Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

In our latest, we talk with return guest Dr. Stephen Bezruchka about how structural inequality and economic policies that favor the ultra rich are causing a health crisis in America. Bio//Stephen Bezruchka is Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington. He's the author of "Inequality Kills Us All: COVID-19...

Rev. Jesse Jackson passed away today at the age of 84. A civil rights giant and candidate in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, he had a vision that kept hope alive and included economic justice and international solidarity. In our latest, we talk about the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson. -------------------------- 🎸 Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody 🔗 Links🌐 Jesse Jackso...

In our latest, we talk again with the great Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored (@projectcensored) and professor of journalism at Ithaca College. We talk about Project Censored on its 50th anniversary, the current state of the free press, the Washington Post's layoffs, CBS hostile takeover by Ellisons and Bari Weiss and more. Bio// Mickey Huff is the third director of Project Censored (f...

Bob and Scott celebrate President's Day by discussing the recent history of the presidency and look at how neoliberals Clinton, Bush and Obama paved theway for the rise of Trump and MAGA. We also talk about Nixon’s “Imperial Presidency” and how, these days, a “third rate burglary” wouldn’t be a blip on the radar. Furthermore, we define neoliberalism and explain the difference between Trump and neo...

ICE's surge into Minneapolis-St. Paul continues. After the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, labor and community groups mobilized against the federal intervention. In our latest, we talk with labor reporter Amie Stager about what's happening on the ground in Minnesapolis-St. Paul. We discuss the labor led general strike on Jan. 23 and the student led strike on Jan. 30. We also dis...

In our latest, we talk with legendary filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist John Sayles. We start with a discussion about his new novel "Crucible." But also talk about labor, class consciousness, portraying the organizer as a hero, the border and the American empire in his, and other, films and novels. Bio// John Sayles is an Oscar nominated American independent film director, screenwriter, editor,...

On January 23, 2026, we saw the first general strike in 80 years in Minnesota after the murder of Renee Good by ICE (one day before their murder of Veteran’s Administration ICU nurse and union member Alex Pretti). Organizing, direct action and strikes are increasing in recent years and have the potential to lead to a larger general strike. They also have a long rich history in the US. In our lates...

Demonized by Republicans and Democrats alike, a myth emerged around “antifa” during Donald Trump’s first term. But few understand the dangerous work antifa does to disrupt and unmask the latest crop of white supremacists or listened when antifa sounded the alarm about these white supremacists taking positions of power. But, this underground network of militant anti-fascists is determined to stop t...

February 1st is the 66th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins where four African-American student sat in at a Woolworth's, suffering abuse from white racist patrons and eventually jail. Those actions launched the student sit-in movement to end segregation and led to over 70,000 people participating, including civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Bayard Rustin and many oth...

The past month has seen the new Syrian government in Damascus move politically and military against the autonomous state of Rojava. In our latest, Scott talks with writer and organizer Arthur Pye with the Emergency Committee for Rojava about the situation on the ground in Syria. Bio//Arthur Pye (@thearthurpye) is a writer, organizer, and popular educator based in the Pacific Northwest. He previous...

Mexico is at the crossroads of an elite culinary destination and extreme social and economic injustice. The corporate takeover of Mexico's food sector has polarized the nation's diets and food systems. In our latest, we talk with Prof. Enrique Ochoa (@EC8A82) about his latest book, "Mexico Between Feast and Famine," and how food in Mexico encapsulates the contradictions and social inequity happeni...

It's MLK Day weekend. We discuss the radical legacy of King. His opposition to the Vietnam war, the Poor Peoples' Campaign, his campaign to boycott the 1968 Olympics and his socialist politics. We then discuss his influence in the resistance to state violence that we're seeing today in the streets of Minneapolis and other places. We're in a critical point where great forces are try...

