RevolutionZ

Episode 394 of RevolutionZ continues the evaluation of the New Left from within begun last episode. This time the focus is the Anti war movement, Weatherman, the Yippees, the Black movement, and the womens movement. The fastest way to break a movement is to let “being technically right” replace getting stronger. Starting with the Vietnam War antiwar movement we ask a painful question: how did a...

Episode 393 of RevolutionZ is Part One of a two part critical discussion of the Sixties New Left. It doesn't remember in order to praise what was done. It remembers to find flaws to correct. The content arrives like a time capsule a young me sent from 1974. The sixties didn’t just “happen” and then fade into nostalgia. The story of the New Left gets fought over because the stakes are still here:...

Episode 392 of RevolutionZ uncovers and visits a half-century-old file on my computer to address a surprisingly urgent question: are we building new revolutionary ideas, or just renting space in inherited ones. I recently rediscovered the text of my 1974 book What Is To Be Undone? written when the arguments between Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, anarchism, and other currents were not academic history...

Ep 391 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Vincent Emanuele to talk about the movement against data centers, the logic and methods of organizing, and movement culture. Your town’s next big fight might not be a highway or a stadium. It might be a windowless warehouse full of servers that power AI, cloud computing, and the apps you use every day, while quietly consuming electricity and water on a...

Episode 390 of RevolutionZ asks would you rather speak to 2,000 people who already agree with you or 2,000 people who might vote for Trump? That choice sounds like a simple preference, but I argue it exposes something deeper: an entire theory of change. If we think a better world is unattainable, it’s rational to aim for narrow wins, entertain friendly audiences, and avoid the hard work of...

Episode 389 of RevolutionZ has as guest Francine Mestrum, a longtime social justice researcher and organizer whose work spans globalization, poverty, inequality, social protection, public services, gender, and the “social commons” approach to economic and social rights. She has marched, organized, and built a campaigns and organizations and yet felt like the world barely moved. And she has...

Episode 388 of RevolutionZ concludes the The Wind Cries Freedom Excerpts as Revolutionary Participatory Society (RPS) wins state power and immediately insists that the real work is just beginning. This week Senator and then President Malcolm Mays, Governor then and then Vice President Celia Crowley, Lydia Lawrence, Bertrand Jagger, and Bill Hampton explain how Revolutionary Participatory Society...

Episode 387 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Farah Mokhtareizadeh, an incredibly traveled and experienced Iranian American scholar and organizer who I first encountered via her article Vijay Prashad's Iran. She shows how if your politics begins and ends with “against the U.S.,” you can unintentionally end up defending the very forces that crush workers, feminists, and dissidents. We discuss what...

Ep 386 starts by addressing Mayday Strong strike plans. A one day strike can feel bold but without follow up change little. This episode starts by asking about Mayday’s call for “no work, no school, no shopping”: Can the plan pull people from symbolic protest into sustained resistance that escalates over time to build sufficient power to stop Trump’s agenda and challenge the institutions that...

Episode 385 of RevolutionZ features our 28th excerpt from The Wind Cries Freedom, an oral history imagining and reporting from the next American Revolution. This excerpt follows organizers inside RPS as they build a second national convention with chapter-based delegates, intentional representation, and real mechanisms for deliberation. It continues our look at movement infrastructure. How did...