Delete Your Account Podcast

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Shanti Singh and René Christian Moya. Shanti is the Legislative and Communications Director for the statewide tenants rights organization Tenants Together. René is an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union and campaign coordinator for ACCE, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.Shanti and René join us to discuss the consequences of evictions in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, and how the eviction moratorium has played out for renters. We examine the impact of the moratorium, the lack of tenancy protections, and the displacement of the homelessness in California.

The crew also discusses the nefarious ties between members of the real estate industry and property owners and their efforts to further criminalize the unhoused communities in California.Follow René on Twitter @rcmoya84 and you can also visit the LA Tenants Union's website at join.latenentsunion.org to become a member. You can follow Shanti on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support their work at tenantstogether.org.

A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by labor and tech reporter extraordinaire Edward Ongweso Jr., a staff writer at Vice's Motherboard and cohost of This Machine Kills, a podcast about the political economy of tech.

Ed shares a bit about his own history as an organizer, which saw him involved in the successful campaign to pass the country's first ride-hail vehicle license cap for drivers in New York City, before expanding on his reporting about the nationwide strike of Uber and Lyft drivers on July 21. The gang discusses the package of antitrust legislation targeting the tech sector currently waiting for a floor vote in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the PRO Act reportedly included in Democrats' Senate infrastructure bill and how they would impact labor struggles in the gig economy. Ed explains why Uber's business model is not what it seems and that it is unprofitable by design, situating the company's practices in the context of the possibility of a tech bubble in the stock market and its implications for the broader economy. The gang rounds out the conversation by zooming in on US-based tech entrepreneurs' predatory and increasingly devastating push for the adoption of cryptocurrencies by vulnerable populations worldwide.

You can follow Ed on Twitter @bigblackjacobin and keep up with his staggeringly prolific reporting at Motherboard as well as his podcast, This Machine Kills.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by grassroots organizer and abolitionist Mariame Kaba, known best as @prisonculture on Twitter. Mariame, whose work focuses primarily on dismantling the prison industrial complex, is also the founder of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-founded a number of other organizations including the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women.

Mariame describes the impact that mutual aid has had during the pandemic, and how mutual aid functions as an act of solidarity, especially during times of crisis when communities are left without resources. We also discuss her new, New York Times bestselling book "We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing And Transforming Justice" and the abolitionist principles that help guide her work.

The crew also examines the emotional satisfaction and fallout behind high profile cases like those of Bill Cosby and Derek Chauvin, and why retribution and revenge are not the same as justice.

You can follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture. For more details on the mutual aid toolkit make sure to visit The Big Door Brigade.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Enjoy this free teaser of our interview with Sarah Jaffe. Subscribe at Patreon to hear the whole thing! This week Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest and labor journalist extraordinaire Sarah Jaffe, cohost of Dissent Magazine's Belabored podcast and the author of two books: Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and a new book out this year from Hurst and Bold Type Books, Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone. The gang starts off with the latest on the Palestinian general strike and takes stock of how the BDS movement has shifted US political discourse on Israeli apartheid before moving across the pond as Sarah explains the role of anti-Palestinian propaganda in the UK Labour Party. Sarah debunks business owners' claims of a "labor shortage" in the US and takes a sober look at the state of the labor movement today before ending on a sporting note. Follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahljaffe, keep up with her work on her personal website sarahljaffe.com and workwontloveyouback.org, check out the Belabored podcast, and don't forget to pick up a copy of Work Won't Love You Back.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined—from Ramallah, Palestine—by Rawan Eid and Fathi Nimer, creators of the resource hub Decolonize Palestine. Previously, Rawan organized for Students for Justice in Palestine and the Democratic Socialists of America. After moving to Palestine, she began working for a feminist organization in Ramallah and attending meetings at a local youth group dedicated to sharing Palestinians' stories and providing a space for discussion. Fathi Nimer is a political scientist, activist, and a former teaching fellow at the Democracy and Human Rights program at Birzeit University.

Rawan and Fathi describe the lessons they've drawn from their personal lives in creating Decolonize Palestine, and how the long arm of Israeli apartheid has impacted and dictated their day to day experiences—from accessing identification cards, the difficulties they face in traveling to Jerusalem from their home in Ramallah, and even something as simple as having a pet.

We examine how far the discourse on Palestine has shifted in the last few years, and recent weeks after the recent massacre in Gaza, and what this means for efforts to confront the occupation both on the ground in occupied Palestine and elsewhere in the world. Fathi describes how academic work has been stymied by the occupation, including calculated efforts by Israel to prevent countless students from leaving the blockaded Gaza Strip in order to study abroad.

We also discuss Israel's historical media censorship inside occupied Palestine and the state's violent attacks on journalists and those engaging in political activity. Rawan and Fathi highlight the recent wave of lynchings of Palestinians and the IDF's mass arrests in Lydd, named "Operation Law and Order" and how this is meant to send a message to Palestinians across occupied Palestine that should they rise up in protest that the state will respond with force.

Finally, the crew talks about ways you can get involved and resources you can access to get better informed about the situation on the ground as well as the historical context that brought us here today.

Follow Rawan on @RiverToSea48, and Fathi @AManInTheSun. For your go-to resource on all things Palestine make sure to visit decolonizepalestine.com and support their work at patreon.com/decolonizepalestine

List of Palestine-related donation causes:

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

Palestine Red Crescent Society

BuildPalestine

Middle East Children's Alliance

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Al Makassed Hospital/Jerusalem Hospitals

United Palestinian Appeal

Taawon

Political resources:

Palestine Youth Movement

National Students for Justice in Palestine

US Campaign for Palestinian rights

Adalah Legal Center

Al Haq

BDS

Adalah-NY campaign for boycott of Israel

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Kumars and Roqayah are joined this week by India Walton, a registered nurse, community organizer and candidate for mayor of Buffalo, New York. She is a founder and former executive director of Fruit Belt community land trust, an historic grassroots housing justice organization, and also former lead community organizer for Open Buffalo's Opportunity and Justice coalition. She's already picked up endorsements from the Democratic Socialists of America and New York's Working Families Party. They call her the unofficial Mayor of Buffalo, she's just looking to make it super official.

We talk to India about her ideas for transforming the city of Buffalo, including her ideas around policing and public safety, housing, food access, COVID response and more.

If you want to support India's campaign, you can volunteer or donate.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Sydney Ghazarian and first timer Ashik Siddique, both climate organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America's Ecosocialist Working Group and coordinators for DSA's Green New Deal and PRO Act campaigns. Syd is the Los Angeles-based founder of the Ecosocialist Working Group and previously came on the show to tackle everything from racism in the environmentalist movement to what we can learn from indigenous-led pipeline blockades, as well as her article in In These Times outlining an agenda for escalating climate organizing through labor tactics. Ashik serves on the steering committee of the Ecosocialist Working Group and is a research analyst with the National Priorities Project, an initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

After Ashik shares a bit about his personal path to organizing and the left, the gang jumps into the history of US labor law and breaks down how the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House of Representatives in 2020 and again on March 9, 2021, would fundamentally alter it, from legalizing secondary strikes to extending labor protections to undocumented immigrants. Syd and Ashik discuss the emerging coalition between unions and the socialist left, as well as the concrete ways the PRO Act would have impacted the unionization efforts of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama.

Visit proact.dsausa.org to sign up for phone banking in states whose senators do not yet support the bill.

Follow Ashik on Twitter @ahSHEEK and Syd @SydneyAzari. You can also follow the DSA Ecosocialist Working Group @DSAecosocialism and find out more about how to get involved in this campaign as well as their future efforts here.

To keep up with what is happening in Palestine and to learn more about ways you can help, visit the Electronic Intifada and Decolonize Palestine.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again from the top of the hour by Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby, hosts of Street Fight Radio and the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV, in their first appearance on the show since November. The gang catches up, discussing Biden banning blunts and recent innovations in the field of getting high. Brett and Bryan talk about the community response in Columbus to the police murder of Ma'Khia Bryant before tackling electoral politics, identity politics, and the banality of J.D. Vance.

Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan at @murderxbryan, and the Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS, and as always you can hear Street Fight Radio wherever pods are cast.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only! We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you're at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by political cartoonists extraordinaire Eli Valley and our resident artist Matt Lubchansky to talk all things comics, from Matt's new book and Eli's ode to Andrew Cuomo to Roqayah's Panel Pulp project on Twitter and the cultural politics of superheroes.

Matt is associate editor of the left-wing comics emporium The Nib as well as the writer and illustrator of the long-running webcomic Please Listen To Me, and you can find their work in VICE, Eater, The Intercept, Mad Magazine, Gothamist, Brooklyn Magazine, and many more. Eli is a writer and artist, he's the author of Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel and his work has been published in The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Nation, and The Nib, among other outlets. The gang also checks in on Andrew Yang's mayoral campaign, Star Wars, the Godzilla-Kong Monsterverse, and aliens.

You can follow Eli on twitter @elivalley, pick up Diaspora Boy via OR Books and find more of his work at elivalley.com. Find Matt on Twitter at Lubchansky, find their work on The Nib and you can pick up The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook at your local comic shop or direct from Silver Sprocket.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined today by Mark Maher, a staff attorney with Reprieve US. Mark currently works as counsel to six men detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and works on Reprieve US' death penalty casework.

During this episode Mark goes in-depth discussing the history behind the horrific abuse and internment of some 800 men and boys in the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention camp and how this grave injustice has impacted not only his clients but their families by stripping away their humanity—from reducing them to a number, to keeping them locked away from the outside world for decades without the ability to touch or hold their loved ones.

We also discuss the case of Ahmed Rabbani, endearingly referred to as Badr by those close to him, who has been on hunger strike since 2013 and Mark's role in his case as well as how Reprieve works to fight for Rabbani and other men still locked away inside Guantánamo Bay.

You can follow Mark on Twitter @mahermark123. You can also follow Reprieve @ReprieveUS and keep updated on their cases by visiting their website.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!