On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by David McNally to reflect on Donald Trump’s first 100-ish days in office. They try to make sense of Trumpists’ multi-pronged offensive on immigrants, trade, DEI, and so much more. McNally says that Trump relies on shock, awe, and fear, but even within this climate, there are cracks that can be exploited. 

While some are claiming that neoliberalism is over, McNally says that Trumpism is a natural outgrowth of neoliberalism that includes a weakening of organized labor and social movements and a celebration of big business. That’s on top of the Trump administration’s assault on the administrative and regulatory state. 

They also discuss the Right’s attacks on universities, the erosion of safety net programs, the demonology of Marxists and immigrants, and the philosophies of W.E.B. Du Bois.

David McNally is a radical socialist activist and award-winning scholar. Authoring over 60 research manuscripts, seven books, and countless public lectures and articles, he currently holds the Cullen Distinguished Professorship of History & Business at the University of Houston, having recently moved from Toronto, where he taught and organized at York University for over thirty years.

Featured image of David McNally via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The post Neoliberalism on Steroids appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

It’s a common refrain to hear that getting an education opens doors, even in a community like Madison with its huge achievement gap. But today on the show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Dr. Eve L. Ewing, who argues that instead of creating equal opportunities, the American education system perpetuates inequality. Ewing is the author of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children, in which she demonstrates how schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority.

Ewing asks a deceptively simple question, what are schools for? Though schools purport to create opportunities, they also serve an important ideological function: teaching students what it means to be a person, how to relate to others, and understand social roles. She says that you can’t understand the education system in this country without understanding what it means to Black and Native people. From segregation and achievement gaps to the phenomenon of land grab universities, our educational system is deeply inequitable. 

In describing the painful process of writing this book, Ewing says that “every time I hit the bottom, there was more.” Yet she challenges listeners to question what a “good” school is, to be wary of “opportunity hoarding,” and to research the Land Back Movement. 

Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author, most recently, of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, as well as the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series and Black Panther, and is currently writing Exceptional X-Men. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago.

Featured image: the cover of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children. 

The post What are schools for? A Conversation with Eve L. Ewing appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with author, scholar, and prominent TikToker Dan McClellan about his new book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues. They discuss how Christians derive their notions of sexuality, gender, and authority by going straight to the source, the Bible itself. 

McClellan uses an approach that he calls “data over dogma” in which he strives to put aside any of his own beliefs and assumptions in order to assess what the historical record and the texts themselves say. Instead of using the Bible to uphold preexisting beliefs, he asks, why were these texts written and what was their purpose? With this approach we find that the Bible has many contradictions, and sometimes it upholds ideas that are incompatible with modern life, like slavery and child sacrifice. 

They also discuss what the Bible has to say about sex and what it doesn’t have to say about sexuality, how white Christian nationalists use the Bible to maintain their power, and what McClellan has learned from his time as a public scholar. He says that rather than a jigsaw puzzle that we try to wrangle together, it’s more appropriate to view the Bible as a box full of Lego pieces that may never quite fit.

Dan McClellan is an award-winning public scholar of the Bible. He has over one million followers on social media, and tens of thousands more tune in to his online classes and his Data Over Dogma Podcast. Dan received his PhD from the University of Exeter. He previously worked as an adjunct instructor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Featured image: the cover of The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues.

The post How to put data over dogma appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

The Kickapoo River Valley is one of Wisconsin’s most beloved landscapes. On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes speaks with author Tamara Dean about this magical region and the miraculous, disastrous, and difficult changes she observed while living on the land. Her new book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, is a collection of essays about what she learned from moving to this area in the early 2000s.

When she and her partner purchased a farm in the Driftless, she had many goals: of becoming an organic farmer, creating a pollinator habitat, and building a plastic-free home. Along the way, she was met with many surprises, from the tornadoes that destroyed 40 acres of the nearby forest to the floods that ravaged the region. Dean joined in the work of cleanup and collaborated on the Stories from the Flood oral history project that helped the community process that traumatic experience. 

Dean shares what it was like to uncover the history of people who were buried on her land. She devotes one essay to the story of Nancy Ann Harris who died from an abortion at a time before abortion care was banned in the state. She also discusses the significance of groundnuts, a staple of food for the Ho Chunk people, which she found in abundance in the area. 

Tamara Dean has been camping, fishing, hiking, and gathering wild foods from an early age, led and inspired by her parents. Her essays and stories have been published in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, and The Progressive, and she is author of The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles over Motors. She teaches writing independently and through writing centers across the nation.

Featured image: cover of Shelter and Storm.

