Podcasts about Socialist Alternative

Friday April 11 was the Global Climate Strike called by Fridays For Future, the group started by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. More than 50 people, mainly students, demonstrated at the State Capitol in Albany. We hear music by Terri Roben; Ryan, the local FFF organizer; Mark Dunlea of PAUSE/350 Albany and GELF (Green Education and Legal Fund); Kelsey from UAlbany; Vena; Matt Oill from XR and Socialist Alternative; and Hannah and RPI Sunrise. With President Trump having declared war on the transition to clean, renewable energy, it is critical that state lawmakers and Governor Hochul reverse course and include major climate measures in the state budget, starting with NY Heat, GAP, and the Renewable Capitol Act. Many spoke about the need to oppose capitalism and colonialism.

On Saturday April 5, more than a million people came together in more than 1200 events nationwide to tell President Trump and Elon Musk Hands off! Organizers said this was a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history, an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. Several thousand braved chilling rain at the State Capitol in Albany to deliver that message. We hear from Matt Oill of Socialist Alternative; a representative of 50501; Laurel Wilson of Indivisible; Deyva Arthur of the Green Party; Adam Pelletier of the Federalist Union Network; Fred Kowal of United University Professions; Mark Emanation of Capital District Area Labor Federation; and Jamaica Miles of All of Us. By Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine. (full, not for radio)

The 1946 Oakland General Strike was part of a massive wave of strikes that took place in the U.S. in 1945 and 1946. Over two days in Oakland, California, and the surrounding area, thousands of strikers shut the city down. Research: “Oakland General Strike (1946) (Part 2).” From Golden Lands, Working Hands. Part Seven: We Called It a Work Holiday. Written by Fred Glass. CFT. Via YouTube. 7/23/2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-yFDzKzLfE “Oakland General Strike (1946).” From Golden Lands, Working Hands. Part Seven: We Called It a Work Holiday. Written by Fred Glass. CFT. Via YouTube. 7/22/2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfUmIeCTJTA “World War II Homefront Era: 1940s: Post War Workers Protest Salary Cuts & Layoffs.” Picture This: California Perspectives on American History. Oakland Museum of California. https://picturethis.museumca.org/pictures/oakland-general-strike Barbash, Jack. “Chapter 6: Unions and Rights in the Space Age.” U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/chapter6 Borden, Timothy G. "Strike Wave: United States." St. James Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide, edited by Neil Schlager, vol. 2, St. James Press, 2004, pp. 273-277. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3408900275/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=033d396d. Accessed 25 Feb. 2025. Boyden, Richard. “The Oakland general strike.” Libcom.org. 11/4/2012. https://libcom.org/article/oakland-general-strike-richard-boyden Glass, Fred. “"We Called it a 'Work Holiday:" The 1946 Oakland General Strike.” From “Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement.” June 2016. Glass, Fred. “Latham Square renovation commemorates the 1946 Oakland General Strike.” California Federatoin of Labor Unions. 8/3/2016. https://calaborfed.org/california-history/latham_square_renovation_commemorates_the_1946_oakland_general_strike/ Miller, Gregory M. "Taft-Hartley Act." St. James Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide, edited by Neil Schlager, vol. 2, St. James Press, 2004, pp. 292-295. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3408900280/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=014855b4. Accessed 25 Feb. 2025. National Labor Relations Board. “1947 Taft-Hartley Passage and NLRB Structural Changes.” https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1947-taft-hartley-passage-and-nlrb-structural-changes National Labor Relations Board. “1947 Taft-Hartley Substantive Provisions.” https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1947-taft-hartley-substantive-provisions New American Movement and Oakland Study Group. “The Oakland general strike of 1946.” California Revealed. Pacifica Radio Archives. https://californiarevealed.org/do/a5f71c35-85c9-4f8e-83f4-77e49cc287cc Rosalsky, Greg. “Price Controls, Black Markets, And Skimpflation: The WWII Battle Against Inflation.” Planet Money. 2/8/2022. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/02/08/1078035048/price-controls-black-markets-and-skimpflation-the-wwii-battle-against-inflation The National World War II Museum. “The Smith–Connally Act and Labor Battles on the Home Front.” 6/22/2023. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/smith-connally-act-and-labor-battles-home-front The Oakland Standard. “Notes on the 1946 General Strike.” https://vimeo.com/43192608 Tomlin, Justin. “The 1946 Oakland General Strike.” Socialist Alternative. 2/10/2022. https://www.socialistalternative.org/2022/02/10/the-1946-oakland-general-strike/ Weir, Stan. “Oakland 1946 General Strike.” FoundSF. https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Oakland_1946_General_Strike See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Featuring the latest in activist campaigns and struggles against oppression fighting for a better world with anti-capitalist analysis on current affairs and international politics. Presenters: Jacob Andrewartha, Jordan AK.NewsreportsHeadline news discussionPresenters discuss the Palestinians return to northern Gaza and why it represents a victory for Palestinian resistance.News from Green Left discussed by the presenters.Invasion Day 2025: "Genocide is no reason to celebrateDoctors, activists condemn Queensland LNP's attack on trans youthClimate change extinctions in Australia predicted to be among the highest globallyFar right ‘willfully misinterprets' criticism of Dutton's racismInterviews and DiscussionOmar Hassan, member of Socialist Alternative, long-standing suppoter of the Syrian Revolution, recently visited Syria for a number of weeks to report on the situation after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship joins the program to discuss the political situation in Syria. You can listen to the individual interview here.Songs playedThe Boy and the Plane - Marcel KhalifeMercy Mercy Mercy - Marvin Gaye

Solidarity 729, 8 January 2025. Articles: NHS: funding, not “fix-its”! Social care needs public ownership and decent pay Ukraine: new threat posed by Trump Musk, Kickl, Farage, and the rest The kickback from tick-box feminism Stop new horror in Gaza! End the cycle of war! HTS's win in Syria: a plan made up by Israel? Who rules Georgia? Ivanishvili? Trump threatens the neighbours The opposite of the promises On the sidelines, or inside? Socialist Alternative: a split, but going where? Syria: stirrings against HTS A year of trying to stop arms for Ukraine How the left has used Connolly Korea: then as farce Debate: Blame capitalist production, not working class consumption When we have hours in the mess room Back Andrea Egan in Unison! Compassion put into action More online: https://workersliberty.org/publications/solidarity/solidarity-729-8-january-2025

Workers at Woolworths distribution centres are on strike! For the past 2 weeks, workers have been picketing Woolies warehouses across the country to demand a pay increase and to stop a new performance management program, referred to by Woolworths as the “framework”, which is designed to monitor workers' every move and increase the pace of work. In an already-dangerous industry where injuries are common, Woolworths is attempting to enforce 100% pick rates on workers. This is the same Woolworths that have seen their profits (and board member bonuses) soar over the past few years through price-gouging.    Emma spoke to two working-class legends about the strike: Ryan Stanton and Jerome Small.    Ryan Stanton is an electrician and ETU member based in Melbourne. He worked in warehousing for 5 years where he led a victorious strike at Polar Fresh back in 2016. He's a socialist and contributor to Red Flag.  Jerome Small is an industrial organiser of Socialist Alternative. He worked in construction for around 17 years and has been a socialist and union activist since the 80s. He has been covering the Woolworths strike for Red Flag newspaper.  Picket addresses at the end of this article: Support striking Woolworths warehouse workers this week (and next) (19 Nov) https://redflag.org.au/article/support-striking-woolworths-warehouse-workers-this-week-and-next Jerome's latest article on the strike: https://redflag.org.au/article/hope-on-the-picket-line    Check Red Flag website for more coverage of the current strike: https://redflag.org.au/   Read about the recent history of class struggle in the logistics industry: The 2015 Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre strike: Inside a Melbourne warehouse strike: https://redflag.org.au/article/inside-melbourne-warehouse-strike   The 2016 Polar Fresh strike: 'Thirty bucks, no trucks!' Warehouse workers strike back against Coles https://redflag.org.au/node/5410   Coles still rattled by Polar Fresh strike, one year on https://redflag.org.au/node/5933

The Murdoch press has been on a tear against the Palestine movement and particularly "serial protestor" Josh Lees, a leading member of the Palestine Action Group (PAG) and Socialist Alternative, and our guest for this episode. NSW Premier Chris Minns accused Josh of costing tax-payers $5 million to police the protests. The attacks on Josh and PAG are part of a fresh wave of repression and censorship against the Palestine movement in Australia. These attacks are happening on campuses and in the streets, they are coming from the media, Labor governments, the Liberals and university vice-chancellors. Emma spoke to Josh about the nature of that repression and the way charges of anti-semitism have been weaponised against anti-war campaigners protesting a genocide. Relevant articles: "Zionist groups are falsifying antisemitism statistics and the media are playing along" - by Joel Schneider "NSW police fail to ban pro-Palestine protests" by Emma Norton  "Fighting for Palestine, one year on" - by Josh Lees  "Slander won't stop students from resisting genocide" - by Jack Mansell   

We are joined by a special guest, Cora Bergantiños-Crespo. Cora is a geneticist, and the outgoing President of UAW 4100, the union of postdoctoral researchers at Columbia University and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative and Workers Strike Back. Cora talks to us about what escalation strategy the anti-war movement, and specifically the campus encampment protests, urgently need. She describes the role of the labor movement, and the need to harness the power of organized labor in order to end the war on Gaza and end all U.S. military funding to the Israeli state. A lot of political analysts are comparing this moment to 1968, when the movement against the Vietnam War took its protests to the DNC, and faced all kinds of police repression. That DNC was also in Chicago just as it will be in August this year. It is absolutely crucial that the anti-war movement builds for mass protests at the DNC. The campus protests are an enormous and historic development, but we also know from history that student protests alone will not be enough to end the genocidal war or the stranglehold of Wall Street billionaires on universities, much less on our society as a whole. They have the potential, however, to be a spark for even larger developments. There was a near revolution against capitalism in France in 1968 - major student protests acted as a spark that initiated a mass movement leading up to a general strike in France. A revolution would have been possible, which could have then spread regionally and globally, had it not been for the betrayal of the leaders of mass worker organizations who undermined the movement and failed to provide any leadership, in effect rescuing the capitalist class. If you live in or near Seattle, join us in person for a special rally and public meeting on May 16th at 6PM at Smith 120 on UW campus, where we will discuss these and other next steps for the antiwar movement. And on Sunday May 19th, Workers Strike Back and Socialist Alternative are hosting a national public meeting over Zoom to discuss how we can take this movement forward by bringing the momentum of the student protests to the DNC in Chicago this August, and having campus worker unions across the country take up the example of UAW 4811's strike authorization vote and WEA members' resolution to rescind the endorsement of Biden and bring a powerful challenge to US imperialism and end this genocidal war. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/mem... Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

Haiti has become engulfed in an unprecedented crisis of deadly gang violence over the last several weeks. Political gangs vying for control of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, have effectively laid siege to the city, storming prisons, seizing control of the port, torching shops and buildings, destroying hospitals, and taking over the main international airport. The United Nations estimates that eighty percent of Port-au-Prince is now under gang control, pointing towards a veritable collapse of society.  Over 300,000 Haitians have been forced to flee their homes, and thousands have become victims of indiscriminate violence at the hands of the armed gangs. Over 1,500 people have been killed since just the start of this year, and morgues have been overflowing with bodies. Hospitals are flooded with countless patients with gunshot wounds, many of them civilians hit in gang crossfire. Harrowing reports of kidnappings, gang rapes, and homes being burned add to the picture of a nation in the throes of a deep-rooted crisis. To help us understand the roots and historical context of this crisis, why it should matter to American working and young people, how it relates to the other crises internationally under capitalism, and what strategy is needed to end the crisis in Haiti, we have two special guests today. Toya Chester is a rank-and-file member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Eric Jenkins is an educator in the Philadelphia Public School district, and is a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Both Eric and Toya are among the leaders of the Black Caucus of Socialist Alternative. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow  On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

Last month, over 1.5 million people protested in Germany, bringing entire cities to a standstill, in what became the largest wave of protests in the history of the country. Cities like Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich each saw hundreds of thousands of protesters out on the streets. The protests were the result of widespread outrage at horrific anti-immigrant deportation plans by the so-called Alternative for Germany, or AfD for short, a right-wing populist party, and against the overall shift to the right by the establishment parties in the country. The protests have since continued into their fourth week, with hundreds of thousands of people still marching in the streets. To help us understand more about what's happening in Germany, the way forward for the protest movement, and why this matters for working and young people in the United States and globally, we are fortunate to have with us today Claus Ludwig, a member of Socialist Alternative in Germany, a sister organization of Socialist Alternative here in the US. Claus is a union activist in the public sector, and the editor of sozialismus.info, the online and printed newspaper of Socialist Alternative in Germany. Claus was active in the antifascist movement in the early 1990s, and at that time, co-founded the Youth Against Racism movement in Europe. He is the author of a book titled Firebugs, about the rise of the AfD, published in 2017. He was also a council member in the city of Cologne for Die Linke, or the left party in Germany from 2004 to 2014. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow  On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

News and labour updates from the Asia Pacific region.We listen to a speech delivered by AAWL and Socialist Alternative's Jerome Small, at the Free Palestine rally held in Melbourne Australia.Asia Pacific Currents provides updates of labour struggles and campaigns from the Asia Pacific region. It is produced by Australia Asia Worker Links, in the studio of 3CR Radio in Melbourne, Australia.

