RevolutionZ

Eisode 373 of Revolution Z has as guest Greg Wilpert, founder of Venezuela Analysis, who discusses the role of oil, power, Trump, Maduro, and which way Venezuela. Wilpert tracks the quiet recalibration of demands coming from Washington—curbs on drugs that aren't real, and on migration caused by sanctions. Vague “terror” charges that are projections at best, and a push for oil access that has actually been offered earlier albeit with fewer controls—alongside a court case that tests the boundary between domestic law and international immunity. If the aim of kidnapping Maduro is optics that establish that Trump can use the...

Episode 370 of RevolutionZ mainly continues our sequence of excerpts from the forthcoming The Wind Cries Freedom's Oral History of the Next American Revolution.  However, before doing so, it takes up various reactions I encountered to an article I wrote titled "Chomsky Reassessed." The followup discussion here raises some more general concerns and further ideas bearing on issues of "cancellation." 

Internal movement differences, arguments, and even accusations can force a movement to constructively self examine and grow, or can fracture it. What damage is done when outrage outruns evidence, when cancel culture and circular firing squads turn activism in...

Episode 369 of RevolutionZ has Miguel Guevara questioning Lydia Lawrence about her journey from the Sixties to RPS. After anger and solidarity fuel a movement’s start what decides whether it survives? Lydia Lawrence—feminist, organizer, media worker, and the first shadow government president of RPS—tells of her journey from sixties militancy, through doldrums, to sustained revolutionary engagement. Her recounting begins with a poem-like charge sheet against injustice, but quickly pivots to the practices that kept early RPS victories from unspooling. Treat oppression as a web, not a queue; change roles, not just leaders; speak plainly, share skills, and build...

Episode 368 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin and more recently The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto. Our topic isn’t a kinder capitalism; it’s a post capitalist vision and practice where private ownership is overcome and control of production resides with the people who do the work.

Together we discuss seeking a higher minimum wages and seeking higher wages more generally, full employment, greater workers say in the workplace and community, municipal support for co-ops and more. We urge that what we seek, how we seek it, and even what issu...

Episode 367 of RevolutionZ starts out by discussing why I am offering up chapters of the forthcoming The Wind Cries Freedom Oral History as a sequence of episodes. Then it addresses No Kings to ask how can its future  help connect mass resistance to everyday organizing that is able to turn fear into agency: and success that is able to win. Then the next chapter of the Wind Cries Freedom sequence discusses housing organizing, right to the city, transportation organizing, and income and time struggle. How did early RPS pursue bike-first streets and free buses, tenant unions that swap apartments, c...

Episode 366 of RevolutionZ starts by considering a phrase frequently borrowed, nowadays, the phrase "like never before," and then moves on to a word nowadays being used more frequently and positively than in quite some time, the word "socialism." Regarding the former, why are we mimicking the verbal priorities of the Orange Monster? Can we avoid that? Regarding the latter, are people using the word "socialism" to talk about outcomes or to talk about institutions? Can we do the latter? After exploring those questions a bit, we move on to the main focus of this episode, another chapter, chapter thirteen...

Episode 365 of RevolutionZ presents an essay by film director Ava Duvernay about the difficulty of writing in unimaginably chaotic times. Her's is a sentiment I share but that she expresses more eloquently. Simply put, it’s hard to write to a conclusion when the world won’t stop shouting new horrors. Then Miguel Guevara interviews Barbara Bethune and Emiliano Farmer, taken from chapter twelve of The Wind Cries Freedom. A doctor and nurse, Barbara and Emiliano describe their experiences in health work revealing aims, motives, biases, and beliefs. They report and analyze the class forces that shape who gets hear...

Episode 364 of RevolutionZ begins with a brief discussion of the Epstein phenomenon. How do elites manufacture loyalty and impose silence? How did Epstein (and Trump too) get constituencies that not only ought to have known better, but literally ought to have abhorred them, to instead become sycophants or at least friends? 

After that interlude, the episode continues the oral history presentation of the Wind Cries Freedom episodes This time, Miguel Guevara elicits from his interviewees reports regarding Revolutionary Participatory Society's initial post convention vision for a society where people actually manage the decisions that shape their lives. T...

Episode 363 of RevolutionZ as its main focus continues with another excerpt from the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. The episode opens, however, with a comment on our place and our times following on Mamdani's remarkable victory and Steve Bannon's call for Republicans to take over all institutions or face jail in about a year. In the struggle for institutions, for us to act as though Trump and Co. are now wielding a mighty force that is targeted at each and every one of us, ready and able to trounce us each now, in our workplaces, schools, and...

Episode 362 of RevolutionZ continues the oral history recounting by Miguel Guevara and his interviewees. It delves further with the motives, aims, and mechanics of a successful future revolution. This time, it asks, what if the hardest part of building a movement isn’t the opposition outside, but the pressure inside the room—and inside our heads? 

Guevara leads Andre Goldman, Malcolm Mays and Cynthia Parks in a discussion that describes the founding convention of RPS where three thousand people traded posturing for process and built consensus without blunting their ideals. They describe how months of preparation, open amend...

Episode 361 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence of episodes culled from the book in process: The Wind Cries Freedom. The episode's title is "Hope Is Not Naive, Cynicism Is Counterproductive, Fight To Win." It opens with a succinct look at our own time's authoritarianism and the information ecosystem that rewards fear and lies over solidarity and truth. It then takes up the oral history by presenting three future revolutionaries who RevolutionZ regulars have already met--Alexandra Voline, Senator Malcolm King, and Andre Goldman--to talk with them about how their movement facilitated hope, redesigned incentives, and made sustained participation both possible and...