The post The Miraculous and Disastrous with Author Tamara Dean appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with a peace activist and a scholar about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It has been two months since Israel began a full blockade of all aid to Gaza. In response, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, made up of volunteers from over 21 countries, attempted to open a sea-based relief route. Last night, their vessel was attacked by drones, and the vessel was substantially damaged. Cassandra Dixon joined us today from Malta to describe the attack.

We’re also joined by Jennifer Loewenstein who discusses the healthcare situation in Gaza and how the West Bank is now being attacked at the level of what’s happened in Gaza. She says that there’s been an unofficial blackout of news coming out of Palestine. On so many issues the mainstream media is silent as the US continues to contribute to the ongoing genocide.

Cassandra Dixon is a peace activist from Wisconsin. She is also a founder of Palestine Partners.

Jennifer Loewenstein is former associate director of Middle Eastern Studies and senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has lived in and reported extensively on the Middle East.

Featured image of Ship to Gaza Norway vessel from 2018 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 1.0).

The post Peace activists are shut out from getting aid into Gaza appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined in the studio by Armando Ibarra to celebrate International Workers Day or May Day, a day that has long been one of working class mobilization. Initiated in Chicago in 1886, May Day commemorates organized workers’ strength against oligarchs of the past and present. 

While workers’ movements have made great gains since that first May Day, today’s plutocrats haven’t ceased in their efforts to take away workers’ gains. Across the country today, people are taking to the streets again, demanding dignity and fair treatment. Many events are organized to highlight the centrality of immigrant laborers to the labor movement, like the Voces de la Frontera Day Without Immigrants and Workers events. Ibarra also clarifies that we can’t talk about immigration without talking about American imperialism.

Ruff and Ibarra talk about the social terrain in Wisconsin, including how dependent the dairy and agriculture industries are on Latin American immigrant laborers without authorization. Despite this reality, these communities are heavily policed and viewed as inherently criminal. Ibarra reflects on the protests of 2006, when millions of people took to the streets in response to federal legislation that would have criminalized immigrants without proper authorization and those who aided them. 

Armando Ibarra is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School for Workers. He’s the co-author of the award winning book, The Latino Question: Politics, Labouring Classes and the Next Left.

Featured image: a Worker’s May Day Rally in Chicago in 2018 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The post May Day with Armando Ibarra appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is joined by four accomplished Black women who are or have been in public office and who serve in organizations at the executive level. Brandi Grayson, April Kigeya, Sabrina Madison, and Dana Pellebon are local leaders who bring years of expertise and care to their work. However, they face an inordinate amount of scrutiny in their professional and personal lives. 

Muldrow starts the show by reminding listeners of the words of Ida B. Wells, the investigative journalist and a founder of the NAACP, who said that the most dangerous thing a Black woman in America can be is successful. Today’s guests discuss the blowback they’ve received for their successes and how white supremacy is the common denominator driving the myriad ways they’ve been undermined over the years. 

They describe instances of not being treated with equal deference by the press, of being verbally attacked at public meetings and having no one stand up for them, of being harassed in their workplaces, of receiving death threats and more, all within a city that seems to pride itself on its so-called progressivism. Yet each stays at their work because uplifting Black women matters. 

Brandi Grayson is the Founder, CEO, and President of Urban Triage, an organization that empowers Black families to excel and believe in their ability to make a difference in their lives, their families and communities with hope, education, and action. She also owns her own business, Grayson Consulting, LLC.

April Kigeya is a Dane County Supervisor who also holds multiple positions in the community as a Recruiter for Exact Sciences and as a Special Projects Manager for the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness. 

Sabrina Madison is a Madison Alder and a recognized leader in civic engagement, economic development, and community empowerment. She is also the CEO of The Progress Center for Black Women.

Dana Pellebon is a community activist who has been working against oppression in all forms for her adult life. She is the Executive Director of RCC Sexual Violence Resource Center in Dane County. 

Featured image of April Kigeya, Sabrina Madison, Ali Muldrow, and Brandi Grayson (Dana Pellebon, not pictured). 

The post A Roundtable of Black Women Leaders in Madison appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Fifty years ago on April 29, 1975, Bonnie Raitt gave a benefit concert with Mose Allison for WORT at the Capitol City Theatre in downtown Madison. This was a major event in the history of our station. On this very special edition of A Public Affair, WORT Production Coordinator Aaron Scholz is behind the mic to explain why. In addition to a special message from Bonnie Raitt, we hear four interviews with folks who helped coordinate the benefit show, were at the show, or were involved with WORT before we went on the air over six months later. 