In this episode, we're focusing on Biden's loss of support among Black voters, which has been dramatic in a number of polls. Black voters were crucial in Biden's 2020 election, but recent polls have shown half of Black voters wanting a different candidate, and growing numbers who either said they wouldn't vote at all or would support Trump. It's clear so many working-class people want a genuine alternative to business as usual in the 2024 elections, but what can we do to fight for it? We're lucky to have with us Ryan Watson, who is a tech worker based in Chicago, a Workers Strike Back activist, a rank-and-file member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and a leading member of the Black Caucus of Socialist Alternative. Ryan is going to help us understand what the South Carolina primary results show about Black voter consciousness, and what Black working and young people can and should do to fight for a better world. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow  On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

What is the US-China Cold War, and why does it matter for working people? This new Cold War between US imperialism and Chinese imperialism impacts every aspect of the world situation today, from the war in Ukraine to the war on Gaza to climate change.  The horrific violence we're seeing around the world has led millions of working people to wonder why these disasters are happening and how we can stop them. In order to bring these wars to an end and win the kind of society working people need, we must understand the roots of these conflicts and the interests of the ruling classes who orchestrate them.  In this episode, Bia talks with Tom Crean, a longtime activist with Socialist Alternative in the US and internationally. He is currently writing a book about the end of the era of neoliberal globalization and the beginning of the new age of global disorder, a key feature of which is the new Cold War.  Suggested articles from Socialist Alternative on the new Cold War: https://www.socialistalternative.org/2023/08/29/the-new-cold-war-heats-up/ https://www.socialistalternative.org/2023/10/06/isa-statement-the-new-cold-war-and-ukraine-war/ https://www.socialistalternative.org/2023/11/30/xi-biden-talks-no-thaw-in-cold-war/ Learn more about Socialist Alternative and how to join: https://www.socialistalternative.org  On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow  On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

Long before democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were household names, Socialist Alternative and Kshama won an openly socialist campaign for the Seattle City Council in 2013. Kshama was the first socialist elected in Seattle in nearly a century. After a decade in office, having overcome unrelenting big business opposition to win historic gains for working people and four consecutive elections, Kshama is leaving the City Council undefeated. Kshama's socialist office, alongside movements of working people, have racked up an unprecedented list of victories: the first $15 minimum wage in a major U.S. city (automatically adjusted for inflation, it's now the highest in the country), the historic Amazon Tax on Seattle's wealthiest corporations to fund affordable housing, ten major renters' rights laws, the first ban on caste discrimination anywhere in the world outside South Asia, making Seattle an abortion sanctuary city where providers and patients cannot be prosecuted or extradited, and so many more. How was this possible? What are the lessons we should take forward from this decade of socialist politics in Seattle, to win even greater victories across the country? Check out this first part of our two-episode special to find out! On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. #KshamaSawant #socialism #socialist #politics #Democrats #workingclass #AOC #organizing #labormovement #unions --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

Part 2 of our two-part special on Kshama Sawant's 10 years as a socialist on the Seattle City Council! Long before democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were household names, Socialist Alternative and Kshama won an openly socialist campaign for the Seattle City Council in 2013. Kshama was the first socialist elected in Seattle in nearly a century. After a decade in office, having overcome unrelenting big business opposition to win historic gains for working people and four consecutive elections, Kshama is leaving the City Council undefeated. Kshama's socialist office, alongside movements of working people, have racked up an unprecedented list of victories: the first $15 minimum wage in a major U.S. city (automatically adjusted for inflation, it's now the highest in the country), the historic Amazon Tax on Seattle's wealthiest corporations to fund affordable housing, ten major renters' rights laws, the first ban on caste discrimination anywhere in the world outside South Asia, making Seattle an abortion sanctuary city where providers and patients cannot be prosecuted or extradited, and so many more. How was this possible? What are the lessons we should take forward from this decade of socialist politics in Seattle, to win even greater victories across the country? On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/membership On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. #KshamaSawant #socialism #socialist #politics #Democrats #workingclass #AOC #organizing #labormovement #unions --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

Millions around the world have protested the massacre of Palestinian people as Gaza's death toll has risen to over 11,320 people. Yet, Biden, Antony Blinken, and the Democrats refuse to call for a ceasefire and continue their push to send billions more to the Israeli war machine. Hillary Clinton, who never met a war she didn't like, is actively supporting the deadly Israeli state's assault. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is also refusing to call for a cease-fire and completely failing the movement. Only Rashida Tlaib has shown the kind of courage necessary to fight back against the Democratic establishment, but how far is she willing to go? What will it take to end this war, and how can we escalate the fightback? Kshama and Bia discuss the role of the US ruling class—particularly the Democrats—in continuing to fund this massacre, the history of anti-war movements and how the labor movement can play a key role in blocking the dangerous advance of this war. We're joined by several members of Socialist Struggle in Israel-Palestine, a sister section of Socialist Alternative, to talk about the anti-war movement on the ground, as well as Workers Strike Back activists from across the U.S. As Workers Strike Back activists and socialists, we condemn the Israeli assault, and call for an immediate cease-fire, and for humanitarian aid to help Palestinian people recover. We call for an end to U.S. military aid to the Israeli state's war machine, the release of all hostages on both sides, and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. Donate now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/donate Or support us on Patreon: On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe. #Gaza #WaronGaza #Palestine #Israel #Biden #War #Antiwar #BernieSanders #RashidaTlaib #Democrats #GazaUnderAttack --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onstrikeshow/support

