Movement Memos

“When you have a power that is designed to be unaccountable and has been unaccountable for so damn long, the reforms that stick to it just make it stronger and more efficient as they cover it in a veneer of legitimacy." In this episode, Kelly talks with abolitionist criminology professor and activist Brendan McQuade about how securitization has shaped popular ideas about what it means to be free, and how we can build something better.If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemosIf you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonateIf you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up: bit.ly/TOnewsletter

From the Amazon to Hubbard County, Minnesota, corporations are funding the repression of protesters. In this episode, Kelly talks with Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, about the history and future of corporate collaborations with the police. Kelly also talks with attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard about newly exposed documents that reveal the lead prosecutor in Hubbard County sought corporate funding for the prosecution of Line 3 protesters.If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmemosIf you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonateIf you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up: bit.ly/TOnewsletter

“Capitalism is the unfolding catastrophe,” says activist Bree Newsome Bass. “It's this thing that has grabbed us all in its arms and it is just plummeting down.” In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with activist and artist Bree about long COVID, voting rights and getting organized in these times. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website.If you would like to support the show, you can donate here.If you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up!

“At the close of 2021, the right is poised to treat the pandemic as a political portal, and the left is not. That’s a disturbing reality, but it is not a fixed condition." In this year-end episode of Movement Memos, Kelly reflects on what we’re up against and what we need to build in the new year. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.

“The women who were already long-timers when I was just coming in, they were the light in my tunnel. We were all in the tunnel together just making light,” says formerly incarcerated organizer Monica Cosby. In this episode of Movement Memos, Cosby and Kelly Hayes talk about the emotional support networks imprisoned people create to survive institutions that punish symptoms of emotional distress, and what we can learn from those efforts. Alan Mills from the Uptown People’s Law Center also offers an update on the fight for mental health care in Illinois prisons. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.

“ShotSpotter manufactures the urgency of an active threat, offering situations where there is likely no risk, but where police can operate within a narrative of extreme risk.” In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with Chicago organizers who are attempting to rid their city of an acoustic surveillance system that is both ineffective and dangerous. Kelly also digs into the question of why police might want a multi-million dollar gunshot detector that doesn't work. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.

Right-wing myths about stolen elections and vaccine conspiracies will no doubt complicate many dinners today, as families gather to celebrate a holiday grounded in its own harmful mythology: Thanksgiving. Among liberals and leftists, there will be countless posts debunking the lies children are taught about the holiday in school. But on this day it is equally important to amplify the stories of Native people living today who, much like their ancestors, are battling world-crushing forces. In the prosecution of Water Protectors who fought Line 3, we are witnessing a convergence of extractive forces that threaten all life and liberty on Earth. In this episode of Movement Memos, Water Protectors who resisted the construction of Line 3 talk about the campaign to drop the charges against them, what keeps them hopeful, and about what happens when fossil fuel companies fund the police. For a transcript, audio and show notes, you can check out our website.

“Apocalypse normal means we can go back to school, get on planes, and hit up restaurants and bars -- as long as we don’t think too hard about disabled people, unvaccinated children or long COVID. It means experiencing escalating heat waves, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires, and scrolling past news about ‘code red’ climate reports, and the refugees that climate catastrophes create, without retaliating or rebelling against political leaders who have once again refused to chart a different course.” In this episode, Kelly tackles the idea of “getting back to normal.” 

The Indian Child Welfare Act has been challenged more times in the past decade than the Affordable Care Act. In this episode of Movement Memos, Native journalists Kelly Hayes and Rebecca Nagle talk about the right-wing plot to bring down a child welfare law and why the fundamental rights of Native people, the fate of tribal lands, and “the very shape of what passes for democracy” in the U.S. are at stake. You can find a transcript, audio and show notes on our website.

In place of our usual content, this week, we are revisiting A COVID Memorial Mixtape. The mixtape, which was released in October of 2020 by Ric Wilson, in collaboration with a number of grassroots organizers, was created as part of a month-long effort to memorialize people lost to COVID-19. It was also played through a loudspeaker outside the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Chicago. When the tape was created, we had lost over 200,000 people to COVID-19 in the United States. Now, we have lost over 750,000. Globally, more than 5 million people have died. So we're taking a pause this week, and revisiting some reflection, reverence and resistance around those losses. We’ll be back next week with a regular episode.  You can find a transcript on our website.