In the first interview, Stu Levitan speaks with Glenn Silber about the genesis of the benefit concert. Silber is the director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary about Madison’s political history, The War at Home. In 1975, he was working for a group called People’s Video who were the co-beneficiaries of the Bonnie Raitt benefit concert. Not only was the show a flashpoint in the history of WORT, it also coincided with the fall of Saigon, as Silber explains.

Next we hear from Don Alan, who was the MC for the concert and later WORT’s News Director. He went on to become the Program Director and Station Manager before he left in 1984 to move to San Francisco. Alan says that he got involved with the creation of WORT because radio was an important part of his life. Fifty years on, WORT still depends on the passion of its volunteers and staff to make great radio and serve the community. 

Mike O’Connor also spoke with Scholz about the nuts and bolts of getting WORT off the ground, including the initial start-up cost for the station of $3,200. Bonnie Raitt’s benefit concert raised one-third of this cost. O’Connor went on to help other community radio stations get their start and he co-founded the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

Our last interview is with Gil Halsted, a retired Wisconsin Public Radio reporter and a regular contributor to a wide variety of programs at WORT including World View, Labor Radio and the Insurgent Radio Kiosk. Halsted tells Scholz about what it was like to attend that legendary Bonnie Raitt and Mose Allison show. 

If you want to share your experience of the Bonnie Raitt benefit concert, please email Aaron Scholz at [email protected]. 

Featured image: poster for the 1975 concert featuring Bonnie Raitt and Mose Allison.

The post Bonnie Raitt Day appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On April 17, a record breaking number of child care advocates marched on the Wisconsin state capital and sent a message to legislators that the state needs to invest $480 million in childcare. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty, without this investment, 1 in 4 childcare providers in the state could shut down. 

To shed light on these changes, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Corrine Hendrickson and Ruth Schmidt, two child care professionals and advocates. Schmidt says that Wisconsin is one of six states that doesn’t put state money into childcare, the only support comes from federal block grants. To address this, advocates are asking for Governor Evers to make an investment in child care in the upcoming budget. 

Schmidt says that free market principles don’t apply to childcare. And there’s a double standard when it comes to how industries are treated: manufacturers in Wisconsin are given a tax break and the state invests $2.5 billion annually in its prison system. But child care workers are underpaid and overworked. Hendrickson says that it’s possible to treat childcare workers this way because feminized labor is devalued in our society.

Unlike K-12 schools or higher education, child care isn’t run like a system. In many respects, it’s good that childcare isn’t run like a system because it allows childcare programs to be community and culturally responsive. But without a concerted investment, Hendrickson says she’ll have to raise her rates. 

You can learn more about child care issues from Raising Wisconsin and A Day Without Childcare on May 12. 

Corrine Hendrickson is a childcare provider in New Glarus. She is a co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed, or WECAN, a grassroots advocacy organization aimed at increasing public investment in early childhood.

Ruth Schmidt is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. 

Featured image of kids at daycare via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The post Status of Childcare in Wisconsin appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

In late March, the climate advocacy group Greenpeace was ordered to pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the oil company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The grassroots protests against DAPL in 2016 and 2017 were organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous water protectors. Greenpeace peacefully supported the protests but was charged with defamation by Energy Transfer. 

On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Cody Hall who reminds listeners of what happened at the Standing Rock protests and No DAPL movement against the incursion of the Energy Transfer oil pipeline. Hall says that the state’s focus on Greenpeace rather than the Indigenous activists is a strategy to control the narrative and send a message to other organizations that they can be targeted. Hall also says that the ruling erases how Standing Rock was an Indigenous-led movement of more than five hundred Indigenous groups. 

The North Dakota ruling in favor of Energy Transfer could have far reaching effects on first-amendment rights and is an alarming instance of a corporation using a lawsuit to intimidate activists. Greenpeace is appealing the verdict. This Wednesday, the organization, Independent Trail Monitors, asked the United Nations to investigate the verdict because of due process violations and attacks on free speech and Indigenous rights.

Cody Hall is a Lakota leader who participated in Standing Rock. He has been interviewed and quoted by media outlets including CNN, Al Jazeera, The Intercept, and Deadspin. He has also been a radio guest for Native American Calling. He founded the Oceti Sakowin Sports Council and the 7 Flames Lacrosse team and makes his home in Kansas City where he raises two daughters while also working towards the elimination of tribal appropriated names and images at one of the largest and oldest school districts in the Midwest.

Featured image of a pipeline protest via Leslie Peterson on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

The post An update on lawsuits brought against Standing Rock protesters appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.