On this Tuesday topical show, we present Part 1 of the Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Election Roundtable which was live-streamed on November 13, 2023 with special guests Katie Wilson, Andrew Villeneuve, and Robert Cruickshank. In Part 1, the panel breaks down general election results in Seattle City Council Districts 1 through 6. Similarities and differences between the contests are discussed as well as the impact of low voter turnout, lopsided outside spending, and campaign messaging. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the roundtable releasing this Friday for more election analysis! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find guest panelists, Katie Wilson at @WilsonKatieB, Robert Cruickshank at @cruickshank, and Andrew Villeneuve at https://www.nwprogressive.org. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Katie Wilson Katie Wilson is the general secretary of the Transit Riders Union and was the campaign coordinator for the wildly successful Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative last November.    Andrew Villeneuve Andrew Villeneuve is the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) and its sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer.   Robert Cruickshank Robert is the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle. A long time communications and political strategist, he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mike McGinn from 2011-2013.   Resources Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Election Roundtable Livestream | November 13th, 2023   Transcript [00:00:00] Shannon Cheng: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Shannon Cheng, Producer for the show. You're listening to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Election Roundtable that was originally aired live on Monday, November 13th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure you stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for tuning in! [00:00:38] Crystal Fincher: Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Hacks and Wonks Post-Election Roundtable. I'm Crystal Fincher, a political consultant and the host of the Hacks & Wonks radio show and podcast, and today I am thrilled to be joined by three of my favorite Hacks and Wonks to break down what happened in last week's general election in Washington. We are excited to be able to live stream this roundtable on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Additionally, we're recording this roundtable for broadcast on KODX and KVRU radio, podcast, and it will be available with a full text transcript at officialhacksandwonks.com. Our esteemed panelists for this evening are Katie Wilson. Katie is the general secretary of the Transit Riders Union and was the campaign coordinator for the wildly successful Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative last November. Andrew Villeneuve is the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute and its sibling, Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. And Robert Cruickshank - Robert's the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, a longtime communications and political strategist, and he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mayor Mike McGinn from 2011 to 2013. Welcome, everyone. [00:02:02] Robert Cruickshank: Thanks for having us. [00:02:04] Katie Wilson: Yeah, thanks, Crystal. [00:02:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, absolutely. Let's start talking about the City of Seattle City Council races. There are quite a number of them - we'll break them down by district. So there were 7 districted positions. This was the first election since the latest redistricting process, so these districts are not exactly the same as they were the last time we had an election, so that may have played a little role - we'll talk a little about that later. But going into Position 1 - as we see, Rob Saka currently holds a commanding lead and he will win the race for Seattle City Council District 1 with 54% of the vote to Maren Costa's 45% of the vote. Turnout in this election was 46%, compared to 2019's 54%. Quite a bit difference. Starting with Robert, what was your take on this race? [00:03:09] Robert Cruickshank: You know, I have to say I was a little surprised at the margin of victory for Rob Saka here - for a couple reasons. One is that I thought Maren Costa ran what seemed to me to be a strong campaign that potentially would have resonated with a majority of voters, not just 45% of voters in West Seattle and in Georgetown-South Park. But also Maren Costa got endorsed by all of the other candidates in the primary aside from Rob Saka. And one might have thought that that would have conferred added legitimacy and certainly support for the campaign. It does not seem to have turned out that way. One thing I think we'll certainly want to talk about tonight is the effect of lower turnout - did that wind up sinking progressive candidates or was it other factors? But here you see the first of the seven districts - significantly lower turnout. Now if we had 2019 level turnout, would that have been enough to bring Maren Costa to victory? Hard to say. Maybe not. But this certainly is one where Maren Costa, who had a great record of standing up to Amazon - she was one of the two employees who was fired by Amazon for doing climate organizing, and then wound up getting a settlement as a result of that. I'd be interested to dive more deeply into what happened there. But it's also - one thing I would keep in mind is West Seattle - voters there have been pretty cranky and upset ever since the pandemic began - because while for the rest of us in Seattle, pandemic 2020 meant lockdowns, it meant protests, it meant a lot of disruption. For West Seattle, it also meant being cut off from the rest of the city because the bridge went out. The bridge closed right around the time the lockdowns began due to safety concerns it might collapse. And having spent a little bit of time there in West Seattle lately and talking to voters out there - there is a strong sense of disconnection, of anger and frustration, at City Hall and it's possible that got taken out on Maren Costa, who's seen as a progressive candidate. There's definitely a narrative that the business community - and their wealthy PACs and Seattle Times - tried to tell to paint progressives as a kind of incumbents here. And it's entirely possible that that was another factor here too. But certainly worth looking at to see what happened in District 1. [00:05:23] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. What do you think about this, Andrew? Oh, you are currently muted. [00:05:35] Andrew Villeneuve: I was surprised too. I think this was a result that not a lot of people maybe saw coming because if you look at the top two results, Maren had a significant lead - plurality lead, but a lead. You look at the difference - they are in two different brackets when you have - Maren Costa's up there in the 30s, Rob Saka's back there in the 20s. So I think a lot of people assumed in the general election that there was going to be a significant advantage for Maren Costa, especially having the support of all of these rivals who had not made it to the general election. But I think when you look at Rob Saka's message, I think we have to conclude that it did resonate with the voters in the district. And I'm looking at his website and just checking out all of his enendorsements - and he emphasized he was endorsed by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell - I think that was a key endorsement that he got. I think the mayor is very popular - our organization does quite a bit of polling - some of Hacks & Wonks listeners may know. And in all of our polling this year we've seen the mayor is very popular with Seattle voters. And that includes District 3 voters, voters across the city - really he's popular all over the place. So having that endorsement and touting that as prominently as he did - I think that was a key factor. And then of course The Seattle Times - I think they have more pull in certain districts than others. And District 1, I think, is a district where I think that they have more pull than some of the other publications that endorsed in the race. I think The Stranger's endorsement matters more in District 3 than it does in District 1. And I think we saw the result of that here with this result. And it could have been closer if there had been higher turnout. I have to agree with that as well. And the fact is right now we may see the lowest turnout in the history of the state of Washington in a general election. It's not clear yet if we're actually going to get to that worst turnout marker but we are certainly close. Currently I am looking to see how many ballots are left because the Secretary of State is saying - Well, we think the turnout is going to be somewhere between 36% and 39% - that's statewide. And if we don't surpass 37.10% then it is the worst turnout 'cause that was the low mark set in 2017. And as we can see, Seattle has higher turnout than the state as a whole, but it's lower than it has been in past odd years. This is part of a disturbing trend where we keep seeing turnout declining in odd-year elections - it is not going in a healthy direction, so that could definitely have an effect. If there is an opportunity later we can talk about even-year elections and what that could do for Seattle, but I'll leave it there and we'll continue to talk about the other races. [00:08:13] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. What did you see? We will go over to this next slide here - looking at the role of independent expenditures in addition to campaign fundraising, did you see the role of money in this race being significant, Katie? [00:08:33] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. I haven't actually studied in detail all of the slides you put together, but this is obviously telling that there is a pretty massive independent expenditure contributions here against Maren Costa. And you have to believe that that was a significant factor. I hope that maybe you, Crystal, or someone can speak to the relative weight of independent expenditures in the different City races because I haven't looked at that but I wonder to what extent that can help us to understand some of the results. But I think the spending against Maren was really significant. I will say this was one of the races that also surprised me. Partly because whereas we saw in a couple of other districts some of the more progressive labor unions actually lined up with the more moderate candidate, in this race labor - maybe not 100%, but was pretty strong for Maren and so it also surprised me to see this margin. The last thing I'll say, because I know we have a lot to get through, is that I'm really curious about what is so horrible about Rob Saka that all of his opponents in the primary came out for Maren, so perhaps we will get to learn that - maybe that's a silver lining. [00:09:40] Crystal Fincher: Hopefully we learn he can rise above that given he is going to be a councilmember. It will certainly be interesting to see what his prime agenda is. He's certainly talked a lot about public safety, police - a lot of public safety talk involved with a lot of different issue areas. So it's going to be really interesting to see what his priorities are as he begins to govern. I want to talk about Seattle City Council District 2. And this is one that saw a pretty tantalizing result - had us all on the edge of our seats. On Election Night, which is just a partial tally because we have vote by mail - those come in day after day, it takes us days to count them. We saw Tammy Morales overtake Tanya Woo after a few days of counting. This is a very, very close race. We can see here the breakdown of what the daily ballot returns were and how those changed over time. Robert, what did you see with this race, and why do you think Tammy was able to prevail when so many of the other progressive candidates were not? [00:10:54] Robert Cruickshank: This is not the first time Tammy Morales has been in a very close election in District 2. She ran for the seat the first time in 2015 against then-incumbent councilmember Bruce Harrell and narrowly lost by roughly 400 votes. She did get, of course, elected in 2019 and now re-elected here in 2023. I think part of the story here is incumbency does help. I think the fact that Morales has worked really hard to show her voters that she delivers in southeast Seattle also goes a really long way. Obviously there was frustration among a lot of voters in the Chinatown International District area - that shows up in the results so far - Tanya Woo did very well there. But in other parts of District 2 - Columbia City and points south - Morales held her own and did well. I think you've seen in the four years Morales has been in office, she's been a champion for workers, a champion for renters. She's fought very hard to tax Amazon, supported the JumpStart Tax. She's been very attentive to the needs of the district. When a number of people were struck and killed along MLK Boulevard there, Morales stepped up and met with people, fought hard and is continuing to fight hard at the City and with Sound Transit to make safety improvements. Morales is seen by a lot of people in southeast Seattle as someone who is attentive to the district, attentive to concerns, and responsive - along with being a progressive who's delivered results. So I think those are the things that insulated Tammy Morales from a more maybe conservative-moderate wave this year. Tanya Woo certainly ran, I think, a strong campaign - obviously a very close result. But I think a lesson here is that progressives who get in office and try very hard and very overtly to show their voters that they are working hard for them, that they share their values and are trying to deliver - that can go a really long way. [00:12:56] Crystal Fincher: I definitely agree with that. How did you see this, Andrew? [00:13:00] Andrew Villeneuve: I see Councilmember Morales as someone who is willing to do the work and that really matters. In a local campaign, doorbelling counts, organizing counts. I looked at Councilmember Morales' website while I was writing our election coverage last week and I was noticing how many of the pictures that she has are her with other people - and they're holding signs and look very excited. I look a lot at how do candidates present themselves and who do they surround themselves with. And there's something about these pictures that struck me as - it's not so conventional, it's very fresh. I thought that was a good image for her to put out to the electorate. This is a hard-working councilmember who's got a lot of supporters - a lot of grassroots support - focused on the needs of the neighborhood. Incumbency matters, as Robert said. I was looking at her 2019 results as well. In 2019 she had 60.47% of the vote in that contest. And that was a sharp change from 2015 when she was facing off against Bruce Harrell and lost by only a few hundred votes. So I think that that big victory four years ago was helpful in setting the stage for this closer election this year where it was a tougher environment - the district's changed and of course you had an opponent who was well funded and trying to get the seat. And I think a more credible, perhaps a better opponent - someone The Seattle Times and others could really rally around more than Mark Solomon from four years ago. So I think that's what made the race closer. But Councilmember Morales brought a lot of strength to this race, and you can see in the late ballots that that dominance was key. And that's why it's so important that that lead change occurred last week, because if Tammy was still behind this week it would be hard to pull it out. And we're seeing that in those other two races that we'll talk about later where things got really close but there's no lead change. [00:14:51] Crystal Fincher: What was your evaluation of this race, Katie? [00:14:54] Katie Wilson: I don't have a lot to add but I'll just say I think with a margin that small everything matters, right? And so, kudos to the folks who ran that campaign and who were out knocking on doors and making phone calls and sending texts - because with just a few hundred votes that makes a difference. Fewer than a thousand votes difference in that race would be looking more like the District 7 race and we'd all be singing a very different tune. And I will just say - the implications of that race - Tammy being theon council again is going to be super important for social housing, for the success of Initiative 135, because she's really been kind of a champion of that on council and now will be able to continue that work - that was one of the things looking at the initial results that was running through my mind is - oh gosh, who's gonna carry the standard for social housing? [00:15:54] Crystal Fincher: That's a great point. I also want to look at the spending in this race where Tanya Woo and independent expenditures in support of her and in opposition to Tammy Morales were substantial. And in this race, as in District 1 and a few others, we saw some very sharp and pointed criticisms coming through in mailers, in commercials. It was quite the direct voter messaging campaign. Do any of you think it went too far? Do you think it backfired at all? How did you evaluate that in this race? [00:16:38] Robert Cruickshank: I don't know that it -- obviously it didn't succeed. But again I agree with Katie that in every close - super close election like this, every little bit makes a difference. I think it's clear that it certainly helped Tanya get to a very near victory. It's entirely possible though that it also may have backfired in some ways. I think that generally speaking, voters want to hear from candidates positive things about why you should elect them. They don't want to hear a candidate delivering negative hits. Someone else delivers the negative hits - it shouldn't be the candidate themselves. So it's entirely possible that Tanya Woo maybe put a ceiling on herself by going personally directly negative. But then again just a couple of shifts here and there and we're talking about a Tanya Woo victory. [00:17:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, you raise a great point. In a race this close, everything matters. Been involved in close races before - you dissect every single little thing. Wonderful to be on the winning end, agonizing to be on the losing end of this - for the candidate and staff. As we look to the District 3 race, this was an interesting race because we had one of the most notorious active incumbents in Kshama Sawant, who had gotten a lot of ire from The Seattle Times, from some of the TV news - were not a fan of her. She was a Socialist, not a Democrat, and pointed that out fairly frequently. Was a lightning rod but you can't say she didn't represent her district. She was reelected. She withstood a recall attempt but she decided not to run for reelection, so we had Alex Hudson and Joy Hollingsworth competing to be a new representative in this district. What do you think this race was about, and why do you think we got the result that we did? We'll start with Andrew. [00:18:39] Andrew Villeneuve: So this is a race that we actually polled at NPI. We do as much polling as we can locally during odd numbered cycles, but it's tough because there's so many jurisdictions and some of them are too small to poll. But in this jurisdiction, there were enough voters that we could do a poll which was great. And in our poll we found a significant lead for Joy Hollingsworth. In the aggregate, which is a combination of a series of questions that we asked - Joy Hollingsworth got 52%, Alex Hudson got 28%, 16% said they were not sure, 3% didn't recall how they voted - that's the early voters, part of them. And 1% would not vote. So what we saw in the election was - of course, the late ballots have now come in - and what's interesting is Joy Hollingsworth's number is not very far off from the number she got in the poll. So basically it looks like the people who were planning to vote for Joy, or did vote for Joy already, did that. So they followed through - that's what they did. And it looks like Alex Hudson picked up most of the undecided voters and brought that race much closer. But Joy had this built-in lead that the poll showed was out there. Joy had done the work to build a majority coalition of voters in this election and our pollster did a good job modeling the election. They had to figure out who is going to turn out, and that's always a guess. They looked at 2019 turnout, 2017 turnout, 2021 turnout - tried to get a feel for who's that likely electorate going to be. And what we saw basically is the dynamic that was captured in the poll is what played out in the election. Joy had a majority and that majority was able to get Joy elected. Alex took the undecideds, the not sure folks, brought them in and made it a much closer race. But didn't do well enough in the late ballots to change the outcome, and that's despite District 3 being a very, very, very progressive district - a district that I think The Stranger has more influence in than other districts in the city. So I think it's really great that we were able to take a look at this race. I wish we could have done all 7 districts. But we have a poll write-up where we talked about what we heard from voters because we actually asked them - Why are you backing this candidate? We did a follow-up question. It was a ground breaking thing for us in a local poll to ask the why behind the vote. And people told us that Joy is from the district. People said she grew up in Seattle, she's genuinely invested in the community, not everyone with a political science degree knows what's best. She has extensive experience across a lot of relevant areas - greatly focused on public safety, had the mayor's endorsement, long Central area presence. So those are some of the comments that we heard. People who were supporting Alex said that she was an urbanist, she had a better set of plans. There were some really positive things people said about her. We didn't get a lot of negativity in the poll so people weren't really trashing the other candidate, but they were praising the one that they had decided to support. And I like to see that. I like to see that positive focus. So I think that's why we saw the result we did. Joy ran a really strong campaign, she connected with people. She was all over the place - I heard from District 3 voters saying, She doorbelled my home or she made herself accessible. I really liked that. And people just like to see someone from the Central District running for this council position. And my hat is off to Alex for putting together a great set of plans, running a strong campaign as well - it's just that in this election, Joy was her opponent and Joy was able to seal the deal with the voters. [00:21:59] Crystal Fincher: How did you see this, Katie? [00:22:03] Katie Wilson: I think Andrew gave a good rundown there. What I would have to add is this is one of those districts where some of the labor unions that you might think would line up with the person who is perceived as the more progressive candidate actually went for Joy. UFCW 3000 and Unite Here Local 8 both endorsed Joy and she got MLK Labor's endorsement. I think that probably mattered. I live in District 3 and I got in the mail an envelope, and when you open it there was a card from Unite Here Local 8 - pro-Joy. And so I think that for a lot of people who maybe are not in a hyperpolitical bubble, there was not a clear contrast between the two candidates in terms of who was the lefty pick and who was the more moderate pick. So yeah, I mean, and I think basically everything that Andrew said resonates with me as well. [00:23:02] Crystal Fincher: Robert, do you think that the contract - or contrast or lack of a contrast played a role in this race? [00:23:09] Robert Cruickshank: I absolutely do. I think there's an interesting column from Danny Westneat of all people in Seattle Times over the weekend, but what made it interesting is quoting a Seattle University professor who said he talked to his students and the students said - Yeah, they both seem progressive. They both seem pretty similar. And I think if you look at their campaign literature and their websites, that comes through. There's a longstanding strategy of a more moderate business-friendly candidate like Hollingsworth blurring those lines. I remember the 2013 election when Mike McGinn, the incumbent, narrowly lost to Ed Murray. And Murray ate into McGinn's base on Capitol Hill partly by blurring those lines. Jenny Durkan did a very similar strategy to Cary Moon in 2017. Blur the lines, make yourself seem progressive, make it seem like both are fine. A couple other things stand out as well. The Washington Community Alliance puts together this great general elections dashboard. And I was looking at the results so far, precinct that we have - not complete results, but so far from 2023 in District 3 - and comparing it to