Episode 360 of RevolutionZ has Larry Cohen, former president of the 600,000 strong Communication Workers of America and current board chair of Our Revolution who has spent five decades organizing workers and pushing democratic reforms inside and outside the Democratic Party to assess No Kings and explore possible future directions for it and of resistance to Trump's fascist agenda. Larry emphasizes the need to organize across differences, to change the rules that block action, and to deliver material wins that build trust. 

He reveals how the No Kings mobilization surged and what it will take to convert mass turnout i...

Episode 359 of RevolutionZ considers the possibility that the biggest barrier to change isn’t raw power, but a story that many people have swallowed about what’s possible? The idea that there is no alternative. That victory is a pipe dream. The associated chapter of the The Wind Cries Freedom considers how cynicism is manufactured, why it passes for “realism,” and how organizers in the oral history's revolutionary process flipped the script by pairing a credible vision with messengers who modeled rigor, empathy, and staying power.

Andre Goldman answers Miguel Guevara's questions in this chapter by describing how scho...

Episode 358 of RevolutionZ has Arash Kolahi and Alexandria Shaner talk about alternative media aims and pursuits, and the state of the left. Having just published a comprehensive, transparent annual report for ZNetwork.org, Arash and Alexandria invite you to shape what their project does next. They explain how a volunteer‑heavy media project doubled its reach through smart syndication, built community spaces that actually talk back, and launched tools that help people act, not just read.

No clickbait pivots. No sanding down radical edges to appease algorithms. Instead, a they explain their “guerrilla outreach” strategy that puts moveme...

Episode 357 of RevolutionZ presents chapter six of The Wind Cries Freedom plus some personal discussion of publishing priorities and reader/listener choices. From the oral history, Andre Goldman describes his path from academic to organizer and in doing so reveals how a campus boycott became a disciplined, scalable movement. His story has no lone hero; it’s built on strategy, solidarity, and a culture that turned participation into a mark of maturity rather than a fringe stance.

Along the way Andre refers to lessons he took from reading about the 1960s without romanticizing them: expand with intention, co...

Ep 356 of RevolutionZ begins with a few reflections on Arundhati Roy's memoir "Mother Mary Comes to Me." It praises her extraordinary prose and storytelling to show how powerful narrative can illuminate complex social realities. This brief visit to her work ends with a set of questions about her writing and, by extension, about all writing, including The Wind Cries Freedom. Why does a writer write? Why do we read?

Then from Chapter Five of The Wind Cries Freedom oral history, Goldman relays how his radicalization began in college economics classes. There he discovered a profound disconnect between...

Episode 355 of RevolutionZ has as guest DSA activist and former Massachusetts state representative Tom Gallagher to discuss how leftists too often "do the billionaires' work for them" by attacking allies over ideological purity.

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders face vicious criticism from fellow progressives with headlines like "AOC is a genocidal con artist" or "Bernie is a ghoulish Zionist," something has gone terribly wrong with movement politics. Gallagher dissects this suicidal tendency with the perspective of someone who's witnessed decades of progressive movements building and fracturing.

He describes how the Sanders campaigns temporarily broke...

Episode 354 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence presenting the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. In this third installment, as an opening act, interviewee Leslie Zinn reflects on the finished oral history of a revolution that emerged from conditions similar to our own. She argues that revolution isn't utopian but tangible—a possibility within reach if we're willing to learn from each other's experiences and unite around shared values and aims.

Then, conveyed from the book itself, Bill Hampton, takes us to a church in San Antonio where a congregation's nonviolent stand against violent deportations became, in th...

Episode 353 of RevolutionZ examines two seemingly unrelated but equally disruptive forces: the marginalization of participatory economics and the existential threat of artificial intelligence. But first, a visit to Genoa's dockworkers threatening to shut down Israel shipments, America's sex trafficking being addressed incompletely, and activist self censoring doing Trump's work for him.

On the headline topics, for over five decades, a persistent but small bunch have advocated for participatory economics—a vision that rejects the inequitable remuneration, authoritarian decision-making, corporate division of labor, central planning and markets and proposes in their place equitable remuneration, self management, balanced job co...

Episode 352 of RevolutionZ continues with chapters two and three of The Wind Cries Freedom. Alexandra Voline tells about going from despair to determination, from her parent's activism to her own revolutionary conviction. Born to 1960s radicals, politics was "background noise" until Trump's election added passion to knowledge. Alexandra describes how giving a speech against war-making at a defense plant taught her a painful but enduring lesson. Her self-righteous rage alienated the very workers she needed to reach. To organize effectively she had to develop empathy, not just display moral certainty.

Malcolm King relates his experiences of electoral...

Episode 351 of RevolutionZ introduces a special journey as Miguel Guevara and his 18 Interviewees convey chapters from "The Wind Cries Freedom," an as yet unpublished novel that reimagines how revolutionary change might unfold in America.

The novel is thus an oral history of a future American revolution. As such the book is fiction but it works hard to sound like (future) historical fact. It is personal and dramatic but it doesn't emphasize entertainment or character exploration. It instead taps dramatic personal stories to convey the contours of revolutionary change by reporting how a movement called Revolutionary Participatory Society...

Episode 350 of RevolutionZ conducts an experiment with ChatGPT to reveal profound insights about both political theory and artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT, please respond to this critique of the Marxist tradition's current relevance first as a Marxist would, then without that constraint. When operating as a Marxist, the AI eloquently employs classic rhetorical strategies to defend the tradition while missing or misrepresenting the actual criticisms. It speaks of "dialectical augmentation" and accuses the criticisms of "flattening contradiction." It ignores the tradition's blindness to the coordinator class.

Freed from replying as a Marxist, however, the same AI accurately...

