As climate disasters intensify and authoritarian threats escalate, most of us are underprepared for moments when systems fail or are weaponized against us. In this episode, Kelly talks with Chris Begley and Amy Edelman, authors of The Emergency Playbook: A Bunker-Free Guide to Disaster Preparation, about how preparedness can move us away from fear, isolation and bunker fantasies, and toward community, care and collective survival. They discuss how practical planning, community relationships and collective care can help us face climate disasters, political unrest and everyday crises with more courage and less panic.

Music: Son Monarcas and Mizlo

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“The immigration camp, it really depends on a lot of local infrastructure. It is not this untouchable federal abstraction. It is up to us, neighbors, community members, and we have the actual power to shut them down,” says journalist John Washington. In this episode, John and Kelly Hayes discuss his book How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention, the rapid expansion of ICE detention, and how communities can fight camps before and after they open.

Music: Son Monarcas and Sarah the Illstrumentalist

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“Trump is banking on the idea that the entire U.S. population is as cynical and hateful as he is. And evidently, it's not true,” says Khury Petersen-Smith. In this episode, Kelly and Khury discuss Trump’s “whenever wars,” the spectacle of militarized violence, and the anti-war movement this moment demands. From ICE raids in U.S. cities to military violence abroad, Kelly and Khury explore how fascism at home and empire abroad are part of the same political project, and why our resistance must be rooted in solidarity, anti-militarism, and an ever-expanding sense of who belongs to us.

Music: Son Monarcas, Dylan Sitts, and Mizlow

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“One of the greatest cures for despair and depression is to do something, and to do something with the people who care,” says Rebecca Solnit. In this episode, Kelly talks with Rebecca about hope, backlash, political memory, and why history can help us understand our own power. Their conversation explores feminism, climate grief, authoritarianism, misogyny, interdependence, and why the right’s push to roll back hard-won freedoms is also a reaction to how much movements have already changed the world.

Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste & Sarah, the Illstumentalist

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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In the second part of a two-part conversation, Kelly and Tanuja Jagernauth discuss why conflict transformation can be so difficult, what happens when efforts at repair break down, and why conflict resolution skills are survival skills in fascist times.

Music: Son Monarcas, Katori Walker, and David Celeste

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“We have a great opportunity in our movements to learn how to be opponents without being enemies,” says Tanuja Jagernauth. In this first of a two-part conversation, Tanuja and Kelly discuss the language people use to describe harm and conflict, the difference between disagreement and abuse, and how organizers can move through conflict with more clarity and care under fascist conditions.

Music: Son Monarcas, HATAMITSUNAMI, and Daniel Fridell

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“A lot of people in power view knowledge as dangerous,” says organizer Mariame Kaba. In this episode, Kelly speaks with Maraime and organizers Alison Macrina and Katie Clark about why public libraries matter, not just as places to borrow books, but as vital public infrastructure. They discuss libraries as spaces where people can gather without spending money, learn together, and build the kind of shared intellectual life that authoritarianism seeks to destroy. The conversation explores book bans, censorship, austerity, AI, political education, and the bipartisan defunding of public goods, while making a powerful case for libraries as sites of struggle, possibility, and collective survival.

Music: Son Monarcas & Jobii

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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Why do some people change, while others double down? In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with journalist and author Lewis Raven Wallace about the deeper mechanics of political transformation. Drawing on neuroscience, trauma research, and stories of people who have broken with deeply held ideologies, Wallace argues that real change rarely happens through debate or persuasion. Instead, transformation grows out of relationships, shared struggle, cognitive dissonance, and practice. Together, Kelly and Lewis explore what organizers can learn from the science of neuroplasticity, the role of rupture and confrontation, and why movements need to focus less on “changing minds” and more on creating conditions where people can unlearn harmful beliefs and step into collective action.

Music: Son Monarcas, David Celeste, and Daniel Fridell

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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In this episode, Kelly talks with journalist Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, about what it means to live under a concentration camp regime — and how people can fight back. Pitzer explains how mass detention systems are built through “end runs” around the law, how they become normalized, and why the rapid expansion of U.S. detention infrastructure signals a dangerous escalation.

Music: Son Monarcas, Ballpoint, and David Celeste

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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“Our days are riding on the learning edge of a whirlwind — crisis management, harm mitigation, helping everyone come to terms with new conditions and new impossible choices that they're faced with,” says Minneapolis organizer Andrew Fahlstrom. In this episode, Andrew and local organizers Jordan and Susan Raffo talk with Kelly about community defense in Minneapolis, the social fabric of collective care under federal occupation, and how people around the country should be gearing up for the long struggle ahead.

Music: Son Monarcas, Daniel Fridell, and Katori Walker

You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

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