Today was Martin Luther King's actual birthday, so we're posting an encore of our 2021 episode remembering Martin Luther King Jr.: Radical, Democratic Socialist and Opponent of State Violence. In this MLK day episode, we talk about the radical politics of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We discuss King's democratic socialist beliefs, his stance against the war in Vietnam, the campaigns he w...

President Trump's saber rattling on Greenland has escalated with threats of military invasion, annexation or purchase of the world's largest island. Today, Trump said that the U.S. would take Greenland, "whether they like it or not." This week, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller threatened, “The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There is no need...

Trump attacks Venezuela and kidnaps President Nicholas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and declares that U.S. will be "running" Venezuela. And as we know, it's all about the oil, not drugs or democracy. In our latest we talk with Rodrigo Acuña about the situation on the ground and how Venezuelans are reacting to the attack. Bio// Dr. Rodrigo Acuña (@rodrigoac7) works as an independent journalist...

It's the fifth anniversary of the Capitol Riot. As Trump part two has been in power for a year and he's begun a new era of American empire, we're re-posting our take on this defining moment in American history. From the 2021 episode: And we thought 2020 was bumpy. In this rush episode, we talk about the shocks happening in the liberal democratic capitalist system. How the ruling class...

Happy New Year! In our close out to this year, we talk about the best of Green and Red in 2025, those people that impacted us that we lost and the only real American beaut right now... resistance to Trump and the billionaire agenda. If you want to support scrappy independent media at the Green and Red Podcast, please donate to us at https://bit.ly/DonateGandR --------------------- 🎸 Outro- "...

Over the past twenty years, one state after another has shuttered its youth prisons and stopped trying youth as adults, slashing the number of children locked in cages by a stunning 75 percent. How did this remarkable change come about? In our latest, we talk with journalist and author Nell Bernstein about youth prisons, policing and how this remarkable change happened. Bio//Nell Bernstein is an a...

The 1970s was the decade that changed the television landscape forever dealing with issues of race, gender, sexuality to the war in Vietnam. No show broke the barriers of turning entertainment into social commentary more than "All in the Family." The late actor-director Rob Reiner played a critical role in the series as Mike "Meathead" Stivic, the liberal foil to main character...

In a wide-ranging discussion w/ the eminent historian of Latin America Aviva Chomsky we laid out the motives and purposes of Trump's aggression against the region currently ongoing. We began w/ Venezuela, and discussed the history of U.S. subversion there and Trump's current obsession with its oil. We also talked about Cuba, which is another, if not bigger, goal of the current administrati...

While, maybe, in murky legal waters, Attorney General Pam Bondi is building out the infrastructure for greater spying, policing and prosecution of social movements, and anyone else deemed an enemy of the state. It instructs agents, analysts, and grant makers what to do next and with whom, and those orders will hit real people and organizations almost immediately. In our latest, Scott talks with re...

Chevron has been awarded $220 Million in the Ecuadoran Amazon pollution case. The award comes from the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, part of Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. From 1964-1992, Texaco polluted thousands of acres of Amazonian rainforest and poisoned its residents. In 1993, those residents took Texaco to court. In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco and took its...

Beginning in 2021, when Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X) censored posts by Palestinians protesting their expulsion from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah to today's genocide in Gaza, Big Tech has advanced an imperialist agenda and betrayed its own alleged commitment to free speech and democratic values. Through alliances with the Israeli government and Zionist activists,...

Eugene Hasenfus died this week. He had been part of a covert operation to supply weapons to the anti-Sandinista group known as the "contras." As part of this activity, he was in an airplane shot down over Nicaragua while doing an arms delivery. His capture exposed a massive scheme by the U.S. government to sell arms to Iran in exchange for freeing U.S. hostages taken by pro-Iranian milit...

This week is the anniversary of two events which define the State in the U.S., both in the past and today. In 1969, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chicago Police Dept. assassinated Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and his associate Mark Clark while they slept in Hampton's home. Hampton had been an up and coming, inspiring, leader in the Chicago community and worked to build coa...