Episode 349 of RevolutionZ displays what happened when I asked artificial intelligence to critique my critique of artificial intelligence. In this episode, I share the results of this peculiar experiment—feeding my recent articles about AI dangers directly to ChatGPT and asking for its reaction. What in its view did I get right. What did I get wrong. And I comment, as well. I also ask it about how it operates. How does it answer questions, write a song, and so on. It was very forthcoming and clear. I also asked it its reaction to Noam Chomsky's critical writings about AI...

Episode 248 of RevolutionZ asks, what if the real danger of advanced AI isn't robots taking over the world, but humans willingly but unintentionally surrendering our humanity? What if AI need not go rogue for its collateral damage to fundamentally hurt humanity? What if our most likely dystopian future isn't machines battling us to death, but machines doing exactly what we ask—better than we ever could?

AI is spreading through society at an unprecedented rate, with exponentially growing functionality. While critics point to potential limitations in data, computational resources, or energy requirements slowing AI's gains to a cr...

Episode 347 of RevolutionZ asks why so many stay essentially silent when our world is burning? Adam Aron, climate activist and psychology professor at UC San Diego identifies barriers that keep most people from taking action despite acknowledging the twin crises of climate collapse and rising authoritarianism. We then discuss what to do about the disturbing situation.

Aron draws from his years of research and activism to identify what's holding us back: an atomized society that erodes our sense of solidarity, widespread feelings of powerlessness, and movements that fail to connect with people's material needs and identities. "Many...

Ep 346 of RevolutionZ takes on a stew of topics. What's up with Epstein. Fascism's arrival. Clickbait's Impact. Anti Collective Individualism. Gallaudet''s Struggle. Social Media. Good Trouble, and Now What?

What's the connection among these? Lies, undermined trust, narrow horizons of calculation, fear, confusion, a surprisingly relevant movie, impoverished communications, a set back, and mostly some ideas about effective resistance. 

We know to go forward requires resistance to consistently grow in numbers and sophistication. Rather than isolated demonstrations against single issues, effective opposition must build bridges between constituencies to connect  those who fight genocide with those wh...

Ep 345 of RevolutionZ begins with a brief apology for an error last episode. some self-reflection about RevolutionZ's duration of 345 consecutive episodes, some moving guest comments on Gaza plus my own comments on emerging Trumpian fascism. It then again addresses the question do activists need fresh conceptual frameworks that transcend traditional Marxism?

The episode revisits the critique of the Marxist tradition's adequacy for contemporary struggles/ We again and perhaps more succinctly and also aggressively argue that Marxism's core concepts systematically diminish attention to gender, race, and power relations while distorting economic understanding by defining classes solely through property...

Episode 344 of RevolutionZ begins with some reflections on Zohran Mamdani's inspiring electoral win. How? By his campaign mobilizing an astonishing 50,000 volunteers. How? By he and his campaign feeling real and honest, and by offering real and meaningful vision. By electoral politics and grassroots activism becoming a mutual aid tag team rather than competing opponents. 

The episode then moves from Gaza's gut wrenching fascistic horrors to our own American "Twilight Zone" reality that seeks to entrench fascistic tendencies as normal life. The episode then  takes a break from its usual patterns to look at some music, some lyrics, ho...

Ep 343 of RevolutionZ has Gene Bruskin, long time and many issues, labor organizer to discuss workers' responses to rising fascism, our current predicaments and our potential paths forward.

Why does America's labor movement struggle to mount a unified response to authoritarianism, one  for all and all for one? How did post-WWII labor structures intentionally divide workers by union and industry, creating what Bruskin calls a system "structured to divide ourselves"? 

Why do significant segments of working people support Trump despite his anti-worker policies? Bruskin challenges simplistic explanations, arguing that economic desperation combined with Democrats' unwillingness to...

Episode 342 of RevolutionZ reconsiders how to evaluate success in our struggles against Trumpian fascism.

When someone asks how a protest went, what are we really measuring? Our feelings? Media coverage? Participation numbers? Or something more substantive? Being vague about what matters is our movement measurement problem.

This episode proposes four essential metrics that truly matter: Did our actions inspire continued involvement? Did we raise consciousness among those who witnessed our efforts? Did we grow commitment and strengthen the movement? And did we communicate to power-holders that we won't back down?

Via reflections on...

Episode 341 of RevolutionZ quotes: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living" and with that claim from Marx asks whether today's movements should enrich the Marxist tradition as a viable and worthy heritage that only needs some modest contemporary refinements, or transcend it entirely as concepts and banners of dead generations that constrain our creativity.

Why this topic now? As political tensions mount and movements for fundamental change grow, young activists will be increasingly uged to take Marxist theory as their guiding framework. But do Marxist concepts provide the...

Episode 340 of RevolutionZ addresses the mass deportations that are tearing through communities across America, and and discusses the resistance is growing. In this revealing conversation. Jeff Crosby—a factory worker at General Electric, former union president, and longtime labor activist says "We need leaders more than legislators right now."  ICE targets students, family members, neighbors, and workers with no criminal records. But why do some support this? Crosby describes how economic collapse in manufacturing cities created the conditions where immigrants became convenient scapegoats, even as immigrant businesses have revitalized once-abandoned downtowns.

He describes how an immigrant led coa...

Episode 339 of RevolutionZ has as its Guest Lucy Hicks from the General Strike US project to share her insights on building a decentralized movement aimed at mobilizing millions Americans for a general strike to "transform our economic and political systems." We discuss the challenges and strategies involved in creating nationwide labor and social solidarity during increasingly mind numbingly disturbing political times.

General Strike US formed in 2022. It is currently focused on political education, building regional chapters (it has 37 so far), and growing a strong foundation. What have been its experiences to date? What lessons does it convey...