what we saw there in 2019. And something stood out to me immediately, and Andrew alluded to this. On Capitol Hill itself, Alex Hudson did really well, so did Kshama Sawant. In the northern part of the district - North Capitol Hill, Montlake, and anywhere along the water, Leschi, Madrona - Egan Orion in 2019, and Joy Hollingsworth did well in those areas. In the Central District, Kshama Sawant put up 60, 65, 70% in those precincts. In 2023, Joy Hollingsworth won most of those Central District precincts. That seems to be where the battle for District 3 was won by Joy Hollingsworth and lost by Alex Hudson. So I think that's a big part of it. I think the fact that Hollingsworth is from the community, is herself a woman of color, I think that resonated really strongly there. I think that those factors meant Alex Hudson had a real hill to climb, literally and figuratively, getting up there in District 3. And I don't think Alex was able to do it. You know, we at the Sierra Club endorsed Alex, but we interviewed all the candidates, and they were all really strong candidates there. I think ultimately, there's an interesting contrast with Sawant and Hudson that - I haven't figured out where I am on this, but it's interesting to think about. You know, Sawant won four elections in Seattle, the last three of which were in District 3 against huge corporate opposition. And one of the ways she prevailed was by mobilizing a strong base and by showing she delivers for her base. She delivers for workers, she delivers for renters - everybody knows that. And her base of activists from Socialist Alternative are out there aggressively getting votes. They did a great job of it. Unfortunately, Hudson is much more of a wonk candidate. She has extensive experience with housing and transit, knows local government inside and out. And when Sawant was in office, you'd hear a lot of progressives lament Sawant's approach, lament Sawant's attitude and style. And wish they had someone who was more of a wonk who'd work within City government - that's definitely Alex Hudson, but you gotta get elected. And what we see is that there's something to Sawant's approach - not that you have to agree with all of it - there's something to her approach to winning elections that I think progressives can learn from. And I think that - looking back, I think Hudson may have wished she could be more overtly progressive, especially when it comes to finding the things and finding the issues that motivate the base to show up. That's one of the only ways you would be able to overcome Hollingsworth's strength in that key battleground in the 3rd District, which is the Central District. [00:26:55] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think you've hit on something there. And I think it's something that we see in the Tammy Morales race, that we've seen from Kshama Sawant - that if you are a progressive, playing it safe, trying to not be that progressive - not saying that these candidates were overtly trying to not be progressive. But you have to show that you're willing to fight and willing to deliver. You have to show that there's some basis to believe that not only are you talking the talk, but you can also walk it. And I think this race could have benefited for more of that on the progressive end. But it's gonna be interesting to see because Kshama was unique in many ways, but lots of lessons to learn from her just epic ground game that she had race after race. And do have to hand it to Joy Hollingsworth, where I think - similar to Andrew and others - have heard anecdotally for quite some time that she has been out there knocking on doors, that she has been out there talking to community. And that is extremely important and only helps a candidate to be in contact with so many people in the community. So going to District 4 - which this is a race that still isn't called, still is too close to call for a lot of people. What do you see happening here? And what do you think is this dynamic happening in this district, Robert? [00:28:19] Robert Cruickshank: You know, I think this is another one where it is a very sharply divided district within itself, similar to District 3. You've got not just the U District - obviously is going to vote more progressive. So was most of Wallingford and areas around Roosevelt and even parts of Ravenna. But then once you get further north and further east towards the water, you get a bit more moderate, even more conservative. And once you're of course out in like Laurelhurst or Windermere, you're among the wealthy class. But Davis fought hard, fought very closely - nearly won. I don't know that there are enough remaining ballots as of here on Monday night to give Davis enough room to make that 300 vote gain that he needs. But he fought really close and really hard against a huge mountain of corporate money. This is one where I really have to wonder - if we saw 2019 levels of turnout, would we see a Davis victory? The results certainly suggest, especially as the later ballots came in, that might well be the case. Davis ran, I thought, what was a very strong campaign, certainly one that connected with a lot of people in the district. But so did Rivera. And I think this is a interesting test case for how did sort of The Seattle Times-Chamber of Commerce narrative play out? Was Davis able to really overcome that and tell his own narrative of where we should go in Seattle? It certainly seems like in a lot of these races, any progressive candidate faced a lot of headwinds from just a constant narrative that the city is unsafe, city's on the wrong track, it's the fault of progressives and the city council, we have to make a change. And that drumbeat was really loud and really constant. And as you see here on the slide, Davis was outspent significantly greater - nearly half a million dollars spent against him to defeat him by putting out that message. How do you overcome that? You've gotta try to build a base, you've gotta try to actually get out there and sell a strong progressive agenda. I think Davis did as much as he could, but it clearly wasn't enough. This is one race where, gosh, I would love to be able to see good polling after the fact and take a deep dive into what happened here. Because I think if you wanna find a candidate who isn't an incumbent, is a progressive, and who tried to win against all this money - Davis ran what I think a lot of us would have considered to be a smart campaign. But I'm sure there are things that were missed, mistakes were made - that I think are worth taking a closer look at once we have more data. [00:30:54] Crystal Fincher: Do you think it was possible to win this race given the headwinds, Katie? [00:31:02] Katie Wilson: Well, I mean, with a margin that small, you have to say yes. I mean, again, small things matter. But I mean, I guess I think what I would say here - and this is not really just about this race, but as we're going through these races district by district and picking out the little things about the candidates or the spending or whatever - I think it is important to keep in mind something that Robert alluded to, which is turnout. And Danny Westneat had this piece, which Robert mentioned, that really just laid out kind of like - not only is turnout way down from 2019, like double digits down, but it's young voters who didn't turn out. And I really have to think, I mean, I think that like if we had seen 2019 levels of turnout with that demography, this race would have turned out differently. I think it's even possible that Districts 1 and 3 could have turned out differently. I mean, the difference is so great in turnout and in who voted. And that is not just a Seattle thing. That's not a, so I mean, that was something that Westneat seemed to kind of emphasize the "Sawant effect" or something, but this is bigger than Seattle, right? This is like countywide, statewide - you look at the turnout numbers and turnout across the state is way, way lower than 2019. And it is young voters who would have voted strongly progressive who didn't turn out. So I think that's just a really significant thing to keep in mind as we kind of nitpick all of these races. Sorry, crying baby. [00:32:25] Crystal Fincher: We're doing baby duty and that happens and we're fine. Andrew, what did you think? [00:32:30] Andrew Villeneuve: Yeah, some great things have been said by Robert and Katie about this race. I was so impressed with Ron Davis as a candidate. I just found him extremely thoughtful. I'm like - why can't we have candidates like this in every city? Maritza Rivera also had some really interesting things in her campaign that I liked. But I think what was really striking for me is Rivera, if you go on her endorsements page, you'll see Bob Ferguson is the very first endorsement listed there. And that's really interesting. And not everyone can get an endorsement from Bob Ferguson. Maritza Rivera had one and made sure that people knew that she had that endorsement. Also, you see Mayor Harrell's endorsement there. The mayor's doing well in this election. His candidates are doing well, and I don't think that's a coincidence. And I also noticed Sara Nelson's endorsement there. Sara Nelson gets a lot of flak from folks in Seattle, especially on the left, perhaps deservedly so for some of the positions she's taking. But in our polling, she's actually got a pretty good approval rating relative to other members of the council. I say relative because these things are relative. So Sara Nelson is perceived better right now than other members of the council - and that includes Councilmember Sawant, who's leaving her district with a horrible, awful job performance rating, including from her own constituents. It's not just citywide. Our polling was very, very clear on that. People are not happy with her job performance. So she was able to get elected several times, she built an amazing coalition. But then that support has eroded away. And I think that's why she didn't seek re-election. I think she realized she was going to have some difficulty getting re-elected if she sought re-election. So exiting allows to avoid a defeat, which I think is a good strategy, because then you can go and take your experience in elected office and do something else. But I just thought Davis had a tremendous set of ideas. He engaged with groups that other candidates didn't, from what I heard. And what I really liked was, again, he had this thoughtful, urbanist-centered vision. It really appealed to me personally. If I was in District 4, I'd be like - wow, this is just really exciting vision for Seattle. And his voters' pamphlet statement just talked about how everyone deserves a home in Seattle. And the themes that I saw there were very powerful. And I'm a little surprised that he didn't quite have a stronger Election Night performance. I thought Rivera might lead, but to see him down by as much as he was, that wasn't quite what I thought we might see. And I don't do predictions, so I'm always willing to be open-minded and see what happens. But I was thinking that the race would be closer on Election Night, and then it would be possible for there to be a lead change by the end of the week if that were the case. But instead, Maritza Rivera has kept a lead throughout this count. So I think, unfortunately, Ron Davis is out of runway to turn this around. But he came really close. And I think he should definitely run for office again. [00:35:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, a lot of great ideas that we heard. Go ahead, Katie. [00:35:25] Katie Wilson: Sorry, just to add one thing to what I was saying before from the Westneat column. This is roughly 40,000 fewer Seattleites showed up for this election than in 2019. So if you look at that, we're talking about an average of 5,700 votes in each district that would have been added. And so you look at these margins, and that would have shifted several of these races. [00:35:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. And then I also-- I'm looking at this difference in spending. And the spending isn't just money. It's communication. It's the commercials that you see, it's the mailers that you get, it's the digital ads that you see. And those do move some voters. Are they going to close a 25-point deficit? No. But can they move a race 5, 10 points? Absolutely. And so as I'm looking at this, I'm looking at just how close this race is. And it seems to me that money definitely impacted this race, as did turnout, as did so many other things. But it just seems really hard to be able to go up against that amount of communication when you don't have it - to be outspent, to be out-communicated by that degree. And given that, I do think Ron Davis mounted a really, really good campaign for hopefully his first campaign and not his last, because he did contribute a lot of great policy ideas, concrete policy ideas, that I think would do the city good. Moving to District 5, where we saw ChrisTiana ObeySumner versus Cathy Moore. This race was pretty conclusive as of the first tally on Election Night. What was your evaluation of this, Andrew? [00:37:11] Andrew Villeneuve: Well, this was the one race I think that everyone could say - That's done - on Election Night. That's a done race. We can see where things are going. And of course, there has been a shift in the late ballots, but not enough of one to threaten Cathy Moore's position. So I guess what we saw is Cathy Moore had a campaign of enormous strength, resonated with the electorate. And we just didn't see the same from the other side. I mean, I know The Stranger made a very powerful case. But you look at the top two field, and there were other candidates - Nilu Jenks was running and didn't quite make it. But I feel like the fact that there wasn't a stronger vote for ObeySumner in the top two, that sort of set up the general election. I think you want to have as much support as you can get in the top two. And then you want to be able to run as strong of a general election campaign as you can. And I think that here, there might not have quite been the same resonance with the electorate for that candidacy. And I think that that's part of the issue - when you are having trouble connecting with voters for whatever reason, then you're going to see that kind of lopsided results. And sometimes there's nothing you can do about it because for whatever reason, you're just not clicking. But I heard from a lot of folks who-- I asked every District 5 voter, who are you voting for? And everybody basically told me Cathy Moore - that I talked to. And I ran out of people to ask to see if I could find any ObeySumner voters. But to me, that sort of spoke for people had talked to their neighbors, they had considered their choices, and they settled on Moore. And so that's where we were on Election Night. And of course, again, late ballots - we saw some change, but not a whole lot of change. And so again, I think hats off to Cathy Moore for running a campaign that brought together a lot of people, excited a lot of folks. And we'll see now how Cathy does on the council as Debora Juarez's successor. [00:39:16] Crystal Fincher: And Robert? [00:39:18] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I'm a District 5 resident - voted for ChrisTiana, but have had many conversations with Cathy Moore. And Cathy Moore is definitely not easy to pigeonhole as a corporate moderate. Cathy has, I think, some pretty strong progressive background and positions. This is an interesting district up here in District 5 too, that - people assume it's so far north that we're almost suburbs, and that's kind of true. But there are also large pockets of immigrant populations, people of color, low-income folks. And if you look at the map so far of the precincts - votes that have come in so far - ChrisTiana, they've only won a single precinct in Pinehurst, but they're pretty close in areas like Licton Springs, north Greenwood, Lake City. They're almost neck and neck with Cathy Moore in some of those areas - these are some of the denser parts of the district as well. Again, I don't think anyone's surprised that Cathy Moore prevailed by a fairly wide margin here. Again, given what Andrew pointed out in the primary, that that seemed foretold there. But I just wanna emphasize that Cathy Moore did not run the same race that maybe Rob Saka or Maritza Rivera or Bob Kettle or Pete Hanning ran. And I think that certainly helped. It's a district that four years ago, handily reelected Deborah Juarez over Ann Davison, who's of course now our city attorney. Which suggests that in District 5, there's definitely a lot of support for a left of center, but not too far left of center candidate. Well, again, we'll see what Cathy Moore does on the council. I think Cathy also ran a campaign that was good, but also kind of promises a lot of things to a lot of people. And the rubber will meet the road in the next few months on the council, especially as some important decisions come up around budget, around police contract, and around transportation levy. [00:41:17] Crystal Fincher: Now, moving on to District 6 - this is where we saw incumbent Councilmember Dan Strauss wind up overtaking and winning the race over Pete Hanning. How did you see this race, Andrew? [00:41:34] Andrew Villeneuve: So this was a race where we saw our first lead change, and Councilmember Strauss was fortunate in that he had the advantage of incumbency. He also, I think, had a district that perhaps, he felt like - okay, I can handle this redistricting, like I can handle some adjustments to the lines. I think he was well-prepared to face a slightly different electorate than what he faced in his last campaign. And he also was mindful of his public safety posture as he went into the campaign, realizing that - we're gonna talk about District 7 next - but realizing that it's important for people to perceive you on public safety as being someone that understands the issues that are out there in the community, which we know are significant. We know some people are concerned about property crime. We know some small business owners are very vocal about the issues they're going through, they're looking for more help from the city. And I think Councilmember Strauss was ready for that dynamic. I also think he made an effort to present himself as someone who's gotten things done. And he got not the most enthusiastic endorsement from The Stranger, but it didn't seem to hurt him too much. I mean, they sort of riffed on his "Ballard Dan" moniker. I went to his website and was reading about how he presented himself, and he's talking in his campaign bio about non-political things. And I think that's a really interesting and smart choice is to show yourself as not just a politician, but also a fellow community member, someone who has different interests. You're not just interested in politics - that's not the only thing you care about. And I think that that helped him connect with voters. I think it's very important for people to see who you are - that helps them identify with you. It's very important that people identify with you when they go to vote, because elections tend to turn on identity and trust more than anything else. Issues do matter, of course. And those of us who are very much in the wonkish space, we love people's issues, positions - we love to evaluate them. But I think a lot of voters are more in the mindset of - Do I want this person representing me in government? And they think about it at a very basic level. They don't think necessarily about people's issue positions. And they certainly don't have an Excel spreadsheet where they run a calculator to see whose position they're closest to. So I think that was one of the key things that I saw here was just, again, Strauss presenting himself as someone that folks could identify with and empathize with. And I also think Pete Hanning could have run a stronger campaign here - not as much resources on Hanning's side as I thought we might've seen, and that could have been a difference maker. Again, in a close race with a lead change, it's like just what we were talking about earlier - anything can make the difference. So we could talk about a lot of different factors, but what I saw was an incumbent who was interested in getting reelected and put in some of the work. And made sure that there were reasons for people to identify with him. And I think that we saw that worked out for him, and he was the first of the two incumbents to get that lead change on Thursday. So congratulations, Councilmember Strauss, on your reelection. [00:44:37] Crystal Fincher: How did you see this, Katie? [00:44:41] Katie Wilson: Yeah, I don't - sorry, I'm a little bit distracted. But yeah, I mean, I think that Councilmember Strauss definitely did somewhat of a pivot to the right, or just trying to kind of blow with the winds of his district and that paid off. And yeah, I'll pass it on to Robert. [00:45:02] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I think a couple of things stand out. Certainly the slide that's being displayed right now - notice there's no independent expenditure against Dan Strauss. Strauss clearly cozied up to the Chamber here, he cozied up to Mayor Harrell. So his blowing with the wind, which I think is an apt description, worked. It also worked when Dan put out mailers saying, I voted against defunding the police. Dan has been very active in trying to get encampments cleared at Ballard Commons Park and other areas in the neighborhood. So I think we who are progressive - who don't want to see a renewal of the War on Drugs, we don't feel comfortable when we see sweeps happening, we're not totally comfortable with this current mayor - have to do some reflection here. And the fact that Strauss took these positions that we who are progressive don't really like and prevailed with it - isn't great for us. And I think we've got to be honest about that and reflect on what that might mean, and how we pivot, and how we handle things differently. It doesn't mean we should abandon our core values. You never do that in politics, otherwise we should go home. But I think we got to take a look at this race and see why. Now, a couple other factors I want to point out. Again, Strauss is a incumbent and that helps. Also his district is fairly favorable. I think there's sometimes a reputation that like Ballard gets as being a bunch of cranky, conservative Scandinavians and it's just not. If you have a view of the water in District 6, you voted for Hanning. If you don't, you probably voted for Strauss - and that goes as far up as North Beach, North of 85th Street, which is pretty well off, parts of Crown Hill, pretty well off, lots of homeowners in Phinney Ridge and Greenwood, Ballard and Fremont all voting for Dan Strauss by pretty healthy margins. So I think the fact that that district - one that reelected Mike O'Brien in 2015, and I think would have reelected him in 2019 had O'Brien had the stomach for it - it is a favorable one. I think there's more opportunity there then Strauss was able to really make out of it. But again, this is a race where, press as we can point to things that didn't go our way, we didn't get the turnout we wanted, we had a lot of money spent against us, but someone like Dan Strauss who sort of blew with the wind, decided which way the wind was blowing, moved away from a lot of our positions and prevailed. So we have to be honest about that. [00:47:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this race I thought was interesting because he did run away from his record basically and try to correct for that. It's really interesting because we saw two different approaches from two incumbents who both wound up successful. Tammy Morales, who is probably now the most progressive member remaining on the council - one of the most progressive before - showed that she was engaged and she did care. And I think maybe the key is really that - there has been this prevailing idea that progressives just don't care about crime or they wanna go easy on it. And one thing I think both Dan Strauss and Tammy Morales did was show that they cared very deeply and they were willing to stay engaged, stay involved, try and push through public safety, community safety initiatives that both of their districts had been calling for. And being engaged is what helped them. And really showing that they care and showing that they're working on the problem is what helped them - both of them - in those races, even though they have taken very different approaches and Tammy Morales stood by her record, fought hard for the district and a number of different things. So that was interesting for me to see - just the different approaches - but both looking like they were successful as long as they were engaged. [00:48:55] Shannon Cheng: You just listened to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Election Roundtable that was originally aired live on Monday, November 13th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure to stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow Crystal @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thank you for tuning in!

