The Beautiful Idea

On  this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with long-running  journalist and researcher Chris Mathias on his new book, "To Catch a  Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right." In  the book, Mathias profiles multiple antifascist researchers and  activists, shinning a light on grassroots opposition to fascism and the  everyday people that put themselves in ha...

In this episode we feature two interviews regarding the Prairieland trials and defendants. The first interview is with two people from the support crew, made up of friends and family of the defendants. We talk about how things went down at the noise demo that led to these arrests, how the trial went and how everyone is holding up. The second interview is with Xavier de Janon, from the People’s Law...

Lake Effect Collective (https://lakeeffect.noblogs.org/) is a Chicago-based group formed in the wake of the Palestine encampments in Chicago in 2024 that has been experimenting with radical political development, writing and analysis for the last few years. Neither an affinity group nor a party, Lake Effect is concerned about increasing capacity for strategic action while interfacing with mass str...

We speak with an organizer based in New Orleans about the community’s efforts to confront ICE during a special operation that took place there in December of 2025. Among other topics, we touch on the complicated dynamics of organizing with nonprofit groups, the ways that police operations can impact community defense initiatives, and how NOLA’s powerful tradition of mutual aid in the wake of Katri...

In this episode we talk to a variety of people on the ground in Minneapolis about their thoughts on the filter blockades and other things happening there currently relating to anti ICE resistance. These reportbacks and recordings were done between January 24 through February 5th.  For more info on filter blockades, check out this great recent piece by Crimethinc  https://crimethinc.com/2...

In this episode we sit down with a member of Crimethinc to discuss the first year of the second Trump administration. In many ways the speed, severity, and violence of the first year has made the situation difficult to understand comprehensively. So, instead of just focusing on the swirl of events over the past 12 months, we are going to go back to the roots of what's happening today, the rise of...

In this episode, we speak with some organizers involved in anti-ICE resistance at the peak of the show-downs in Minneapolis, one week after ICE agents killed Renee Good, and 20 minutes after Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot. We discuss some of the ways that people in the city are escalating their engagement with ICE, how local police are engaging (or not) with ICE activity, and ways that people els...

We are at a moment of impasse, a time where political spaces and dynamics are shifting drastically. In the past months we have seen military units deploy to streets, the DOJ get used as an overt weapon of the administration, and terrorism laws being openly utilized to suppress anarchist movements. At the same time, there is a distinct sense in which the state, and this current administration, is b...

We're back after a brief summer break! The war in Ukraine is often, like many conflicts, discussed through the lens of foreign policy and the interests of these entities that we call states. This is not the framing that we simply inherit from media, it is one that the Left globally has embraced just as thoroughly as liberals and conservatives. Discussions become echoes of the Cold War, where massi...

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with several authors and organizers, marking six months into the second Trump administration coming to power. During our multiple discussions, we look at the recent deployment of the military into Los Angeles, CA, the ramping up of ICE raids and arrests across the US, and the passing of the Republican so-called "Big Beautiful Bill," which ear-marks b...

For as long as people have been getting pregnant, they’ve also been figuring out how to get un-pregnant. A self-managed abortion (SMA) is when a person ends their pregnancy outside of the formal medical system. Most often, self-managed abortions are done as “medication abortions” — abortions induced by medication. In this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we talk about self-managed medication abortio...

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea. So much has happened since we started to put this episode together. We've got a lot to cover, so let's not waste any time and dive right into it! On today's episode, first we present a interview with an organizer on the recent "Statelessness" conference that took place in Evansville, IN. For more on the conference, check out this recording from the presentation...

In this conversation, we speak with two recent International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers about their experiences accompanying Palestinians in the West Bank. International Solidarity Movement is an initiative based in Palestine that enables international volunteers to physically accompany Palestinians facing harassment and attacks from the Israeli occupation. We discuss what everyday resis...

Join us as we sit down with members of the subMedia Collective to discuss their upcoming series InterRebellium. In this conversation we run down the history of subMedia, beginning in the 90s rave scene, the development of anarchist media in the first 25 years of this century, and what the future holds. Finally we discuss their upcoming series, InterRebellium, which traces a trajectory of insurgent...

Dean Spade is the author of "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis and the Next", and "Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law". Well known for highlighting the ways that mutual aid can be a direct response to societal needs as well as a transformative practice that shifts our reliance away from the state and toward each other, Spade has ju...

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea! We're excited to bring you a jam-packed show today and we have some amazing content planned, so be sure to subscribe to the show and follow us on Mastodon and BlueSky . In today's episode, we feature: An interview with an organizer for the recent Florida Abolitionist Gathering . A participant in the Imaginary Crimes Tour which is already underway, about how peop...

On September 6th of last year, 26 year old University of Washington graduate Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot and killed by IDF soldiers while doing accompaniment in the West Bank of Palestine with International Solidarity Movement (ISM). In this episode, we speak with a friend of Ayşenur's who had travelled to the West Bank to do accompaniment with ISM alongside her, and was present during the days lea...

In this episode of The Beautiful Idea , we present an interview with author Jamie Merchant, author of Engame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline and numerous articles at The Brooklyn Rail . Merchant argues that we have entered a post-neoliberal age, with both Trump and Biden abandoning many of the touch-stones of corporate globalization that defined the past several decades. But what comes ne...

In this episode of The Beautiful Idea , we speak with Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis , two tenant organizers in Los Angeles, CA, involved in the Los Angeles Tenant Union (LATU) , and co-authors of the new book, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis . From the publisher : "Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. W...

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis. In this episode we sit down with Adam Greenfield, author of the book Lifehouse, out on Verso. In t...

In our following episode, we speak with folks around the country about this unfolding reality. First, we catch up with Mia Wong , a journalist at It Could Happen Here , a daily podcast on Cool Zone Media about everyday resistance and the current crisis, then we speak with a participant in the publishing collective CrimethInc , about the emerging cracks in the current crisis and what this means abo...

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with former political prisoner Eric King and Josh Davidson from the Certain Days political prisoner calendar project. Eric and Josh discuss their recent round of discussions with Firestorm Books around their recent collection, Rattling the Cages , featuring former political prisoners and abolitionist organizers. These discussions have also been recen...

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis. On today's show we have a conversation with Xander Dunlap, author of the recent book The System Is...

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea , a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis. On today’s show we feature our Behind the Barricades roundup of movement news, events, and update...

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, with the second Trump administration only weeks away, we sit down to speak with two anarchist authors and thinkers, Peter Gelderloos and Prince Shakur. Peter is the author of such classics as How Non-Violence Protects the State and Worshiping Power , and also has recently published two new books, They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us and Organization, Continuit...