RevolutionZ

• Ep 354 - WCF 3: From Sanctuary through Cops to Shared Program

  Episode 354 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence presenting the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. In this third installment, as an opening act, interviewee Leslie Zinn reflects on the finished oral history of a revolution that emerged from conditions similar to our own. She argues that revolution isn't utopian but tangible—a possibility within reach if we're willing to learn from each other's experiences and unite around shared values and aims.Then, conveyed from the book itself, Bill Hampton, takes us to a church in San Antonio where a congregation's nonviolent stand against violent deportations became, in their time and their world, a turning point in the immigrant rights movement. Hampton's account reveals how compassion and incredible determination transformed violent repression into tentative solidarity, even converting a Trump-supporting sheriff into a future ally. Could that happen in our world? Listen, see it in your mind, and decide for yourself.The heart of the episode explores how scattered resistance movements began weaving themselves together into something more powerful. Instead of working in separate silos—climate activists here, labor organizers there, anti-racism advocates somewhere else—people started supporting each other's struggles. They protested what they opposed but also demanded, fought for, and built alternatives they wanted to see: sanctuaries instead of deportations, new housing instead of military spending, sincere dialogue instead of reflexive division.Guevara's questions and the interviewees' answers don't offer a blueprint but a provocation. They show one successful path. Can our movements connect more deeply, as their's did? Can we recognize that our diverse struggles are fundamentally linked as they did? Can we commit to supporting each other across differences? Will our path to such gains be similar to theirs? If not, how will it differ?The Wind Cries Freedom challenges us to imagine resistance evolving into revolution—not through violence or top-down control, but through solidarity and shared vision and strategy. It asks us to consider whether such transformation might be possible in our own world, emerging from our own movements and struggles. It asks what does our activism need to embody to build the world we need? It hopes that by documenting the approaches of its related future revolution, in the words of its participants, it may offer useful insights while making real the prospects of winning.Support the show

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• Ep 353 Genoa, Sex Trafficking, Self Censoring, Parecon Ignored, and AI Is No Joke

  Episode 353 of RevolutionZ examines two seemingly unrelated but equally disruptive forces: the marginalization of participatory economics and the existential threat of artificial intelligence. But first, a visit to Genoa's dockworkers threatening to shut down Israel shipments, America's sex trafficking being addressed incompletely, and activist self censoring doing Trump's work for him.On the headline topics, for over five decades, a persistent but small bunch have advocated for participatory economics—a vision that rejects the inequitable remuneration, authoritarian decision-making, corporate division of labor, central planning and markets and proposes in their place equitable remuneration, self management, balanced job complexes and participatory planning. The topic, why does this vision remain largely ignored by mainstream leftist discourse. Is the silence merely the natural skepticism that greets any new idea, or does it reflect something deeper—perhaps even the uncomfortable truth that many progressive institutions themselves maintain the very power structures participatory economics challenges?On topic two, while many progressives dismiss AI as "just another tool" or even "a bad joke," this episode notes its unprecedented development trajectory. From barely performing elementary math to solving complex problems better than humans, from blather to eloquence, AI's capabilities are expanding exponentially. The threats are multifaceted: mass job displacement, potential rogue behavior, use for surveillance and repression, ecological damage from energy consumption, and the gradual replacement of uniquely human activities that give our lives meaning.Both participatory economics and AI concerns represent fundamental challenges to established power structures and conventional thinking. The resistance to engaging seriously with either topic stems from a combination of vested interests, habitual thinking, and perhaps a fear of considering truly revolutionary change. By bringing these issues into conversation, the episode invites us to reconsider blind spots and imagine alternative futures where economic systems serve human flourishing rather than perpetuating hierarchy.How might our economic vision change if we truly embraced participatory principles? What guardrails must we establish around AI before its development outpaces our ability to control it? These questions demand urgent attention as we navigate our agendas in increasingly confusing times.Support the show

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• Ep 352 WCF: Back to the Beginning and Ending the Orange Monster