Ep 338 of RevolutionZ seeks to speak to Bruce Springsteen in light of his recent warranted and eloquent outcry against Trump and Trump's retaliatory threats, and also to Bobby Dylan, a Master of Words, with his own words, and, well, to anyone who would like to relate to these times in light of past and future times. Authoritarianism, military spectacle, and resistance. How do we survive is one sensible question. How do we  overcome is a still better question. Is our time to us worth saving?

This episode offers some of Dylan's words as both mirror and motivation. Y...

Ep 337 of RevolutionZ displays connections between Netanyahu's vicious brutality and Trump's cruel authoritarianism. It examines the psychological mechanisms that enable or oppose both by discussing the need to maintain humanity while confronting inhumanity. "Can we hate the acts yet somehow recognize that those involved are people like us?" From snipers targeting children in Gaza to the creeping normalization of fascist cruelty in America, we witness power that "corrupts, coerces, incarcerates, kidnaps and, increasingly, murders." Yet resistance movements continue to grow to put "steadily growing pressure on elites of all kinds."

The episode dissects the three phony rationales...

Episode 336 of RevolutionZ takes up issues of education as it is, as it should be, and how to go from the former to the latter. Trump, Vance, and their allies know that truth and critical thinking threaten their power. That's why they're launching unprecedented attacks on education—they want compliant, uncritical citizens who will accept authoritarianism without question.

Current education? Among other aults, our schools track students into predetermined social roles: roughly 2% owners, 20% coordinators (managers, professionals), and 80% workers. This is a deliberate system to prepare each group for their designated place in society's hierarchies.

The el...

Episode 335 of RevolutionZ notes that when millions took to the streets after Trump's first election victory, a crucial question arose: "What can people do next?" and how can they connect with it? The new All of Us Directory (at allofusdirectory.org) creates easy means for everyday people and seasoned activists like to connect with grassroots organizations where they can exercise their collective power.

Longtime community activist Cynthia Peters shares with RevolutionZ the vision behind this searchable database of grassroots organizations that she and other conveners including myself have recently created to assist resistance to Trump and beyond...

Episode 334 of RevolutionZ assess three reactions to Trumpism, their causes, their effects, and their lessons for activism. The episode gets personal and in-depth to make a case  that collective resistance that envisions positive change rather than mere survival can transform these "worst of times" into the "best of times," and to indicate some features it might involve.

The three reactions to Trumpism the episode considers are first passive accommodation like some students and faculty obeying their Trustees, like some lawyers obeying their bosses, like some non-profits self censoring their web sites and budgets, and like some householders  be...

Episode 333 of RevolutionZ addresses the question is there anything worth seeking beyond existing economics and in particular modes of allocation? It goes into some depth revealing the horrible intrinsic ills of markets and central planning. For example, it discusses how markets and central planning both yield top-down decision-making and a corporate division of labor and a coordinator class above workers. It shows how central planning is and induces further authoritarianism and how markets reward output and bargaining power while forcing antisocial competition. IT traces how even initially egalitarian workplaces under market pressure eventually recreate class divisions. It moves from...

Episode 332 of RevolutionZ has Hunter Dunn of Southern Cal 50501 as guest to share insight from his experiences with organizing the massive Southern Cal Unites protest in downtown LA, as part of the nationwide April 5th demonstrations against the Trump Administration. Hunter is a Senior at Pepperdine University and our conversation went beyond reporting April 5th tactics, scale, and mechanics to discuss the many factors shaping youth political engagement. Dunn explained how Gen Z members are pulled toward right wing involvement including talking about how right wing influencers and Trump as well as social media algorithms appeal to Gen Z...

Episode 331 of RevolutionZ has as guest long-time labor organizer Stephen Lerner to provide strategic clarity and emotive urgency about our current situation.

Lerner describes a coordinated assault by "billionaires, the fossil fuel industry, and Silicon Valley" to "dominate every aspect of the country." Make public institutions "broke on purpose, "deliberately underfund vital services, and finally privatize them.

Lerner argues that in addition to protesting government buildings we need to target the economic interests of billionaires bankrolling authoritarianism. From pension fund divestment to strategic disruption of luxury resorts and businesses, Lerner urges imposing real costs on...

Episode 330 of RevolutionZ confronts the growing threat of fascism by examining what constitutes genuine resistance versus complicity or apathy. 
The episode says we face three choices: bow and scrape to fascism, ignore what's happening, or stand and fight. University presidents and private law firms that collaborate with authoritarian demands represent profiles in cowardice. They bow and scrape. Anyone looking around and saying oh no, but who then does nothing more, ignores reality. But students can stand and fight by speaking up in classrooms, dining halls, and dorms to build campus movements that protest and disobey. Workers facing MAGA-aligned e...

Episode 329 of RevolutionZ tackles the issue of reform versus revolution in context of the growing resistance to Trumpism and fascism in America. The episode recounts hopeful signs of resistance building across campuses, unions, and communities. But with this surge may come a familiar challenge: will those seeking immediate reforms and those advocating for revolutionary change work together or in opposition?

The episode distinguishes between reforms (specific policy changes) and revolution (transforming underlying institutions). It navigates the concerns of both camps: revolutionaries who fear reforms merely accept the existing system, and reformists who see revolutionary rhetoric as distracting...

Episode 328 of RevolutionZ has as guest Yves Engler, a Canadian writer and political activist who shares his experience of being recently jailed for criticizing a pro-genocide influencer online and facing subsequent charges for "harassing the police" when he publicized his case. We discuss the growing criminalization of pro-Palestinian speech and the importance of solidarity in fighting back against repression.

