Making Contact

Most of us have a home to shelter in place during COVID -19. But what about the homeless? We take a look at life on the street before COVID-19, following two women as they undergo several evictions from encampments. And then we talk about the specific challenges the homeless face during COVID-19 and what we can do to fix the housing crisis.

How are witch hunts and Capitalist economies linked? Silvia Federici, wrote the ground breaking book, Caliban and the Witch, in 2004. In the book she argues that the witch hunts of the fifteenth century were a necessary pre-condition for Capitalism to flourish. Today, witch hunts are still happening, in places like East Timor, India and Cambodia. Federici, who never really left the subject of witch hunts, returns to the topic with her book, Women Witches and Witch Hunts. She looks back to the witch hunts of the middle ages and sees them replaying today, in countries that are newly adopting capitalism as their economic model.

In 1918, humanity faced a deadly global pandemic-- the Spanish Flu. How did those who lived a century before us respond to the crisis, and what we can learn from their response and the aftermath?

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many Americans are worried about their health insurance. The cost of treating the illness, if a patient ends up in the ICU, can run into the tens of thousands of dollars without coverage. Which most people just can't afford. Today we bring you a piece we produced last year about a related topic -the rising cost of insulin, and the effectiveness of medicare for all. First, we visit a group of community scientists called the Open Insulin Project, an organization trying to create its own insulin outside the lengthy FDA process and whether it's worth the associated risks. And we talk about the benefits of Medicare for All, a policy which would get rid of private insurance and make all medicine and medical care accessible and affordable.

On this edition of Making Contact, acclaimed author Ian Haney López talks about his new book - Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America. This book explores the links between current day wealth and race inequality, elections, and how coded racism has evolved in the Trump era. The book also looks at ways we can proactively build cross-racial solidarity to diminish barriers between us. Author Ian Haney López holds an endowed chair as the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley.

Election protection is increasingly seen as a critical issue in the US. From gerrymandering and voter purges, to precinct closures and problems with voting machine technology, Women Rising Radio explores threats to the US electoral process with two election protection activists.

Our radio adaptation of the film, Who Bombed Judi Bari?, explores Judi Bari's bold activism to save the Redwood Forest in the face of corporate greed, and the violent measures taken to silence the environmental movement. Produced by Darryl Cherney, Elyse Katz, Sheila Laffey, Bill and Laurie Benenson and directed by Mary Liz Thomson, the film delves into the bombing and her fight against the F.B.I.'s attempted frame-up.

We think of Artificial Intelligence as being the stuff of science fiction movies, set far in the future. But it's already having an impact on our lives. We look at a kind of decision made by artificial intelligence called a risk assessment and how it impacts the poor and people of color and we talk about ways to fight back.

I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond.

Five years after Michael Brown's death at the hands of a police officer galvanized criminal justice reform activists in St. Louis, they're gaining serious momentum to shut down the city's notorious Workhouse jail. Reporter Carolina Hidalgo spent time with the Close the Workhouse campaign and Arch City Defenders, their supporters, and detractors.