The Response

On this episode of The Response, we’re joined by author and organizer Andrew Lee. In his book Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War, Andrew writes about how gentrification is often seen as inevitable or automatic and an “economic, social plan.” 

In that sense, the resulting displacement of people from their homes and communities is, in essence, a planned disaster. Andrew brings a nuanced...

On this episode of The Response, we're joined by Arvind Dilawar, an independent journalist who has recently written a piece for Shareable about the union supplying Palestinian journalists with safety gear amid the ongoing Israeli genocide.

His articles, interviews, and essays on everything from the spacesuits of the future to love in the time of visas have appe...

On this episode of The Response, we get to the heart of reproductive justice with Rafa Kidvai, the director of the Repro Legal Defense Fund at If/When/How. The RLDF champions the rights and freedoms of people criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes, offers bail support, and stands as a bastion for strong defenses in the face of criminalization, spanning from miscarriages to self-managed abortions. 

Rafa ...

For our first episode of 2024, we interviewed noted disasterologist and previous guest, Dr. Samantha Montano. We discuss the impact of climate change on disasters and the need for better disaster management and planning. We also explore the difference between emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes. And highlight the importance of community involvement in all stages of disaster management. We’ll wrap things up with a review of rec...

For our final episode of The Response this year, we interviewed three mutual aid organizers from Orlando, FL, Hartford, CT, and Bvlbancha (aka New Orleans, LA).

• Gabbie Barnes is the founder of FREE HART Closet, a worker-owner at the People's Saturday School, a mutual aid organizer, and a Library of Things Fellow.
• Rachel Kinbar is an organizer with Central Florida Mutual Aid, Orlando DSA, the operations director for Beautiful T...

On this week’s show, we’ll be turning our focus towa...

On today’s show we brought on Mohamed Shehk, Campaigns Director for Critical Resistance and member of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center here in the Bay Area. 

In this conversation we talk about some of the recent actions taking place to support the struggle for Palestinian liberation, including recent actions aimed at stopping military cargo intended for Israel from leaving docks in ...

Today, we’re cross posting

After a statement about the war in Palestine, we’re in conversation with Stephanie Rearick, a fou...

Summer might be over for us in the Northern Hemisphere — but things are still heating up in the US labor movement. A ground-swell of labor action continues to heave and crack the crust which had been slowly hardening on the surface of the radical fires dormant under neoliberalism.

The latest news in the ongoing strike wave comes out of the United Auto Workers Union, where workers at a number of plants have walked out and are engagi...

Anyone who's been in a disaster and experienced the initial government or major nonprofit response may have noticed that there's a lot of waste involved. From the thousands of single-use water bottles and throw-away medical supplies to the constant churning of diesel and gas-powered generators, there’s just really no other option. But what if there was? Would it be adopted? How could these large disaster respon...

On today’s show we’re continuing our ongoing Disaster Dispatch series with a deep dive into the Maui wildfires. Earlier this month a series of wind-driven wildfires in Hawaii, predominantly in Maui, led to widespread devastation and destruction, killing at least 115 people and leaving 850 others missing in the town of Lāhainā. These numbers are estimated to actually be much higher as the search to find and iden...

This summer has truly turned out to be a hot labor summer, with a number of high-profile labor actions stretching across industries and across the country, from the streets of Hollywood to the shop floors at UPS — things are heating up. 

With that said, there is a story that hasn’t hit headlines in the same way as some of these other actions and confrontations. And that’s the story of Ancho...

All across the globe, temperatures are rising, and thanks to the most recent report published by the International Panel on Climate Change and recent U.N. projections, we know that even if we do make sweeping cuts to emissions, we’re still on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. That means, the record-breaking floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and heat...

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, ...

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 ...