1.6M
Downloads
1357
Episodes
Nignorance from across the diaspora. We discuss politics and pop culture from a left perspective. Enjoy and tell a friend.
Episodes
Friday Jul 09, 2021
Friday Jul 09, 2021
Many liberals and progressives have been circling the wagons defending Critical Race Theory as a part of the new “Culture War.” The desire to defend these ideas stems from the reactionary right wing using Critical Race Theory as the new boogie man that is harming the narrative of American Exceptionalism conservatives so desperately cling to. In this episode we will discuss the assertions of Critical Race Theory and inquire: Do these theories challenge capitalism and wealth hierarchies? Or is this simply a plea for more liberal anti racism that seeks to diversify the ruling class as the overall pie shrinks for the rest of the nation?
About Dr. Mocombe:
Paul C. Mocombe is a Haitian philosopher and sociologist. He currently works as a professor of philosophy and sociology at West Virginia State University. Paul does research in Sociological Theory, Social Theory, Haitian studies, and Social and Political Philosophy. His current projects are his theory of phenomenology and 'Haitian Epistemology:Haitian/vilokan idealism'.
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
In 1979, the Iranian Revolution upended the political order of the Middle East, sweeping from power the country’s pro-American monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The forces that coalesced to ouster the Shah from power were broad, including not only religious conservatives, but liberal, socialists, communists, and national minorities. However, it was the country’s religious establishment, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, that were ultimately able to take power and establish an “Islamic Republic”.
This week on This Is Revolution we take a deep divide into the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath. What were its origins? Which political forces contested for power during the revolution and how has that contest played out in the post-revolutionary era? And in what ways has Iran's continuous relationship with the United States affected political developments over the last four decades.
About Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi:
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Political Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He was previously a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (2016-2019), where he also obtained his doctorate (2010-2014). Eskandar has published widely on modern Iranian and Shi'i Islamic political thought and is a series editor of Radical Histories of the Middle East (Oneworld). His monograph Revolution and its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Saturday Jul 03, 2021
Saturday Jul 03, 2021
“The hacienda is run like a baronial fief. The laws of the state are not applied in the latifundium without the tacit or formal consent of the large landowners. The authority of political or administrative officials is in fact subject to the authority of the landowner in his domain. The latter considers his latifundium to be outside the jurisdiction of the state and he disregards completely the civil rights of the people who live within his property. He collects excise taxes, grants monopolies, and imposes sanctions restricting the liberty of the laborers and their families.”
-Jose Carlos Mariategui
Peru’s long struggle for democracy continues with their current presidential election. A nation that has overcome a series of corrupt leaders, military coups and deadly Civil War within the last 30 years, will the election of Pedro Castillo, a former elementary school teacher and socialist, over the daughter of former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori can be Peru’s moment to break free of their western economic shackles?
Will the far-right Keiko Fujimori be able to overturn the election using the Trump playbook citing baseless claims of electoral fraud?
With military support, will Fujimori be able to call for something that is all too common in Peru, a military coup.
About Camilo Gòmez:
Camilo is a podcaster and freelance journalist in Peru. You can find much of his written work here:
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Friday Jul 02, 2021
Friday Jul 02, 2021
Like all forms of entertainment in the United States, sports has a particular way in which racial identity is showcased often to maintain the hierarchies that plague American society. In this episode we will examine racism in sports and ask, "Does the utility of race in American sports serve the needs of the ruling class?"
About Adolph Reed, Jr.
Adolph Leonard Reed Jr. is an American professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in studies of issues of racism and U.S. politics. He has taught at Yale, Northwestern, and the New School for Social Research and he has written on racial and economic inequality
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Wednesday Jun 30, 2021
Wednesday Jun 30, 2021
“We come to you and ask you to enforce the law because if it is not enforced here, when will it be enforced? Are police officers going to be allowed to shoot from 90 to 100 bullets into an apartment of citizens of this country, whether they be black or white, poor, rich, Panthers or not Panthers, to use the color our laws to do that, to tear the place asunder, to beat people, to shoot them, to maim them for life, to kill them? Are they going to be able to? That is the question that you have to ask yourselves. These defendants, as police officers, are they going to be allowed to violate those rights in the face of the law, in the face of our Constitution, in the face of the Bill of Rights? I say you won’t let them, and you will come back with a just and fair verdict which history will be proud of. That is what we ask and that is what the evidence demands.”
