RevolutionZ

Episode 371 of Revolution Z has as guest Greg Wilpert, founder of Venezuela Analysis, who discusses the role of oil, power, Trump, Maduro, and which way Venezuela. Wilpert tracks the quiet recalibration of demands coming from Washington—curbs on drugs that aren't real, and on migration caused by sanctions. Vague “terror” charges that are projections at best, and a push for oil access that has...

Episode 370 of RevolutionZ mainly continues our sequence of excerpts from the forthcoming The Wind Cries Freedom's Oral History of the Next American Revolution.  However, before doing so, it takes up various reactions I encountered to an article I wrote titled "Chomsky Reassessed." The followup discussion here raises some more general concerns and further ideas bearing on issues of...

Episode 369 of RevolutionZ has Miguel Guevara questioning Lydia Lawrence about her journey from the Sixties to RPS. After anger and solidarity fuel a movement’s start what decides whether it survives? Lydia Lawrence—feminist, organizer, media worker, and the first shadow government president of RPS—tells of her journey from sixties militancy, through doldrums, to sustained revolutionary engagement...

Episode 368 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin and more recently The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto . Our topic isn’t a kinder capitalism; it’s a post capitalist vision and practice where private ownership is overcome and control of production resides with the people who do the work. Together we discuss seeking a higher minimum wages and seeking higher wages m...

Episode 367 of RevolutionZ starts out by discussing why I am offering up chapters of the forthcoming The Wind Cries Freedom Oral History as a sequence of episodes. Then it addresses No Kings to ask how can its future  help connect mass resistance to everyday organizing that is able to turn fear into agency: and success that is able to win. Then the next chapter of the Wind Cries Freedom sequence d...

Episode 366 of RevolutionZ starts by considering a phrase frequently borrowed, nowadays, the phrase "like never before," and then moves on to a word nowadays being used more frequently and positively than in quite some time, the word "socialism." Regarding the former, why are we mimicking the verbal priorities of the Orange Monster? Can we avoid that? Regarding the latter, are...

Episode 365 of RevolutionZ presents an essay by film director Ava Duvernay about the difficulty of writing in unimaginably chaotic times. Her's is a sentiment I share but that she expresses more eloquently. Simply put, it’s hard to write to a conclusion when the world won’t stop shouting new horrors. Then Miguel Guevara interviews Barbara Bethune and Emiliano Farmer, taken from chapter twelve...

Episode 364 of RevolutionZ begins with a brief discussion of the Epstein phenomenon. How do elites manufacture loyalty and impose silence? How did Epstein (and Trump too) get constituencies that not only ought to have known better, but literally ought to have abhorred them, to instead become sycophants or at least friends?  After that interlude, the episode continues the oral history presentation...

Episode 363 of RevolutionZ as its main focus continues with another excerpt from the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. The episode opens, however, with a comment on our place and our times following on Mamdani's remarkable victory and Steve Bannon's call for Republicans to take over all institutions or face jail in about a year. In the struggle for institutions, for us to act a...

Episode 362 of RevolutionZ continues the oral history recounting by Miguel Guevara and his interviewees. It delves further with the motives, aims, and mechanics of a successful future revolution. This time, it asks, what if the hardest part of building a movement isn’t the opposition outside, but the pressure inside the room—and inside our heads?  Guevara leads Andre Goldman, Malcolm Mays and Cynt...

Episode 361 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence of episodes culled from the book in process: The Wind Cries Freedom . The episode's title is "Hope Is Not Naive, Cynicism Is Counterproductive, Fight To Win." It opens with a succinct look at our own time's authoritarianism and the information ecosystem that rewards fear and lies over solidarity and truth. It then takes up the o...

Episode 360 of RevolutionZ has Larry Cohen, former president of the 600,000 strong Communication Workers of America and current board chair of Our Revolution who has spent five decades organizing workers and pushing democratic reforms inside and outside the Democratic Party to assess No Kings and explore possible future directions for it and of resistance to Trump's fascist agenda. Larry emph...

