RevolutionZ

Episode 372 of RevolutionZ urges that every activist choice we make—what to say, what to do, and who to do it with and for—can be usefully guided by one clear calculation: will this or that option grow the movement’s numbers, deepen members' commitment and means, and increase pressure on those in power? We doner how  that logic of choice might affect how we write, organize, and work with others among other daily choices we face?To start, the episode considers our choice of words to speak or write. When an episode or an article describes pain that the system around us imposes, and even how the system works, and we do it over and over, how much does that help with growth, commitment, methods, and pressure? Given our need to grow in numbers, and enrich in methods, doesn't the proposed measuring stick say we should speak where the reachable are, keep our language as simple as accuracy allows, and always include and even emphasize vision and strategy? Do we do that? If not, why not? Can new ideas, concrete proposals, and credible plans invite hesitant people off the sidelines more than for us to say or write, yet again, that how bad things are? Strategy-focused words become a tool for converting attention into action. Do pain focussed words that tell people what they already know do likewise?Then we consider choosing tactics by considering the now surfacing debate over how to fight against ICE. The pull toward confrontation is real. We feel it. But if we use our one yardstick, our simple proposed logic to weigh violence against mass nonviolent disruption, What we feel isn't our guide. Instead it is to consider consequences of competing choices for growth, power, and impact. If we do that, what emerges? The episode suggests that nonviolent tactics done at scale impose costs on elites while attracting allies and improving commitment. Our goal isn’t to feel fierce or righteous. Our goal becomes to win over and commit more people, more often, for longer.Who to relate to, who to support, gets similar treatment. The simple logic suggests that purity shrinks, coalescing grows. Shying away from what doesn't agree perfectly with oneself fragments. Listening and even learning from what doesn't agree with self, can grow. To support campaigns that win tangible gains and build capacity, even if they don’t include every preferred demand, isn't that what we ought to do, but is it what we do do? Do we frame differences as due to character flaws to dismiss or as disputes over expected outcomes to test and explore? Which can create enlarged unity? Do we seek out and onboard  unions, students, faith communities, and neighborhood groups who can bring fresh energy and legitimacy though we don't all see all things the same way? Do we join with and support even what we hope will include more of our favored priorities in time?Finally, as a kind of afterword, the episode considers catalysts that can accelerate initial momentum: visible local wins like Mamdani's, regular actions that build efficacy like the efforts in Minneapolis, and also less often sought, bold engagement from cultural figures and labor leaders able to reach large audiences. We invite Taylor Swift, Stephen Curry, and Caitlin Clark as examples. Also school teachers and university faculty. Come fully on board. Why? Because when artists and athletes, labor leaders and educators with access to large audiences speak out clearly, very loudly, and consistently militantly, when they donate time and resources and  seriously show up, their doing so can communicate widely and make participation feel hopeful to audiences that are otherwise not yet hearing the call. Pair that with steady organizing and you get a movement that compounds power.Does the simple but powerful norm for choices offered this episode make sense to you? Support the show

Episode 371 of Revolution Z has as guest Greg Wilpert, founder of Venezuela Analysis, who discusses the role of oil, power, Trump, Maduro, and which way Venezuela. Wilpert tracks the quiet recalibration of demands coming from Washington—curbs on drugs that aren't real, and on migration caused by sanctions. Vague “terror” charges that are projections at best, and a push for oil access that has actually been offered earlier albeit with fewer controls—alongside a court case that tests the boundary between domestic law and international immunity. If the aim of kidnapping Maduro is optics that establish that Trump can use the American military whenever and wherever and however he unilaterally chooses, what does a “victory” look like, and who will pay the price?What are the mechanics and effects of sanctions? How have they hollowed out revenues, warped trade, and driven migration that is in turn used to justify more pressure. Wilpert explains why Venezuela’s heavy crude isn’t the easy prize it’s portrayed to be. High costs, slow ramp-up, and market dynamics will blunt returns not least but not only as climate impact mounts. The gap between oil rhetoric and oil reality and between governing rhetoric and governing reality matter because the truth about each clarifies whether policy is about energy security or political theater. Meanwhile, protests and public perception will begin to swirl around the Maduro trial, the one contested issue that neither side can easily negotiate and still claim to have won. And ultimately, the deeper issue is precedent—what changes when a superpower uses massive militarism to kidnap and then prosecute a foreign leader despite international norms much less on nonsense charges?Midway, Greg previews his forthcoming book on developing consciousness for a post-capitalist commons. Structures like cooperatives, communes, and creative commons only thrive when everyday practices dismantle informal hierarchies and embed equal voice. He maps the mindsets that either reproduce domination or make shared power real, connecting movement culture to durable democracy. We close by zooming out to the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” which, supposing it lasts, would generate a move toward spheres of influence and away from enforceable international law, raising the risk of multiple escalations and even nuclear miscalculation. If that’s the road ahead, Wilpert urges that we need a clearer vision for global rules, accountability, and economic relations that don’t weaponize dependence.Support the show

