Delete Your Account Podcast

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Food Not Bombs cofounder and veteran organizer Keith McHenry. Keith has been active with various chapters of the network of mutual aid collectives known as Food Not Bombs for four decades and is the author of several books including Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community, which is the original handbook for the group's model of movement building through vegan food distribution.

Keith shares moments from an eventful life, like the mentorship of Howard Zinn and facing massive repression and criminalization from the highest levels of government, including staring down 25 to life under California's "three strikes" law. Keith talks about the stories of organizers from Myanmar to Iceland who have engaged in direct action under the banner of Food Not Bombs, and Keith and Kumars reflect on the legacy of the movement, including the role of anarchism and punk culture in sustaining and how mutual aid projects inspired by Food Not Bombs are responding to the current moment.

You can find the current Food Not Bombs handbook in addition to every other imaginable resource for finding a chapter near you or starting your own at foodnotbombs.net.

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Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Olivia Katbi Smith and first-timer Albert Lee, both members of Portland DSA who have been in the streets of Portland since the uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing began. Olivia is the co-chair of Portland DSA and a board member of CAIR Oregon. Albert Lee is a Portland-based activist, a member of Portland DSA and former Our Revolution-endorsed congressional candidate who earlier this year ran as an open socialist in an unprecedented primary challenge to incumbent Democrat Earl Blumenauer in Oregon’s 3rd. 

Olivia and Albert share their experiences of the ongoing federal occupation of Portland by DHS and paramilitary forces from other agencies as well as their insights into the way imperial tactics and far-right ideology have become more glaringly apparent in policing practices from local cops to the now nationwide wave of federal repression. The gang closes out by discussing the latest out of Portland, including the conflicting reports of DHS troop withdrawal and new evidence regarding the effects of the tear gas being used on protesters, as well as the newsworthy reinforcements and the ongoing mutual aid projects helping to sustain the movement. 

And you dear listener can follow Albert on Twitter @AlbertLee2020 and Olivia at @livkittykat.

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, Kumars and returning guest host and policy analyst with Open the Government Freddy Martinez are joined by The Intercept’s Micah Lee, a journalist, activist, and prolific open-source software developer involved in the publication and analysis of recent leak, dubbed Blue Leaks, of about 270 gigabytes of police data from more than 200 police departments and fusion centers and some 700,000 cops. 

Freddy and Micah are both members of the advisory board of the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which acquired and released the data before being banned from Twitter and raided by the German government. The gang runs through the different components and major takeaways from the vast trove, delving into Micah’s analysis for The Intercept and Freddy's report on fusion centers for Open the Government, including how fusion centers massively oversold the threat of left-wing protesters to local police departments while downplaying the threat of far-right violence and what the leaked police data can illuminate about the massive federal repression currently underway in US cities.

You can follow Micah on Twitter @micahflee and keep up with the work of DDoSecrets at ddosecrets.com.

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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Albuquerque-based community organizer Selinda Guerrero, founder of the Albuquerque Mutual Aid Coalition and National Action Coordinator for Save the Kids, an all-volunteer organization working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Selinda also organizes with Building Power for Black New Mexico, Forward Together, and the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), and heads the New Mexico chapter of the prison-industrial complex abolitionist group Millions for Prisoners. 

After sharing a bit about her background as an organizer and the genesis of the mutual aid project she helped kick-start earlier in the pandemic, Selinda fills listeners in on the plight of her husband and fellow Black Lives Matter activist Clifton White, who helped organize BLM protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and was arrested on June 1 by Albuquerque police under extremely dubious circumstances. Selinda and Kumars discuss the conditions Clifton and other incarcerated people are facing from California to Louisiana as coronavirus continues to ravage the US prison system. Selinda relays testimonials from those behind bars, highlights their organizing in the face of government depravity, and reflects on what it means to be a political prisoner. 

Please call Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham at (505) 476-2200 and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller at (505) 768-2200 and demand the immediate release of Clifton White (DOC #60458). You can find a complete list of numbers to call and a sample script here. You can also follow the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee at @IWW_IWOC and IWOC New Mexico at @IwocNew.

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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Vincent Bevins, an award winning journalist who has covered Southeast Asia and Latin America extensively for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and the author of a must-read history of US regime change operations during the Cold War, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World.