Ben Burgis and Producer Jordan watch Socialist Alternative leader Kshama Sawant's debate with Eric Blanc (author of "Revolutionary Social DemocracyWorking-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917)") on the relevance of the Russian Revolution today. The debate was moderated by Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara.Follow Jordan on Twitter: @jayohardeeayenFollow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgisFollow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_ShowBecome a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:patreon.com/benburgisRead the weekly philosophy Substack:benburgis.substack.comVisit benburgis.com

Part two of an interview with Jordan Humphreys about his new book Indigenous Liberation and Socialism. Emma and Jordan chat about the inspiring history of Indigenous struggle in Australia. This one's not to be missed! Jordan shares his fascinating research on on how the early workers' movement fought for Indigenous rights - from Aboriginal shearers who joined a militant union to Communists who led strikes for Indigenous liberation. We talk about Australia's own civil rights movement, and how Black Power came to Australian cities in the 1970s.  Links: - Grab a copy of Jordan's book at Red Flag Books and join us for the third and final part of this interview in a few weeks.  - Check out Jordan's latest offering in Red Flag newspaper about why you should vote yes in the Voice referendum!  - Jordan's article in the Marxist Left Review on How Australian Communists fought for Indigenous Liberation  Get involved in a Socialist Alternative branch near you Leave your details here if you want to get active in building the socialist movement: https://redflag.org.au/getinvolved       

An episode about anti-caste laws being passed in the USA.  This episode was recorded a few months back.  Kshama Sawant, an Indian-American politician and economist, has served on the Seattle City Council since 2014. She is a member of Socialist Alternative, the first and only member of the party to date to be elected to public office. In 2012, Kshama ran as a Socialist Alternative candidate for the Washington State Legislature and surprised everyone by winning 29% of the vote. The momentum continued in her campaign for the Seattle City Council, where she boldly ran on a platform of fighting for a $15/hr minimum wage, rent control, and taxing the super-rich to fund mass transit and education. In November, she defeated a 16-year incumbent Democrat to become the first socialist elected in a major US city in decades. The Seattle City Council's law against discrimination based on caste—the first such law passed by a city in the United States—was written and forwarded by Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, the only Indian American member of the council. Prashant Nema is a software engineer who has lived in Seattle for 22 years and worked for Microsoft, Dell, and Meta (Facebook). He was part of the Seattle team (CSIA) that organized, advocated for, and supported the Seattle ordinance against caste discrimination passed in February 2023. He is also a member of the Bay Area, California-based Ambedkar King Study Circle. You can find his article written in the local Seattle media during the Seattle Campaign here: https://southseattleemerald.com/2023/02/18/opinion-confessions-of-an-american-caste-traitor/?amp This podcast doesn't have any corporate funding or support so the contribution by listeners is very important for its survival. Please support it here: 1. BuyMeACoffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Anuragminus/w/26114  2. Patreon (Most preferred medium): https://www.patreon.com/anuragminusverma 3. InstaMojo:(UPI/Gpay/PayTm) : https://www.instamojo.com/@anuragminusverma/ 4. PayPal ( Subscribers living outside India can pay through it): https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/AnuragMinusVerma?locale.x=en_GB Please rate the podcast on Spotify. Kshama's Twitter:  https://twitter.com/cmkshama?lang=en Prashant's facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prashant.nema.1  Anurag Minus Verma's Twitter: https://twitter.com/confusedvichar Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minusverma/?hl=en The Mixing & Mastering of sound in this episode is done by PostPond Media, a production house based in Mumbai.

Originally recorded during the 6/25/23 Episode of How Did We Miss That?, found here: @TheRokfin: https://rokfin.com/stream/36004 YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igJRq3G5a64 @RumbleVideo: https://rumble.com/v2w937k-more-supreme-court-corruption-summer-of-strikes-states-are-failing-citizens.html Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/289788316825776 All episode links found at our Substack: https://indiemediatoday.substack.com/p/how-did-we-miss-that-ep-85 Story 1 - Summer of Strikes? “We Must Strike”: A Message from Greg Kerwood, a Rank-and-File UPS Worker Activist: Greg Kerwood, Left Voice https://www.leftvoice.org/we-must-strike-a-message-from-greg-kerwood-a-rank-and-file-ups-worker-activist/ https://www.reuters.com/business/ups-workers-authorize-strike-seen-leverage-pay-talks-2023-06-16/ Actors' Guild Authorizes Strike Alongside Writers: Zoe Cedeno, Socialist Alternative https://www.socialistalternative.org/2023/06/21/actors-guild-authorizes-strike-alongside-writers/ Thousands of Spirit workers to strike after rejecting contract: Daniel Caudill, KMUW (NPR) https://www.kmuw.org/news/2023-06-21/thousands-of-spirit-workers-to-strike-after-rejecting-contract Story 2 - Starbucks got BUSTED again, 150 Stores ON STRIKE this week! https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1671553291103227906?s=20 https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited/status/1671665146773770241?s=20 https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited/status/1672338134497992705?s=20 Story 3 - States are Failing Citizens California Schools Urged to Create Heat Plans on a Warming Planet: Calli McMurray, KFF HEALTH NEWS via Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/california-schools-urged-to-create-heat-plans-on-a-warming-planet/ Abbott Signs Bill Axing Construction Workers' Water Breaks Amid Record Heat: Sharon Zhang, Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/abbott-signs-bill-axing-construction-workers-water-breaks-amid-record-heat We're Failing Our Elders: Seniors Are a Growing Portion of Unhoused Population: Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/were-failing-our-elders-seniors-are-a-growing-portion-of-unhoused-population Montana Train Derailment Raises Fears of Similar Disasters on Proposed Uinta Basin Railway: Julia Conley, Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/montana-train-derailment Story 4 - Supreme Corruption & Conflicts of Interest 'Keeps Getting Worse': Alito Took Undisclosed Private Jet Trip With Billionaire Hedge Fund Titan: Jake Johnson, Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/alito-private-jet-billionaire https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court 'Shady and Corrupt': Add Barrett Real Estate De​al to List of Supreme Court Ethics Scandals: Julia Conley, Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/coney-barrett-real-estate-deal How Did We Miss That? features articles written by independent journalists who expose corruption & worker exploitation, report on the worker organizing movement & routinely challenge establishment narratives & talking points. Both hosts, Indie and Reef, are co-founders of Indie News Network, a collaborative family of independent content creators. Find all our links at https://indienews.network. #GetINN Credits: Co-Host, Producer, Stream & Podcast Engineer, Clip Editor: Indie Left Co-Host, Producer & Technical Director: Reef Breland Thumbnails & Outro: Bigmadcrab Intro: Joe @STFUshitlib3 & Indie Left Music: Jesse Jett Wherever you are, Indie is! ⭐ Linktree: https://indieleft.media ⭐ Substack: https://indiemedia.today ⭐ Network Channels LinkTree: https://indienews.network ⭐ Network Members LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/innmembers

The Trump indictment and the “national security” secrets of the state / NATO members move toward formal alliance with Ukraine / Australia's pseudo-left Socialist Alternative holds fraudulent “anti-war” meeting

This is a bumper episode about the class struggle across the higher education sector, with a focus on Australia and the US.  First, we talked to Jerome Small, RFR regular and Socialist Alternative's industrial organiser, to set the scene. He covered some fascinating topics; from the US university strikes to the fight within the Australian higher ed union, the NTEU, over the leadership's covid-era proposal to take a wage cut in exchange for supposed "job security".  Next, we spoke to Alma Torlakovic, a socialist and NTEU union member from Sydney University, about the two-year-long campaign there. Alma and her comrades in NTEU Fightback, a rank-and-file group, are fighting hard against their union accepting a disastrous deal from management. She was full of insights and lessons for other unionists, no matter their industry.  If you enjoy this episode, please become a subscriber at our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/redflagradiopodcast/membership  Production and music by Daniel Kenny.  Hosted by Emma Norton and Chloe Rafferty. Further reading - Alma Torlakovic in Red Flag, on why she's voting no to Sydney University's new Enterprise Agreement: https://redflag.org.au/article/sydney-university-enterprise-agreement-why-im-voting-no - Jerome Small in Red Flag, "Lessons from the NTEU Sydney University industrial campaign": https://redflag.org.au/article/lessons-nteu-sydney-university-industrial-campaign  - Alexis Vassiley in Red Flag, "Historic US university strike wins big", on the campaign at Rutgers University: https://redflag.org.au/article/historic-us-university-strike-wins-big 

WSB Launch | The Sanctions Squad Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative have created a new organization to help in the workers movement: Workers Strike Back! The Squad aka members of the progressive caucus, voted to uphold sanctions in Syria despite enduring a terrible earthquake earlier in February. https://www.workersstrikeback.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Ap1Whmmvc&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxj-fYHvAQ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/world/middleeast/us-syria-assad-sanctions.html https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1632808839992016904 https://thegrayzone.com/2023/03/04/house-resolution-syria-sanctions-earthquake/ https://news.antiwar.com/2023/02/07/syrian-arab-red-crescent-calls-for-lifting-of-sanctions-on-syria-after-earthquake/ Subscribe to my Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/Jaybefaunt Subscribe to my Patreon! Patreon.com/Jaybefaunt Subscribe to My Substack! https://jaybefaunt.substack.com/ Twitter Profile https://twitter.com/JaybefauntShow Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/Jaybefaunt Donate via PayPal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jaybefaunt Donate via Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/Jaybefaunt Donate via CashApp https://cash.app/$JamesFauntleroy Go Fund Me https://gofund.me/48bb599d --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/james-fauntleroy/support

Roughly ten years ago, Kshama Sawant won a seat on the Seattle City Council as an open socialist. Sawant eschewed politics as usual and led by example, taking only the average worker's salary from her paycheck and putting the remainder into worker-led movements. She used her office as a platform for people's struggles and won many victories from a higher minimum wage, to the Amazon tax to housing rights and more. She also survived a recall election. Clearing the FOG speaks with Sawant about her plans to leave city council when her term ends next year, what she has learned as a councilwoman and the new Workers Strike Back campaign being organized by Socialist Alternative and rank-and-file union members. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.  

The return of mass migration post-pandemic is causing migraines in Australia and the US. The NSN shouted off with SAlt in Melbourne on Saturday at their Stop Immigration Rally. On the US Southern Border illegal crossings have resumed with the Title 42 expulsion order lifted by the Biden Administration. See where people are headed on tonight's Tim's News Explosion. On Saturday the Nazis and Socialists faced off again on Spring Street. The National Socialist Network (NSN) organized a snap Stop Immigration Rally on the steps of Victoria's Parliament House with the Socialist Alternative front group the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism counter protesting. Victoria Police first moved on NSN off the steps then from Spring Street completely. Avi Yemini of Rebel News interviewed Thomas Sewell of the NSN, while attempting to talk to the Socialists he was assaulted by a masked Antifa/Socialist coward thug. Moira Deeming was expelled from the Victorian Liberal Partyroom on the second attempt with Renee Heath a supporter of Deeming removed as Partyroom secretary. The margin for both votes was 19-11. The day before the vote Moira Deeming announced she had sent a defamation concerns notice to Liberal leader John Pesutto. Monica Smit of Reignite Democracy Australia was found guilty today in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court of two breaches of covid rules she was contesting. But no conviction was recorded nor was she fined. Community backlash has seen local governments across Victoria cancelled planned drag queen story times but Nillumbik Council is still planning one at its Eltham Library. An LGBT group calling themselves the Rainbow Community Angels are planning to protect this groomer event. Frankson serial killer Paul Denyer was denied parole but the Andrews Government so far will not support legislation to keep him locked away for life. The Tasmanian Liberal Government is now in minority after Lara Alexander and John Tucker moved to the crossbench over taxpayer funding for the new Hobart AFL stadium. In last week's Federal Budget Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a $4.2 billion AUD budget surplus thanks to high commodity prices, not due to any spending restraint. Pfizer Australia is the latest corporation to announce they are supporting the constitutionally enshrined Aboriginal Voice. Warren Mundine and Senator Jacinta Price have announced the merger of their respective no campaigns. An inquiry into the aborted prosecution of Bruce Lerhmann who was accused of raping Brittany Higgins has turned into an inquiry into the conduct of the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC who alleged a political conspiracy against Brittany Higgins but later withdrew that allegation. New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson has been caught following on Instagram an account called Cute Boys Philippines which features what appear to be underage boys in various states of undress. Robertson quietly unfollowed the account but Cam Wilson from the BFD was the only media outlet to put questions to him about this. A New York Jury decided that Donald Trump sexually abused E Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s and defamed her by denying it and ordered him to pay her $5 million in damages. In a CNN Town Hall Trump said he had never met E Jean Carroll who says she might sue him again. CNN host Kaitlan Collins kept attempting to trip Trump up on January 6 and Ukraine. Elon Musk announced former NBCUniversial advertising executive Linda Yaccarino would be the New Twitter CEO. Yaccarino has been a regular attendee at the World Economic Forum where she blamed the internet for the rise of fake news. Elon Musk has said his commitment to free speech hasn't changed. The US Government Title 42 executive order that allowed for the immediate expulsion of illegal migrants has expired. This has led to a migrant surge crossing over the US southern border with Mexico. President Joe Biden told graduate students at predominantly black Howard University that white supremacy is the most dangerous threat to America. Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in New York after Jordan Neely a 30-year-old violent homeless man died after he put him in a chokehold after he was being aggressive to passengers on the subway. mail: me@timwilms.comMessage: https://t.me/timwilms Wilms Front Links:Entropy: https://entropystream.live/app/wilmsfrontWebsite: http://timwilms.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/wilmsfrontMinds: https://www.minds.com/timwilmsGab: https://gab.com/timwilmsTelegram: https://t.me/wilmsfrontParler: https://parler.com/profile/timwilms/ Support the Show:Membership: http://www.theunshackled.net/membershipDonate: https://www.theunshackled.net/donate/Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/TheUnshackled Other Unshackled Productions:Trad Tasman Talk: https://www.theunshackled.net/ttt/Report From Tiger Mountain: http://reportfromtigermountain.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Originally recorded during the 4/16/23 Episode of How Did We Miss That?, found here:  @TheRokfin: https://rokfin.com/stream/33077 YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIXLXwL2dno @RumbleVideo: https://rumble.com/v2ii2hu-taibbi-on-censorship-and-leaks-tech-worker-unions-norfolk-southerns-greed-h.html Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/6303489226378673 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/indleftnews  Show Twitter: https://twitter.com/HowDidWeMissTha Indie Twitter: https://twitter.com/@IndLeftNews  All episode links found at our Substack: https://indiemediatoday.substack.com/p/how-did-we-miss-that-ep-76 Story 1 - More Educators & Students STRIKE! University of Michigan Graduate Students Strike for a Living Wage and a Broad Social Justice Agenda: Ryan McCarty, Left Voice https://www.leftvoice.org/university-of-michigan-graduate-students-strike-for-a-living-wage-and-a-broad-social-justice-agenda/ Rutgers faculty declares strike in historic showdown between unions, state university: Tina Kelley, NJ.com via Popular Resistance https://popularresistance.org/rutgers-faculty-declares-strike-in-historic-showdown-between-unions-state-university Story 2 - Do Tech Workers Need Unions? Layoffs Ravage Tech: Do Tech Workers Need Unions?: James Baker, Socialist Alternative https://www.socialistalternative.org/2023/04/10/layoffs-ravage-tech-do-tech-workers-need-unions/ Story 3 - Norfolk Southern's greed  Norfolk Southern's huge profits go 80 percent to top honchos' checks: Mark Gruenberg, People's World https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/norfolk-southerns-huge-profits-go-80-percent-to-top-honchos-checks/ Story 4 - Another Evacuation Due to Toxicity 'It Doesn't Have to Be This Way': Major Plastics Fire Triggers Toxic Fears in Indiana: Julia Conley, Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/news/indiana-plastic-fire https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1645917201084366850?s=20 Story 5 - Matt Taibbi Censored & on Leaks Meet the Censored: Me?: Matt Taibbi, Racket News https://www.racket.news/p/meet-the-censored-me The Crackdown Cometh: Matt Taibbi, Racket News https://www.racket.news/p/the-crackdown-cometh How Did We Miss That? features articles written by independent journalists who expose corruption, cover the growing labor movement & challenge establishment narratives & talking points. We stream LIVE Sunday nights at 10pm ET / 7pm PT on YouTube, ROKFIN, Rumble, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter & Telegram, reviewing a few BIG stories we haven't seen covered much in our independent media world.  co-Host Indie is the Founder & Editor of Indie Left News @indleftnews & Indie Media Today Substack @IndieMediaToday. co-host Reef Breland is INN's Technical Director, creator of INN News &  Reefer After Dark. Both of us are co-founders of Indie News Network, a collaborative family of independent content creators. Find all our links at independentleft.media. #GetINN #SupportIndependentMedia #news #analysis #GeneralStrike #FreeAssangeNOW #mutualaid #FreeJonathanWall #FreeLeonardPeltier #DropTheCharges #JournalismIsNotACrime #FreeDanielHale #FreeMumiaAbuJamal

On the 21st of February, Seattle became the first city in the United States to explicitly ban discrimination on the basis of caste after the ordinance was passed by the City council. The ordinance was introduced by council member Kshama Sawant. Kshama grew up in Mumbai moved to the US and completed a Ph.D. in economics from North Carolina State University. She is a member of the Socialist Alternative, the first, and the only member of the party to be elected into public office. She has been a council member since 2014. She has been crucial in the historic change in minimum wage law in the city. Joining our hosts Shriya and Sukanya in this episode is Kshama Sawant as she speaks about women in politics, being a woman of colour in a white majority country, her fight against caste discrimination, and a lot more! Concept and communications: Japleen Pasricha  Producer: Shriya Roy  Hosts: Sukanya Shaji and Shriya Roy  Cover Art by Shreya Tingal FII thanks Ambedkar International Center and Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans for their effort in helping us throughout the podcast interview process. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/feminism-in-india/message

Shuvu Bhattarai of the Marxist Unity Group outlines an overview of the recent history of DSA and finds a demarcation between pro-party and anti-party tendencies, calling on those sympathetic to the former to join the fight for a mass socialist party in the United States of America. Read by: Aliyah Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment. Part 2 of Shvu's response to Lazare will deal with building a United Front Campaign of the Working Class in time for the 2024 US Presidential Elections.  Special thanks to members and sympathizers of the Marxist Unity Group, Reform and Revolution, Tempest, and Socialist Alternative for helping compile some of the information here about the DSA and other socialist groups, as well as providing some resources to help build this article's argument. 

