Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
We created this podcast in recognition that there are a number of podcasts for the American “left,” but many of them focus heavily on the organizing of social democrats, progressives, and liberal democrats. Aside from that, on the left we are always fighting a war of ideas and if we do not continue to build platforms to share those ideas and the stories of their implementation from a leftist perspective, they will continue to be ignored, misrepresented, and dismissed by the capitalist media and as a result by the general public.
Our goal is to provide a platform for communists, anti-imperialists, Black Liberation movements, ancoms, left libertarians, LBGTQ activists, feminists, immigration activists, and abolitionists to discuss radical politics, radical organizing and share their visions for a better world. Our goal is to center organizers who represent and work with marginalized communities building survival programs, defense programs, political education, and counterpower.
We also plan to bring in perspectives on and from the global south to highlight anti-capitalist struggles outside the imperial core. We view solidarity with decolonization, indigenous, anti-imperialist, environmentalist, socialist, and anarchist movements across the world as necessary steps toward meaningful liberation for all people.
Too often within the imperial core we focus on our own struggles without taking the time to understand those fighting for freedom from beneath the empire’s thumb. It is important to highlight these struggles, learn what we can from them, offer solidarity, and support with action when we can. It is not enough to Fight For $15 an hour and Single-Payer within the core, while the US actively fights against the self-determination of the people of the global economically and militarily.
We recognize that except for the extremely wealthy and privileged, our fates and struggles are intrinsically connected. We hope that our podcast becomes a meaningful platform for organizers and activists fighting for social change to connect their local movements to broader movements centered around the fight to end imperialism, capitalism, racism, discrimination based on gender identity or sexuality, sexism, and ableism.
If you like our work please support us at www.patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism
Our goal is to provide a platform for communists, anti-imperialists, Black Liberation movements, ancoms, left libertarians, LBGTQ activists, feminists, immigration activists, and abolitionists to discuss radical politics, radical organizing and share their visions for a better world. Our goal is to center organizers who represent and work with marginalized communities building survival programs, defense programs, political education, and counterpower.
We also plan to bring in perspectives on and from the global south to highlight anti-capitalist struggles outside the imperial core. We view solidarity with decolonization, indigenous, anti-imperialist, environmentalist, socialist, and anarchist movements across the world as necessary steps toward meaningful liberation for all people.
Too often within the imperial core we focus on our own struggles without taking the time to understand those fighting for freedom from beneath the empire’s thumb. It is important to highlight these struggles, learn what we can from them, offer solidarity, and support with action when we can. It is not enough to Fight For $15 an hour and Single-Payer within the core, while the US actively fights against the self-determination of the people of the global economically and militarily.
We recognize that except for the extremely wealthy and privileged, our fates and struggles are intrinsically connected. We hope that our podcast becomes a meaningful platform for organizers and activists fighting for social change to connect their local movements to broader movements centered around the fight to end imperialism, capitalism, racism, discrimination based on gender identity or sexuality, sexism, and ableism.
If you like our work please support us at www.patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jul 4, 2020 • 1h 2min
"Wildcat The Totality" - Fred Moten And Stefano Harney Revisit The Undercommons In A Time Of Pandemic And Rebellion (Part 1)
This is part one of a two-part conversation with Fred Moten and Stefano Harney. Fred Moten is the author of In The Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, multiple volumes of poetry, and most recently the trilogy consent not to be a single being. Stefano Harney is the author of Nationalism and Identity: Culture and the Imagination in a Caribbean Diaspora. He also co-authored The Liberal Arts and Management Education: A Global Agenda for Change with Howard Thomas, and State Work: Public Administration and Mass Intellectuality. In 2013, Moten and Harney collaborated on The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study a text that has been influential to both Josh and myself. They graciously accepted the invitation to revisit this work, and their thinking in this time of pandemic and rebellion. In this first portion of our conversation, we begin a discussion of the undercommons, the Academy, the general antagonism, solidarity, empathy, whiteness, politics, citizenship, Blackness, and patriarchy. We hope you enjoy part one of this discussion as much as we did, and we will be releasing part 2 next week.
