Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

Donald Trump recently reverted the name of the Dept. of Defense to Dept. of War. He, and his cronies, claim that the Dept of Defense is too woke and needs to return to a "warrior culture." Never one to be confused with a genius, Trump misses the history of why the Department of Defense came into being in 1947 and how it was a blueprint for America being a military, economic and political super pow...

In 1989, and again 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled flag burning a First Amendment protected action. In 2025, Trump has issued an executive order banning flag burning. Trump's executive order mean absolutely nothing. But, it is part of his administration's greater plan to roll back civil liberties in the U.S. In our latest, we talk with legendary civil rights attorney Ron Kuby, who advoc...

Encore of our 2023 Labor Day episode. Green & Red celebrates (American) Labor Day . . . we talk a little about the history of the day, the co-optation strategy behind it, and current conditions for labor and unions in the U.S. Labor in the U.S. has momentum, and the organizing efforts and strikes are ramping up. ------------------------------------------------------Outro- "The Preacher an...

20 years ago this week Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. On August 29th, the levees broke and created a humanitarian crisis rarely seen before, seen too often now. Over 1800 people died and over a million evacuated with hundreds of thousands being permanently displaced in the aftermath. In the neighborhood of Algiers, a group of anarchists and radicals started the Common Ground Re...

Contrary to what happens in many other parts of the world and within Trump’s GOP, the Democratic Party leadership shuns street protests. In fact, discouraging street politics is part of the it’s strategy of punching left. In the latest G&R, we talk about street protests, the corporate Democrats and how political parties and figures have used protest to their advantage in other parts of the wor...

Since 2008, and even more since 2018 and 2023, private equity firms have been buying up real estate and rental properties across the U.S. No firm has preyed up on peoples' precarity more than private equity firm Blackstone. The fimr is the largest landlord in the United States by... a LOT. It owns 100,00 more rental units than its next closest competitor. In our latest, Scott talks with Jordan Ash...

We’re living in challenging times with an escalating climate disaster devastating communities from Texas and Louisiana to Richmond, CA. Few institutions are as responsible for these crisis as Wall Street and Big Insurance companies. We’re also living in a time where large numbers of people have taken to the streets to confront those responsible for these crises. Moderated by Green and Red co-host,...

This week as the negotiations for a Global Plastic Treaty fail in Geneva, Switzerland over a cap on plastic production, we look at the undue influence of the fossil fuel and plastic industries. False solutions to the climate crisis, and now the plastic pollution crisis, are part of an industry playbook to misinform the public and deflect from actual solutions. In the case of plastics, it's promoti...

Scott talks with organizer and comrade Patrick Young (@patrickjyoung.bsky.social) about the state of resistance eight months into the Trump Administration. They get into the act of disobedience that the Texas Democrats take to avoid federal redistricting. They also talk about the mass non-compliance trainings happening, how DC is preparing for a possible Trump takeover and the latest Gaza actions....

It's the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has the Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight, while Trump moves nuclear submarines closer to Russia in response to social media posts by Russian officials. Aerial photographs of the Gaza Strip look eerily similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago. It's a good...

Hulk Hogan died recently. He's been denounced by some, praised by others. On his impact on the sport, pro wrestling historian Brian Soloman remarked on his passing " Wrestling history is divided in two parts: Before Hulk Hogan, and after Hulk Hogan…He was larger than life, inspired millions of people, many of whom spent decades being gradually let down by him. ” But, also, some contend, h...

We had another fantastic interview w/ Professor Sophia McClennen (@mcclennen65) of Penn State who's the foremost authority and satire and politics. We had lively discussions of the firing of Stephen Colbert and the South Park episode showing Trump in bed with Satan, as well as the general role of comedy in taking on Trump. Trump is thin-skinned and has no ability to take a joke, so satirists and c...

In our latest, we talk to Texas based journalist Candice Bernd (@candicebernd.bsky.social) about the devastating floods that hit the Hill Country on July 4th weekend. We discuss the effect of the floods on locals, failures of early warning systems, how DOGE's cuts to the federal government contributed to it, and how mutual aid has stepped in to support the community. Bio// Candice Bernd is a speci...