Engler describes growing Canadian support for Palestine activism including how students at universities like Concordia have voted overwhelmingly for BDS resolutions while university administrations remain aligned with pro-Israel donors

We discuss the challenge of maintaining activism...

Episode 327 of RevolutionZ takes up the question, can  nine different post-capitalist economic visions find common ground in a single unifying framework? 

Rather than viewing Mainstream Marxist Economy, Councilist Marxist Economy, Anarchist Economy, Solidarity Economy, Green Economy, Degrowth Economy, Feminist Economy, Intercommunalist Economy, and Anti-authoritarian Economy as competing frameworks, what if we highlight   their essential virtues to identify  areas of compatibility?

At the heart of this unification project lies Participatory Economics—a vision featuring a productive commons instead of private ownership, self-managing councils intest of top down authority, balanced job complexes instead of a corporate division of lab...

Ep 326 of RevolutionZ discusses Trump's unique role in contemporary politics, the problems of a purely defensive strategy, and enlarging resistance activism including reaching Trump voters. It proposes seeking a wealth tax, living wage, labor reforms, free quality education, day care, and health care, positive immigration reform, and various electoral, social, and environmental reforms as positive program to augment defending against Trumpian reactionary attacks. It  highlights the role of media and communication--their's and our's-- and emphasizes throughout the need to get beyond just preventing calamity.

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Episode 325 of RevolutionZ has as its guest the novelist and activist Rivera Sun. We discuss nonviolent resistance as a strategy to combat rising authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world. The episode reviews the historical effectiveness of nonviolent movements worldwide, the essentials of winning campaigns, the importance of active civil disobedience and of positively engaging allies,  the importance of narratives to movement communication and much more regarding organizing and activism, plus some discussion the efficacy and complexity of writing fiction.

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Episode 324 of RevolutionZ gets personal, a bit strange, I hope a bit humorous, perhaps even a bit helpful. After over six years of episodes, I subject myself as interviewee to myself as a very aggressive interviewer, much more aggressive and even abrasive, than I have been with anyone else. I pounce on me as guest. I challenge me about my motivations.  I ask how I navigate the interplay of confidence and ignorance to discuss a wide range of topics that often go beyond what I have studied. Is it arrogance? Or what? I ask me how I select guests? H...

Episode 323 of RevolutionZ has as guest Steve Early who discusses the vital role of the labor movement in the days of Trump. What is going on at work and in unions now? What are union organizers emphasizing? What might we expect from and contribute to worker activism in coming months? To address these matters, Early discusses coalitions between unions and veteran organizations, strategies against privatization, reaching out to attract and involve new union members, independent political action and working-class candidates, forging solidarity between  public and private sector unions, integrating climate issues into labor activism, nurturing solidarity across diverse worker d...

Ep 322 of RevolutionZ addresses our necessary battle against harmful policies and the structural changes that are meant to empower them under the Trump administration. How do we recognize the role of societal structures in policy implementation to effectively resist both? How do we develop a proactive stance to fight  against fascistic behavior that aims to install dictatorial rule. How do we address the aggressive policy agenda that threatens immigrants and civil rights? How do we thwart the structural shifts in governance that Trump seeks? How do we develop active resistance and non-compliance rather than succumbing to fear and intimidation t...

Ep 321 of RevolutionZ considers the I believe false choice of class or identity. We want to understand the world to change it. Why must we choose one focus above some other focus to best pursue effective change? How do class, race, gender, and power priorities and concepts intersect? What if marxism, anarchism, feminism, and nationalism are each correct and yet also each wrong? Is there  a way to think about social change able to combine the virtues of paying priority attention to gender, sexuality, race, culture, power, and class while jettisoning the debits that can accompany exclusive emphasis on fe...

Episode 320 of RevolutionZ addresses the next few months of Trumpian challenge. What can we do? Howmight we do it? Who is we? How does it all work?  This episode addresses reaching way beyond current support with what we call non reformist reform struggles.  How do we assess our own choices? What constitutes success? What brings more success? 

Episode 320 takes up these and related questions to provoke, inspire, and aid coming activism even against feelings of fear and weakness that many now suffer.  Our target is the most corrupt, callous, and crazy administration, to quote the lead deranged assh...

Episode 319 of RevolutionZ, inspired by the release of "A Complete Unknown," seeks to assist in one wish for the film -- to introduce new audience to Dylan's work. It isn't mandatory to study history in order to enjoy today's tunes, but to do so with Dylan opens us to much edification and enrichment. I let the movie select many of the songs to present, but not all. From hundreds Dylan has done, I of course had to settle for less than the whole. So here is a sliver of Dylan, sadly without his vocals and his music, yet nonetheless...

Episode 318 of RevolutionZ has Jeremy Brecher as guest to discuss his recent exemplary pamphlet which explores strategies for winning against MAGA. The episode discusses Trumpian aims and both electoral and non-electoral forms of our own activism, emphasizing the power of strikes, public pressure, and unified resistance. Brecher describes  successful initiatives like North Carolina's Forward Together and the Poor People's Campaign to show how grassroots movements can bring about significant social transformation. He provides insights into local actions inspired by the Green New Deal, and emphasies the importance of community-driven efforts to foster sustainable justice. We also consider Trump's political c...

Episode 317 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Richard Solomon a grad student activist and organizer. We discuss the mindset, circumstances, and challenges faced by campus activism particularly about Palestine but more broadly as well including differences now as compared to years earlier. We consider the exemplary activist-generated "MIT Science for Genocide" report, the extensive carefully planned administrative repression against student dissent, insights on building coalitions for activism, insights on dealing dealing with widespread apathy, the importance of multi issue organizing, and the importance, of outreach and building face to face friendship and trust. 

