“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•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast “We can't survive doing the work that we're asked to do, the way that we're being asked to do it, with the lack of support we're being asked to do it with,” says healthcare worker Nicole Brun-Cottan. Tens of thousands of nurses and other healthcare workers in the Kaiser Permanente health care system are poised to go on strike. In this Striketober episode, Kelly talks with three nurses who are ready to go on strike about what’s at stake in their struggle, and how the pandemic has affected frontli...
Oct 28, 2021•32 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast “This crisis embodies the violence of a murderous system that is re-legitimized through reforms, any time its true character becomes too visible, like a shapeshifting monster in a horror film. It never stops consuming life,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly Hayes digs into the crisis on Rikers Island, why people are dying, and why this isn’t a story about understaffing, but rather, a story about a system that cannot be redeemed. You can find a transcript, audio and show...
Oct 21, 2021•51 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast “In the coming years, we are going to have to practice our skills and our politics in ways that we probably can’t fully imagine right now, because we live in unprecedented times.” In this episode, Kelly and organizer Carlos Saavedra talk about burnout, building power and how our pandemic exhaustion could give way to an era of breakthroughs. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.
Oct 14, 2021•39 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast “Texas is playing by its own rules on immigration and deputizing police from as far away as Iowa to participate in Abbott’s state-level war on migrants. The implications here are just horrifying,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly examines recent events in Del Rio, Texas, where Black asylum-seekers were brutalized and faced mass deportations, and also highlights Operation Lone Star, Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s unconstitutional, state-level war on migrants. Kelly also ta...
Oct 06, 2021•48 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast We have witnessed the evolution of a social and moral binary in the United States: vaccinated and unvaccinated. Immersed in a culture of blame and condemnation, around the spread of COVID-19, we have also seen the rise of a brand of humor that Kelly characterizes as “recreational dehumanization.” So how should we be talking about vaccination and mass death, and how can we be constructive? In this episode, Kelly talks with activist Johnny Dangers, about overcoming vaccine hesitancy, and Shana McD...
Sep 29, 2021•42 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast 
