Delete Your Account Podcast

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two friends of the show, Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op. Together they host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their new weekly collaboration with Means TV.

The Sams talk about the challenges of getting a TV news show off the ground amid the pandemic and how they see the DC Sentinel’s role in the budding left mediascape. The gang then discusses the mercenary raid on Venezuela, Bill Gates’s sinister designs for New York, how both parties workers are being sacrificed to the stock market, and why media narratives about left- and right-wing populism are anything but anti-establishment. 

You can follow Sam Sacks on Twitter @SamSacks and the official District Sentinel account @TheDCSentinel. To watch their tomfoolery every week, subscribe to Means TV, but Means Morning News is now also available to nonmembers, in audio-only form, 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 were joined once again by Matt Lubchansky, cartoonist and associate editor of the left-wing comics emporium The Nib. Matt is 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, and Brooklyn Magazine, among untold others. This time the gang takes a deep dive into the documentary miniseries Tiger King, plus obligatory updates on Matt’s social media shenanigans, quarantine cuisine, and aliens.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Sydney Ghazarian, a Los Angeles-based climate organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America, the founder of that organization’s Ecosocialist Working Group, and an advisory board member for the climate justice magazine The Trouble. After filling Roqayah and Kumars in on her own political background and evolution, as well as her recent involvement in DSA’s coronavirus response, Sydney talks about her work as a member both of the DSA’s Environmental Steering Committee and Green New Deal campaign committee. 

The gang discusses Sydney’s article for In These Times outlining an agenda for escalating climate organizing based on tried-and-true labor tactics. Sydney shares her insight into major issues facing climate activists and others on the left, running the gamut from the racial politics of the environmental movement and what we can learn from indigenous-led pipeline blockades, to the socialist answer to the deepening oil price crash.

Follow Sydney on Twitter @SydneyAzari. You can also follow the DSA Ecosocialist Working Group @DSA_Enviro and find out more about how to get involved here. 

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 by farmer and organizer Nate Kleinman, cofounder of the nonprofit cooperative Experimental Farm Network (EFN) and project organizer of the EFN’s Cooperative Gardens Commission, a campaign to help millions of people carve out some measure of food sovereignty in the face of COVID-19. Nate begins by giving listeners a glimpse into his storied history of organizing, from Democratic political campaigns and labor union work to leading the charge on Occupy Sandy hurricane relief and running for Congress twice himself as a challenger to conservative Democratic incumbents, initially as “the first Occupy candidate” and then against Trump Democrat turned Republican Jeff van Drew. 

Nate and Kumars then tackle the ins and outs of the EFN’s operation, including their free open-source platform for participatory plant breeding and developing new crops and infrastructure capable of providing for people in the face of economic crisis and climate catastrophe. Nate rounds out the hour with a rundown of EFN’s frontline efforts during the coronavirus pandemic and the necessity of building parallel infrastructure to help those most threatened by escalating instability to weather what’s coming. 

You can follow the Experimental Farm Network on Facebook, find out more about the Cooperative Gardens Commission at coopgardens.org, and follow up on all the EFN’s other wonderful goods and services at their main site, experimentalfarmnetwork.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 are joined by investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein, current DC correspondent for The Nation whose explosive work has appeared in The Daily Beast, and The Young Turks, among others. 

We take a look at Ken's latest exclusive which shows evidence that the Pentagon was specifically aware of the likelihood of a pandemic, according to an internal document composed in 2017 and obtained by The Nation.

Ken guides us through some of the eerily prescient 103-page document, which warns of the likelihood of hospital bed shortages, a lack of mechanical ventilators, and inadequate pharmaceutical treatment, all of which would come to "define how a country will emerge post-pandemic". We also discuss how the US is fairing compared to other nations, as well as the impact of the Trump administration's delayed response and what this poses for our future.

You can follow Ken and keep up with his work on Twitter @kenklippenstein and at The Nation.

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 is a special unlocked episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, normally only available on Patreon. Subscribe there for $5 for more like this!

On this herculean episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, friends of the show Nima Shirazi, Brett Payne and Bryan Quimby tag-team to give Kumars a primer on pro wrestling. Nima is a NYC-based political analyst who cohosts the podcast Citations Needed, Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio, and together they share their wrestling fandom, breaking down their favorite personalities, labor issues in the industry, and the intersections between wrestling and conservative politics, including Trump’s history with the WWE. 

Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan @MurderBryan and Street Fight Radio @StreetFightWCRS. Nima is also @WideAsleepNima, and you can keep up with his latest work on his website and as well as Citations Needed. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by insurgent Congressional candidate Arati Kreibich, an activist, a neuroscientist, a borough councilmember in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and the primary challenger to conservative Democrat Josh Gottheimer, the current House representative for NJ’s 5th district. 

After filling listeners in on her personal path to left-wing politics, including her family history of resistance to British colonialism and emigration to the United States, Arati describes the galvanizing effect of the 2016 election, and details the subsequent experience of disappointment after working to elect Gottheimer, ending almost a century of GOP representation for NJ-5. The gang examines Gottheimer’s record of voting with Republicans as co-chair of the right-wing “Problem Solvers Caucus,” and his reputation for personal unpleasantness. Arati, Roqayah and Kumars round out the hour with a policy discussion, covering the government’s coronavirus response and the urgency of radical climate action.

Follow Arati on Twitter @Arati4Congress, and visit her campaign website to learn more about her platform and how you can help! 

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 Detroit-based filmmakers Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, cofounders of Means Media and co-creators of the new digital streaming service Means TV, a workers’ cooperative and a left-wing alternative to soul-crushing corporate behemoths like Netflix. 

Naomi and Nick share how they came to left politics and made a name for themselves producing the defining campaign videos for AOC and other insurgent congressional candidates in the run-up to the 2018 midterm election. They explain why the business magazine Fast Company named them one of the world’s most innovative companies, and give listeners a rundown of their diverse slate of content, including feature films, documentaries, animation and gaming content. The gang discusses their shared love for Street Fight Radio and the value of building our own independent cultural institutions in the face of increasing attempts by establishment media to co-opt the creative energy of the rising American left. 

Follow Naomi on Twitter @NaomiABurton and Nick @nickhayesfilm. You can subscribe to Means TV and browse their content on their website, means.tv.

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 Amanda, also known as @CatContentOnly on Twitter, an independent researcher based in NYC whose work focuses on cultural impressions around health and illnesses. Amanda, a medical anthropology graduate from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, discusses the one thing on everyone's mind this week: COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus.

We take a deep look into what the Coronavirus is and the long term implications for those with compromised immune systems and other pre-existing medical conditions as well as homeless communities, who already face brutal restrictions and state sanctioned abuse.

Amanda helps us understand the ongoing failures of the US government in responding to what the World Health Organization has classified as a "pandemic". The crew also examines the xenophobic hysteria that has resulted in attacks on Asian communities and heightened stigmatization which includes the description of this virus as "foreign" and "Chinese". 

Finally, we examine the impact that unilateral US sanctions are having on Iran during this pandemic and how China is attempting to assist Iran during this outbreak.

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!!!