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Episode 316 of RevoluitonZ begins with a short letter to a friend and the friend's response. The episode considers views about becoming active, online activity, today's situation's pluses and minuses and our options, and Trump's voters. Should I and you be despondent, step aside, and wait. Slow and steady patience will win the race. Or should I and you be militant, dive right in, and battle full bore? The early days will set the stage for later days. And what about Trump voters? A case for each side exists. I believe one is right and one is wrong. But which...

Episode 314 of RevolutionZ convey's an interview done before a large audience at MIT addressing the 1960s and now. What follows is a somewhat edited version of what an AI offered as a summary. 

From an unsuspecting student to a committed activist here are stories of how personal experiences and institutional dynamics paved the way for a lifetime of advocacy. From a fraternity with secrets as unsettling as bugging rooms and tapping phone calls to manipulate incoming Freshmen, to harboring fugitives and planning events and riots, plus anecdotes of intense meetings and strategic career offers, how do we d...

Episode 315 of RevolutionZ presents a detailed, wide-ranging assessment of recent changes and coming prospects in Syria as well as beyond, including Russia, Turkey, the United States, and Israel. Joseph Dahar critically challenges the anti-imperialist perspective that too often oversimplifies regional dynamics. Can a coalition of Syrians break free from Assad, fundamentalism, and external domination to create a democratic society? Finally, I draw some unexpected lessons for the United States.

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Episode 313 of RevolutionZ continues to focus on resisting Trump and going beyond him to build better. It briefly shares feelings and fears that dog me and likely you too. It lays out three paths toward removing Trump. It offers a hypothesis about the potential impact of the first months of Trump's second administration. And it moves from the facts and the hypothesis it offers to a proposal about what we might do now. Along the way it also offers a way of thinking about Trump's voters that avoids writing them off, and a way of collectively resisting and beating...

Episode 312 of RevolutionZ: I wanted to change topic but couldn't. Like it or not, Trump and Trumpism matter. They are our present and they must be stopped lest they become our future. We take up five compelling reasons to stand firm against Trump from preventing harm to fostering hope and community. To not give up. To not back down. To not stick to old ways. To find new ways. We address the logic and the dangers posed by Trump's appointees. We highlight the need to raise social costs for Trump and his elite supporters, not to change their minds...

Episode 311 of RevolutionZ is not an election post-mortem. It is not about what went wrong. It is about what Trump is likely to do and what we can do to prevent his success. The episode takes up border policies, deportations, gender and reproductive rights, homelessness, healthcare, labor, ecology, repression, schools, media, military, and international relations--and a lot more. In each case, the episode considers what Trump is likely to pursue and what kinds of resistance can block his efforts. Succinct summaries are meant to assist and fuel thinking about  actions to undertake in the coming months. Put bluntly, the o...

Episode 310 of RevolutionZ asks what  drove millions of Americans to rally behind a figure as vile as Donald Trump? What attracted and held them despite so much that ought to have repulsed them? What can now stop Trump from implementing full-on fascist outcomes? Wtih Immigration policy as an example, how might activism subvert Trump's plans? And is there a way to simultaneously effectively communicate with the over half the voting electorate that supported Trump without compromising values and denying reality?

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Ep 309 of RevolutionZ offers insights from an essay by over a hundred Palestinian, Arab American, Muslim, and progressive leaders in Arizona, takes a historical detour into the emergence of Nazism in Germany and its then U.S. echoes, considers the meaning of the label shill for the Democratic Party, considers Trump's voters, and post election communications.

This is my last pre-election episode. Hopefully my next one, recorded once the tallies are tallied, will offer some comments on what happened and, dare I say it, on what (I think) is to be done.

So what am...

Episode 308 of RevolutionZ has as guest Norman Solomon to talk about election 2024. Does who is in the White House matter in general, and in this election? Is there contradiction or synergy between personal conscience and the broader ethical responsibilities of electoral decisions? Is voting for Harris in swing states not only how to beat Trump but also how to advance progressive post-election prospects in coming months and years and thus compatible with conscience for organizers--or is the better choice third party voting or abstention? What are the diverse motivations and thoughts of Trump supporters? How might organizers relate effectively w...

Episode 307 of RevolutionZ has Bill Fletcher Jr. applying lessons from his extensive labor and general activist organizing to discuss the real origins of Trumpism, conflicting approaches to the coming election, diverse broader strategies for change, how to address critics and who to not address at all, and much more. The exchange is passionate and also pointed at times. It emphasizes what is at stake in our current world and what people might most usefully do to make serious progress in these difficult times. 

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Episode 306 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Peter Bohmer to discuss Israeli and U.S. motives in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and more widely as well. It addresses past history and the present prospects, and particularly the global outrage genocidal policies have  provoked and calls for meaningful actions to effect real change via an arms embargo. The discussion carries into questions about the coming election, both party's strategies, and diverse voter sentiments. The episode is a call to remain engaged and offers a cautious optimism for the future while urging listeners to navigate the current political landscape thoughtfully. Duration: 01:13:20

Episode 305 continues, reacts to, and adds to episode 304 to again address the MIdeast and Israeli and U.S. motivations, the U.S. election and Democratic and Republican Party motivations, plus popular reactions to all that, and also rampant escalating ubiquitous dishonesty plus AI's dangers and finally a personal AI experience in podcast creation's larger implications.  Why again with confusions? Partly because these matters are incredibly important. Partly because I suspect I am not alone in feeling as I do. And partly because the confusions that I discussed last time left some listeners confused about why I am confused, so I...

Episode 304 of RevolutionZ is a bit unusual. Most of it poses more questions than answers. It moans "I don't get that," more than it proclaims "here is what is right about that." And what "thats' does it take up. Israeli and U.S. war making. Ecological suicide. Empathetic caring individuals supporting or turning a blind eye to genocide. The pervasive nature of deceit in our society from the normalization of "clickbait" culture in digital media to collective tolerance for and involvement in deception in daily life. Voting Green in contested states, or abstaining altogether, or supporting Trump. But then th...

