Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

In this episode, we're joined by Austin Cole to discuss the three-part series Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies, beginning with part one: "Rootedness for our people, our economies, our liberation." We start with Toni Morrison's concept of rootedness and how it informs urban planning and economic development. From there, we'll dig into Strategies of Counter-war—how fascists are shaping local policy, and how BAP-Baltimore is building alternatives from the ground up. We examine the threat of elite capture and the strategic use of municipal power: how can engagement with the state enable collective self-determination rather than dilute it? Can it do such a thing?  We also explore expanded notions of self-defense, the Black commune as theorized by George Jackson and Orisanmi Burton, and the four principles guiding grassroots efforts toward that vision. Finally, we'll sit with the question of mass consciousness—what it demands of us now, and how we might cultivate it together.   Austin Cole was raised in Springfield, Ohio, and his people come from the Mississippi Delta and Birmingham, Alabama. He is an organizer, writer, and community development planning practitioner. His professional work focuses on environmental/climate justice, transforming economic systems, and Black/African liberation. He is a member of and currently serves as National Co-Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and co-coordinates of BAP's Haiti/Americas Team.   Support our work via patreon!   Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies PT. I: "Rootedness" for Our People, Our Economies, Our Liberation   Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies PT. II: Situating  'Economy' and Ourselves in the Struggle from the Internal (Neo)Colony Additional writings (not yet released as of the recording of this episode in late 2024) Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies PT. III: Constructing the Counter-War That Our Liberation Demands Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies PT. IV: Collective Struggle Is Our past and Future  

This is the audio from a livestream video we hosted with Hala Sabbah from The Sameer Project on December 3rd, 2025. Hala returned to the program to talk about life in Gaza nearly two months into the so-called "ceasefire." We spoke about the realities on the ground and the needs of people in Gaza right now, what is getting into the strip and what is not, and how the Sameer Project is working within the current conditions in Gaza. We also talk about the need for continued organizing, boycotts, and direct action against the zionist entity. And we spoke about creative ways people can fundraise for Sameer Project and other local groups operating on the ground in Gaza. RETURN HOME x The Sameer Project  Sameer Project's linktree 

In this episode, we are joined by organizers from the Lowcountry Action Committee to discuss climate justice in South Carolina's Lowcountry. We begin with a discussion about climate reparations and the state's unfortunate priorities. We go on to explore the history of phosphate mining and its exploitation of newly emancipated Africans, the ecological destruction it caused, and its legacy of environmental racism.  We then turn to hurricane season and the anxiety it provokes in vulnerable working-class and poor Black communities, followed by the toxic legacy of military pollution and "forever chemicals" in North Charleston. Finally, we reflect on political consciousness, the fight against capital, and whether the Gullah Geechee are punished for their self-determination—echoing Haiti's revolutionary legacy. Lowcountry Action Committee is a Black led grassroots organization dedicated to Black liberation through service, political education, and collective action in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. If you like what we do want to support our ability to have more conversations like this, please consider becoming a patron for as little as one dollar a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism, you can also support via a one-time donation at BuyMeACoffee.com/MAKCapitalism The piece the conversation is based on this issue of Surge: Lowcountry Climate Magazine Lowcountry Action Committee's Website, LinkTree, Youtube

In this episode, recorded in the summer of 2024, Josh interviewed two organizers from the Lowcountry Action Committee.  Lowcountry Action Committee is a Black African grassroots organization dedicated to Black liberation through service, political education, and collective action in the South Carolina Lowcountry.  Our conversation centers around their 2024 piece on environmental racism, where they trace the climate catastrophe, threatening to wash away Gullah Geechee homelands back to the phosphate mining industry of the eighteen sixties.  We discuss how today's disproportionate exposure of Black communities to hazardous waste sites, landfills, incinerators is inseparable from the region's history of chattel slavery and why Black people must be at the vanguard of the environmental movement.  We then situate the crisis within the broader context of the Black Belt, a historical homeland of Africans trafficked to North America. Now among the most vulnerable regions to climate change, drawing on Kali Akuno's prediction that large portions of the Black Belt may be underwater by 2050. We explore what displacement, housing costs, and organized abandonment mean for Black communities in the Carolinas and beyond.  The conversation also turns to international frameworks, particularly Cuba's model of sustainable development and the parallels between Cuban soil erosion and sea level rise and the ecological challenges facing Gullah Geechee communities. We discuss how the Lowcountry itself lives under a kind of economic blockade, how this juxtaposition illuminates environmental racism, neocolonialism, and anti-Blackness.  If you like what we do want to support our ability to have more conversations like this, please consider becoming a patron for as little as one dollar a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism, you can also support via a one-time donation at BuyMeACoffee.com/MAKCapitalism Lowcountry Action Committee's Website, LinkTree, Youtube Crisis in the Carolinas: Racial Disparities, the Climate Catastrophe and Environmental Racism in the Lowcountry Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change (Tarea Vida)   Organizing to Free the Land with Kali Akuno    

In this conversation we speak with a labor organizer and people's historian who covers Latin American movements with connections to Ecuador, Colombia, and Cuba. Folks may know her by the twitter handle @SovietwithSazon. In this conversation she discusses recent struggles and developments in Ecuador. In particular a recent 38 day general strike, and the popular rejection of a recent referendum  including measures which would have allowed the US to build military bases in Ecuador and cut public funding for political parties. Our guest contextualizes the current US-backed narco-military regime lead by Daniel Noboa. And she talks about the broader revenge campaign against former Pink Tide governments like Ecuador and Bolivia, now led by right wing forces. She discusses how the tactics we're seeing across Latin America against left-leaning governments, and the disappearances and assassinations of organizers, mark a return of the CIA's Operation Condor tactics. And she discusses how the capitalist class colludes with cartels to create crises that manufacture consent for the state of war decree that Ecuadorians are currently under. We'll include links to follow our guest on twitter, where she will be increasing her reporting on developments in Latin America, and to other episodes where we discuss recent developments with regard to Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and on the topic of general strikes, the general strike Italian workers led a couple months ago. Link to Black Alliance for Peace's Week of Action. As we approach the year end. We're offering up a 40% discount on yearly memberships, or 40% off the first month on monthly memberships for MAKC if you join at the $5 a month level or higher. Buy one for a friend, comrade, or relative. Support our work, help us continue to do more. Use code EOY25. Reminder, if you purchase a yearly subscription for as little as $10.80 per year, you gain access to study groups for all of 2026, our first study group next year won't start until February, but we will have at least 3 study groups you can take advantage of if you are a member. Join now at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism