Revolutions Per Minute - Radio from the New York City Democratic Socialists of America

On tonight’s episode of RPM, we’ll talk about how the “border crisis” is manufactured under capitalism and break down some of the dangerous presidential election year framing we see from both Republicans and Democrats.     You’ll hear from Yvette Borja, abolitionist and Laura E. Gomez Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law. Yvette lived and organized in Tucson for 6 years and will tell us what it’s really li...

Tonight on Revolutions Per Minute, we travel to the United Kingdom, where far-right riots have swept the country. We ask Alex Roberts, a UK-based organizer and host of the anti-fascist podcast 12 Rules for WHAT, how communities can fight back. We also speak to Paolo Gerbaudo, a senior research fellow at Complutense University in Madrid, on the role of social media in contemporary politics. 

Last Tuesday was election night across New York State. The night highlighted both the enduring challenges and promise of the rising Socialist movement. In the most widely covered race of the night, Reactionary forces across the Right and Center, including AIPAC, funneled tens of millions of dollars into the 16th Congressional District to secure the defeat of DSA-endorsed incumbent, Congressman Jam...

For over five and half years and 220+ episodes, we here at Revolutions Per Minute have brought the voices of activists and organizers fighting for a better world to the listeners of WBAI. Tonight, we dig into the show’s archives to hear some of those interviews through the years. Each of the interviews you will hear tonight, in their own ways, exemplify the different dimensions of our show, the me...

1864. That’s the year Arizona’s abortion ban was passed. The archaic law has remained dormant since 1976, when Roe v. Wade made abortion legal nationwide, but a little over a month ago, on April 6, the Arizona Supreme Court resurrected the law, banning abortion in almost all cases.   The Arizona State Legislature has since passed another law to repeal the 1864 ban, which would default the state to...

Students here in New York and across the country are staging protests and encampments on university campuses in solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza for over 200 days. The student movements are united by a common call for their institutions to divest and boycott the state of Israel, companies, and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation and ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response t...

In this episode we meet Jonathan Soto, the DSA endorsed candidate running for New York State Assembly in the North East Bronx. Jonathan is a public school parent, an inter-faith organizer and a democratic socialist, campaigning to unseat longtime incumbent Michael Benedetto in Assembly District 82. 

If you’re interested in democratizing the economy then you’re going to need to build a social base capable of such a dramatic transformation of our way of life. The only way to shift the balance of power toward the working class is to build the labor movement. Organized labor remains weak in the United States with about 10 percent of all workers organized into unions. This number has dropped nearl...

Tonight, we continue our series of interviews with NYC- DSA’s 2024 slate of endorsed candidates and will be talking with Eon Tyrell Huntley, a retail worker, father and tenant running for Assembly District 56 in Bed Stuy and Crown Heights.  We’ll talk to Eon about the beauty of Bed Stuy, fighting for affordable rent, standing in solidarity with Palestine despite facing AIPAC money and so much more...

Today in Albany, New York tenants numbering in the thousands descended onto our State’s Capitol Building in a Day of Mobilization, urging the New York Legislature to pass key legislation, such as Good Cause protections for tenants and greater rent support for low-income families facing eviction. Amidst the calls made by tenants and housing justice organizers for greater protections against the wor...

Today is day 158 of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and also primary day for voters in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington.   Over the last several weeks, hundreds of thousands of people across the country have voted "uncommitted" in the presidential primaries, to send a message to President Biden calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.  Tonight we’re...

In the early twentieth century the vast majority of mass production industries were unorganized in the United States. Efforts to replicate the success of the United Mine Workers, brewery workers, and the garment trades were largely unsuccessful until the 1930s when the Congress of Industrial Organizations changed everything. Fragile Juggernaut tells this story with a narrative that spans from the...