Episode 303 of RevolutionZ again addresses the complex web of issues, and contending responses that have arisen regarding this coming presidential election in the U.S. How do we understand emerging views of various constituencies? What priorities in dealing with voting and organizing options until November and then after November make most sense or even any sense at all for those seeking a better society and world? 

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Episode 302 of RevolutionZ is titled The Olympics Paris and Beyond. Together, we uncover the complexities of the Olympics including the make-up and power of International Olympic Committee (IOC), who gets the billions generated through broadcasting rights and corporate partnerships, how cities are selected and the often rather horrible effects on them, and much more. We expand our focus to the situation of athletes more broadly, the dynamics of sports and competition per se, and finally on what is underway and possible to alter relations and outcomes for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and for sports more widely. The Olympics becomes...

Ep 301 NAR 16 is the last episode in the Next American Revolution sequence. In it Senator and then President Malcolm King, Governor and then Vice President Celia Curie, Lydia Luxemburg, and Bert Dellinger discuss the benefits and debits of electoral participation and the purpose and features of RPS's 2048 campaigns and their major victory in 2048 ushering in the birth of RPS transition. 

This one time, below is what the AI associated with the platform I upload podcast episodes to, Buzzsprout, offered as its summary of the episode, spit forth upon its listening to the material. I employ it so y...

Ep 300 of RevolutiopnZ is the fifteenth in the Next American Revolution Sequence. This time Bert Dellinger, Emiliano Feynman, Leslie Zinn, Barbara Bethune, Robin Kunstler, Anton Rocker, and Harriett Lennon  discuss social media, mass and alternative media, health, clinics, and hospitals, courts and police, education, workplace makeovers, and allocation innovations as instances of planting seeds for the RPS future in the present. I again interject comments every so often. 

Have you ever heard anyone ask, "yes, things are horrible, but what can we do about it?" Here is what RPS organizers did in their time to win gains an...

Ep 299 of RevolutionZ, the fourteenth in the Next American Revolution sequence has Andre Goldman, Reverend Stephen Du Bois, Bert Dillinger, and Lydia Luxembourg discuss RPS economic, ecological, and internationalist vision as well as internal and external criticisms of the emerging views and means of resolving such differences. They make a case for fundamental changes, discuss how the views of what to seek arose, how they were presented and received, and their importance for practical endeavors. The question hanging over it all is do their future lessons bear on our current realities?

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Ep 298 of RevolutionZ, welcomes Max Elbaum to discuss prospects and priorities following  Biden's  withdrawa, in light of Harris's momentum, with Trump's authoritarianism, and  continued genocidal Israeli policies. What's with U.S. foreign policy? How can we Stop Trump, address MAGA's rise, win a cease fire, and then continue forward? But, as well, how can we address ideological intolerance and class prejudice even inside the left? With cautious optimism for peaceful protests in Chicago, how do we enhance peace and social prospects until November and then beyond?

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Episode 287 of RevolutionZ has various interviewees describe to Miguel Guevara their debates and ensuing resolutions that arrived at RPS shared vision even as they also steadfastly rejected sectarianism and rigid dogma. From Feyerabend's anything goes, to Chomsky's values are essential and enough, to RPS's we also need core institutional goals, to developing the latter for polity, kinship, and community, in this episode Guevara interrogates more of the Next American Revolution's experiences and lessons. Hear what these future revolutionaries thought and felt, what they did and what they chose to not do. Is their story plausible or fanciful? Could we...

EP 296 of RevolutionZ and episode twelve of the Oral History of the Next American Revolution sequence reports on RPS's Second Convention's ups and downs and  the origin and implementation of a shadow government. Interviewees report how the national convention and subsequent shadow government were planned, assembled, and carried out. The interviewees take you fromorganizing's ethical dilemmas to the psychological and social impacts of activist choices, to the dynamics of new institution startup efforts within a corrupt, oppressive, society. Listen (and/or you can read on ZNet as well if you like) and then you can judge for yourself: Do M...

Ep 295 NAR #11 has future revolutionaries Robin Kuntsler, Celia Curie, Ali Carmichael, Lydia Luxemburg, Andre Goldman, Peter Cabral, and Alexandria Voline answer Miguel Guevara's questions about RPS differences over tactics/strategy in RPS development and activism. From prison strikes to shadow government, from workers striking in Cleveland to students rising in Boston,  how does leadership avoid the pitfalls of elitism, how does urgency inform but not swamp patience, how did RPS navigate desires for reform and for revolution, and address inclinations to fight violence with violence as against needs for non violence? NAR #11 continues the oral history of how tomorrow's r...

Ep 294 of RevolutionZ has for a return engagement as guest Evan Henshaw Plath, popularly known as Rabble. We talk about AI and society, first describing where we are now and how we got here, and then likely impacts on various sectors, from software development to music, and video generation. What is the role of training data? How intelligent can AI get? Will it attain AGI? Is there an existential threat? What are the more immediate social and ethical risks and rewards? What are AI researchers like? As a community, do they have cultural connections or even share a quasi...

Ep 293 of RevolutionZ is the tenth in the Oral History of the Next Next American Revolution Sequence. Miguel Guevara first interviews Alexandra Voline, Bill Hampton, and Lydia Luxemburg about  combating misogyny and gender hierarchies including feminist strategies for democratizing nurturing responsibilities achieving gender-neutral parenting. Then Cynthia Parks and Peter Cabral discuss with Miguel RPS's strategies to address racism and other cultural community hierarchies including how RPS schools for organizers foster an environment of trust and positive energy and various campaigns around community control of police. Finally Emiliano Feynman and Anton Rocker discuss class issues including recounting  experiences of the gr...

EP 292 of RevolutionZ Professions React, Part Two, continues the Next American Revolution Sequence with the host Michael Albert conveying the words of various oral history interviewees' accounts of religious renovations, legal upheavals, and media makeovers that they helped undertake in the early years of the emerging Revolutionary Participatory Society. The interviewees, channeled by Albert, discuss with Miguel Guevara their getting started, their movement methods, confusions, controversies, goals, failures and successes.  Reverend Stephen Du Bois first takes us from his early years as a seminary student though his encounters with religious fundamentalism, to significant milestones victories in church renovation by w...

Ep 291 of RevolutionZ discusses RPS organizing in the areas of film and sport. Celia Curie and Peter Cabral respond to Miguel Guevara as they move their focuses from rape to revolution with an oscar and governorship in between and from baseball to, again, revolution, with diverse organizing projects in between. How does support by participants in these fields develop? What resistance to becoming active arise? How are they addressed and overcome? What changes in people and in relations emerge? This episode delves into the dynamics of these two areas of life and their transformation during the development of the...

In Episode 290 of RevolutionZ, the seventh in the Oral History of the Next American Revolution Sequence, Lydia Luxemburg and Bert Dellinger discuss ideas, values, self management, diversity, flexibility, and various institutional practices of Revolutionary Participatory Society including their own very personal. reactions and experiences ranging from Lydia's 1960s to Bert 2000s and into RPS's early years years. They answer Miguel Guevara who asks how various revolutionary ideas attracted them to participate in RPS and then how those ideas impacted RPS's emergence and trajectory. They are big topics of important times and perhaps they convey useful possibilities for our own...

Episode 289 of RevolutionZ is the sixth episode in the Oral History of the Next American Revolution Sequence. In it Barbara Bethune, Emiliano Feynman, Bill Hampton, Cynthia Parks, Harriet Lennon, and Anton Rocker discuss the initial emergence and pursuit of various strands of RPS activism including health, transport, housing, rights to the city, minimum wage, and workplace focuses. In each realm participants discuss the oppressions addressed but more so the strategies and the emotional problems encountered and steps taken to keep moving forward. 

As you can probably tell from the unexpected length -- it took me by surprise t...

Episode 288 of RevolutionZ is the Fifth in our Next American Revolution Sequence that presents an Oral History of, well, a future revolution as recounted by its participants. Another long episode, it focuses on building RPS chapters and the personal, interpersonal, and programmatic issues that arose after the convention. The discussion emphasizes the importance of avoiding insularity by continually reaching out and  describes strategic efforts made to include influential campus figures able to broaden outreach as Bill Hampton, Cynthia Parks, and Andre Goldman discuss immediately post convention vision, structure, and program, and particularly how they went about creating local chapters. 

Episode 287 of RevolutionZ is the fourth presenting An Oral History of the Next American Revolution. How did informed hope plus strategic activism merge into a new organization, Revolutionary Participatory Society, and inform its first convention? 

Here is what an AI spit out as its proposed summary of this episode: "Join us on this compelling episode of Revolution Z, where we dissect the elements necessary for sustainable activism through the lenses of pivotal characters like Andre Goldman, Bill Hampton, Senator Malcolm King, and Cynthia Parks. By reflecting on the fleeting revolutionary fervor of Paris 1968 and comparing it to t...

Episode 285 of RevolutionZ, the third in the Next American Revolution sequence, has future revolutionaries Senator Malcolm King and Andre Goldman discuss with Miguel Guevara their experience of their world's 2016 electoral campaign and followup. They address Sanders' incredible impact, Clinton's and the Democrat's machinations, the moral, personal, and practical dilemmas of strategic voting, the multifaceted appeal and impact of Trump, the complexities of third-party politics, and more. They reveal some of the precursor thoughts that helped lead to the emergence, growth, and success of Revolutionary Participatory Society or RPS. RevolutionZ host, Michael Albert, channels the interviews by Guevara for your...

Ep 286 of RevolutionZ has Evan Henshaw Plath, also known as Rabble, a visionary technologist with personal roots in developing Indymedia and even Twitter. He replays the history, logic, and implications of social media from its root democratic and participatory  intentions to its corporatization and erosion of privacy and meaningful engagement. Plath takes us, as I suspect few if any others could, from the shift from social media's early, open protocols to the centralized corporations like Twitter and Facebook that came to dominate. He then explains his ongoing quest to reclaim the decentralized spirit of the web including working on mo...

Episode 284 of RevolutionZ  presents chapter two (of fourteen) of An Oral History of the Next American Revolution. It relates personal precursors of revolutionary participatory society through the life experiences of  interviewees Alexandra Voline, Andre Goldman, and Senator Malcolm King who  discuss with their interviewer,  Miguel Guevara, all from their own world their personal trajectories into activism including the first major march, the early gun and militarism boycotts, overcoming early resistance and doubt,  achieving early momentum, and much much more on the road to forming and working toward Revolutionary Participatory Society in the U.S. And yes, that is a whole...

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 including questions, criticisms, elaborations, and clarifications that I deliver on my first hearing the material. This week has a...

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. 

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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.

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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 conflict from overshadowing  policy discourse, or vice vers?. Reform or revolution--or both? Biden or Never Biden--or both? 

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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 colleges, education, and society too? Will it transform campus power relations? Plus a recent article from ZNet tha...

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 address people with such horrifyingly harmful views? That is our topic this time.

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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. 

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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.

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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?

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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? 

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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 really on all organizing for a better world. 

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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?

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