Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

G&R Episode 67: Organizers vs. Pundits. How the YouTube and Twitter Left are failing us. w/Joshua Kahn Russell

Feb 2, 2021

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In our latest episode, we get into it! The left media universe includes YouTubers with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, hundreds of podcasts and journals like Jacobin with 60,000 subscribers monthly. Yet that has translated in little support for on-the-ground organizers working in workplaces, frontline communities and the streets.

We talk with Joshua Kahn Russell (@joshkahnrussell), Executive Director of the Wildfire Project, about the pundits of the online left (YouTuber, Podcasters, #LeftTwitter, etc). We discuss how their approach is vastly different than those doing real life organizing work. We also talk about how commentators like Jimmy Dore's actions, like Force the Vote, or interviewing members of far right militias actually hurt left movements. We also discuss the need for more organizer-pundits in this well-trafficked space with a huge audience, and how to best engage once you're in.

Joshua is a social movement facilitator and has trained thousands of activists across the globe. He is the Executive Director of the Wildfire Project. He is a facilitator/action-coordinator with the Ruckus Society. He has helped campaigns win against banks, oil companies, logging corporations, and coal barons; worked with a wide variety of groups in a breadth of arenas, from local resiliency projects, to national coalitions, to the United Nations Climate Negotiations. Joshua was a frequent guest on The Michael Brooks Show (TMBS), which just ended, as well as other new media outlets where he speaks about spirituality, and the mechanics of social movements.