This week the WFB team and guests dive into the $3.5 trillion proposed budget reconciliation bill, horrific conditions endured by inmates in New York State prisons, and the critiques of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Tax the Rich” fashion statement at the 2021 Met Gala. What does this budget reconciliation bill mean for working class and poor people? 

What can we do to address horrendous prison conditions due to COVID and Hurricane Ida? Are there meaningful critiques or conversations to be had around AOC’s Met Gala dress despite what “woke” Twitter may have you thinking? All this and more on today’s episode.

On today’s episode we say No Contract, No Snacks! Mondelez Nabisco workers across the country are on strike. On August 10th union members walked off the company’s cookie plant in Portland Oregon demanding fair treatment and a fair contract. Since then over 1,000 other Nabisco workers are on strike nationwide. Jesus Martinez, the President of BCTGM Local 364 and Corey Waddy, a Packing Technician at Mondelēz/ Nabisco join us today to discuss their demands and their ongoing and growing movement.

The end of extended unemployment assistance this week marks the largest cutoff of unemployment benefits in history, and spells disaster for the over 7.5 million jobless Americans struggling to pay their bills. Jenna Gerry, Senior Staff Attorney with the National Employment Law Project joins the show to explore what this means for working class people across the country, and why the mainstream media continues to pretend like this isn’t devastating for working people and instead treats this cutoff as some marker of “normal”. 

This week the inhumane anti-abortion bill Texas SB8 went into effect, offering up to $10,000 for private citizens to sue abortion providers providing abortions after 6 weeks. As abortion whistleblowers ask for anonymous tips on “illegal” abortions, netizens have flooded the anonymous tip forms with inappropriate photos and trolled these groups mercilessly. Executive Editor of ReWIRE News, Jessica Mason PIeklo, joins the show to talk about what a post-Roe society may look like, and why we need a militant grassroots women’s movement to protect all women’s rights. 

In Louisiana, hurricane Ida made landfall and devastated the community on the 16th anniversary of Katrina. This climate catastrophe puts the disparities of class in stark privilege as wealthier residents turned on their generators while low-income residents saw their houses flooded by another brutal hurricane. Miriam Belblidia, Director of Research and Advocacy at Imagine Water Works, joins the show to discuss how climate crises are felt differently across class boundaries, and what must be done to stop the climate crisis.

In Suffolk County, Long Island a bill has been introduced by local legislators to make police a "protected human rights class." This is one of many of these bills aiming to pervert human rights law to give more unrestricted power to police in the U.S. Joining the show to discuss this bill and the state of the police brutality movement is Nia Adams, organizer with Justice League NYC and the Long Island Progressive Coalition.

After the horrific details of Britney Spears’ abusive conservatorship, even members of Congress are saying it’s time to #FreeBritney. One issue at the center of the conservatorship was Britney’s right to reproductive autonomy. The right to quality reproductive healthcare is being fiercely battled for in Texas as well, where the details of SB8, one of the worse anti-abortion bills in America’s history, just get worse and worse. And it doesn’t just stop there - all healthcare is a woman’s issue, and providing universal health care would materially improve the conditions and autonomy of working women. 

Legalizing abortion and Medicare for All is popular with the American public; both issues have support from 60% of Americans. The Women Fight Back team asks: What would policy on women’s issues and healthcare look like if the people truly had a say?  

When protests against deteriorating living conditions broke out in Cuba this Sunday, Western media outlets were eager to amplify the protests as indicative of a “failing” socialist system. In reality, the lack of access to food and energy is a direct result of the internationally condemned blockade the United States has imposed on Cuba since the late 50’s. Pambana Bassett, a Black internationalist who has been based out of Havana since February, joins the show to discuss the reality of conditions on the ground and how the Cuban government has been responding to its people’s demands.

In South Africa, there has been an emerging crisis after the recent imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma. Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, an educator and researcher in Pan Africanism Today, joins us to provide much-needed context about the situation in South Africa and how compromises made in the late 90’s led to the poverty and unrest that South Africa is experiencing today.

It's more than just Derek Chauvin. The whole system is guilty.

American filmmaker, musician, speaker, and activist from North Carolina, Bree Newsome Bass joins us on Women Fight Back to discuss Chauvin's sentencing and the right-wing attacks on teaching critical race theory across the U.S.

Bree is best known for her act of civil disobedience on June 27, 2015, when she was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds in the
aftermath of the Charleston Shooting. She shares more on her perspective of abolition and the call to defund the police.

Last week, Dianne Morales’ campaign resoundingly imploded as multiple staffers were fired or resigned, citing a culture of harassment and toxic workplace culture. Despite providing lip service to progressive and leftist organizations, Morales lacked demonstrated commitment to any kind of progressive values. Researcher and writer Matt Thomas joins the show to discuss how and why the left chose to rally behind a weak political candidate like Morales and the New York City mayoral race as a whole.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, Canadian pipeline company Enbridge is proposing the expansion of the Line 3 pipeline to bring nearly a million barrels of tar sands per day to Superior, Wisconsin. The Anshinaabe people are mobilizing against this expansion, which violates the treaty rights of the Anshinaabe people and other nations in its path. Shanai Matteson, a cultural organizer working in solidarity with the Anishinaabe-led movement to Stop Line 3, walks us through the story of Line 3, the fabric of collective resistance and opposition to the pipeline, and to discuss the major action planned for this weekend to protest its unjust expansion.

On May 20, a ceasefire was declared between Israel and Hamas, temporarily ending the attack on Gaza. As of May 21, Israeli air strikes have killed at least 257 Palestinians, including 66 children, and have left over 1800 wounded. 

Journalist Mike Prysner of the Empire Files and host of Eyes Left Podcast joins the show to discuss the celebrations in Gaza for the ceasefire, and the current resistance on the ground in front of Al-Aqsa mosque.

In the second half, organizers Nadya Tannous and Reuben Telushkin share their observations on youth movements leading role in the unprecedented mass demonstration in solidarity in Palestine in United States.

 As of yesterday, May 13th, 130 Palestinians have been killed, including 28 children. Hundreds more have been wounded. Hospitals are overflowing, and the right-wing racist violence of settlers in Israel has increased alongside the airstrikes. This is the worst attack since Israel's aggression in 2014.

For this special hour on Palestine, we are joined directly from the Gaza strip by Wafaa Aludaini, a Palestinian journalist and activist who will be giving eyewitness reports to the ongoing violence. We are also joined by Rania Khalek, a Middle East-based journalist for Breakthrough News who will be providing an analysis of the last weeks events. 

In our second half of our special we dive deeper into the resistance movements on the ground in the West Bank, Palestine, and the solidairty movements across the globe. We are joined by Hadeel Shatara, coordinator of the Palestinian prisoner rights group Samidoun. Also joining the show is New York City based activist, Nerdeen Kiswani who is the founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime.

A federal judge in DC overturned the national eviction moratorium this week, a decision which will have devastating effects on BIPOC, low-income, and working-class households. Despite the moratorium, renters across the United States report being unlawfully evicted from their homes by unscrupulous landlords. 

The looming wave of evictions is projected to severely damage an already weakened US economy. Joining the show to discuss the evictions are Kathryn Leifheit, an epidemiologist and researcher at the UCLA Fielding School of Health, and Kambridge, a housing organizer in Washington, D.C.

Recorded 5.7.21