Tonight, we’re talking to Claire Valdez, a NYC-DSA endorsed candidate for Assembly District 37 in Queens about what being endorsed by NYC-DSA and UAW Region 9A means to her, how she plans to bring her union organizing experience of becoming ‘more powerful than the boss’ to the halls of power in Albany and much more.  There are currently 8 socialists endorsed by NYC-DSA serving in Albany in the Sen...

The unionization rate in the United States remains at around 10% after decades of deindustrialization in the Northeast and Midwest as well as anti-worker policies from corporations and the state, but labor organizers are fighting back. Across the country the UAW is attempting to organize non-union auto plants while here in New York service workers are building collective power. Last year we spoke...

This past weekend, DSA held their inaugural kickoff for their new nationwide campaign for Trans Rights & Bodily Autonomy. Spearheaded by the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign Commission, DSA will mobilize the organization’s tens of thousands of members across 150+ chapters across the country, not only to combat the advances of the far-right and their systematic attempt at every level of go...

This episode of Revolutions Per Minute explores the life and legacy of Pablo Yoruba Guzman, who co-founded the New York chapter of the Young Lords, and later became a prominent television reporter on local news channels in the city. We are joined by Mickey Melendez, a fellow Young Lord, to discuss the group's occupations of the First People’s Church in Harlem and Lincoln Hospital in the South Bron...

With the battle over abortion rights raging in the United States at local, state, and national levels, we here in New York state cannot become complacent that access to abortion will always be guaranteed here. Economic, social, and logistical barriers prevent many people from accessing the care they need, and without decisive action to change that, working-class New York residents as well as peopl...

2023 was the hottest year on record and for many people across the country being able to afford  their utility bills to cool or heat their homes during the more extreme temperatures caused by climate change is becoming a possibly deadly challenge. Last year, Maine DSA was part of a statewide coalition called Pine Tree Power that attempted to take over the two largest corporate utilities in the sta...

The holiday season is in full swing, and as some people head toward time off and relaxation, workers in many industries are facing their busiest time of year. We are joined live by Connor Spence, a worker-organizer at Amazon’s first union distribution facility, JFK8 on Staten Island. Connor discusses his work as a co-founder of both the Amazon Labor Union and the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus, and...

On the 1st of December, the United Auto Workers International Executive Board, alongside other labor unions & allies, announced the UAW’s support for a permanent ceasefire in Israel & Palestine. The announcement also called for the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition Working Group to study the UAW’s ties to the ongoing violence & terror of the Israeli occupation, and to explore future sc...

2023 has been a major year for workers so far, and the momentum shows no signs of slowing down as we head into 2024. While major strikes by UAW at the Big Three in the auto industry and by WGA and SAG-AFTRA in the entertainment world are making headlines, thousands of workers across the country are taking action in ways big and small that you may not always hear about. On this show, we're joined l...

Earlier this month, voters nationwide went to the polls. In Ohio, The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety, listed on the ballot as Issue 1, passed with 57% of Ohioians voting to codify a right to an abortion, contraception, and other reproductive rights into the state Constitution, in a clear rebuke to the near total-ban on abortion pushed through by the far-right...

Regular listeners of Revolutions per Minute will be familiar with our coverage of Palestine solidarity work within the Democratic Socialists of America. We recognize that the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the violence of settler colonial displacement are both ongoing. Tonight, our coverage continues with a live conversation with Sumaya and Daphna, two NYC-DSA members and organizers with...

Tonight, we’re traveling to Arizona to learn from socialist organizers who are fighting on their home turf to make forming and maintaining strong unions easier for workers. We’re joined live by Bobby and Kaland of Arizona Works Together and Phoenix DSA to hear about their campaign to repeal so-called “Right to Work” laws in their state and what it means for union organizers in Arizona and nationwi...

Revolutions Per Minute explores migrant solidarity efforts in Brooklyn, exploring the broader context of the global migration crisis as Israel continues its military offensive against Gaza. RPM interviews people who have recently arrived in New York from Mauritania, and we meet Jaz Walker from Assemblymember Emily Gallagher's office.