  Episode 352 of RevolutionZ continues with chapters two and three of The Wind Cries Freedom. Alexandra Voline tells about going from despair to determination, from her parent's activism to her own revolutionary conviction. Born to 1960s radicals, politics was "background noise" until Trump's election added passion to knowledge. Alexandra describes how giving a speech against war-making at a defense plant taught her a painful but enduring lesson. Her self-righteous rage alienated the very workers she needed to reach. To organize effectively she had to develop empathy, not just display moral certainty.Malcolm King relates his experiences of electoral politics. He learned from Bernie Sanders that dissidents could run viable campaigns, raise money without corporate cash, and inspire volunteer armies. Sanders challenged traditional fatalism. He opened possibilities many had stopped believing in. Malcolm asked, "If you believe the system is rotten to its core, but you don't believe it can be changed, what exactly are you doing?"The episode's interviewees also conveyed their understanding of Trump's appeal. They recognized that while racism and sexism were factors, many working people supported Trump because they had been abandoned by a political establishment that ignored their suffering. Effective organizing would require addressing economic devastation alongside fighting gender and racial oppression. They discussed as well fear and overcoming it. These interviewees report that their organization, Revolutionary Participatory Society, emerged when activists began thinking strategically rather than performatively—asking not "what makes me feel pure right now" but "what builds power for the future." As Alexandra put it, "Justice isn't a pie that we divide. It's a flame that we grow."The Wind Cries Freedom is an oral history of how people like you, perhaps even your alter-ego in another time and place, won extraordinary change through their vision, strategy, and uncompromising solidarity. Human stories to reveal revolutionary lessons--with more to come. Support the show

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• Ep 351 - The Wind Cries Freedom - A New Sequence of Episodes: Intro and Chapter 1

  Episode 351 of RevolutionZ introduces a special journey as Miguel Guevara and his 18 Interviewees convey chapters from "The Wind Cries Freedom," an as yet unpublished novel that reimagines how revolutionary change might unfold in America.The novel is thus an oral history of a future American revolution. As such the book is fiction but it works hard to sound like (future) historical fact. It is personal and dramatic but it doesn't emphasize entertainment or character exploration. It instead taps dramatic personal stories to convey the contours of revolutionary change by reporting how a movement called Revolutionary Participatory Society (RPS) transforms an imagined near-future America. This first episode in the sequence presents the introduction and the first chapter of the book. We meet Miguel Guevara, whose activist parents named him after Che, and who undertakes this oral history project to understand how "the next American Revolution is succeeding. After Guevara explains the logic and motives that guide his questions, Chapter One jumps to near the book's endpoint to recount a conversation with then newly-elected President Malcolm King and Vice President Celia Noether who reflect on their electoral victory and on what they deem the far more important prior grassroots activism and organization as well as the movement's plans for continued transformation. There are twenty four more chapters to address all that, from conversations to marches, sit-ins, blockades, strikes, occupations, and more.The Wind Cries Freedom weaves together personal stories with strategic insights. It explores RPS emerges and grows. How its activists organized and faced and overcame obstacles through collective action rather than individual heroism. The oral history explores a vision of revolutionary change thought the experiences and feelings of its practitioners. It challenges us to see ourselves not as passive observers but as potential makers of history. I hope listeners will share your thoughts and questions via email or in the ZNet Discord channel. Miguel assembled testimonies. Whether and how the imagined future's lessons will be assimilated, corrected, augmented, and otherwise refined to aid our current efforts is up to us.Support the show

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• Ep 350 - AI As Marxist & More Chomsky, Me, and AI

  Episode 350 of RevolutionZ conducts an experiment with ChatGPT to reveal profound insights about both political theory and artificial intelligence.ChatGPT, please respond to this critique of the Marxist tradition's current relevance first as a Marxist would, then without that constraint. When operating as a Marxist, the AI eloquently employs classic rhetorical strategies to defend the tradition while missing or misrepresenting the actual criticisms. It speaks of "dialectical augmentation" and accuses the criticisms of "flattening contradiction." It ignores the tradition's blindness to the coordinator class.Freed from replying as a Marxist, however, the same AI accurately summarizes the arguments and acknowledges the validity of claims of economism, inadequate class analysis, and organizational hierarchies. You decide: Does this  shift demonstrate the critique's claim that immersion in the Marxist tradition, while offering valuable insights, imposes conceptual limitations that blind adherents to crucial aspects of social reality?The episode then ventures into issues of artificial intelligence itself to explore questions of consciousness, language generation, and the nature of understanding. Albert and ChatGPT each address the concern that AI systems, by becoming increasingly capable conversational partners, as but one example, risk displacing human-to-human dialogue and intellectual companionship. Interested in revolutionary theory, artificial intelligence, or the philosophy of mind? In how theoretical frameworks shape what we can—and cannot—see? Episode 350 of RevolutionZ addresses not only Marxism's current relevance or lack thereof, but also the trajectory of human intellectual engagement in an age of increasingly sophisticated AI.Support the show

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