Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

H. Rap Brown once said " violence is as American as cherry pie. " We’ve seen an increase in rhetoric around violence in American politics particularly from the far right. We've seen many incidents of escalated violence that include the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021 and the recent assassination attempt of Donald Trump. In our latest, we dive into the question of political violence...

Green and Red has been on summer break while some of the biggest stories of the year happened. In our latest episode, in a wide ranging discussion on U.S. politics and current events, Bob and Scott return to discuss the scrappy summer news events. They start with Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the global anti-genocide movement, the ascendancy...

Two decades ago, a group of Indonesian agricultural workers in the Sumatran uplands began occupying the agribusiness plantation near their homes. In the years since, members of this remarkable movement have reclaimed collective control of their land and cultivated diverse agricultural forests on it, repairing the damage done over nearly a century of abuse. Scott talks with environmental anthropolo...

The Democratic National Convention is underway with lots of action inside and outside the convention hall. Scott talks with activist David Martinez to get a report on what's happening in the streets of Chicago. ----------------------- Outro- "Green and Red Blues" Follow Green and Red// +G&R Linktree: ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast⁠⁠⁠ +Our rad website: ⁠⁠⁠https://greenand...

Yesterday, at a side event at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, climate activists, including a DNC member from the California delegation, disrupted a swanky exclusive cocktail party sponsored by oil giant Exxon. The event featured Texas Democrat Lizzie Fletcher. Scott talks with the Political Director of Oil Change Collin Rees (@collinrees) about the action, how Exxon is one of...

The Democratic National Convention is this week in Chicago. Lots of action inside and outside the convention hall. Bob and Scott discuss the 1968 Democratic National Convention (and 1968 in a bigger context) and discuss the politics of today's convention as the Biden-Harris administration continues to support Israel's genocide in Gaza. -------------------------- Outro- "Chicago"...

Continuing our look into Israel's wider wars in the Middle East, Bob talked with Professor Nate George (@nategeorge00) of the School of Oriental and African Studies about Netanyahu's current aggression against Lebanon. We discussed briefly the history of Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the current escalation of the conflict, including targeted killings of Hezbollah officials, Netanyahu's goal of expan...

Professor Eskandar Sadeghi (@eskandersadeghi) returns to Green & Red to discuss the latest developments in Israel's aggression toward Iran and its widening regional war. 
 We focused on the new government in Iran, but even more on the Israeli assassinations of Iranian officials and the main political officer of Hamas in Tehran. And we then discussed what this means going forward and the ways that...

The climate crisis has propelled nuclear energy back into fashion. Its proponents argue we already have the technology of the future and that it only needs perfection and deployment. The new book by M.V. Ramana, “Nuclear Is Not the Solution,” demonstrates why this sort of thinking is not only naïve but dangerous. In our latest episode, we talk about nuclear energy not being the solution to the cli...

In March, dozens of anti-genocide activists took action at the Boeing facility in Heath, OH. Five were arrested and are being prosecuted for their non-violent action. Boeing is the second largest weapons manufacturer in the world. They’ve been a top manufacturer of missiles and munitions delivered to Israel in its ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Boeing has also been in the news over its poo...

In a landmark case in Florida, a federal jury has ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay over $38 million in damages to the families of eight Colombian men who were killed by paramilitaries the banana giant funded. This is part of a long bloody history that goes beyond this one incident or Chiquita itself. In our latest episode, Scott talks with Colombian trade unionist Guillermo Andres Mosq...

Cop City still remains an ongoing struggle. After the 2023 assassination of forest defender Tortuguita by the Georgia police, environmental and social justice organizers began to campaign hard on the issue. The state responded with a harsh backlash that has resulted in a multitude of charges that includes domestic terrorism and at least 61 people being included on a criminal RICO case. In our late...

A cherished coastal preserve is under attack by the campus administration that was appointed last year by Governor DeSantis in the right-wing takeover underway at New College of Florida. The new administration wants to tear down this small tree preserve, home to Osprey and other wildlife, supposedly for a sports facility. Local resistance has been building to resist the "development" pro...

