Scott’s Top Green and Red Episodes of 2021
by Scott Parkin
Turns out 2021 wasn’t much better than 2020. Pandemic. Political crisis. Economic crisis. Climate crisis. The cascading crises keep coming at us.
BUT, Bob and I did some fantastic episodes covering a span of topics from peoples’ history of the 1960s with Noam Chomsky to politics in the middle east to campaigns and struggle related to the #climatecrisis and #COP26 to a whole bunch of left wing pop culture. Plus a lot more.
We also talked a lot about how to the Democrats fail time and time again, even when in the majority and handed gifts like the ruling class turning on the GOP and the capitol riot.
I’m proud of ALL the episodes we produced and the guests we interviewed.
So here’s my end of year click bait list of my most fav Green and Red episodes:
Labor, Direct Action and the Battle in Seattle
We talked with Nancy Haque with the Shutdown WTO Organizers’ History Project about simultaneously organizing the labor march and the mass direct action in 1999.
The Battle in Seattle, 22 Years Later w/ the Shutdown WTO Organizers History Project
It’s the 22nd anniversary of the direct action shutdown of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle. The WTO is a transnational economic institution created to regulate and facilitate global (corporate) trade.
Listen in: https://bit.ly/ShutdownWTOGandR
Organized by a scrappy group of organizers, the shutdown kicked off an anti-corporate globalization moment in North America which challenged austerity and the capitalist political economy. Globally, those movements had already been fighting austerity and corporate power for decades.
We talk with Nancy Haque, Stephanie Guilloud and David Solnit – three organizers that were all part of Direct Action Network to Stop Corporate Globalization (DAN), the body that organized the shutdown.
Oregon’s Timber Wars and the Climate Crisis w/ Cascadia Forest Defense
The Pacific Northwest has a long history of organizing and direct action around logging and timber industries. From the Wobblies trying to organize the logging sector in the early twentieth century to Earth First!’s campaigns to stop old growth logging to the new generation of forest defenders linking the struggle for wild places and communities to the climate crisis, direct action has always tried to get the goods.
Listen in: https://bit.ly/TimberWarGandR
For 25 years, since the epic timber wars of the 1990s in places like Warner Creek, Oregon, Cascadia Forest Defense (CFD) has been at the forefront of challenging the logging industry, complicit politicians, federal agencies and, in general, capitalism. In the past month, CFD has put up new tree-sit blockades to disrupt logging operations in the Willamette National Forest.
Canceled. The Keystone XL Pipeline is over and done.
This week, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) announced that they were finally terminating the Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL) project after over a decade resistance from the Alberta tar sands to Wall Street to the White House to the Gulf Coast.
Listen in: https://bit.ly/KXLGandR
Scott Parkin, one of our favorite co-hosts of Green and Red Podcast, worked for ten years in the climate justice movements to stop KXL from being built. In this episode, Bob interviews Scott about his work in stopping the KXL pipeline, strategies to fight the oil industry and what’s next for the climate justice movement.
Why We Fight (and Podcast): A Green and Red Manifesto
by Scott Parkin and Bob Buzzanco
As we reach the end of the first year of the Green and Red Podcast, we have more clear ideas on what we’ve done both good and not-as-good and where we want to go moving forward.
There are about one million podcasts in America, many of them political and many of them stressing some form of Left or radical politics, at least rhetorically. Finding a place within an independent media and political galaxy of that size is not easy, but we believe we offer information, insight, and even instruction in ways that others don’t.
Green and Red Co-Host Scott Parkin on why 2021 needs more direct action
In our latest episode, Bob interviews Scott about his recent article “Why 2021 needs more direct action.”
Listen here: http://bit.ly/Action2021GandR
They discuss how elections and electing Democrats and Democratic Socialists won’t be the only way to get us out of the current cascade of crises hitting the world right now (COVID-19, economic collapse, climate change, political crisis around the far right). They also discuss Scott’s past work in fighting mountaintop removal coal mining, Wall Street banks and oil pipelines.
Choosing Democracy with Direct Action Organizer Eileen Flanagan
In our latest episode, we have a lively discussion with Eileen Flanagan (@eileenflanagan) of Choose Democracy about mass organizing efforts to defend democracy from Trump.
Listen here: https://bit.ly/DemocracyGandR
We discuss their efforts to recruit and prepare thousands to hit the streets, taking advantage of “cracks” in ruling class institutions, like Wall Street and the military, and turning anxiety about Trump remaining in power into action. We also discussed longer term organizing efforts around climate justice and challenging white supremacy.
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr., Radical, Democratic Socialist and Opponent of State Violence
In our special MLK day episode, we talk about the radical politics of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We discuss King’s democratic socialist beliefs, his stance against the war in Vietnam, the campaigns he worked on, –including the 1968 Olympic Boycott and the Poor People’s Campaign–, and his thoughts on property destruction.