Episode 283 of RevolutionZ, An Oral History of A Next American Revolution is the first episode of what hopes to be a Sequence of 14 episodes based on excerpts from a book in progress in which Miguel Guevara interviews 18 revolutionaries from a future parallel earth that is shifted 28 years forward from our own earth. The text excerpts will be published earlier in each week that each audio episode appears. The audio RevolutionZ episodes include the text material plus spontaneous reactions to it i...
May 26, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 283
In Episode 282 of RevolutionZ, Alex Han, of In These Times, addresses the current surge, aims, and prospects of both labor and student activism and their possible intersection, as well as media responses and prospects. We discuss union bargaining strategies including and going beyond contract issues, campus organization and tactics, and urge the need to break down barriers between independent media outlets to forge a more strategically unified left media ecosystem. Support the show...
May 19, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 282
Episode 281 of RevolutionZ has Avi Chomsky as guest to discuss current campus and community activism, colonialism, nation states, immigration, borders, lessons from Central America and the Global South, and the role of students, labor, and religious organizations in sustaining resistance. We consider the logical and emotional innards of dissent, where strategic pursuit of immediate relief intersects with a longer term quest for societal transformation. Support the show...
May 12, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 281
Ep 280 of RevolutionZ has as guest William Lawrence, cofounder of the Sunrise Movement, housing organizer, DSA member, and much mor, to discuss the inner workings and ideological conflicts within the Democratic Socialists of America. Should DSA work within the Democratic Party to expand progressive representation, or should it cut ties completely and forge a new path without electoral emphasis? What existing structural features exacerbate factionalism? What new features might prevent ideological...
May 05, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 280
Ep 279 of RevolutionZ, Students Teach, We Learn, hopes to answer some questions that I felt folks might have. I try to address, spontaneously, as one might in a discussion: Why are campuses rebelling? Why now, why so many, why so fast? What are the students seeking? What reactions are rebels encountering from other students / from administrators / from cops? Summer is near, most importantly, what’s next? Is this 1968 again, how similar is it, how different? Will it be smarter? Will it change col...
Apr 28, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 279
Episode 278 of RevolutionZ takes the character of and support for MAGA fascism, Mideast genocide, and earth-wide ecological suicide as focus, but spends little time on their cause, texture, or impacts. Rather, we consider why and how there is any support for the first two and massive obliviousness to the third. What is going on in various constituencies to produce much less sustain such alignments? I want to know, and I assume you want to know. Indeed, unless we know, how can we effectively addr...
Apr 21, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 278
Episode 277 of RevolutionZ examines the concept economic growth from a few angles to hopefully provide some insights for further thought--and then spins off into a very tenuously related personal birthday greeting about staying young offered on my 77th birthday. Support the show
Apr 14, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 277
Episode 276 of RevolutionZ takes up the issue of who is, and who isn't part of the left, including splits and divisions from the 60s to now, addressing motives and demarcation lines, and finally possible alternative approaches to the whole issue that might be more unifying than what now occurs. Support the show
Apr 07, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 276
Episode 275 has as guest Emma River-Roberts to discuss class structure, habits, hierarchy, and possibilities inside the Degrowth movement and really pretty much all movements on the left. Why are working class people largely absent in ecological organizations and when present what do they encounter? For that matter why is discussion of such class issues largely absent and when present largely defensive and tortured. And, of course, what is to be done? Support the show...
Mar 31, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 275
Episode 274 of RevolutionZ offers and comments on a searing critique of the champions of democracy and human rights from Arundhati Roy, plus a disturbing but compelling view of pro-war sentiments of various prior supporters of Palestine within Israel. Why do some progressives rally behind Israel's war machine? Support the show
Mar 24, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 274
Episode 273 of RevolutionZ addresses Class (The PMC or as I call it, the Coordinator Class) and left organizing in the Degrowth movement. The episode is built around an essay by Emma River-Roberts, a Degrowth activist, working class organizer, and founder of The Working Class Climate Alliance, which is an affiliate of the Post Growth Institute. The article is on ZNet and I offer it here and also some comments on it because I believe the article has bearing not only on Degrowth organizing, but re...
Mar 17, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 273
Episode 272 of RevolutionZ presents and comments on a recent Rebecca Solnit essay about two strands of left thought and activism, a bit through history and a bit today. In the song, Which Side Are You On, is it right and left, or is it right and left and other left, where the latter two are far from a single thing? Support the show
Mar 10, 2024•22 min•Season 1Ep. 272
Episode 271 of the Podcast RevolutionZ looks at Evangelical Voting, Magical Thinking, and Evidentiary Reasoning - Organizing or Even Just Conversing in Difficult Times. Why do people believe what they do? Supporting Trump, abetting Israel, ignoring climate calamity or even being left in very contradictory ways. How can words change minds? Support the show
Mar 03, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 271
Episode 270 of RevolutionZ discusses a new attempt to link fund raising, dating, and social activism va- an unusual and ambitious web system and app called Singles Project. Why try this? How try this? What will emerge from trying this? Nikla Widmark, from Sweden and Alexandria and Michael consider these innovative matters and more. Support the show
Feb 25, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 270
Episode 269 of RevolutionZ considers the concept and practice of privilege as in, for example, white privilege, male privilege, and class privilege. Is to uncover, call out, and renounce privilege, a powerful tool for overcoming racism, sexism, and classism, or does this approach instead have unintended consequences that interfere with its own aims? In offering a controversial exploration of a widespread activist approach am I defending my own white, male, class privilege? Or am I trying to cont...
