“Our power comes from knowing who's around us, from trusting who's around us, and from strategizing with every lever that we have,” says tenant organizer and Abolish Rent co-author Tracy Rosenthal. In this episode, Rosenthal and their co-author Leonardo Vilchi talk with Kelly about what rent strikes and tenant unions can teach us about the work of collective survival in this moment. Music: Son Monarcas, Isobel O'Connor, and David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links ...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast “It’s inherently a racial justice and economic justice fight,” says Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. In this episode, Kelly talks with Silky about the threats posed by the incoming Trump administration, how organizers are preparing to defend immigrant communities, and what actions we can take to prepare and respond. Music: Son Monarcas, Curved Mirror & David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movemen...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Our enemies are waging a war, and to many of them, it’s a holy war,” says host Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Hayes and guest Talia Lavin discuss the emotional impacts of the presidential election, the expansive agenda of the Christian right, and how everyday people can resist what Lavin calls “our nation's precipitous slide into autocracy.” Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste & Heath Cantu You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-...
Nov 21, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast “We really have a big opportunity right now to decide, within traumatic conditions and circumstances, how we are going to show up, again and again, for ourselves and each other,” says Tanuja Jageranauth. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” host Kelly Hayes talks with radical therapist Dorian Ortega and Healing Justice practitioners Tanuja Jagernauth and Chiara Galimberti about trauma, and some of the tools and practices that can help us heal. Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste & Peter Sandberg ...
Nov 06, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast “The capitalist system also doesn't care if we die. So insisting on the value of human life, insisting on grieving, particularly grieving publicly and collectively, is a real statement against this entire death-making system,” says author Sarah Jaffe. In this episode, Kelly talks with Sarah about the lessons of Sarah’s latest book, From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire. Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste & Peter Sandberg You can find a transcript and show notes (including links...
Oct 24, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast “I've seen a lot of people lashing out at people horizontally, and my gut sense is that sometimes it happens because the folks who are lashing out are definitely super traumatized, in crisis, feel and are really powerless in a lot of ways,” says Disability Justice organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. In this episode, Kelly talks with Leah and Elliott Fukui, who develops community safety strategies for emotional wellness and safety, about why people are struggling right now, what’s keeping...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast “This war is not a civil war, it's a counter-revolutionary war against civilians. It's a war of military elites against the entire civilian population,” says Sudanese organizer Nisrin Elamin. Sudan is currently experiencing the largest mass displacement event in the world today. Thousands are dead and famine is “almost everywhere” in the country. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Elamin, organizer Yusra Khogali, and host Kelly Hayes discuss the historical and political roots of the violence, ...
Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast “This is a moment that is going to be looked back on 50 years from now, 100 years from now, and what is going to be said of us is how we came out of this moment,” says M4BL organizer M Adams. In this episode, Kelly talks with Adams and community organizer Montague Simmons about the last decade of Black-led organizing, the state of movements against police violence, and where prison and police abolitionists should go from here. Music: Son Monarcas, HATAMITSUNAMI, and Guustavv You can find a trans...
Sep 12, 2024•1 hr•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “The immediacy of the crisis that we're in demands a new society and not in some imagined future, but now,” says Rehearsals for Living co-author Robyn Maynard. In this episode, Kelly talks with Maynard and David K. Seitz, author of A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine, about the radical legacy of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and how science fiction can shape our politics. Music: Son Monarcas, Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen & Howard Harper-Barnes You can find a transcript and show ...
Aug 29, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “We don't have a housing system, we have an unhousing system,” says author and organizer Tracy Rosenthal. In this episode, Kelly and Tracy examine the impacts of the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing municipalities to criminalize the act of sleeping outside. Tracy and Kelly also examine the larger terrain of criminalization unhoused people face, why cities are working to expel unhoused populations, and how communities can defend their unhoused neighbors. Music: Son Monarcas, Pulsed & Davi...