Episode 370 of RevolutionZ mainly continues our sequence of excerpts from the forthcoming The Wind Cries Freedom's Oral History of the Next American Revolution.  However, before doing so, it takes up various reactions I encountered to an article I wrote titled "Chomsky Reassessed." The followup discussion here raises some more general concerns and further ideas bearing on issues of "cancellation." Internal movement differences, arguments, and even accusations can force a movement to constructively self examine and grow, or can fracture it. What damage is done when outrage outruns evidence, when cancel culture and circular firing squads turn activism into spectacle and drive away the very allies we need? What dynamics play out? When do they arise? How do they gain life and spread? How do they involve us and what might we do to address them? After that rather substantial introductory section, this episode continues into a new oral history excerpt about how to build movement power and cohesion in which Bertrand Jagger and Lydia Lawrence further chart their respective journeys from atomized  into  systemic thinking. They describe their attraction to self-management as proportionate say, to equity as pay for effort and sacrifice, and to an economy redesigned to eliminate not only rule by owners but rule by the often-ignored coordinator class.Bert takes us inside the illusion of choice that we often feel, where markets script our consumption and work options and productivity gains vanish into someone else’s ledger. He traces the subtle hierarchies that reappear in movement meetings, media, and campaigns when movement roles unintentionally subvert movement aspirations. He explains why balanced jobs, transparent information, and participatory planning weren’t rhetorical add-ons to RPS but at the core of its approaches. Lydia widens the frame to kinship and culture. She shows how hierarchies in patriarchal families, schooling, and media bleed into the workplace—and vice versa--how class hierarchies in turn contour kinship and culture. She shows why to change one domain of activity without changing the others reroutes power rather than dissolves it.Along the way, we revisit a cautionary note from Bob Dylan—what happens when movements punish nuance and reward heat—and we ask how to create spaces where disagreement refines strategy instead of ending careers and silencing conversation. So this episode is mostly about how two people were attracted to and navigated movement design, class analysis that extends  beyond owners and workers, and turning diverse values into effective daily practice all in the new movement they became part of, the movement for a revolutionary participatory society. Can their remembrances provide insights in our time and our place about attaining a clear, rigorous path forward? Listen, and perhaps share with a friend who’s organizing something big or small. Then I hope you will leave a comment saying what strikes you as useful and revealing, and what doesn't.Support the show

Episode 369 of RevolutionZ has Miguel Guevara questioning Lydia Lawrence about her journey from the Sixties to RPS. After anger and solidarity fuel a movement’s start what decides whether it survives? Lydia Lawrence—feminist, organizer, media worker, and the first shadow government president of RPS—tells of her journey from sixties militancy, through doldrums, to sustained revolutionary engagement. Her recounting begins with a poem-like charge sheet against injustice, but quickly pivots to the practices that kept early RPS victories from unspooling. Treat oppression as a web, not a queue; change roles, not just leaders; speak plainly, share skills, and build structures that match our values.Miguel elicits from Lydia a revelatory mid-west factory story. Workers seized their plant. Councils rose and wages leveled. Spirit soared. Yet before too long passed, hierarchy crept back. Spirits crashed. The culprit wasn’t human nature. It was an unbroken corporate division of labor. A small group accumulated knowledge, access and confidence from newly doing empowering tasks while most returned to repetitive, debilitating tasks. Voice, influence and then even income stratified as much much of the old order reassembled itself. Out with the old boss, the owner. In with a new boss who Lydia calls Coordinators. Lydia lays out how class, race, gender, and polity entangle across home, school, workplace, media, and law—and why single-issue wins erode when unaltered institutions push back. She describes the cultural suicide of “ghosting” in movements and the coordinator class habit of hiding power behind jargon. Solidarity requires attention, not performance.The discussion moves from Sander's valuable sparks and Trump’s odious fear to the necessity of building bridges without diluting justice for women, Black and Brown communities, LGBTQ+ people, and working-class men alike. Since oppression is an entangled network, strategy must be systemic. Lydia discusses her conversion to emphasizing balanced roles, open information, participatory decision-making, and a language everyone can own. Do Lydia's reports of her path to joining sustained, effective revolutionary activism resonate with you? Are the lessons she reveals relevant to our times and circumstances? Concluding this episode's presentation of the sixteenth chapter from The Wind Cries Freedom, is a closing meditation on fiction as oral history—stories that test ideas and invite you to refine them. Is it worth sharing with a friend?Support the show

Episode 368 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin and more recently The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto. Our topic isn’t a kinder capitalism; it’s a post capitalist vision and practice where private ownership is overcome and control of production resides with the people who do the work.Together we discuss seeking a higher minimum wages and seeking higher wages more generally, full employment, greater workers say in the workplace and community, municipal support for co-ops and more. We urge that what we seek, how we seek it, and even what issues we raise while engaged in the pursuits, should deliver concrete gains in the present and also rewire expectations about who should decide and who should benefit in the future.Sunkara discusses electoral campaigns and candidates, but more so the system in which elections occur. He challenges the limits of welfarism and highlights the power question: who owns, who governs, who invests. Together we also broach the hard problem of the division of labor and derivative class divisions. Sunkara says that specialization won’t disappear. We can't and won't all do everything. But what we do and how we do it must be democratized so that expertise serves everyone instead of hardening into a class that serves mainly itself over workers. We also explore differences and agreements about when to challenge what issues and about what structures are needed to attain our goals versus what structures will continually obstruct our goals. How can and should the choices of a socialist in a workplace or on a campus, for example, and really anywhere, differ from the choices of a progressive working in the same settings? Issues. Demands. Formulations.Regarding the electoral arena we consider why some workers back Trump and why even center-left parties feel distant. We agree the answer isn’t to scold; it’s to organize. It is to show up where people live, to honor local experiences and concerns, and to build organizations that feel like home not like elite seminars. Sunkara explores how an independent profile—more Sanders than party brand—and now more Mamdani than party brand—can help rebuild trust and make clear class politics evident again.Are we ready to move beyond slogans and toward a post-capitalism that’s practical, democratic, and winnable? Are we ready to further define our vision's features to the extent we now can, and to refine and improve them as we proceed? Sunkara proposes a path forward to consider. Support the show