EML.media

Emmet Penney is a writer, editor, and educator and is co-host of Ex.haust Podcast that plumbs the depths of history, culture, and philosophy to understand why it is that despite calamities and rapid change nothing feels possible anymore. 

We center the conversation around Emmet’s article Nuclear Power Plants: Our Industrial Cathedrals, which was recently published in the American Conservative.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Emmet’s path to embracing nuclear energy;

You can follow Emmet’s work and Ex.haust through the following links:

• https://twitter.com/dumbaristotle 

ABOUT EMLab

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, activists, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class everywhere. Solidarity forever. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

#NuclearEnergy

#AtomicJobs

Lincoln Cushing and Harvey Smith discuss The New Deal For Artists, now showing in the DC Labor FilmFest. Narrated by Orson Welles, this remastered classic features interviews and commentary by John Houseman, Studs Terkel, Howard Da Silva, Arthur Rothstein, Joseph Losey, Norman Lloyd and more.

Archivist and historian Lincoln Cushing is the author of All Of Us Or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area and Agitate! Educate! Organize! - American Labor Posters; Harvey Smith is the author of Berkeley and the New Deal. Find out more on The Living New Deal website.

We have a bonus guest this week, as longtime union organizer Carl Goldman drops by to tell us about the brand-new film We Made Matzah Balls For The Revolution.

All the DC Labor FilmFest films are still available in the AFI Silver’s DC Labor FilmFest Virtual Screening Room.  

PLUS: Register now for the 2021 Great Labor Arts Exchange, coming up – online – June 17-20.

Produced by Chris Garlock and Evan Papp.

@AFISilver @dclabor @LaborHeritage1 @DCLaborFilmFest @LincCushing

Mother Jones, a north star for us all. Mary G. Harris was born August 1st, 1837 in Cork, Ireland. In 1847, the Irish faced starvation from a potato blight caused by a British feudal economic policy of monocropping. Her family immigrated to North America as part of one of the greatest mass exoduses from a single island in history.

Upon arriving in Toronto, the Harris family faced discrimination due to their immigrant status as well as their Catholic faith and Irish heritage.

At age 23 she found a teaching position at a convent in Monroe, Michigan.

Dissatisfied with the work conditions, she moved to Chicago then to Memphis, where in 1861 she married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders.

In 1867, a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis killed her husband and their four children in the matter of two months. She was 30 years old. After that tragedy, she returned to Chicago to begin a dressmaking business catering to the upper class.

But four years later, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed her home, shop, and possessions.

The 1877 railroad strike further radicalized her and she joined the Knights of Labor where she helped organize workers in an era where protests and strikes could end with police shooting and killing of workers. 

The violence directed at workers helped grow the Knights to become the largest labor organization in the country with over a million members.

As May 1st, 1886 approached, the Knights of Labor prepared for a general strike demanding an 8 hour work day. The Chicago Haymarket bombings created a reactionary tsunami leading to the demise of the Knights of Labor.

As the Knights crumbled into oblivion, Mary Jones became an educator and organizer with the United Mine Workers, traveling throughout the United States.

By age 60, she had assumed the persona of "Mother Jones" by claiming to be older than she was, wearing outdated black dresses and referring to the male workers that she helped as "her boys". The first reference to her in print as Mother Jones was in 1897.

In 1902, she was put on trial in West Virginia for ignoring an injunction banning meetings by striking miners. The district attorney called her "the most dangerous woman in America.”

In 1903, Jones sought to organize children who were working in mills and mines in Pennsylvania. Many of the children at union headquarters were missing fingers and limbs, and she attempted to get newspaper publicity for the bad labor conditions experienced by children. However, the mill owners held stock in most newspapers and would not publish the facts about child labor. 

So she organized a march from Philadelphia to Oyster Bay, New York, the hometown of President Theodore Roosevelt, demanding children to go to school and not the mines. Though the president refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda.

During the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, a shooting war broke out between United Mine Workers members and the private army of the mine owners. 

Mary Jones defied Martial law in the area to continue public speaking and organizing and she was arrested and sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary. After 85 days of confinement, her release coincided with Indiana Senator John W. Kern's initiation of a Senate investigation into the conditions in the local coal mines. 

Jones remained a union organizer for the UMW into the 1920s and continued to speak on union affairs. Mary Harris Jones died in Adelphi, Maryland just outside Washington, D.C. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois.

Mother Jones: “And I long to see the day when Labor will have the destinies of the nation in her own hands and she will stand a united force and show the world what the workers can do.”

Research was based on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones. 

ABOUT EMLab

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, activists, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class everywhere. Solidarity forever. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

Jake Burdett is a progressive activist and is the former Columbia Democratic Club President in Maryland. He is also a former Amazon warehouse worker.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How he made headlines as a student at Salisbury University, when U.S. House of Representative Andy Harris supported jailing Jake for up to 10 years for live-streaming a protest at Harris’ office;

You can follow Jake Burdett’s work on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jake_burdett and at Progressive Democrats of Howard County https://twitter.com/ProgressHoCo. 