In our latest, we start off with an important "This Day in History" and Bob talks about the 79th anniversary of the Irgun's attack on the King David Hotel in Palestine. Then we get into the increasing divisions in the MAGA coalition around Iran, Israel and the Epstein files. We also discuss how this plays into continuing divisions between Trump and the Wall Street elite. We close wit...

Bob had a great discussion w/ Mike Elk, founder and senior labor reporter of Payday Report and our Brazil correspondent, about Trump's tariffs on Brazil to retaliate against it for indicting Bolsonaro, and the decision to arrest him for his attempts to overthrow the election and assassinate Lula. They also discussed Lula's political prospects and Brazil's position on Palestine. And finally they br...

Green & Red co-host, professor of history emeritus, and scholar of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War, Bob Buzzanco recently spoke at the Jerusalem Fund/Palestine Center Lunchtime Lecture Series on the way the U.S. subverts liberation movements, with a comparative emphasis on Vietnam and Palestine. In this lecture, he discussed the origins of the Vietnamese and Palestinian revol...

Zohran Mamdani's big win in the NYC mayoral primary has shaken the political establishment in both parties, with the GOP predictably shrieking hysterically about "Socialism," Wall Street trying desperately to find an alternative candidate, and the Dems, as always, punching Left and showing their reluctance to endorse him. And that's our segue to another Green & Red rant about the Democrats and...

Billionaires are ravaging our democracy. One of the worst culprits is tech fascist billionaire Peter Theil. His company Palantir's technology allows ICE to identify, locate, and kidnap migrants en masse. Their spy-cop tools track activists and organizers. The IDF uses Palantir tech to commit genocide in Gaza. On Thursday, hundreds of activists disrupted and shut down Palantir's offices in New York...

Los Angeles is under attack by the Trump Administration. Every day we hear new stories about I.C.E. attacking, detaining and arresting citizens and non-citizens. But we're also seeing lots of stories of community resistance to the I.C.E. raids. In our latest, Bob and Scott talk with Enrique Ochoa about LA's long history of resistance and how different institutions (schools, LAPD, media, unions) ar...

It's the 75th anniversary of the Korean War. Looking at the politics and history of the "Forgotten War," we talk with journalist Tim Shorrock. We disucss the Open Door in Asia, the Japanese occupation of Korea, communist resistance to it, the rise of right wing South Korean forces, North Korea crossing the 38th parallel, the Cold War and more. Bio// Tim Shorrock is an American writer and commentat...

Greg LaMotta has a Ph. D. in Caribbean and Latin American history and is a longtime activist on behalf f Cuba and has visited the island numerous times over the past 40 years. Here we talked about his most recent trip, for May Day, and the current situation there, including food and power shortages and strains on the medical system. But despite this, the Cubans are adapting and continuing to fight...

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is a professor of history at York University, England and author of "Revolution and its Discontents" and is a recognized scholar of Iran . . . and today Bob had a great talk with him about the current attacks and threats of a larger war coming from Israel and the U.S. They discussed the possible reasons for the current crisis, the role of Iran's nuclear program and the...

In our latest, we talk with veteran and organizer with About Face: Veterans Against the War Zack Henson about Trump's military parade, the deployment of troops to Los Angeles and the cuts Trump, DOGE and Congress want to enact against the VA. Bio// Zack is a longtime member of About Face and co-chair of About Face's board. --------------------------------- Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody Lin...

Trump and his minions have inflamed the country with escalating deportation raids. In Los Angeles, the resistance has been fiercely fighting back and keeping ICE out of their communities. Trump has taken further steps by federalizing the California National Guard to protect federal buildings and aid in ICE operations. He’s also now deployed a battalion of U.S. marines. California’s political leade...

Ellen Schrecker is the preeminent historian of McCarthyism/The Red Scare in America and we had a really great conversation with her about the resurgence of political repression today . . . Professor Schrecker argues that what we're seeing right now under the Trump administration, especially the attack on Palestine advocates on campuses, is already worse than the early Cold War years. We discussed...