Jul 1, 2020 • 1h 17min
The Myth And Propaganda Of Black Buying Power With Jared Ball
In this episode we interview Morgan State University and Media Studies Scholar Jared Ball. Ball is the creator of IMIXWHATILIKE.org and the author of I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto. He is also the co-editor of A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X. In this episode we talk to Dr. Ball about his latest book The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power. He discusses the development of the myth, and the racist dimensions of it. He also gets into a discussion of the corporatization of hip hop, and the role hip hop celebrities play in the suppression of social movements.
Jun 21, 2020 • 1h 12min
Cedric Robinson, the Black Radical Tradition and Racial Regimes with Joshua Myers
Joshua M. Myers is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Howard University. He is the author of We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989, which came out in 2019 on NYU Press. He is also the editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal. Among his current projects, the book Cedric Robinson: Black Radicalism Beyond The Order of Time. In this episode, Myers gives a brief biography of Cedric Robinson’s early life and discusses the key contributions of Black Marxism: The Making of The Black Radical Tradition. We discuss the Black Radical Tradition and racial capitalism in tension and dialogue with modes of radicalism that emanated from Europe. Along the way Myers debunks several common misreadings of Robinson’s work, and urges readers to engage Black Marxism within and along with the whole body of Robinson’s writing as well as the rich tradition of Black Radical thought.
Jun 18, 2020 • 53min
"An Undying Love For The People" - Jamal Joseph On The Black Panther Party's Open Letter To Black Artists
In this episode we talk to Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army Veteran Jamal Joseph. We discuss the new “Open Letter from Original Black Panther Party Members to Black (Hip-Hop) Artists Who Have an Interest in Our Community.” We talk about the Panthers’ desire to engage celebrities and hip hop artists in political discussion about how to use their resources to effectively support a program for Black Liberation. Joseph discuss the latest social movements, the need for a renewal of organizing efforts in the vein of the Black Panther Party, the Panthers proposal for a United Front Against Fascism, and how to reimagine public safety without police and prisons.
Jun 15, 2020 • 1h 4min
#8ToAbolition featuring Nnennaya Amuchie, Rachel Kuo, Eli, Micah Herskind and Reina Sultan
In this episode we speak to five of the creators and authors of 8 To Abolition. Which is an abolitionist response to the police preservationist platform 8 Can’t Wait. Since launching 8 to Abolition has become a viral phenomenon and served along with the popular demands of Defunding Police and Defending Black Life to serve as a key conversation piece and political framework for community-based discussions around police violence and police abolition. We talk to Nnennaya Amuchie, Rachel Kuo, Eli, Micah Herskind and Reina Sultan. Nnennaya Amuchie is a diehard Black left genderqueer feminist and abolitionist, communist, organizer with Black Youth Project 100, published writer on police violence, and an attorney working to build movement lawyering infrastructure. They believe in a joyful and pleasurable future without police and prisons, where reproductive justice is actualized. Rachel Kuo is a scholar of race, digital technology, and social movements. She is a co-founder of the Asian American Feminist Collective. Eli is a community organizer from New York working with Black trans led initiatives invested in learning and helping create tools for community building and survival. From creating spaces for Black trans men and masculine people to explore masculinity and manhood using a Black feminist and womanist framework to crowdfunding for Black trans people Internationally, Eli is invested in building through love and self-accountability. Micah Herskind is an Atlanta-based organizer and writer. Reina Sultan is a Lebanese-American Muslim journalist and organizer.
Jun 11, 2020 • 42min
We Want Freedom: Abolition In Philly and Beyond with Robert Saleem Holbrook and Megan Malachi
In this episode we talk to Robert Saleem Holbrook and Megan Malachi. Megan is an educator and an organizer for Philly for REAL Justice, a grassroots police abolitionist organization that has been organizing in the city for years. One of their keys projects has been pushing direct action towards the removal of the statue of Frank Rizzo, and a multitude of other direct actions around racial injustice, police violence and political prisoners around the city. Robert Saleem Holbrook is the Abolitionist Law Center’s Director of Community Organizing in addition to a number of other roles in social and racial justice work, particularly related to mass incarceration. He was released from prison in 2018 after spending over two decades incarcerated for an offense he was convicted of as a child offender. They both join us today to talk about “We Want Freedom” End the War Against Black Philadelphians NOW! from the Black Philly Radical Collective, which was drafted and signed by Philly for Real Justice, Black Lives Matter Philly, The Black Alliance for Peace, Abolitionist Law Center, Human Rights Coalition, and Mike Africa Jr of MOVE, Mobilization for Mumia, International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. It is a set of demands specific to the conditions of policing in Philadelphia that hopefully can be achieved here in Philly, but also provides a framework for discussion around the country. We talk to them about the role of the FOP and police unions, we talk to them about abolition, and defunding police. We discuss the importance of political prisoners in this moment and centering calls for economic justice in the form of reparations. As well as the importance of staying active to turn this moment into a lasting movement for real racial justice for Black and Brown people in Philadelphia and around the country.