Within the past four decades, we’ve seen the rise of neo-liberalism, or so-called "Free Trade," free trade agreements and various other treaties and agreements that reduce and eliminate barriers and regulation for capital to invest in different nation states. While there has been some resistance, capital and investments march on. Corporations and investors have created tools such as "international...

With the recent news about Noam Chomsky's condition and absence from public life, and the outpouring of respect and admiration from so many people who have learned so much from him (along with the typical haters), we got together to discuss what he's mean and what he's contributed to us on the Left. We discussed his contributions in the fields of linguistics and knowledge, and media an...

Israel's slaughters in Palestine may be horrific and well-covered, but there's more going on in the region than that! Israel has also been acting aggressively throughout the region--especially in Lebanon and Iran. Here Bob talked with two great professors who study the region, Nate George of SOAS and Eskandar Sadeghi of the University of York, about Israel's wider wars against other st...

In Tucson, Arizona, Cold War era war profiteer Hughes Aircraft polluted an aquifer with chemical waste from a manufacturing facility that poisoned the largely Mexican-American community and desert ecosystem living above. The community responded with one of the first environmental justice campaigns in the United States. In our latest, we talk with Professor Sunaura Taylor about her new book “Disabl...

Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir is a radical performance community based in New York City. They have led campaigns against Starbucks and Disney over the companies' gentrification of New York City, against Wall Street banks such as JPMorgan Chase over its funding of oil, gas and coal, and many street actions against politicians and other corporate actors. They merge theater, music, s...

Memorial Day was created to pay respect to soldiers who died in the war, but it quickly took on another purpose--to promote "patriotism" and American militarism and foreign interventions. Here we debunk the myths of "democracy" and "Humanitarian intervention" that are so prevalent in the political class and media. We offer an abridged history of American's foreign policy doctrines from the outset...

On May 24, 1990, a car bomb ripped through environmental and labor organizer Judi Bari's car nearly killing her and her comrade Darryl Cherney. Bari and Cherney were part of Earth First's Headwaters campaign and had fought long and hard to stop clear-cutting redwood forests in Northern California by ravenous timber companies. They were organizing a campaign that summer called "Redwood...

In our weekly discussion of labor and unions, Mike Elk of Payday Report and Bob Buzzanco of Green & Red Podcast discussed the upcoming UAW vote at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, and the long-term organizing efforts there. We had a great conversation about Shawn Fain's veto of a bill for the UAW to divest from Israel and how Fain's actions might not match his rhetoric. We also talk...

The climate crisis is an existential threat that has led to an unraveling of our environmental and social fabric. Our political institutions continue to fail us in dealing with this crisis. As the shocks get worse, we've seen more confrontational climate action emerge to push these institutions. This comes in the form of mass marches, civil disobedience, confrontational direct action and, even...

Websters defines atrocity as "a shockingly bad or atrocious act, object,  or situation."    Russian atrocities on Ukrainian civilians have been the top of the 24 second news cycle since the invasion began. Since the advent of  industrial warfare at the end of 19th century, war has been waged  increasingly on civilian populations than opposing military forces. Wars  of attrition have had the goal o...

In this pilot episode, Mike Elk, founder and senior labor reporter on Payday Report, and Bob Buzzanco of Green & Red Podcast present their soon-to-be-regular podcast on Labor in the U.S. We'll dive into the general state of labor and unions in the U.S., organizing drives, strikes, and other developments relevant to working people as they emerge. In this first show Mike discussed the recent...

Happy May Day Tender Comrades!   Here is a repost of our May Day episode from 2021. In it, we talk about the history of May Day from pagan rituals to the Haymarket Affair to International Workers’ Day to Labor Day and Loyalty Day.  And we discuss how the ruling class’s “war on the left” fits into the politics of May Day vs. Labor Day. Spend an hour of your International Workers’ Day hearing about...