That very prescient quote from Flint Taylor was said in 1977 during the trial of the cops that murdered Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Sadly, not much has changed in the demands of the people to the people charged with protecting and serving the public.
Much emphasis has been made in recent history on the unjustified homicide of Black citizens by police malfeasance. Another major source of police abuse has been the use of torture by police to elicit confessions and general cooperation by citizens. In this episode we will talk to former Black Panther Fred Hampton's Lawyer, Flint Taylor about his 50-year battle against police abuse and torture and inquire if police reform is truly possible.
About Flint Taylor:
G. FLINT TAYLOR, a graduate of Brown University and Northwestern Law School, is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, an office which has been dedicated to litigating civil rights, police violence, government misconduct, and death penalty cases for 45 years. Among the landmark cases that Mr. Taylor has litigated are the Fred Hampton Black Panther case; the Greensboro, North Carolina case against the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis; the Ford Heights Four case in which four innocent men received a record $36 million settlement for their wrongful conviction and imprisonment; and a series of cases arising from a pattern and practice of police torture and cover-up by former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, former Mayor Richard M. Daley, former State’s Attorney Richard Devine, and numerous other police and government officials, five of which have been settled against the City of Chicago and Cook County for a total of approximately $26 million. He obtained a multi-million dollar settlement for a seven year old boy who was falsely accused by the Chicago Police of the murder of 11 year old Ryan Harris and has represented, and continues to represent, numerous other wrongfully convicted persons who have spent decades in prison and on death row, including Burge torture victims Michael Tillman, Darrell Cannon, Ronald Kitchen, Alonzo Smith, Anthony Holmes, Victor Safforld, Shawn Whirl, and Jackie Wilson, exonerees Randy Steidl, Paul Terry, Ronald Jones, Jerry Miller, Oscar Walden, Lewis Gardner, Paul Phillips, Terrill Swift, and Jonathan Barr, and the first woman jailhouse lawyer in Illinois, Maxine Smith.
Get Flint's Book, "The Torture Machine" from Haymarket Books here:
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Pascal Robert's Black Agenda Report:
Get THIS IS REVOLUTION merch HERE:
www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com
Sunday Jun 27, 2021
Sunday Jun 27, 2021
Currently in Colombia protesters are facing brutal reprisals by the U.S. backed regime. Like in many countries in the global south the austerity imposed state policies to protect the ravages of capitalism post 2008 crash are causing citizens from broad sectors of society to form coalitions to challenge government agendas to bleed the poor even further to cover for the abuses of capital that have brought forth the push towards austerity. On this episode, we will investigate Colombia's battle for economic humanity.
About Ajamu Baraka:
Ajamu Baraka is a geopolitical analyst, organizer, writer, and human rights defender with over 48 years of movement work in the U.S. and internationally. Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the steering committee of the Black is Back Coalition and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka was awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.
About Charo Mina-Rojas:
Charo Mina-Rojas is a Colombian human rights defender with nearly 30 years of activism with the Black Communities Process –PCN. Mina-Rojas has served as National Coordinator of Advocacy and Outreach in the U.S, for PCN. She was part of the Ethnic Commission that worked to ensure the inclusion of the Ethnic Chapter in the Final Peace Agreement, which contains specific provisions to ensure the protection and advancement of Afro-descendant collective rights. Currently, she coordinates the "Afro-Colombian Initiative for Gender and Peace Justice, 2021". Mina-Rojas has authored several articles on the plight of Afro-Colombia women and women in Latin America, and has provided expert testimony on human rights before the committees of the United States Congress, Inter American Commission for Human Rights, and various organs of the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council where she became the first Afro-descendant woman to testify as such before the United Nations Security Council on racial and gender violence against black/afro descendant women in Colombia and Latin America.
Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Pascal Robert's Black Agenda Report:
For THIS IS REVOLUTION>podcast Merch:
www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com
Friday Jun 25, 2021
Friday Jun 25, 2021
In Aviva Chomsky’s latest book, “Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence and the Roots of Migration” she speaks of collective memory by saying:
“All memory is, in a sense, constructed. As individuals or as members of groups, we privilege some memories over others, and we create coherent and meaningful stories and understandings of our past and present out of fragments of memory. Forgetting is an inevitable part of memory. By highlighting-remembering certain details, events, or interpretations, we erase or forget others. We forget because our individual and collective histories overflow with detail that would form a chaotic blur if we did not form them into coherent narratives. But when we rely on one narrative, we may be suppressing others. “
Racist rhetoric regarding immigrants as well as draconian policy on immigration didn’t start with Donald Trump, and it doesn’t seem to be ending under the current Biden administration either. The United States intervention in Central American politics has been a long-standing affair with disastrous results for the people of the region. Weather it’s the CIA backed coups in the name of U.S private industry, Drug War Policy, or suppressing Leftist uprisings, or assassinating democratically elected leaders, the United States has been a central part of the current wave of “migrant caravans”.
About Aviva Chomsky:
Much of my scholarly work can be traced back to the year I spent working for the United Farm Workers union back in 1976-77. I credit that experience with sparking my interest in the Spanish language, in migrant workers and immigration, in labor history, in social movements and labor organizing, in multinationals and their workers, in how global economic forces affect individuals, and how people collectively organize for social change.
My recent work has been in three main areas: the Cuban revolution, northern Colombia's coal industry, and immigration and undocumentedness in the United States. Thematically, I incorporate the issues of colonialism, economic development, migration, race, labor, environment, and global inequality. My book Linked Labor Histories looks at globalization as a long historical process with labor history at its center. It examines how employers have used regional inequalities to gain access to cheaper workers through immigration, plant relocation, and by using the threat of these two tactics to discipline their workers. I focus on several interrelated case studies in New England and Colombia, including the textile industry, the banana industry, and the coal industry, to argue that local labor histories are best understood in a global context. I recently published a brief, analytical college-level text on the Cuban Revolution, two books on immigration: They Take Our Jobs! And Twenty Other Myths about Immigration, and Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal, and a book on Central America's Forgotten History. My current research weaves together labor and environmental histories, focusing on a region of Colombia where Indigenous and Afro-descended peoples have long evaded state control. Today they face an onslaught of extractivist projects and changing legal and social meanings of race and ethnicity in the context of continent-wide movements for plurinationalism and alternative visions of economic development.
Thank you, guys, again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and every one of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Wednesday Jun 23, 2021
Wednesday Jun 23, 2021
“For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich today, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us! “
That quote from John Maynard Keynes for a shortened work week and more time for leisure is not just a vision for an aristocratic elite, but what Keynes thought would be a reality for all. It was Keynes utopian vision of what we could achieve under capitalism. Keyes couldn’t have predicted the rise of neoliberal economics in the 70’s and the presidency of Reagan in the U.S. and Thatcher in the UK that went to war on labor rights. The gig economy and “hustle culture” promote longer work hours. The tech world is filled with stories of people feeling forced to put in over 50-60 hours per week.
But, with the rise automation and technology are we truly on the precipice of robots taking our jobs?
Is capitalism automating us out of work? Or is automation the pathway to a communist utopia?
About Aaron Benanav:
Aaron Benanav is an economic historian and social theorist. Currently, he holds a postdoctoral researcher position at Humboldt University of Berlin and is the academic coordinator for the research unit “Re-Allocation” in the Cluster of Excellence “SCRIPTS: Contestations of the Liberal Script,” a seven-year project funded by the German Research Foundation. Benanav also serves as an editorial board member for the journal International Labor and Working Class History.