Jun 5, 2020 • 35min
#FreeThemAll Friday - Illegal Police Repression In New Mexico with Selinda Guerrero
This is a special episode. We did not record this audio, but it was shared with us by some organizers with IWOC New Mexico / Millions For Prisoners New Mexico in order to get the word out and hopefully get support in these times of great unrest. Aaron Dixon, former Captain of the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party held this interview with organizers Selinda Guerrero. Selinda leads the New Mexico chapter of Millions for Prisoners, a national movement to abolish the loophole in the 13th amendment that allows for the continuation of slavery through the criminal justice system What is described is deeply disturbing and normally might be shocking to listeners, but given the context of extreme police violence and repression that so many are seeing front and center to right now in their own neighborhoods, this provides further context of the types of repression occurring as the police run rampant in marginalized communities. In the discussion, Selinda describes police arresting an organizer under false pretense, kidnapping children, and kidnapping organizers, manufacturing charges. Specifically she tells the story of Clinton White’s kidnapping at the hands of the state, as she looks for ways to free him from a legal system which often provides no avenue for recourse, even when truth is on your side. Check out #FreeThemAll Friday, Follow Millions For Prisoners New Mexico on Facebook, and we'll be boosting their calls for support on our Twitter as well.
May 16, 2020 • 52min
Vijay Prashad on the CoronaShock Imposed Planetary General Strike
In this episode we interview Vijay Prashad. Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is also the author of thirty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. He is the Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter and a Columnist for Frontline (India). He is the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). We speak to Prashad mainly about his recent work over at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, where he serves as the Director. We discuss the concept of CoronaShock and the responses of capitalistic states and socialistic states to the virus. Prashad also discusses racist and anti-communist depictions of China in the western media. We discuss the demands that Tricontinental and the International People’s Assembly have compiled, including demands around universal basic income, the cancellation of debt, the suspension of the dollar as an international currency, an end to housing payments and a guarantee of housing as a human right among others. Finally we discuss Lenin’s 150th birthday and the forthcoming anti-imperialist week of struggle. Artwork by Ingrid Neves / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
May 7, 2020 • 47min
Episode 54: Sekou Odinga On Political Prisoners, The Black Panthers And The Black Liberation Army
In this episode we are honored to interview Sekou Odinga. Odinga is a former member of Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, a founding member of New York Chapter of the Black Panther Party and one of the falsely charged New York Panther 21. He was also a founding member of the International Black Panther Party chapter which set up an embassy in Algeria. After returning to the US, Odinga joined the Black Liberation Army. In 1984 he was convicted of multiple charges, including the liberation of Assata Shakur. While he contested the charge legally, after serving almost 34 years for the conviction, he has acknowledged that he is honored to be connected with the Assata’s liberation. Sekou Odinga shares reflections, memories and lessons from the struggles of his era. He also joins us specifically to highlight the need to bring home political prisoners. The political prisoners from his generation are all elders, many of them with compromised immune systems, who have all served decades in prison for their political activity.
May 1, 2020 • 52min
Episode 53: Asad Haider - We Have To Begin With Emancipation
In this episode we talk to Asad Haider. Haider is the author of Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump (Verso, 2018), and a founding editor of Viewpoint Magazine. We talk to Asad about his analysis of the Marxist idea of universal emancipation and how he addresses the debate of a race first or class first orientation. We also talk about the strategy of socialists attaining power electorally within a capitalist system, and how socialists should think about the state. We discuss other forms of socialist organizing, strategies for building political power, and the shifting landscape of labor politics and capitalist economics in the COVID-19 pandemic.