You Can Go Now here II Larissa Behrendt film You Can Go Now focucsing on indigenous artist policital activist Richard Bell is in cinema's now. I speak with Richard Bell.Another Refugee Death in Custody here II Ian Rintoul from Refugee Action Coalition talks about the latest suicide of a refugee in Villawood. Enough is enough.Socialist Alternative Push for Parliament  here II Jerome Small, a recent Socialist Alternative candidate for the most recent Victorian election talks about the experience and the push for a socialist presence in Parliament.This is the Week here II Kevin Healy gives the best analysis of the tennis to be found in any media.Wombat State Forest Logging Protest here II Amy Calton from Wombat Action Group tells us about the week long action against logging in the state forest leading up to the rally outside Victorian Parliament on Tuesday Feb 10 at 10am.Decolonizing Gender here II We hear from Toroga Denver Breda (Khoihoi), language revitalizer from a webinar run by Cultural Survival. Cultural Survival is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett! They catch up with all of the news out of the legislature this week, as well as Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant not seeking re-election, a dodgy push-poll, South King County pedestrian fatalities on the rise, and lawsuits against the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI).  Breaking down the flurry of news out of the legislature this week, Crystal and Erica discuss proposed legislation for a wealth tax, middle housing, lowering the blood alcohol limit for driving, limiting rent increases, reducing the disparity between products advertised towards women versus men, alternatives to jail for behavioral health crises, and a potential expansion of law enforcement's ability to conduct vehicle pursuits.  The trend of current Seattle City Councilmembers announcing they won't seek re-election continued this week when councilmember Kshama Sawant revealed she won't again this year. With four of the seven open seats on the council this year without incumbents, this years' election is guaranteed to bring a large change to the city's leadership.  A seemingly non-scientific push-poll designed to show support for a potential ballot measure to fund more police hires and spending was sent to a number of Seattle residents. They use it as a jumping-off to discuss manipulative polling and how it's used to justify unpopular policy. Crystal and Erica also discuss the alarming increase in pedestrian fatalities in the region, especially in south King County. The data supports the need to make wide-spread improvements to our pedestrian infrastructure to truly make our cities safe for people who walk and bike.  Crystal and Erica end this week's show looking at two lawsuits against the Low Income Housing Institute. A former resident has sued the organization, claiming that LIHI illegally evicted them by not giving proper notice. The case hinges on whether LIHI's housing is emergency shelter or transitional housing, the latter requiring stronger resident protections. LIHI is also facing accusations that the conditions of their tiny house villages are not adequate to support their residents. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host Erica Barnett at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Tackling Poverty with Misha Werschkul of the Washington State Budget & Policy Center” - Hacks & Wonks   “WA lawmakers trying again to tax wealth, as part of nationwide effort”  by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times   “Two State-Level Housing Bills Aim to Stabilize Rent and Protect From Rent Gouging” by Vee Hua from The South Seattle Emerald   Washington Coalition for Police Accountability's letter on vehicle pursuit bills SB 5352 and HB 1363   “State Proposals Aim to Lower Traffic Deaths by Improving Driver Behavior” by Ryan Packer from Publicola   “Washington lawmakers discuss an alternative to jail for mental health crises” by Doug Nadvornick from KUOW   “Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant Will Not Seek Reelection” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Why I'm Not Running Again for City Council” by Kshama Sawant from The Stranger   “South King County Sees Alarming Jump in Pedestrian Fatalities” by Andrew Engelson from The Urbanist   “WALeg Wednesday: Saldaña Drops Bill to End Jaywalking” by Ray Dubicki from The Urbanist   “Former Tiny House Village Resident Sues Nonprofit, Alleging Unlawful Eviction” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola “Homelessness Authority, LIHI Clashed Over Reporting of Two Deaths at Tiny House Village” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast, get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:08] Erica Barnett: Hello, hello. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Hello, hello - and welcome back. Always a pleasure to have you and your information and insights. Think today we will start off just talking about the week in the Washington Legislature, now that our legislative session is off and running. What did you see this week? [00:01:28] Erica Barnett: There's a lot going on as always. This is a long session, so there's a lot more policy legislation coming our way. There's a proposal to revive a wealth tax that has moved forward but then floundered in previous sessions - it would be a 1% tax on intangible assets like stocks and bonds - and so we'll see how that goes this year, maybe third time is the charm. Legislation is moving forward to allow sixplexes around the state in areas that are ordinarily or that are traditionally single-family only - that's Jessica Bateman's bill - and that too has been proposed in the past, but it may have a better chance this session because one of the sort of obstructionist legislators, Gerry Pollett, is no longer in charge of the committee that determines whether that bill goes forward. There's a bill that would reduce the limitations on police pursuits. Police say that they, that legislation from - I believe it was either last year or 2021 - limiting the instances in which they can go after somebody in their car to violent crimes and sex crimes is inhibiting their ability to chase what they call criminals - people committing property crimes and things like that. So that proposal is up and it has a lot of support from the right-wing pundit class. And I'm missing a lot of other stuff - there's a bill to lower the blood alcohol limit for driving while intoxicated to 0.05 percent like Utah, which has been really effective in that state in reducing drunk driving deaths and a whole lot more. [00:03:18] Crystal Fincher: I think that's a good start. There's lots of things just getting out of the gate and people trying to figure out what does have the momentum and the support to move forward versus what doesn't. I think another one that I was looking at - in addition to the middle housing bill, which came out with a ton of support in a hearing that it had earlier this week - are also some bills aiming to stabilize rent and to protect people from rent gouging. So looking at capping rent increases between 3 and 7% annually, depending on the rate of inflation. There's lots of conversations about, absolutely, the need to increase housing supply - there's widespread agreement on that, and that certainly is necessary to long-term affordability. In the short-term, things like rent stabilization policies are going to be critical for reducing displacement, evictions, and can make more of a difference in the short-term than increasing the housing supply. So lots of people sometimes have either-or conversations about those. I personally love the opinion that both are necessary and useful. I've talked about before - I've had neighbors with rent increases over 40%, had rent increases personally of over 30%. And that is just completely unaffordable for so many people, and contributing to the amount of unhoused people that we have - so definitely looking at that as another one. There was another bill that just was a cool thing - with Senator Manka Dhingra, who works with students and youth in the area to introduce legislation. And they suggested legislation, which she has introduced now, which seeks to bring equity between pricing for products marketed towards men versus women, and how frequently the same exact product marketed towards women will cost more for no apparent reason. And so a bill trying to address that - I think that was most of it. There was another interesting one this week about an alternative to jail for people experiencing mental health crises. Instead of going to jail - which really doesn't address the root cause - talking about a kind of a 24-hour cooling off center where instead of being an environment that is not helpful at de-escalating or calming situations, that a place that is not jail that can seek to maybe stabilize or calm down a situation to hopefully get a person in a place where they're either stabilized or in a place where they can seek services. It sounds like that is in the beginning stages of conversation - does not have funding attached to it yet, that would be necessary - but those are the things that have been on my radar. [00:06:32] Erica Barnett: That last bill that you mentioned, also from Senator Dhingra - it's based on a similar program in Arizona - and I'm getting this from KUOW's coverage. And it's interesting. I really want to read up more about it because it's a 23-hour hold, essentially. And we have various types of involuntary and voluntary mental health facilities. 23 hours - my immediate response is - what happens after that 23 hours? Do we just release people back to the streets with no care plan? I'm assuming that is not the intent, and I'm assuming that 23 hours actually must come from some limitation in the law. But at the same time as this bill is moving forward, there is a proposal that's going to be on the ballot in April in King County to create crisis care centers where people can just walk in and - voluntarily or be brought there by police, I suppose - to receive crisis care. And it's for a longer period than that 23 hours, so it feels like there is an emphasis right now on trying to get an entire continuum of care for people in crisis. And none of this has passed yet. As you said, the bill in the Legislature does not come with funding. But there is more discussion of this than I've ever seen in the state, and that's really encouraging because right now, primarily what we do is put people in jail when they're experiencing a crisis that is causing a threat or perceived threat to public safety - and that really can be extremely destabilizing for people. [00:08:17] Crystal Fincher: And then you had talked about the vehicle pursuit legislation that is being worked on this week - and really interesting dynamics in between those. There certainly are folks led by a lot of law enforcement organizations who are saying that they're being limited - lots of times we can't chase people, or crime is on the rise because we've been essentially handcuffed from going after "bad guys." Senator Dhingra talked about it - we did an interview with her on Hacks & Wonks and in a Democratic media availability this past week - talked again about there's no data showing a linkage between a rise in crime and the limitations that were placed on police pursuits before. Now they're asking for an expansion of those. It is unclear why that would make a difference according to their logic. One, they actually are still allowed to pursue those most serious cases and have been. We've had several stories over the past few weeks of pursuits that have happened. And this is really a question of is it worth pursuing something, someone - no matter what - if someone stole some Tide detergent, is it worth a high-speed pursuit on residential streets where people are being put at risk and innocent bystanders are frequently harmed and killed in these situations. In fact, in the city of Kent, a police officer was killed during a high-speed chase. These are actually really dangerous events that happen. And there's a real question about - is it worth the loss of life, when frequently if you can identify the person you can find and pick them up - which has happened frequently - after the fact without risking the lives of everybody in the area. So that's going to be an interesting conversation moving forward. Senator Dhingra chairs the Law & Justice Committee and is not eager to bring this up for a hearing, but there are certainly Republican legislators and some Democratic ones who are in favor of expanding the ability to conduct these pursuits. And so that conversation is definitely going to be one that we follow throughout this session. Looking at events this week in the City of Seattle, one notable announcement came earlier this week about a councilmember who is not going to be running again. What was announced? [00:11:06] Erica Barnett: Kshama Sawant - I laugh because this was just so widely covered compared to other councilmembers who are not running - part of a trend of councilmembers on the current council saying that they are not going to seek re-election, but Kshama Sawant will not be running in District 3. She's going to be starting some sort of labor-related organization, and I say that vaguely because there wasn't a whole lot of detail in her announcement about what this group will do, but it's called Workers Strike Back. And what it will not do, apparently, is pursue elected office for its members. Sawant's organization, Socialist Alternative, is a small, Trotskyist offshoot of the socialist parties in America, and it's definitely one of the smallest. And they have not had a lot of success at getting people elected around the country. Sawant was really their shining example of a member who actually made it to elective office and was in there for three terms, for 10 years - one of those terms was a two-year term. And so they're going on and they're saying that they're going to start a workers' movement worldwide, so it remains to be seen what will happen with that. But Sawant will no longer be on the council, and a lot of people are already lining up to try to replace her. [00:12:42] Crystal Fincher: There are. I saw a couple of candidates have declared already, which has also received a lot of coverage. You are right - we got some kind of brief mentions for prior councilmembers, including Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen, announcing that they are not running. But there seems to be strong opinions about Councilmember Sawant and therefore strong reactions in both directions - people sad to see someone who has been a fierce and unabashed advocate for issues about workers' rights for a long time. Councilmember - Mayor Harrell also said one thing he never doubted was her fierceness and advocacy. But this is definitely going to be a change on the council, and she has definitely left her mark - coming to office following the $15/hour initiative in the City of SeaTac that was run by a number of unions and advocates and folks. Following that, she ran in the City of Seattle as a dramatic underdog who people didn't really take seriously for almost all of the campaign - running on 15 Now, $15/hour in the City of Seattle - and running successfully, making Seattle one of the first cities - major cities - in the country to pass that minimum wage. And we've seen minimum wages increase across the country since then, with first SeaTac and then Seattle. So really interesting, certainly has been a lightning rod for a lot. So we will see who is going to wind up replacing her and how those campaigns take shape. What do you see as - just how this election season in the City of Seattle, with so many open seats - may unfold? [00:14:52] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I was just doing the math in my mind - because I have to do it every time - and four of the seven seats that are going to be up are definitely going to be open seats. Open seat elections are always more interesting in my mind because you don't have that built-in power of incumbency that sometimes keeps people away, but often we re-elect incumbents. So we'll see what - Andrew Lewis has already said that he is going to be running for re-election in District 1. I believe Tammy Morales will be running for re-election - I would put money on that at this point - not a lot of money, but a little money. And Councilmember Dan Strauss also seems to be showing signs that he will run for a second term up in District 6. So still, with four open seats, that's going to be - that's a number that could swing the tenor of the council if there's any kind of trend in whether those seats swing left or right. But importantly, one thing that happens when you have massive council turnover is you both get a sort of breath of fresh air, but you also lose a lot of institutional knowledge. I think, and I said on Seattle Nice, I think Sawant's actual influence on legislation has been somewhat overstated. She didn't achieve $15/hour in Seattle - that was very much a union effort that she got on board with, and it was a process of collaboration and compromise. Her thing was, as you said, it was 15 Now - just do it now and screw anybody that opposes it. But she also has institutional knowledge and institutional memory, as does Lisa Herbold who's been there for - been in the council milieu in some capacity for 25 years. It's going to be a loss of that kind of institutional knowledge, and I think that that is important when you're a city council going up against a mayor who - and I say going up against because they often clash. Historically, the council and the mayor are often on opposite sides of issues. When you don't have that institutional knowledge of how processes work and how legislation gets done and how the budget gets done, the mayor can roll you over. Bruce Harrell has a lot of experience himself being on the council for a long time, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects the power dynamic between the mayor and the council as well. [00:17:36] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely will be. I'm also interested in something else that we saw this week that flew a little bit under the radar, but definitely was noticed in a number of political circles - which was a public safety online poll that was sent to people via text, several people this week. In fact, so many that it really didn't seem like it was a randomly targeted poll. It looked like someone got a hold of some political lists and sent it out, but what did this poll seek to ask and what was it comprised of? [00:18:10] Erica Barnett: Yeah. Unfortunately, nobody sent me this poll - which if you're listening to this and you want to send me poll information, please do - but from what I gather, it's a push poll designed to elicit the feeling that Seattle is less safe and needs more police. The goal seems to be gauging support for a potential public safety funding initiative at some point in the future. And again, I don't know anything more about the idea behind this initiative, but it would essentially - or at least according to the poll - get the police department up to 1,450 officers within five years. The premise behind this is pretty flawed, which is that all we need is to pour more money into the police department and they will magically be able to hire 500, 600 new officers - when the police department itself has said that's not the issue. Now, they would define the issue as people don't want to be police officers in Seattle because there's insufficient support for police in institutions like the City Council. I would say police departments across the country have had trouble recruiting in the last three years and this is just a sign of that. But the police department has a lot of money - they fund tons of, hundreds of vacant positions every year - and so I don't think a massive increase in their budget is going to have a whole lot of impact because their budget is not really the problem. However you define the problem, it's not that we aren't funding police sufficiently. [00:19:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And this was really interesting - and for those who have listened and who know me, thank you for capturing this poll and sending me all of the screenshots. Just FYI - always do that with polls - take screenshots, send them on over if you get called for a poll, note what it is and all of the questions. Really interesting to see what people are asking, how people are asking. And with polls like this, I would not be surprised to see - obviously someone is thinking about this initiative - but looking at something like this, sometimes we see these announcements or stories in the media which cite numbers from vague polls. And this is not a real poll - this is someone sending around some surveys, very non-scientific, and the questions are almost comically skewed and written here. So it'll be interesting to see if someone uses this to try and signal support for the poll. I would also be interested just in seeing the raw numbers because traditionally, folks in the City of Seattle do not react well - even if this was a scientific poll - so this is going to be really curious to follow, but obviously someone is thinking about running a public safety initiative - really a police hiring initiative, which this really is. And it really does seem to be misguided. If there is one thing the City has definitely been trying to do for the past couple years, it's hire more police officers. How many times have they tried to increase hiring bonuses? They're advertising everywhere. This has been a monthly conversation in the City for, I feel like, two solid straight years - and if money could fix the problem, it would have. But we'll see how this continues to unfold. Another unfortunate bit of news that we have seen reinforced over and over again - but that has been made official - is just the increase in pedestrian fatalities and what kind of impact that is having. Some unfortunate news that we've seen, which has been reinforced repeatedly in news that we've seen, is pedestrian fatalities across the board have been increasing. There's been great coverage in The Urbanist about an alarming jump in pedestrian fatalities in South King County - just, it's really bleak. Really looking at the data put together by the State Department of Transportation - since 2013, the total number of crashes resulting in death or serious injury to pedestrians has climbed from 33 in 2013 to 95 in 2021. And that number continues to increase, and it is really alarming. And looking at the areas that are the most dangerous - Highway 99, also known as International Boulevard or Pacific Highway South, is one of the most dangerous roads for pedestrians in addition to Benson Highway or 104th - these go through several south County cities - but it's basically a high-speed highway in the middle of these cities. I remember they did work related to RapidRide Line A - a revamping of Pacific Highway South and International Boulevard - and unfortunately, one of the features that we saw was that there are long stretches of road with no pedestrian crossings. And mixing that with speeds that are 50 mph in some places is just a recipe for a disaster - when you're forcing people to sometimes take a - choose between walking directly across the street, which would be categorized as jaywalking, or taking a 10 to 15 minute detour to walk down to the nearest light or crossing and then walk all the way back, which is challenging for people with mobility issues - there are a lot of age and the disabled people, there are a number of services and health clinics on these roads. And so predictably, people are going to attempt to cross the road to avoid those really long crossings. To me, this was foreseeable just because of the design in these areas - and just mixing such high speeds in such high traffic pedestrian areas - and so it's unfortunate. These cities have recognized the problem, but some of the solutions that they've presented for the problem have been challenges. In fact, there was coverage of a meeting by Ryan Packer, actually, at the state where some City of Kent officers, at least who've been involved in traffic enforcement, really seemed to almost victim blame in the situation - talking about they would do emphasis patrols to help stop jaywalking, which is a cause of this. I would say that's more predictable impact of design there and people making a choice because sometimes they can't walk that distance. And also characterizing people who are on foot or even on bike as unhoused people or people in poverty, as opposed to lots of people who are commuting. This is a site where several accidents have - several fatalities and crashes that have injured and killed pedestrians have taken place. It's going to be - a new light rail station is in process of being built there. This is a very high traffic area, lots of commuters, it's near a Park and Ride - and so there's a whole cross-section of people, lots of professionals. I used to be frequently on transit as I was commuting to work via Metro in Seattle daily. It's just disappointing to see a lack of recognition of what some of these challenges are. The Urbanist addressed some of these in that article, but it is really, really challenging, and I wish the conversation in terms of solutions and increasing safety would focus more on things that didn't blame the victim or seek to target them, instead of help keep them safer. [00:26:51] Erica Barnett: Yeah. The idea that our roadway problems and our pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are because of individual behavior - it goes both ways, right? There's also an emphasis on people driving too fast, and this report does talk about people going - this report in The Urbanist talks about people going 80, 90 mph - and that is a huge problem and people should not be driving that fast. And two, these roads are designed for that. And the only way that you can make it possible for people to cross the road without "jaywalking" and the only way you can get people to stop speeding - and even driving the speed limit is often more than fast enough to cause fatalities - is you've got to put crosswalks in, you've got to slow down traffic. And the way you do that is through road design. And some of these - you can't necessarily go and narrow a highway - you can, but it's expensive and controversial. You can put in stoplights, you can put in bus lanes, you can do things that slow down the flow of cars - and I would say that it's not just that these things cost money, it's that they cost political will, and they're just - in a lot of these cities, and in the state, and including in Seattle - there is not the political will to do something that will slow down motorists. I remember - I don't live on Rainier anymore, but I lived right on Rainier for many years, or just a couple blocks off it - and I would use the 7 to get everywhere and run errands. And I am somebody who is physically capable of running across the street, and let me tell you - I did not go half a mile in one direction, walk across the approved pedestrian infrastructure, and walk half a mile in the other direction, just because that's what the road was telling me to do. I would run across the road. So people act rationally - and in that situation, it is rational to run across the road and just risk it, because I didn't have time to spend 30 extra minutes crossing a street that traffic engineers had decided was a highway through the middle of a neighborhood. And that causes really risky behavior. And the only solution, and the solution that obviously we haven't taken - because traffic fatalities are going up and not down everywhere - is to change our roads and to inconvenience drivers a little bit in order to save some lives. [00:29:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I do just want to underscore - between 10 and 15 years ago, the conversations about traffic calming in Seattle and hearing pushback, and - Oh my gosh, this is going to change my commute and things are going to take forever, there's a war on cars. And the impact to cars and drivers was really negligible - literally talking about differences of one and two minutes, which can have such a powerful impact on safety and truly save lives. We really do have to ask ourselves the question, Do we really believe cars should be able to just go as fast as possible and have absolute priority in anything that might slow them down? It's bad even if it costs lives and money and so much. Or can we spare a minute? Can we spare two minutes to spare some lives? It really does come down to that, and I wish we would more openly have that conversation - because there are so many people who are walking, and who are riding bikes, who are in proximity to that. And it has to be part of the solution to public safety, people being safe on the roads. I just wish we would be in a different place with that. I do want to definitely talk about some great coverage in PubliCola this week about the Low Income Housing Institute, also known as LIHI, being sued for unlawful eviction. What happened here? [00:31:11] Erica Barnett: This is one of a couple of lawsuits actually that have been filed against LIHI. One was dismissed at the court commissioner level, but this one was just filed this past week by a guy who lived in a tiny house village - actually in Olympia - run by LIHI. And he was kicked out after an altercation with one of the staff. And the lawsuit essentially is asserting that this was an eviction, that LIHI's tiny house villages are housing. This guy lived in the tiny house for more than two years when he was kicked out, and LIHI said - You have to be out within 48 hours, take all your stuff, goodbye. And he did vacate, but he's saying this was not legal, and it was an eviction, and the tiny house was his home. And I think as a matter of law, what is interesting - there's a couple of things that I think are interesting about this case - as a matter of law, LIHI has long been classified, or was long classified - their tiny house villages were classified as encampments. And they got an upgrade during the pandemic - the city, and then eventually the federal government, now considers them enhanced shelter. But what they're saying is that it's essentially transitional housing, and it meets these definitions of transitional housing that were adopted by the State Legislature just a couple years ago. So there's an interesting legal argument there about - once you have four walls, a door that locks - is that everybody who supports LIHI likes to say - is that housing? And does LIHI have more obligations to give notice and to give reasons and to allow people in some cases to rectify whatever is wrong? LIHI says that they are not transitional housing and that if you started defining their tiny houses that way, it would create a situation where every type of enhanced shelter would start looking at the people they take in differently because they wouldn't want to have to keep people around if they were causing a problem in the community. And if you had tenant rights, that would create a situation where people could live there for a long time while continuing to cause problems. So if it goes forward, that would be an interesting legal discussion. And separately, I think that there's been a lot of complaints from residents of the tiny house villages that the conditions there are not always the greatest. One thing that this gentleman who's suing brought up to me was that they have these kind of outdoor kitchens, that he said the nutrition is really bad, there have been times when the washing machines have been broken so they can't wash their clothes, where there's been no hot water for a month on end in this particular village. And so I think there's questions too about the quality of life at tiny house villages. And so those are not really being litigated, but they're being discussed and I think that that will continue to be the case. LIHI is under a microscope with funding from the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, whose CEO Marc Dones has never been a big supporter of tiny house villages. So I think they are under fire right now, and their CEO Sharon Lee is definitely someone who fights back and you can read my coverage for her comments on that. [00:34:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is an interesting situation. I think it really brings up a lot of issues to a lot of folks that just because someone does not have shelter, if someone is responsible for providing them shelter or housing - and some of these people can be housed for months in tiny home villages - does that mean that they are not entitled to the same kinds of protections that everyone else is entitled to? And it seems like the argument against that is that - Well, this is a more challenging population and if we're going to serve them, providing those kinds of protections is dangerous for us as an organization and maybe we couldn't do it overall. When I think there are a lot of people who would love to talk about, Okay, what are ways that we can ensure that there isn't abuse or exploitation, more dangerous conditions? Just because someone does not have the means to pursue a lot of recourse or is coming from a bad environment, does that mean that we're fine with letting them settle for any old thing and any old treatment? And that is not to say that this is not a challenging and complex issue. Certainly this is a population that because they have been unhoused and out on the streets, they've been made more vulnerable to a host of challenges - whether it's health problems, safety issues, mental health issues, substance use disorder - the things that afflict society at large afflict this population also, and they're at risk for so many other things. And so I just hope we have a conversation that really does start from a place of how can we keep this population as safe as possible? And how do we keep people accountable to ensure that there aren't abuses? I feel like it's a risky place to be to say - If we aren't here, no one's going to be. And so take it or leave it with whatever there is, or not being introspective about how services can be provided in a better, safer, more equitable manner. I know that's what I thought when I first saw the coverage. What kind of reaction are you seeing from people? [00:37:20] Erica Barnett: It's interesting. I think there is a lot of opposition to LIHI right now that I'm seeing in places like Twitter. I did want to say - just to flip your comments a little bit - I've also heard lots of complaints over the years from people who live at encampments but also in tiny house villages, that the environment can also be made unpleasant and challenging by other residents. People talk about - because tiny house villages - many of them are low-barrier and they allow people to use drugs and alcohol. People talk about that creating a bad environment in some tiny house villages. And when you have a population that is largely actively using, it can be really challenging for people who aren't. I don't want to discount the fact that when you are completely low-barrier, that creates challenges in itself - if somebody's trying to stay sober and they're in that environment, for example. But there can be lots of challenges in these communities - they're communities of people who are all struggling with different things. I just wanted to signpost that a little bit. Like I said, I think there's pushback to LIHI right now. It receives a lot of contracts from KCRHA and people are starting to really put a spotlight on them more than on other organizations. My coverage has been pretty factual, I think, so I'm trying not to reflect a bias one way or the other. And people can read into it their own biases and opinions and are doing so. [00:39:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And it'll be interesting to see - I think one of the issues is that this is one provider who is doing so much of this work, and almost has a monopoly on the ability to provide these services. And are there - I certainly don't want to suggest that there are not challenges and that residents may not be, safety issues and sometimes, and thank you for bringing that up. I do think that it would be interesting to see what other similar shelters are doing and if they're in line with this. I do not know if they are in line with what other shelters who provide similar services or other tiny home villages are providing, but I hope that that is being looked at. [00:40:02] Erica Barnett: I will just say - really briefly - compare it to another enhanced shelter, the Navigation Center. Navigation Center kicks people out all the time. We don't necessarily talk about that as much because it's not as high profile. People aren't - the Navigation Center doesn't have an Andrew Lewis on the City Council constantly singing its praises and inviting criticism, but shelters do kick people out. It happens a lot for behavioral issues, so people should not be under the impression that this is uncommon. [00:40:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we will thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 20th, 2023. Happy birthday, Terrance. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of Seattle Nice Podcast, and the author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and find me on Twitter @finchfrii with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. And if you like us, leave a review. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

