Moment of Truth with Ami Chen Mills

In this episode of Moment of Truth, host Meilin Obinata interviews James Weller about his journey into activism and community service. In the Santa Cruz area, people have heard his name in connection with a variety of causes, from public transportation to affordable housing development. But you might be surprised to learn about his involvement […]

UPDATES ON IRAN AND MINNESOTA: This show includes a conversation with an ordinary, working mom in Minnesota, Janine Sieja, about her experience with ICE chaos, abductions and even murders in her city … becoming an activist, her fears as a mother … and what is happening on the ground there now. Our conversation with Janine […]

Ami Chen Mills continues an ongoing conversation about resiliency, wisdom and right action with the Reverend Elisha Christopher of the Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Cruz, with a focus on “the Power of Presence.” What happens when we become fully present in the midst of the chaos, fear, outrage, courage and amazing protests all […]

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. His work weaves together […]

Ami Chen Mills hosts an in-depth conversation with two, beloved, local spiritual leaders, the Reverend Deborah Johnson, of Inner Light Ministries, and the Reverend Elisha Christopher, of the Center for Spiritual Living–both of whom lead congregations here in Santa Cruz County and beyond. How do we respond to outer chaos, violence and attacks on human […]

What do Silicon Valley Tech oligarchs want from the rest of us? San Francisco and the East Bay have become a learning laboratory for studying the designs of billionaire tech executives on the nation and even the rest of the world. In this Part III show on San Francisco and Bay Area politics, seasoned journalists, […]

The Tech Bro Takeover of San Franciso, and the whole world, continues! … On our our last show, we circled back to the podcasters and journalists covering the Tech Broligarchy taking over San Francisco politics, and attempting to also take over the Bay Area and the entire nation, if not the world (and in fact, […]

Intrepid citizen journalists and campaign finance researchers have been tracking the rise of the tech-billionaire version of everyone’s favorite city by the Bay. With the election of new Mayor Daniel Lurie (heir to the Levi Strauss fortune) and the narrow defeat of progressive Supervisor Dean Preston, what do San Francisco politics portend for other Bay […]

This podcast was originally broadcast on Monday, Oct. 20, at 6pm for a Moment of Truth show featuring guests who share a critical, “neo-Luddite” perspective on our changing culture and technology. Moment of Truth and Hard Left News collaborated on this episode, which is Part 2 of a conversation between hosts Todd Zimmerman and Meilin […]

This podcast was originally broadcast on Monday, Oct. 6, at 6pm for a Moment of Truth show featuring guests who share a critical, “neo-Luddite” perspective on our changing culture and technology. Moment of Truth and Hard Left News collaborated on this episode, which is Part 1 of a conversation between hosts Todd Zimmerman and Meilin […]

Donald Trump’s call to supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6th in 2021 ended in a way that most of us who live in the United States, and perhaps around the world, will never forget. Our guest, Jason Riddle, was in the midst of that crowd, a loyal MAGA supporter and what many […]

Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian peace-builder, co-founder of InterAct International, author and mission-driven entrepreneur whose personal story of transformation began after the tragic loss of his older brother, who was murdered by Israeli soldiers. Sarah’s story intertwines with that of another victim of regional violence, Jewish Israeli Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents […]

    This show broadcasted live on Labor Day of 2025, the first day of Omar Dieguez‘s 30-day hunger strike to end the spraying of pesticides near Watsonville area schools. MOT host Ami Chen Mills and Dieguez are joined by Providencia Martinez Alaniz, who also announced her hunger strike with Omar in this Moment of […]

    On Monday, August 11, roughly 18 San Francisco Bay Area rabbis and cantors sat down in the street after speaking in front of the barricaded Israeli Consulate building, in opposition to Netanyahu’s plan to re-occupy the Gaza Strip and to express dismay at the unrelieved starvation and suffering of the people of Gaza […]

How have Christians–going back to Columbus–used religion, and especially the Book of Revelation, to frame migration and immigration both by colonists (to justify colonization and genocide) and by subsequent U.S. political leaders to exclude others who were not white and European? How does this continue to this very day? In this episode, Ami Chen Mills […]

  On this episode of Moment of Truth, host Meilin Obinata introduces you to the Chair of the Housing Committee and District 10 California State Senator Aisha Wahab. In this housing-centric conversation, you’ll hear about her personal experiences as a rare renter in the state legislature, her views on affordable housing and her concerns about […]

  Jamie Edwards, the first president of the independent union of workers at Trader Joe’s, Trader Joe’s United, returns to Moment of Truth for this conversation with host Meilin Obinata to discuss life after Trader Joe’s, after Trader Joe’s decided to terminate Jamie’s employment. This episode aired Monday, July 7, 2025. The first conversation we […]

The root of the word crisis comes from crise, the “decisive point in the progress of a disease, which indicates recovery or death,” also a “vitally important or decisive state of things, a point at which change must come, for better or worse,” and from the Latinized form of the Greek krisis or “turning point.” […]

In this special audio release of Part I of Dr. George Pransky’s audio recording, “A Busy Mind,” Ami Chen Mills adds context and frames many of the world’s ills as related to the quality and speed of our collective thinking. Busy minds are not bad or evil, but when people can never slow down enough […]

This episode opens with Bruce Springsteen in Manchester, England, speaking about the Trump Administration, and then we dive into an interview with Indy Rishi Singh, championing a “doughnut economics” model in San Jose, California, and throughout the state, with the California Doughnut Economics Coalition (CALDEC). Doughnut Economics is the brain child of Kate Raworth, an […]

Why are worker-to-worker campaigns winning against big companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and more? To find out, Moment of Truth host Meilin Obinata interviewed Professor Eric Blanc, author of “We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big” to learn why unions are one of the best weapons against the […]

The Moment of Truth program and KSQD were on the scene for the Bernie Sanders’ “Fight the Oligarchy” 2025 tour in Folsom, CA. Ami Chen Mills is joined by Denise Elerick, co-chair of the Mid-County Democrats and founder of the Harm Reduction Coalition of Santa Cruz County, who also traveled to Folsom for this event […]

In this special, more personal program, Ami Chen Mills interviews her colleague, author and psychologist Dr. George Pranksy–who, with her late father, Dr. Roger Mills–helped to bring an “innate mental health” psychology, based on the spiritual insights of a ninth-grade educated welder living in British Columbia, Canada to the field and to the world. Dr. […]

Bestselling author of Palo Alto Malcom Harris is just now releasing his new book, What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis. This joint program for the Moment of Truth show and Talk of the Bay features Harris in conversation with Meilin Obinata, roughly six months after Obinata interviewed him for Moment of Truth about […]

Santa Cruz County Public Defender Heather Rogers joins guest host Joy Schendledecker for a far-ranging conversation about the rise of holistic defense and the ongoing criminalization of homelessness in Santa Cruz and beyond. Aired on Moment of Truth with Ami Chen Mills — March 17, 2025 Joy and Heather explore how local and national policies under the Trump […]