Feb 18, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 269
Episode 268 of RevolutionZ addresses the upcoming U.S presidential election. Will there even be one? If there is, who will be candidates? Should a revolutionary, a radical, a progressive, or a typical citizen vote, get out the vote, watch Netflix, block a bridge, hibernate? All the above? None of the above? Is there even a way to sensibly think about such choices? Hate fascist Trump? Hate Genocide Joe? Okay, then what? Support the show...
Feb 11, 2024•48 min•Season 1Ep. 268
Episode 267 of RevolutionZ is, what? Part primal scream. Part an argument for going all in. The title is from The Chambers Brothers. The sentiment is channelled, I hope, from tomorrow to today. The words are equal parts rage, hope, and plain truth. Support the show
Feb 04, 2024•18 min•Season 1Ep. 267
Mazin Qumsiyeh returns to RevolutionZ to further explore the causes, the toll, the consequences, and the lessons of Israel's barbaric assault on Palestinians, including genocidal acts intended, broadcast live, celebrated, and made possible by U.S., UK, and Gerrman support though particularly by the complicit U.S. including the vile role of AIPAC -- but also to marvel at Palestinian resistance and the unprecedentedly fast and passionate U.S. public and particularly youthful pro-Palestinian activi...
Jan 28, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 266
Episode 265 of RevolutionZ discusses the wisdom or lack thereof of taking the Marxist Tradition as our guide to contemporary activism. Can we have an accessible conversation about these very controversial matters? Support the show
Jan 21, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 265
Episode 264 of RevolutionZ with frequent guest Alexandria Shaner discusses the role of and especially methods for effective communication for social change. What is at stake? What works well and what doesn't when organizing, especially when there are serious divisions? Support the show
Jan 14, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 265
Ep 263 of RevolutionZ titled Degrowth (and More) 4 Liberation Shared Strategy, continues on from last episode, this time making a case for the relevance of the 20 Theses for Liberation to moving toward a movement of mutually supportive movements by describing the compatibility of its strategic theses with Degrowth activism. This episode also welcomes observations, comments, dissent, support and elaborations from listeners that can be pursued with myself and with each other via ZNetwork's communi...
Jan 07, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 263
Ep 262 of RevolutionZ argues the the potential of the 20 Theses for Liberation project to inspire and sustain a movement of movements by examining its relevance for Degrowth and vice versa as a generalizable case study. Support the show
Dec 31, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 262
Episode 261 of RevolutionZ Is another in the Ruminations Sequence co-hosted by Alexandria Shaner. We discuss the Israeli invasion and diverse reactions to it, including demonstrations, civil disobedience, and the new Zionist driven Mcarthyism and good and not so good responses to it. Support the show
Dec 24, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 261
Episode 260 of RevolutionZ Considers strategy for winning a new economy and society. A bunch of recent episodes have again addressed what do we want. This one talks about how we win it. It mainly addresses issues of reform, reformism, and revolution, issues of building worthy and viable campaigns and projects, and of moving from sporadic dissent that dissipates to sustained commitment that wins, from mobilizing intermittently to organizing persistently by overcoming obstacles to the latter. Lots...
Dec 16, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 260
Episode 259 of RevolutionZ discusses with Ellen David Friedman from the board of Labor Notes and based on her decades of labor organizing the current surge and prospects of U.S. labor organizing. How can unions best navigate the complexities of race, gender, class, and climate struggles for change.. How can organizers generate long-term commitment and avoid distractions from and obstacles to a relentless struggle for dignity, efficacy, and control within workplaces and throughout society. Suppor...
Dec 10, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 259
Episode 258 of RevolutionZ continues the multi-episode discussions of economic vision this time considering relations between participatory economics and vision for other key areas of life including polity, kinship, culture, ecology, and artistic endeavors and including disagreements about wages for housework, issues of ecological necessity, art as work or work as art, and more. Support the show
Dec 03, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 258
Episode 257 of RevolutionZ addresses the unfolding conflict in Gaza and beyond to the West Bank, the roles of Israel, Hamas, and the U.S. including not only the civilian and social impact and choices, but also the mindset and motives of different constituencies and actors as well as the role of writers/speakers and protestors about these matters, including ourselves. Support the show
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 257
Episode 256 of RevolutionZ features Emily Kawano from Solidarity Economy to discuss Solidarity economy's origins, range, and definition including its guiding values and its approach to ownership, equity, markets, and pluralism, all in pursuit of post capitalist practice in the present. Support the show
Nov 19, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 256
Episode 255 of RevolutionZ has as guest Cayden Mak, the publisher of Convergence Magazine. It addresses media aims, Convergence's concepts of a multiracial democracy and a radically democratic economy, intersectionality, obstacles to left unity, left culture, right wing dangers, and more. Support the show
Nov 12, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 255
Episode 254 of RevolutionZ is a deep dive conversation about history, fiction and non fiction, the internet, tv, movement culture, winning and losing attitudes, labor strategy, and much more with Bill Fletcher Jr. Support the show
Nov 05, 2023•1 hr 8 min