Vincent begins by reacting to the breaking news that the far-right Brazilian government claims president Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for coronavirus. As is customary, Vincent shares a bit about his political evolution and background as a journalist before sketching the basics of his argument in the book, which moves beyond its primary focus on the US-backed military coup in Indonesia to tell the story of the Cold War as colonialism by other means. Vincent outlines the peculiar ideological landscape of postwar Indonesia, including the blend of nationalist, communist and Islamist forces that rallied under the anti-imperialist banner of the country’s founding father Sukarno. Vincent charts the evolution of the CIA’s strategy from the early coups in Iran and Guatemala to the model, perfected in Indonesia and named after its capital, that would be exported around the world. 

You can follow Vincent on Twitter @Vinncent and find the latest on where you can buy the book at thejakartamethod.com.

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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by longtime guest host and prison-industrial complex abolitionist extraordinaire Mariame Kaba, pseudonymously known as @prisonculture. Mariame is the founder and director of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and has co-founded a number of other organizations including Survived & Punished and the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women. 

Mariame shares her insight into the current momentum behind abolitionist demands in the wake of the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, which she recently wrote about in a New York Times op-ed. Mariame and Kumars take stock of what the latest wave of Black Lives Matter protests have achieved thus far as well as state and corporate attempts at co-optation, assessing the sea change in discourse on policing in the United States and the criteria by which we should judge the various police reforms being proposed at all levels of government. Mariame rounds out the discussion with a reminder of the need for organizers not to lose focus on pandemic relief and other community support work, touching on her own involvement in getting Mutual Aid Projects 4 Youth off the ground. 

Follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture, and learn how you can support young organizers or apply for a grant yourself at map4youth.com.

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 Shanti Singh, communications coordinator with the California statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together.

Shanti discusses the challenges of navigating the landscape of housings advocacy, and how a pandemic and unprecedented unemployment numbers have turned already challenging campaigns for housing rights into minefields for renters and activists alike.

Shanti also helps us tackle the intersection of class disparity and police repression, and how the police further housing insecurity in order to protect the property owning class while homelessness surges and Black communities face increased racial segregation.

You can follow Shanti Singh on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support at tenantstogether.org

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 have a rare one-on-one debrief on the wave of protests that have erupted in every US state in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. After recapping the basics of Floyd’s case, they give listeners a rundown of the spread of the protests across the country and the ensuing media narratives about looting and outside agitators. Roqayah and Kumars also touch on the brutal police repression of both protesters and journalists in mostly Democrat-run cities and states, as well as the growing calls for greater carnage from Trump and the right. 

The Delete Your Account duo rounds out the hour with some helpful resources if you want to support the mutual aid efforts of People’s Breakfast Oakland and jailed protesters nationwide via the National Bail Fund Network. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by legal advocate, grassroots organizer, and congressional candidate Shahid Buttar about his campaign to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he runs for California's 12th Congressional district. 

Buttar, a lifelong activist, describes the lessons he's drawn from the Bernie Sanders campaign in developing his own progressive coalition and campaign, as well as what drew him out from the world of grassroots organizing and into the political arena.

Buttar also discusses the failures of not only Nancy Pelosi and how his concerns with the speaker of the house transcend her office and lay at the feet of the Democratic Party itself.

You can follow Shahid on Twitter @ShahidForChange, and visit shahidforchange.us to learn more about how you can support his campaign.

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 by journalist and editor at The Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman. We are also joined by Ali Abunimah, co-founder and editor of The Electronic Intifada. Ali is also the author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine and One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. We discuss Israel's response to the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip, which has included an end to the bare minimum testing of Gaza's besieged population.

Ali and Nora tackle the issue of Palestinian life under lockdown, how it collides with and dissects and from the usual, draconian measures applied by the Israeli government. They also discuss the implications of the systemic attacks on necessary infrastructure by the Israeli government, which has included medical facilities, building supplies, and even tents.

We also cover the impact of the Trump administration's position on the annexation of the West Bank, and why so-called bipartisan peace plans have resulted in further settlement expansion and the violent targeting of Palestinians.

Follow Nora on Twitter @norabf, and Ali at @aliabunimah. You can also follow The Electronic Intifada @intifada.

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!!!