Find out more and get Aaron's book at his website here:
Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Sunday Jun 20, 2021
Sunday Jun 20, 2021
As the Boomer Generation hits retirement age, we're looking at a 68 trillion dollar transfer of wealth to the younger generation.
THE GUARDIANS is a revealing investigative documentary set in Las Vegas, Nevada that exposes allegations of corruption within the Nevada Guardianship and Family Court systems involving the legal kidnapping of elderly people. The film shines a light on a lucrative business that drains seniors’ life-savings and robs them of their freedoms.
Victims and their families are caught in a scheme that has allowed corrupt court-appointed guardians to take total control over their healthcare and financial decisions. Armed with court-orders obtained under dubious circumstances, guardians are able to forcibly remove elderly wards from their homes, isolate them from their families and systematically empty their bank accounts.
In an unfolding saga that reaches to the top level of government, a growing number of Las Vegas victims come together to seek justice, restitution and freedom. Through their fight, the film exposes the scope of the systemic abuse of some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
As our aging population is about to record the largest transfer of wealth in history, we must protect them and their families from those that have been using a broken system to take advantage.
For 40 years nothing and no one has stood in their way. Until now.
About Filmmaker Billie Mintz:
BILLIE MINTZ is an award winning filmmaker who has produced and directed feature length documentaries and narrative short films. He is currently a correspondent on the recently rebooted National Geographic show “Explorer”. Billie has dedicated his career to social justice, raising public consciousness, and advocating for those who have no voice. His belief in the power of story to inspire policy change is a driving force in his life as a filmmaker. His first feature, Surviving The Treatment (60 min, 2008) has been a successful tool in helping young cancer survivors, and their families, return to the life after the treatment. His second documentary, The Ponzi Scheme (70 min, 2010) is an investigation into victims of personal financial fraud. His latest feature documentary, Jesus Town USA (80min, 2014,) executive produced by SKY ATLANTIC, had its world premiere at AMDOCS (The American Documentary Film Festival in Palm Springs) and international premiere at Hot Docs. It aired on Showtime, CBC, and Netflix.
Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
Friday Jun 18, 2021
Friday Jun 18, 2021
Special Election Stream w/ Janani Ramachandran
There is a special election for California State Assembly District 18 because the person that held that seat, Rob Bonta, became the State's Attorney General.
We'll be speaking with one of the candidates running in the primary election that going down June 29th, progressive Democrat Janani Ramachandran.
About Janani:
Janani is an East Bay native. She is the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants from a small South Indian village who worked tirelessly every day to give her the opportunity to pursue her dreams. Janani’s passion for justice was evident at an early age. At 16, while relocating to India for a few years, she founded a nonprofit that built libraries in under-resourced schools in her local community. After graduating from Stanford University, Janani worked as a home-visiting case manager at a community health clinic, serving immigrant mothers experiencing domestic violence and homelessness.
Witnessing the horrors her clients faced at the hands of our inequitable legal system, she was driven to make a difference as a lawyer and attended Berkeley Law. There, Janani represented tenants facing eviction from some of Oakland’s most notoriously corrupt landlords. This inspired her to want to affect change at a higher level. She has previously served on the Oakland Public Ethics Commission, and currently serves on the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs. She recently worked as an attorney at Family Violence Appellate Project, pursuing legal appeals and advocacy efforts to improve access to justice for all survivors of abuse.
Janani is running for State Assembly because the time for timid ideas is over. We need bold solutions and leaders with the courage to fight for them.
With your help, we can put the people first in Sacramento and have California’s first South Asian Assemblywoman – by electing Janani Ramachandran, who is fearless in the fight for justice.
You can support Janani here:
Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!
Become a patron now
Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)
THANKS Y'ALL
Facebook:
Twitter: @TIRShowOakland
Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland
The Dispatch on Zero Books (video essay series):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSTpCvIoRgw
Medium:
Pascal Robert's Black Agenda Report: