Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

On November 30th, 1999, a huge movement spanning labor, environment, human rights, fair trade and more literally shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle. It was milestone in the growing anti-corporate globalization movement and broke apart the inevitability of corporate neo-liberalism. In a new series of episodes, we're looking at the 25th anniversary of the "Battle in Seattle" talking w...

Green & Red Podcast is introducing a new series . . . The Battle of Seattle at 25! On November 30th 1999, protestors shut down the WTO meeting in Seattle and put the world on notice that the forces of globalization--the international ruling class of bankers, industrialists, politicians and others--would be met with force as they reshaped the world economy and caused more precarity and hardship...

On November 30th, 1999, a huge movement spanning labor, environment, human rights, fair trade and more literally shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle. It was milestone in the growing anti-corporate globalization movement and challenged the inevitability of neo-liberalism. In a new series of episodes, we're looking at the 25th anniversary of the "Battle in Seattle" talking with a numbe...

In our latest, Bob talks with Payday Report founder and senior labor reporter Mike Elk about the recent indictment of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. In addition to being a crack labor reporter, Mike Elk has spent a good deal of time in Brazil over the past couple years and we’ve had several conversations about Lula’s victory in 2022 and the role of Brazilian authorities to go after Jai...

61 years ago this weekend, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. There's a school of conspiracy that says he was killed because he was a secret peacenik trying to end the Cold War and the war in Vietnam. We disagree. JFK was a Cold War hawk through and through. Historic episodes like the Cuban Missle Crisis tell us the true story. -------------------------------- From the original episod...

The United Nations Climate talks, also know as COP29, is wrapping in Baku Azerbaijan this week. In a disturbing trend over the past few years, the largest delegation at COP29 is the fossil fuel lobbyist delegation. At the same time the UN continues to have the talks in petrostates like Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates (COP28 in 2023) and limit civil society ability to message and take actio...

The 2024 election was referred to many as the "gender election." We saw breathless stories by the media about Gen Z men, black men, Latino men and others trending towards Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris. Trump's strategy of messaging to men proved effective and he won the election. This also runs parallel to a crisis among men (particularly working class men) around stagnant wages, health...

The genocide in Palestine continues, as does a widening of war in the Middle East in Lebanon, Iran, Syria and other places. Establishment media has been responsible for inciting genocide and war through "atrocity propaganda." They've also been responsible for attacks on critics of U.S. and Israel policies related to the genocide. In our latest, we talk with return guest Greg Shupak (@GregShupak) a...

In a premortem from 2022, that is now a postmortem after yesterday's election, we are reposting our interview with Noam Chomsky from 2022 on the rightward shift of the Democrats. A very interview for Nov. 6, 2024. --------------------------- From the 2022 episode: Republicans go to war . . . Democrats go to brunch! The past 50 years have seen a dramatic shift to the far-right in American politics....

The election is almost over! Trump is a bad guy and going to do bad things. Harris has supported a genocide and refuses to have even a small bit of daylight between her and Biden on the issue. We give you our election eve thoughts from this being the "billionaire election" to the right wing movement of Democrats for the past 50 years to how, as always, our best hope lies with organizing and direct...

"Poverty is a carcinogen"--Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, a longtime emergency room physician and med school professor, talked with us about his essential book *Inequality is Killing Us All." Bezruchka goes into depth on the way that economic inequality determines our access to healthcare. The U.S. spends more money on healthcare than any other country, but our outcomes, and especially our life spans, are...

We had a fantastic interview w/ Dennis Bernstein, host of KPFA's "Flashpoints" and longtime journalist on the Left who's inspired and helped so many of us. Dennis talked about his start on radio, including fascinating recollections of his role in covering the U.S. war on Central America and the Contra-CIA-Cocaine scandal in the 80s. We talked about his role in Left media, and how he's been at the...

In this episode, Jasmine Araujo of Southern Solidarity joins us to discuss Mutual Aid in a  Pandemic, in New Orleans.  She and her crew have set up shop and they  feed 200 people a day, give them blankets, arrange for medical care, and  help when they get harassed by cops or passers-by.  She discusses the  origins of Southern Solidarity, their daily routine, and the way  COVID-19 has affected the...

To celebrate the World Series we got together with our frequent-collaborator and great friend Clayton Lust (@claytonlust) to discuss the business of baseball, an appropriate topic since the two most valuable and wealthy franchises, the Yankees and Dodgers, are fighting it out. We discussed the ways in which baseball is a great way to learn about capitalism--the value of franchises, the wealth of o...

In our latest, we dive into the story of Vietnamese immigration to the U.S. following the war through the lens of food with our long time friend and colleague Prof Roy Vũ. We discuss Vietnamese-American food gardens and cooking, how they affected the community in places like Houston and the Gulf Coast and the multiracial community developed in places like the Houston’s Allen Parkway Village. We al...

In the third installment of our Arts and Culture series, we talked about the life and politics of the late music legend Kris Kristofferson. We discussed his early life, his military service, his trajectory into the Nashville song writing scene, his music, his acting career and, of course, his politics. From his anti-war views on the American empire to his support of Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Pel...

In our second installment in our new "Green & Red Arts and Culture Series" we talked about the book and movie *The Milagro Beanfield War." While is a heartwarming story of a regular guy taking on the system, there are significant political messages there too. The people of Milagro, New Mexico had to deal with outside "developers" coming in to their community take control of politics, the land,...

Green and Red is starting a new series that talks about how art and culture develop and raise political consciousness. We'll be putting out episodes that talk about the politics of our favorite TV series, film, books, music and whatever else we come up. In our first episode of this new feature, we talk about the award winning television series "Mad Men." We talk about the anti-hero Don Draper and...

To commemorate the first-year anniversary of Israel's onslaught against Gaza (and now Lebanon and Iran) we talked w/ scholar Fadi Kafeety, who provided us with a great overview of the politics of Gaza, the historical background of Hamas, the losses inflicted on the people of Palestine, the underreported story of Israel's losses, and the new expansion into Lebanon and Iran. Bio// Fadi Kafeety is a...

CAT 4 Hurricane Helene hit the southeast U.S. causing billions in destruction and at least 230 deaths. Western North Carolina was hit particularly hard, despite being called a "haven" from climate disaster. Mutual aid groups across the region sprung into action to provide immediate aid and relief. In our latest, Scott talks with Matt, an organizer working with Rural Organizing and Resilience (ROAR...

Over the past week, Israel has begun a major escalation against Hezbollah in Lebanon with the "pager attack" on the Lebanese population, assassinations of senior Hezbollah leadership and airstrikes in southern Lebanon that has killed at least 500 people and led to thousands to flee their homes. Israel has called this strategy "De-escalation through escalation," and done it with...

Richard Slotkin has written some of the more important books explaining the way Americans have created myths to justify slavery, repression, and empire, including "Regeneration Through Violence," "The Fatal Environment," and "Gunfighter Nation." His new book, "A Great Disorder," summarizes his previous ideas and take us to the present, with significant analy...

In 2004, organizer and arts organizer David Solnit published the anthology "Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World." In the introduction he said, “the new radicalism looks different everywhere,” and cited the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, as a pivotal moment in his understanding of the new radicalism. “The Zapatistas held that there are multiple...

In our latest episode, returning to a theme we discussed frequently in 2020-2021 we talked about the various ruling class forces opposed to Donald Trump's candidacy. America is a right-wing country with no mass organized left resistance, so finding and exploiting fissures in the ruling class is a useful tactic. We discussed the way both candidates, Trump and Harris, take reactionary positions...

Last night's debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris brought up many issues of war in the Middle East and Palestine on the eve of the anniversary of September 11th. We've got much new content headed your war discussing to ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the role of war in U.S. history and elite support for both parties But in the meantime, here's an encore of our 2020 episod...