episode, Kelly Hayes talks with organizer Brooke Terpstra about a hunger strike at the Santa Rita Jail in California, and about some of the complexities and political dynamics of organizing in jails and prisons. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you ...
Mar 03, 2022•35 min•Season 4Ep. 7
“What we cannot do is rally our compassion on the basis of whether or not we think the U.S. war machine can drop some bombs and make it better. Making things better is not what the war machine is for,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Kelly talks with organizer Yaira Matos from the youth anti-war group We Are Dissenters about militarism, international solidarity, and why the U.S. war machine cannot be made good. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos I...
Feb 25, 2022•52 min•Season 4Ep. 6
“What we have is a situation where our opponents are fixated on us and our allies are leaving us behind,” says trans attorney and activist Chase Strangio. Republicans have made attacks on trans youth a signature policy item at the state level. In this episode, Kelly and Chase talk about the avalanche of transphobic legislation Republicans have generated, the role of fascist politics in this onslaught and why trans students are not getting the support they need. If you need a transcript, you can ...
Feb 17, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 5
“This will be an era defined by who is deemed worthy of survival, and who isn’t, who gives a damn, and who doesn’t, and how we keep each other alive during and in between catastrophes,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Kelly talks with Shane Burley, the author of Why We Fight and Fascism Today, about right-wing power, the apocalypse, and organizing a counterculture of care. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, y...
Feb 10, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 4
“When you have a power that is designed to be unaccountable and has been unaccountable for so damn long, the reforms that stick to it just make it stronger and more efficient as they cover it in a veneer of legitimacy." In this episode, Kelly talks with abolitionist criminology professor and activist Brendan McQuade about how securitization has shaped popular ideas about what it means to be free, and how we can build something better. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: b...
Feb 03, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 3
From the Amazon to Hubbard County, Minnesota, corporations are funding the repression of protesters. In this episode, Kelly talks with Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, about the history and future of corporate collaborations with the police. Kelly also talks with attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard about newly exposed documents that reveal the lead prosecutor in Hubbard County sought corporate funding for the prosecution of Line 3 protesters. If you need a transcript, you can find that o...
Jan 27, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 2
“Capitalism is the unfolding catastrophe,” says activist Bree Newsome Bass. “It's this thing that has grabbed us all in its arms and it is just plummeting down.” In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with activist and artist Bree about long COVID, voting rights and getting organized in these times. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website. If you would like to support the show, you can donate here. If you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up!
Jan 20, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 1
“At the close of 2021, the right is poised to treat the pandemic as a political portal, and the left is not. That’s a disturbing reality, but it is not a fixed condition." In this year-end episode of Movement Memos, Kelly reflects on what we’re up against and what we need to build in the new year. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.
Dec 16, 2021•18 min•Season 3Ep. 22
“The women who were already long-timers when I was just coming in, they were the light in my tunnel. We were all in the tunnel together just making light,” says formerly incarcerated organizer Monica Cosby. In this episode of Movement Memos, Cosby and Kelly Hayes talk about the emotional support networks imprisoned people create to survive institutions that punish symptoms of emotional distress, and what we can learn from those efforts. Alan Mills from the Uptown People’s Law Center also offers ...
Dec 09, 2021•36 min•Season 3Ep. 21
“ShotSpotter manufactures the urgency of an active threat, offering situations where there is likely no risk, but where police can operate within a narrative of extreme risk.” In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with Chicago organizers who are attempting to rid their city of an acoustic surveillance system that is both ineffective and dangerous. Kelly also digs into the question of why police might want a multi-million dollar gunshot detector that doesn't work. You can find a transcri...
Dec 02, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 20
Right-wing myths about stolen elections and vaccine conspiracies will no doubt complicate many dinners today, as families gather to celebrate a holiday grounded in its own harmful mythology: Thanksgiving. Among liberals and leftists, there will be countless posts debunking the lies children are taught about the holiday in school. But on this day it is equally important to amplify the stories of Native people living today who, much like their ancestors, are battling world-crushing forces. In the ...
Nov 25, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 19
“Apocalypse normal means we can go back to school, get on planes, and hit up restaurants and bars -- as long as we don’t think too hard about disabled people, unvaccinated children or long COVID. It means experiencing escalating heat waves, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires, and scrolling past news about ‘code red’ climate reports, and the refugees that climate catastrophes create, without retaliating or rebelling against political leaders who have once again refused to chart a different course...
Nov 18, 2021•18 min•Season 3Ep. 18
The Indian Child Welfare Act has been challenged more times in the past decade than the Affordable Care Act. In this episode of Movement Memos, Native journalists Kelly Hayes and Rebecca Nagle talk about the right-wing plot to bring down a child welfare law and why the fundamental rights of Native people, the fate of tribal lands, and “the very shape of what passes for democracy” in the U.S. are at stake. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.
Nov 11, 2021•54 min•Season 3Ep. 17
In place of our usual content, this week, we are revisiting A COVID Memorial Mixtape. The mixtape, which was released in October of 2020 by Ric Wilson, in collaboration with a number of grassroots organizers, was created as part of a month-long effort to memorialize people lost to COVID-19. It was also played through a loudspeaker outside the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Chicago. When the tape was created, we had lost over 200,000 people to COVID-19 in the United States. Now, w...
Nov 04, 2021•22 min•Season 3Ep. 16
