The Ruthless Truth

[This episode originally aired on August 17th.]

Tampa and St. Petersburg have both recently struck down attempts to get rent control on the ballot after declaring states of emergency on housing.

Over the last two years, and especially here in Florida, the working class has been suffering through a housing crisis, with incomes unstable and housing prices rising dramatically, more and more working class people have been having to choose between paying rent and having enough to eat, and eviction rates have been at all time highs. It's clear, we are in a housing emergency, and we are very happy to be joined once again by community activists and tenant organizers Karla Correa from the St Petes Tenants Union, and Craig Birchfield from the Tampa Tenants Union.

We are excited to be joined by the Legal Chair of the Tampa Chapter of the ACLU, James Shaw.

James helped to uncover the racist "Crime Free Multi Housing"program run by the Tampa Police Department that encouraged and may have coerced landlords into evicting families where one of the residents committed a crime, even one as minor as pan-handling or a crime of poverty. This program is also known as the "Renting While Black" program, because over 90% of the residents evicted under this program were black.

[This episode was originally released on the radio on July 20th.]

We're joined once again by community activist Jack Wallace to speak on the recent pulled opinion piece from the Herald Tribune written by the wife of a Proud Boy in defense of the Proud Boys, a fascist and white supremacist organization.

We also discuss the recent Moms For Liberty event in Tampa, and how Jack helped organize a counter-protest to let them know that fascists aren't welcome in the Suncoast!

[This episode was released on July 6th on the radio and was not uploaded as a podcast. We are now releasing it and remind our listeners that this took place in the throes of the massive protests across the country in reaction to the overturning of Roe v Wade.]

Karla Correa and Jack Wallace, both community organizers of large reproductive protests, speak on the current crisis exposing the flaws of US democracy with reproductive rights in jeopardy across the nation.

They also call out the democrats for absolutely failing to muster a response to this fundamental attack on our rights, and lay out a plan for how working people can fight back.

We begin this episode with an important discussion about the origins of Juneteenth and local events celebrating this important holiday. The show continues with important discussion about the ongoing housing struggles and local solutions being adapted by Tampa and Pinellas County which can be duplicated in the Sarasota/Manatee area.

We have been hearing a lot about inflation, and we are certainly feeling it when we go to the grocery store, when we pay our rent, and definitely when we get gas. The price of everything is going up. The mainstream media, which is controlled by corporations, likes to frame inflation as something that just happens. But the truth is that it doesn't "just happen," it is a deliberate choice of profiteering. That's all that it is. And they don't do it for any other reason besides making more profit.

As we all know, there has been a wave of mass shootings recently across the country, with the Uvalde elementary school shooting being the largest one in recent news.

What is so uniquely alienating about our country that makes incidents like these happen do often? Our government has completely failed the people, and more money for police has proven to be a wasted measure as they hide when children actually need them.

What would a socialist program for tackling mass shootings and gun violence look like? We go over all this and more in this episode of the Ruthless Truth.