Episode 359 of RevolutionZ considers the possibility that the biggest barrier to change isn’t raw power, but a story that many people have swallowed about what’s possible? The idea that there is no alternative. That victory is a pipe dream. The associated chapter of the The Wind Cries Freedom considers how cynicism is manufactured, why it passes for “realism,” and how organizers in the oral histor...

Episode 358 of RevolutionZ has Arash Kolahi and Alexandria Shaner talk about alternative media aims and pursuits, and the state of the left. Having just published a comprehensive, transparent annual report for ZNetwork.org, Arash and Alexandria invite you to shape what their project does next. They explain how a volunteer‑heavy media project doubled its reach through smart syndication, built commu...

Episode 357 of RevolutionZ presents chapter six of The Wind Cries Freedom plus some personal discussion of publishing priorities and reader/listener choices. From the oral history, Andre Goldman describes his path from academic to organizer and in doing so reveals how a campus boycott became a disciplined, scalable movement. His story has no lone hero; it’s built on strategy, solidarity, and a cul...

Ep 356 of RevolutionZ begins with a few reflections on Arundhati Roy's memoir "Mother Mary Comes to Me." It praises her extraordinary prose and storytelling to show how powerful narrative can illuminate complex social realities. This brief visit to her work ends with a set of questions about her writing and, by extension, about all writing, including The Wind Cries Freedom . Why doe...

Episode 355 of RevolutionZ has as guest DSA activist and former Massachusetts state representative Tom Gallagher to discuss how leftists too often "do the billionaires' work for them" by attacking allies over ideological purity. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders face vicious criticism from fellow progressives with headlines like "AOC is a genocidal con artist&quo...

Episode 354 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence presenting the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom . In this third installment, as an opening act, interviewee Leslie Zinn reflects on the finished oral history of a revolution that emerged from conditions similar to our own. She argues that revolution isn't utopian but tangible—a possibility within reach if we're willing to learn...

Episode 353 of RevolutionZ examines two seemingly unrelated but equally disruptive forces: the marginalization of participatory economics and the existential threat of artificial intelligence. But first, a visit to Genoa's dockworkers threatening to shut down Israel shipments, America's sex trafficking being addressed incompletely, and activist self censoring doing Trump's work for...

Episode 352 of RevolutionZ continues with chapters two and three of The Wind Cries Freedom. Alexandra Voline tells about going from despair to determination, from her parent's activism to her own revolutionary conviction. Born to 1960s radicals, politics was "background noise" until Trump's election added passion to knowledge. Alexandra describes how giving a speech against war...

Episode 351 of RevolutionZ introduces a special journey as Miguel Guevara and his 18 Interviewees convey chapters from "The Wind Cries Freedom," an as yet unpublished novel that reimagines how revolutionary change might unfold in America. The novel is thus an oral history of a future American revolution. As such the book is fiction but it works hard to sound like (future) historical fact...

Episode 350 of RevolutionZ conducts an experiment with ChatGPT to reveal profound insights about both political theory and artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, please respond to this critique of the Marxist tradition's current relevance first as a Marxist would, then without that constraint. When operating as a Marxist, the AI eloquently employs classic rhetorical strategies to defend the tradit...

Episode 349 of RevolutionZ displays what happened when I asked artificial intelligence to critique my critique of artificial intelligence. In this episode, I share the results of this peculiar experiment—feeding my recent articles about AI dangers directly to ChatGPT and asking for its reaction. What in its view did I get right. What did I get wrong. And I comment, as well. I also ask it about how...

Episode 248 of RevolutionZ asks, what if the real danger of advanced AI isn't robots taking over the world, but humans willingly but unintentionally surrendering our humanity? What if AI need not go rogue for its collateral damage to fundamentally hurt humanity? What if our most likely dystopian future isn't machines battling us to death, but machines doing exactly what we ask—better tha...

Episode 347 of RevolutionZ asks why so many stay essentially silent when our world is burning? Adam Aron, climate activist and psychology professor at UC San Diego identifies barriers that keep most people from taking action despite acknowledging the twin crises of climate collapse and rising authoritarianism. We then discuss what to do about the disturbing situation. Aron draws from his years of...