ABOUT EMLab

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, activists, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class everywhere. Solidarity forever. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

Labor for Palestine was launched in April 2004 by New York City Labor Against the War and Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition to reclaim the legacy of working class solidarity with Palestine in the United States, as reflected in groundbreaking statements by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in 1969, and wildcat strikes against the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership’s support for Israel in 1973.

In this episode, we spoke with Labor For Palestine organizers Suzanne Adely who is the Co-Director for the Food Chain Workers Alliance and President-Elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and Michael Letwin who is a public defender in New York City and former President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW 2325.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• The recent general strike in Palestine and about work conditions for Palestinians;

You can follow Labor for Palestine work through the following links:

• https://laborforpalestine.net 

ABOUT EMLab

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, activists, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class everywhere. Solidarity forever. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

David Riemer is author of Putting Government In Its Place: The Case for a New Deal 3.0. He is also the author of The Prisoners of Welfare: Liberating America's Poor from Unemployment and Low Wages. David is a Senior Fellow at the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute and Senior Advisor for Social Security Works. David’s service during the past four decades has ranged from preparing city and state budgets to advancing major reform in state and national employment, income, health, and education policy.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• David’s background and why he first got interested in policy, politics, and governance;

You can follow David’s work through the following links:

• https://www.govinplace.org/ 

ABOUT EML

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#NewDeal

#PoliticalEconomy

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

The University of Maryland School of Public Policy Alumni Board's video and podcast series called Policy Dialogues discusses current events through a policy lens.

Episode 25 interviews Robert C. Orr who serves as Dean of University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. The discussion is hosted by Evan Papp (UMD SPP ‘11). 

Dean Orr also serves as United Nations under secretary-general, and special advisor to the UN secretary-general on climate change. Dean Orr joined the United Nations from Harvard University where he served as the executive director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. Prior to this, he served as director of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC.

He has also served as United States ambassador to the United Nations and director of global affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs.

In this conversation, we discussed:

• His background and how he first got interested in public policy;

You can follow Dean Orr’s work at: https://spp.umd.edu/. 

The views expressed do not represent official positions of the school or alumni network.

Chris Blackwood is co-founder of Grassroots Comedy DC (GCDC), which sits at the crossroads of comedy and advocacy, to make humans laugh while improving humanity, with the ultimate goal to use comedy to support local nonprofits in their mission to make DC (and the world) a better place for all.

We discuss:

• How Chris first got interested in stand-up and sketch comedy and his biggest comedic influences;

Follow GCDC and attend a show:

• https://www.grassrootscomedy.com/ 

About EMLab 

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity for all. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#Artists

#Comedy

#Comedians

#HarmonyOfInterests

#PoliticalEconomy

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong

The University of Maryland School of Public Policy Alumni Board's video and podcast series called Policy Dialogues discusses current events through a policy lens.

Episode 24 interviews Robert Sandoli of the Department of Energy. The talk is hosted by Evan Papp (UMD SPP ‘11). 

Robert Sandoli is the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at the Department of Energy. He previously served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary where he led a diverse energy efficiency program and R&D portfolio that included advanced manufacturing, federal energy management, low-income weatherization, and intergovernmental partnerships. 

Robert has also held high level positions at the U.S. Department of State, the White House Office of Management and Budget and as a Professional Staff Member in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from Rutgers University, a Master of Science in Microbiology from Cornell University, and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Maryland.

We discussed:

• Robert’s background and how he first got interested in science and public policy;

The views expressed do not represent official positions of the school or alumni network.

#PolicyMatters

#PolicyDialogues

#PoliticalEconomy

#UniversityOfMaryland

Ako Essan Emile is from Cote d’Ivoire and is currently based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a Senior Project Manager for Search For Common Ground.  Ako was a 2019 Obama Foundation Leader for Africa. He was also a 2019 Institute for Economics and Peace Ambassador, and a 2015 Young African Leaders Initiative Washington Fellow.

I met Ako around the 2015 elections in Cote d’Ivoire to document Ako’s work around a community radio station promoting peaceful messages ahead of the country’s presidential election. That experience taught me a lot about the history of Cote d’Ivoire and I’m lucky to have become friends with Ako Essan Emile. You can see a video of his work here.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Growing up in Cote d’Ivoire and the influences that led him to peacebuilding;

You can follow Ako’s work through the following links:

• seniorako.wordpress.com 

ABOUT EML

Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class. 

Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/ 

All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab   

#Africa

#CotedIvoire

#HarmonyOfInterest

#PoliticalEconomyMatters

#LaborRadioPod

#1U

#UnionStrong