The Response

On our last show, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Land Back with David Cobb — specifically, we discussed moving the idea of land back from a metaphor to a reality, by focusing on a specific case in northern California where the city of Eureka actually gave 200 acres of land back to its original stewards, the Wiyot tribe.

On today's episode, we're going to continue the conversation, and, in a way, pull back from the specific policy examples of land back and look at it as an idea again, specifically, as a revolutionary ideological framework that exists as a part of Marxist thought, a continuation of Marxism-Leninism — what has been called decolonial Marxism.

To do this, we've brought on Lakota activist and political educator Sungmanitu Bluebird. Sungmanitu grew up in both Detroit and on Pine Ridge reservation and is currently based in Michigan's upper peninsula.

Sungmanitu's work synthesizes Marxism with Indigenous knowledge and decolonial Marxist theory and practice. They are a former member of the Red Nation, a mutual aid movement builder, and an organizer with the Chunka Luta Network, a project meant to push decolonial Marxism-Leninism as described by the Guyanese Marxist academic, writer, and educator, Walter Rodney.

Resources:

• Chunka Luta Network
• Land Back: A Yellowhead Institute Red Paper
• Decolonial Marxism:Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney
• Questions about the LandBack movement, answered, High Country News
• Absolutely epic: Blackfeet release wild buffalo on tribal land, Independent Record
• This new wildlife sanctuary will be unlike any other part of the U.S. — and it's 6 times the size of Yosemite National Park, The Cool Down

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

The Response is published by Shareable.

The idea of Land Back — a growing movement to return occupied land to the Indigenous people that it rightfully belongs to, often exists as a metaphor for us. It can feel like the discussion around land theft and genocide by settler-colonists in the United States is often limited to land acknowledgments or statements of solidarity — both of which are important. But what about the most important element in these discussions — actually giving the land back?

Today on the show, we've brought on David Cobb, a 'people's lawyer,' self-proclaimed revolutionary, and advancement manager for the Wiyot Tribe's Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust in Northern California.

Who are the Wiyot tribe and what is their history on the land we call Humboldt County? What is the ongoing response to the attempted genocide of this Indigenous community which took place almost two hundred years ago — a horrifying and all-too-common event in the history of the settler colony which is the United States? And how has the city of Eureka worked with the Wiyot tribe to rematriate land — to actually enact the practice and policy of land back, taking it from a metaphor to a reality?

These are just some of the questions we'll explore in this conversation. And along the way, we'll touch on community land trusts, the global push for a social and solidarity economy, the People's Network for Land and Liberation, the reality of end-stage capitalism, and how you can identify and support the Indigenous peoples on the land you inhabit today.

Resources:

• Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust
• Native Land Digital (find out whose ancestral tribal lands you are living in)
• The Honor Tax Project
• Legal Tools for Land Return (from Sustainable Economies Law Center)
• How to give the land back (Shareable)

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

The Response is published by Shareable.

Today on the show we've brought on Alex Press, a staff writer at Jacobin Magazine, to explore labor power — specifically, looking at how the strengthening of the labor movement through unions, strikes, and other workplace actions, are serving as a response to not only the harms inflicted by neoliberalism, but also, how these institutions and actions can serve as direct responses to climate change-fueled disasters.

It's been said that one of the best disaster responses is an organized workplace. In this episode, we'll explore what we mean by that, take stock of the current labor landscape in the United States, and discuss how unions, strikes, and other forms of labor power can serve as ways to strengthen our collective and solidarity-focused muscles in a world of neoliberal capitalism.

Resources:

• In Obama's Working, There is No Way Out, Alex Press's piece in Jacobin
• Citations Needed — News Brief: 2000s Zombie Neoliberalism Lives On in Obama's New Netflix Doc
• The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

The Response is published by Shareable.

Last week, the skies over much of the east coast of the United States were orange, red, and almost entirely blacked out in some regions. Smoke from wildfires raging up north in Canada blew down to engulf many major U.S. cities in an apocalyptic glow that left New York City with the worst air quality in the world.