Aug 15, 2024•53 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast “When you're engaged in political work that is as embodied and vulnerable, uncharted and courageous as self-help, you're really harnessing something like a new world building power,” says Deep Care author Angela Hume. In this episode, Kelly and Angela discuss the work of abortion self-help activists who provided illegal abortions in the 1970s, as well as militant clinic defenders, who repelled right-wing efforts to blockade abortion clinics in the 80s and 90s. As Angela says, “There are deep les...
Aug 01, 2024•59 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast “This system was designed to do exactly what it is doing and has been doing: concentrating wealth and facilitating racial capitalism and colonialism and extraction,” says author and activist Dean Spade. In this episode, Kelly and Dean discuss some common traps that activists fall into when discussing repression and how we can strengthen our practice of solidarity. Music: Son Monarcas You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/...
Jul 18, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “If you're trying to destroy things that are as massive as the structures and the institutions that we talk about wanting to get rid of, that we talk about wanting to overthrow, you're going to have to sustain yourself,” says organizer and author William C. Anderson. In this episode, Kelly takes a trip to the Northwest Territories and talks with Anderson, Robyn Maynard, Harsha Walia, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Mahdi Sabbagh, and others about the crises of trauma, grief, and overwhelm in our co...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast The Luddites, who smashed machines in the 19th century, in an organized effort to resist automation, are often portrayed as uneducated opponents of technology. But according to Blood in the Machine author Brian Merchant, “The Luddites were incredibly educated as to the harms of technology. They were very skilled technologists. So they understood exactly how new developments in machinery would affect the workplace, their industry, and their identities.” In this episode, Kelly talks with Brian abo...
Jun 20, 2024•53 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast “If you think about all the cop shows and you think about the birthright tours and you think about all the friendship visits of U.S. officials to Israel, where it's as if there's no Palestine, and you think about Coffee With A Cop, these are all in the same school of actually deeply violent, militaristic propaganda that tries to soften something that only exists to control vulnerable people,” says journalist Lewis Raven Wallace. In this episode, Raven Wallace talks with Kelly about the similarit...
Jun 06, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast “At UChicago, they were chanting, ‘40,000 people dead. You are fighting kids instead,’” says author and University of Chicago faculty member Eman Abdelhadi. “Palestine has laid open all the contradictions that are at the core of our society, and the sheer absurdity of trying to suppress this movement.” In this episode, Kelly talks with Abdelhadi and Alex, who participated in the Palestine solidarity encampment at Northeastern University, about what we can learn from the recent wave of student-le...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast "When people come from outside your community or your campus, it makes you feel like you're connected to a bigger whole," says Solidarity co-author Astra Taylor. "It makes you feel like what's happening there matters. It creates a sense of a larger coalition. And that's powerful, which is exactly why the people in power don't like it." In this episode, Kelly talks with Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix about solidarity, divide-and-conquer tactics, and the concept of “outside agitators.” Music: Son Mo...
May 09, 2024•54 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast While Kelly is away on medical leave, we revisit a fan-favorite episode in which Kelly and Mariame Kaba talk about lessons from their book Let This Radicalize You. "I have experienced countless losses, but there have also been some magnificent wins, so I know that these are possible," says Kaba. Music: Son Monarcas & David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/audio/let-this-conversation-with-mariame-kaba-radicalize-you/ If you would l...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Kelly is still on medical leave, so we are revisiting their conversation with Dorothy Roberts about the fall of Roe and the carceral nature of the family policing system. “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,” said Roberts, author of Torn Apart and Killing The Black Body. Music: Son Monarcas and Pulsed You can find a transcript and show n...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast While Kelly is on medical leave, we hope you enjoy this fan favorite from the archives. In this episode, Kelly talked with Sarah Jaffe about surveillance, criminalization, and lessons from Jaffe's book, "Work Won't Love You Back." Music: Son Monarcas You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/audio/work-isnt-fulfilling-because-capitalism-is-a-death-march/ If you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonate If you would like ...
Mar 29, 2024•50 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast “In this moment of crisis, we have to understand how the care economy functions … I think we have to ask ourselves, do we want someone to profit from our pain? Do we want our loved ones to be for sale? I think it is imperative upon all of us to push back on the system of profit from care and to find alternative ways of thinking and doing care,” says author Premila Nadasen. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Nadasen and host Kelly Hayes discuss the role of care work in the U.S. economy, the exp...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast “The public domain is being purchased, and it is being purchased in order for it to be destroyed,” says journalist Sarah Kendzior. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Kendzior and host Kelly Hayes discuss the decline of journalism in the U.S. and how we can resist the erosion of our shared history, our values, and our shared reality. Music: Son Monarcas & Pulsed You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the sh...
Feb 29, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast “Every interaction between Black and Brown community members and CPD responding to a gunshot alert is dangerous. It puts people at risk of violence and harm,” says Stop ShotSpotter organizer Navi Heer. In this week’s episode, Kelly talks with two organizers from Chicago’s Stop ShotSpotter campaign, which claimed a major victory this week, and investigative journalist Jim Daley of South Side Weekly, about the interaction of Big Tech and policing in Chicago. Music: Son Monarcas & David Celeste You...
Feb 15, 2024•58 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast “The truth is, every time community groups have asked questions about policing, the police haven't had good answers. And when really pushed, they had to fold to recognize that maybe this technology wasn't worth the money, wasn't doing what it was said. And while sure, it sounded good in a soundbite, it sounded good to the city council when you said you had to do something to stop crime, in reality, it wasn't doing what it said, and may also have had real harms on those communities,” says Andrew ...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast “Surviving settler colonialism isn't just about surviving its material realities, it's also about surviving how settler colonialism requires destroying cultures, and languages, and sensibilities, and values, and ways of being in the world,” says scholar and activist Nadine Naber. In this episode, Naber and host Kelly Hayes discuss the connections between the struggle for Palestinian liberation and U.S. movements against police and prisons, the history of Palestinian and Arab organizing in the U....
Jan 18, 2024•1 hr•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast “Belonging isn't about a claim of ownership, it's actually about this notion of love and longing. And so I've come to say, I don't claim that Palestine belongs to me. I just know that I belong to Palestine,” says Palestinian author Rana Barakat. In this episode, Rana and host Kelly talk about Palestinian history, Indigenous solidarity, how colonial violence disrupts ancestral and familial relationships, and what resisting that disruption can look like. Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste, Raymond...
Dec 07, 2023•55 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast “We're connected to each other and these liberation fights across the globe,” says Indigenous Justice organizer Ashley Crystal Rojas. In this episode of Movement Memos, Rojas and Morning Star Gali talk with host Kelly Hayes about Native solidarity with Palestine, how Native communities have reclaimed the “Thanksgiving” holiday, tools for harm reduction, and how Native organizers are supporting Indigenous victims of violence and their families during the holiday season. Music: Son Monarcas You ca...
Nov 23, 2023•50 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “During a genocide, there is no silent vigil. There are no pauses without action,” says organizer Nadine Naber. In this episode, Naber, Iman Abid, Mike Merryman-Lotze, Leanne Simpson, Shane Burley, Brant Rosen, and others join Kelly to hold vigil for Palestine, and to talk about what solidarity demands of us in this moment. Music: Son Monarcas and David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show...
Nov 07, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “Our survival is at stake, and so, let's think about all the best things that can help us better understand how we can ensure the collective survival of as many of us as possible,” says author and organizer Andrea Ritchie. In this episode, Kelly and Andrea discuss organizing, solidarity with Palestine, and why activists cannot defer the work of practicing new worlds. Music: Son Monarcas and David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movemen...
Oct 26, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast “The danger now is not just in Palestine for Palestinians. It's gone well beyond that now. It's exported, the idea that you can export occupation, you can export the tools of occupation, the tools of apartheid. That is where we currently are in the early 2020s,” says The Palestine Laboratory author Antony Loewenstein. In this episode, Kelly talks with Loewenstein about how Israel has used Palestine as a laboratory for surveillance and war-making technologies. Loewenstein argues that Israel is al...
Oct 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 