We process the political earthquake that just hit Seattle: Kshama Sawant's announcement that she won't run for council in 2023. Sawant is moving on to launch a new national worker's movement. The pod debates Sawant's legacy, speculates about the motives behind this big move, and gets into how this might affect the Seattle city council and the 7 council races in 2023.  This episode was brought to you by:Magic Consulting206-999-4071reachgabemagic@gmail.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gabe-meyer/If you want to advertise, please contact us @realseattlenice on Twitter.  If you want to donate our Patreon link is here.Support the show

Dr. Thomas Jones joins Douglas Lain for a conversation about his essay for Sublation Magazine entitled "On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Jones has worked as a software engineer in both industry and academia. He has been a socialist activist for the better part of a decade, starting his journey towards socialism at occupy wall street. He is a previous member of Socialist Alternative, and current member of Seattle DSA.In this interview he discusses his own Zizekian materialism and the idea that contradictions are symptoms. On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat at Sublation Magazinehttps://www.sublationmag.com/post/on-the-dictatorship-of-the-proletariatSupport Us on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock our full premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast Seattle city councilmember & Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant joins Bad Faith to debate the strategy, adopted by most of the squad, to vote for the union-crushing tentative agreement that averted a legal railworkers strike. Ryan Grim has been accused of "running cover" for the squad members' strategy, while Kshama Sawant argued their vote for a union voting bill was a clear betrayal. Is Ryan right to say it made sense for the squad to follow the advice of some union members who wanted them to adopt that strategy? Or is Kshama right to call that "political gaslighting?" Ryan joins the conversation about half an hour in, and it's a hot but productive conversation. you wont want to miss it.  Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Produced by Armand Aviram. Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

Tune in for a debate between Kshama Sawant and Eric Blanc, on the relevance of the Russian Revolution Today. Few political questions from the 20th century were so fraught as how to understand the Russian Revolution. Inspiring example of workers throwing off the Tsarist yoke and rattling the foundations of capitalism, or well-spring of tyranny and the antithesis of the benighted values of ‘The West'? Even among its most ardent defenders debates raged about what lessons to draw from the experience of the revolution, and how (or whether) to replicate the organizational model of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. Though these very questions animated several generations of activists and organizers on the Left in countries across the globe, how relevant are they for today's burgeoning socialist movement in a modern democratic state? What lessons can we apply to the current world situation? Taking as their starting point the ground-breaking contributions of Eric Blanc's Revolutionary Social Democracy, Blanc and Seattle's socialist city councilwoman Kshama Sawant will debate exactly what we can learn from the Russian Revolution for our contemporary struggles. Blanc and Sawant will be joined by Bryan Koulouris of Socialist Alternative, for a debate moderated by Bhaskar Sunkara. Get a copy of Revolutionary Social Democracy from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1907-revolutionary-social-democracy ———————————————————————————————— Speakers: Kshama Sawant is a Seattle city councilwoman and member of Socialist Alternative and the Democratic Socialists of America. Eric Blanc is the author of Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire, 1882-1917, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, and an organizer with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Bryan Koulouris is the national organizer for Socialist Alternative, and an executive committee member of International Socialist Alternative Bhaskar Sunkara (moderator) is the founding editor of Jacobin and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. Watch the live event recording: Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

“The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.”― Upton Sinclair, The JungleIn this bonus episode we hear from Matt, who was recently fired from an Amazon Warehouse in Campbellsville, KY for attempting to organize a union with his coworkers in response to brutal working conditions that involve walking more than 20 miles per shift, temperatures that can rise as high as 100* in workspaces, breaking bones, and more. The abuse of Amazon doesn't stop in the Warehouse though… this company is attempting to turn the whole country into one big company town from the sounds of it: Amazon Care health services? “Affordable housing” for workers who get evicted as soon as they aren't working for the company? Data ownership that links employee data with customer data and healthcare data? Clearance to GOVERN their own townships?---✊Make sure to support Matt by contributing to or sharing his retaliation fund: [https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/1f94594f-a62a-4a3b-bf7f-88e92b69442a](https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/1f94594f-a62a-4a3b-bf7f-88e92b69442a)

Kshama Sawant joins Jaybefaunt to talk about the successes in the last year, challenges, the need to look at alternative parties outside of the duopoly, plans for building more worker solidarity and power for the proletariat Socialist Alternative https://www.socialistalternative.org/ Councilperson Sawant Twitter https://twitter.com/cmkshama Councilperson Sawant https://www.seattle.gov/council/sawant/ Subscribe to my Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/Jaybefaunt Subscribe to my Patreon! Patreon.com/Jaybefaunt --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/james-fauntleroy/support

On today's program we look at the role of education under capitalism. This is a speech delivered by socialist and teacher activist, Manolya Moustafa at the annual Marxism Conference held in Melbourne every year, organised by Socialist Alternative. 

Revolutionary Ideas - Episode 19 - Spain 1931-38: Revolution Betrayed by Stalinism by Socialist Alternative

This week on Bad Faith podcast, I spoke to Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant about the rash of Starbucks coffee locations unionizing around the country, why the Staten Island Amazon unionization effort was successful, the problem with some professional organizers, Chris Smalls' Tucker Carlson appearance, the difference between DSA and Socialist Alternative, how and why Kshama stays accountable to Socialist Alternative (and how the left could keep the Squad accountable), whether the Congressional Progressive Caucus's endorsement of Shontel Brown was the final straw for leftists hoping to change the Democratic party from with in, Socialist Alternative's position on Russia/Ukraine, and more. Let's discuss. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock our full premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast   This week, Briahna spoke to Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant about the rash of Starbucks coffee locations unionizing around the country, why the Staten Island Amazon unionization effort was successful, the problem with some professional organizers, Chris Smalls' Tucker Carlson appearance, the difference between DSA and Socialist Alternative, how and why Kshama stays accountable to Socialist Alternative (and how the left could keep the squad accountable), whether the Congressional Progressive Caucus's endorsement of Shontel Brown was the final straw for leftists hoping to change the Democratic party from with in, Socialist Alternative's position on Russia/Ukraine, and more. It's a rich, deeply reflective conversation, and you're going to want to listen through to the end. Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Produced by Armand Aviram. Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

Lenin's classic book, The State and Revolution is a must-read for all who want to get a firm understanding of how the state works. How do socialists approach complex issues like the police? How can the working class take state power, and what do we need to do to make that happen? In this episode, our regular hosts, Tom and Connor will be joined by Sofia, from Socialist Alternative in Leicester. Listen now!

On Christmas 1914, soldiers across the trenches of WWI disobeyed orders and dropped their guns. In this act of resistance during the imperialist war, a glowing example was set - of working class solidarity and internationalism. In this special Christmas episode of Revolutionary Ideas, our regular panelists Yaara and Tom interview Greg Briscoe from Socialist Alternative in London. TUNE IN AND SHARE! Facebook: www.facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeEW Twitter: twitter.com/SocialistAltEWS Instagram: @SocialistAlternative.EWS TikTok: @Socialist_Vids

Today we are joined by Dr. Andrea Haverkamp. Dr. Haverkamp (she/her) recently completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering with a doctoral minor in Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Her research explores the experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming students in engineering and computer science, such as their sources of community support and collective resiliency in the face of adversity. Dr. Haverkamp serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, an open-source scholarly publication exploring the intersections of engineering and inequity across the globe. She also has involvement in American Society for Engineering Education and Society of Women Engineers. Before her Ph.D., Dr. Haverkamp has worked as an engineer in the Federal government and served as a science education volunteer with the Peace Corps in Liberia. She is currently a labor organizer supporting healthcare and hospital workers in Seattle with United Food & Commercial Workers Local 21, and previously served as President of Coalition of Graduate Employees, American Federation of Teachers Local 6069 at Oregon State University. She is a dual-card International Workers of the World union member and also a member of Socialist Alternative. You can find more about Dr. Haverkamp on her twitter, instagram, LinkedIn and her blog sjengineers.blog. Show Notes:Hoyte, Kansas | WikipediaBattle of Blair Mountain | WikipediaThe Great Battle of Blair Mountain | YoutubeSacco and Vanzetti | Wikipedia2021 Union Members Summary | United State Bureau of Labor Statistics Starbucks Union Vote Sets Up a Watershed Moment for U.S. Labor | BloombergDavid Graeber | WikipediaBullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber | GoodreadsThe Labor Day Graph That Says It All | Jacobin MagazineJohn Deere tried replacing union workers with scabs — and immediately had tractor crash in their plant: report | RawStoryFarmers Fight John Deere Over Who Gets to Fix an $800,000 Tractor | BloombergEmma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays | University of California at BerkeleyNassim Nicholas Taleb | WikipediaWhy unions are good for workers—especially in a crisis like COVID-19: 12 policies that would boost worker rights, safety, and wages | Economic Policy InstituteThe Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers' Movement by Stanley Aronowitz | Verso BooksAnarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement of the Twenty-first Century by Andrej Grubacic and David Graeber | The Anarchist Library What is the future of capitalism? by Conrad Cartmell, Josh Decker, Andrea Haverkamp, and Doug Lain | The Platypus Affiliated SocietyShop Floor Organizing at Amazon w/ Amazonians United Chicagoland | Laborwave Radio Podcast

In this episode, we discuss socialism. What is socialism? Is it a viable alternative to capitalism? What would a socialist America look like? We ask these questions and discuss other issues relating to socialism with our guest, CC who is a writer, musician, and organizer for Socialist Alternative, an international organization dedicated to the socialist transformation of society. To find out more about Socialist Alternative, you can visit their website at: https://www.socialistalternative.org/

This episode is a conversation with Ryan Watson, recorded on September 5, 2020. Ryan is an activist and a member of Socialist Alternative. This is a far-ranging conversation about the work of the Socialist Alternative, the relationship between the economic justice and racial and social justice, the two-party system, America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, apathy vs. activism, disaster capitalism, questions of strategy concerning the use of "the s-word" in American politics, and much more. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Some links to check out: 2020: A Historic Indictment of Capitalism: https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/12/2020-a-historic-indictment-of-capitalism/ The Role of the Working Class in Fighting Racism: https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/06/26/the-role-of-the-working-class-in-fighting-racism/ Ryan's speech at a Justice for George Floyd rally in June: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CD-J6KSJQ1y/?igshid=pt6dovrgjtub Website of the International Socialist Alternative: https://internationalsocialist.net/ Music for this episode: Good Night by Siobhan Dakay (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/SiobhanD/60107 Ft: MyVanillaworld Episode art: Yours truly.

Tim is joined by Kenny and Emma, two members of the Cincinnati chapter of Socialist Alternative, to discuss the current state of activism in the city. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We are joined by mail carrier and Socialist Alternative member Tyler Vasseur to talk about the Neo-Liberal attack on the United States Post Office and the impact of Covid-19 on postal workers. Tyler traces the impacts of the 2006 "Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act" and sketch ideas for the future of a healthy post office. We also reflect on the whirlwind timeline of 2020 and the Democratic Party presidential primary makes it first appearance on the pod. 

In this special episode of the Sensible Socialist, Kevin talks to someone very dear, his wife Alka Mysore. Alka is originally from India and moved to the US about ten years ago where she studied Management information systems at Iowa State University. She is an organizer and member of Socialist Alternative in Washington DC where […]

With me this week is my friend and comrade, Sarko. Sarko and I are both in the DC Branch of Socialist Alternative. We have had many wide-ranging discussions, but I've had the feeling, and I think she would agree, that we haven't really seen totally eye to eye on some pretty important issues – namely […]