For those of us in California, seeing the apocalyptic images from the east coast going viral brought us back to the many times over the last decade that we experienced the same thing — wildfires raging from northern parts of the state like the Camp Fire in Butte County that completely incinerated the town of Paradise, or the fires in southern California, or Sonoma County, or the Santa Cruz Mountains — there's too many to really keep track of.

Here in California, one of the many impacts of wildfires that we know all too well has been the loss of power — of electricity. PG&E, the scandal-ridden investor-owned electric utility that operates much of northern California's grid, has not only been found guilty in the last several years for some of California's most destructive wildfires. The company has also come under scrutiny for its implementation of rolling blackouts during wildfires, which it claims it does to protect dry landscapes from power lines that could overheat and spark deadly fires. PG&E's power lines are notoriously poorly maintained and downed trees around power lines have been the direct cause of some of the most deadly and destructive wildfires in California's history.

These massive power shut-offs have led to all sorts of auxiliary disasters over the years and have left millions of Californians without power during some of our most vulnerable times — amidst scorching heat wages and raging wildfires.

In this context, the People Power Battery Collective in the Bay Area launched a program to provide backup power during emergencies and increase the general understanding of energy access, consumption, and needs. On today's show, we've brought on People Power Battery Collective members Kansas, Crystal, and Yasir to talk about their project in the context of climate-fueled disasters and community mutual aid.

Today's episode is part of a new series we're launching called "How-to-Respond" — where we'll go deeper into the mechanics of community-led disaster response and mutual aid initiatives so that folks can replicate and adapt these efforts in other communities.

This ongoing series is a part of Shareable's overall programmatic transition to a renewed focus on empowering people and communities to move from the point of inspiration to action. This week, we're launching SolidarityWorks, a new program designed to "Empower Communities for Collective Liberation." Over the coming years, we'll join forces with a broad range of partners to create localized social infrastructure initiatives packed with creative solutions, tools for solidarity, and a deep embrace of the communities we collaborate with.

The first example of this program is actually the People Power Battery Collective. After working with them a couple of years ago on a how-to guide so other groups could adapt their model, we'll now be partnering with them on a free course to directly support more communities to create battery collectives of their own.

Resources:

• People Power Battery Collective
• People Power Solar
• SolidarityWorks
• Emergency Battery Collective Learning & Action Cohort

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in extending our reach and broadening our audience.

The Response is published by Shareable.

Today on the show we've brought on Lee Shevek, an anarchist, writer, and domestic violence researcher.

Pride Month is just around the corner and we thought it would be a good time to take a deep dive into the reactionary politics side of this show — namely, the attacks from the right wing and from the state against our transgender comrades.

States like Texas, Florida, and Missouri are on the frontlines of this politicized aggression, which is being waged by the forces of right-wing reaction, but is often accomplished with the complicity, and sometimes even with the approval, from more liberal-leaning state and media institutions.

In this episode, we investigate the state of anti-trans and transphobic reaction in the United States more broadly and explore how trans communities and their allies are responding.We also get into what anarchism teaches us about these struggles — specifically, what we can learn from this political philosophy about trans issues and gender issues more broadly, and why it's more important than ever for anarchists and those on the left to support trans people in their struggle for liberation from reactionary forces.

Resources:

• Lee Shevek's writing on Medium (Butch Anarchy)
• Lee Shevek on Twitter and Instagram

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in extending our reach and broadening our audience.

The Response is published by Shareable.

Today on the show we've brought on Daniel Baryon, an anarchist and organizer who runs the Youtube channel Anark.

When we talk about horizontal power structures, for example in the context of grassroots mutual aid response, we're talking about a concept situated within a very specific theoretical framework. Likewise, when we explore the concepts of "prefiguring" the new world within the old — practicing solidarity and mutual aid— for example, we're also talking about concepts that have unique theoretical underpinnings. Perhaps, then, it could be helpful to explore the theories behind the themes that we talk about a bit more, to help ground and place ourselves within historical traditions that stretch to the present.

This is what we're planning on doing in this new, ongoing series on theory. We're keeping it casual for now, so just expect to see a few episodes here and there in the coming months, but our first dive into the theory framing this show is going to be today's episode on anarchism.

Specifically, we'll explore what anarchism is and isn't; how many of the themes of this show — things like disaster collectivism and mutual aid — come out of anarchist theory and practice; we'll give some examples of anarchism in action; and explore what we can learn from this rich and beautiful tradition in terms of radical transformation and revolution in our modern world.

Resources:

• Anark YouTube Channel
• Daniel Baryon on Twitter

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in extending our reach and broadening our audience.

The Response is published by Shareable.

On this episode of The Response we've brought on Joey Ayoub, a Geneva-based writer, researcher, activist, and host of The Fire These Times podcast, which asks the questions: How do we build the new in the shell of the old? How do we tackle global warming and its associated crises? How do we build bonds across nation-states and groups? How do we make it easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the world?

Resources:

• The Fire These Times on Patreon and Substack.

Episode credits:

• Host, producer, and editor: Robert Raymond
• Host and executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Theme Music: "Meet you on the other side" by Cultivate Beats

Make sure to follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Response is a podcast series from Shareable.net.

Today on the show we've brought on Breya Johnson, an abortion doula, reproductive justice organizer, writer, curator, and the Deputy Director of Organizing at Girls for Gender Equity.

Since the Dobbs decision was passed last year, we've continued to see the right wing's assault on legal abortion and bodily autonomy escalate. Most recently through a ruling by a Trump-appointed, anti-abortion Federal Judge in Texas that intends to revoke the FDA's approval of the abortion pill mifepristone — part of a 2-part medicinal cocktail used in self-managed abortions — the most common form of abortion in the United States.

This ruling is perhaps the most outrageous ruling since Dobbs, and in this episode, we'll explore the attacks from the right on legal abortion and their implications more broadly. We also explore what self-managed abortions are, everything you need to know about how they work and where you can access abortion pills, and we also explore what a broader framework of reproductive justice looks like and how we can get there.

Resources:

• Breya Johnson on Twitter and Instagram
• Find your local abortion fund: Abortion Funds
• Abortion Pills: Plan C Pills, Just the Pill, Aid Access
• The Response's 2-part audio documentary on abortion: Abortion access and reproductive justice in a post-roe landscape

Episode credits:

• Host, producer, and editor: Robert Raymond
• Executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Theme Music: "Meet you on the other side" by Cultivate Beats

Make sure to follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Response is a podcast series from Shareable.net.

Today on the show we've brought on Konstantin — a Parisian garbage collector and union militant.

For the past two months, France has been in a state of agitation. A growing movement of workers has been engaged in protests and strikes which erupted in Paris and other cities in response to President Emmanuel Macron unilaterally raising the French retirement age from 62 to 64. You may have seen the viral images of piles and piles of garbage bags out on the streets in Paris — this is because garbage collectors in the city have been on a series of strikes to protest the new pension reform.

We spoke with Konstantin about the state of the movement and what it's been like organizing and participating in the strikes, the long string of events that have led to this current uprising, why it's more important than ever to build class consciousness and solidarity — not just in France but internationally, and where he sees this movement headed.

Episode credits:

• Host, producer, and editor: Robert Raymond
• Executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Theme Music: "Meet you on the other side" by Cultivate Beats

Make sure to follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Response is a podcast series from Shareable.net.

Today on the show we've brought on Jesse Barnett, a musician and a co-founder of All Power Books in L.A.

All Power Books is more than a bookstore: it's a volunteer-run community space that offers a wide range of programs, from a free store with food, cleaning supplies, and menstrual products; to a free community clinic; to music classes, poetry readings, and reading groups; sewing and repair workshops; film screenings, bike repairs, the list goes on.

We spoke with Jesse about the origins of All Power Books, the importance of mutual aid and building connections with neighbors, why the left can feel so divisive sometimes — and how to avoid it — the economic and political realities of Los Angeles, and a whole lot much more.

Resources:

• All Power Books' website, Twitter, and Instagram
• Jesse Barnett on Instagram
• Stick to your Guns

Episode credits:

• Host, producer, and editor: Robert Raymond
• Executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Theme Music: "Meet you on the other side" by Cultivate Beats

Make sure to follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Response is a podcast series from Shareable.net.