Delete Your Account Podcast

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) organizer Lillian House, one of 6 leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Denver area to be arrested on September 17, 2020. After sharing a bit about her own path to organizing, Lillian shares her insight into the strength and endurance of BLM organizing in Colorado around the cause of 23-year-old Elijah McClain, slain in 2019 when Aurora, CO police put him into a chokehold and injected with a sedative. Lillian describes how she and her comrades were held illegally for 8 days before seeing a judge and now face decades in prison on trumped-up federal charges, as well as how the local community and labor organizations around the world have shown up to support them while continuing to demand justice for McClain. You can find more info and ways to help at the National Committee for Justice in Denver website as well as the PSL website, where you can donate to the legal support fund, sign and share this petition demandin

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Cliff Willmeng, a registered nurse of 13 years, an activist in rank and file labor and environmental struggles, and a front line healthcare worker unjustly dismissed for bringing attention to safety violations which includes the reusing of hospital scrubs and the lack of basic supplies. Cliff, who once ran for Boulder County Commissioner as a independent socialist and worker’s candidate, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on nurses, and how hospital administrators have been retaliating against workers such as himself who have been bringing attention to the lack of PPE, despite the obvious risks this poses to both nurses, their families, and patients alike.  Finally, we discuss how capitalism has devastated US hospitals and why the fight to win healthcare for all necessitates a united front against administrations and health industry CEOs who are profiting off of a global pandemic. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus conte

This week, Roqayah and Kumars go solo and answer a listener question about their own origin stories, and how the show came to be. If you want to hear the rest, subscribe at patreon.com/deleteyouraccount for $5 a month! We can't do the show without your support!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston and his chief of staff Jen Snyder to discuss just how the pandemic is impacting homelessness, housing, and evictions across California.  Dean, founder of Tenants Together, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on housing, and how his administration worked to permanently ban evictions in San Francisco for those unable to pay their rent due to COVID-19. Jen, a housing rights activist and former campaign manager for Proposition F, a San Francisco ballot measure that guaranteed tenants a lawyer if they’re being evicted or otherwise forced out by their landlords, breaks down the failures of San Francisco Mayor London Breed and what it will take to bring about real change for homeless communities in California.   Finally, we examine the role of California governor Gavin Newsom and why his moratorium on evictions has not stopped police from violently throwing families out onto the streets, even in the m

This week, just in time for the inevitable arguments at Zoom Thanksgiving, Roqayah and Kumars go guest-less, spreading holiday cheer with a look at Trump’s foreign policy in review. They analyze the common conception of Trump as an anti-interventionist, taking stock of his legacy in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East before touching on some of what we can expect from the incoming Democratic administration.   If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

For Roqayah’s triumphant return, she and Kumars are joined from the top of the hour by friends of the show Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby for the 4-year reunion of their classic election night 2016 episode. Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio as well as the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV.  The gang begins by catching up at the tail end of the weirdest year in American history before diving into some ballot proposition election results across the country, including big wins for drugs. They then proceed to hash out the thorniest issues surrounding the ongoing election and possible futures for the left under a Biden administration, and a wonderful time is had by all.  Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan at @murderxbryan, and the Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS, and as always you can hear Street Fight Radio wherever pods are cast. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as lit

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Shanti Singh along with René Christian Moya, California-based housing rights activists extraordinaire, for a deep dive into Proposition 21, the statewide rent control expansion up for popular referendum in next week’s elections. Shanti, who is based in San Francisco, is a leader in DSA SF’s Housing Committee, the former deputy data director for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign in California, and currently serves as the legislation and communications coordinator for the statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together. René is based out of Los Angeles, formerly of the LA Tenants Union and is the Campaign Director for the Yes on 21 campaign. René, Shanti, and Kumars begin by outlining the looming eviction crisis which has already begun thanks in part to the Trump administration’s so-called moratorium at the federal level. René, who was last on the show discussing Prop 10, the previous iteration of Prop 21, explains

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Nora Barrows-Friedman, associate editor at the Electronic Intifada and cohost of the Electronic Intifada Podcast as well as The Brief, along with Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Estee Chandler, founder of that group’s Los Angeles chapter, producer of Middle East in Focus and Middle East Minute+ on KPFK, and host of the upcoming podcast called The Breakout Room with Estee Chandler. After sharing her personal path to Palestine solidarity activism, including her career in Hollywood as an actor and visual effects artist, Estee introduces listeners to the saga surrounding The Lobby – USA, a four-part Al Jazeera documentary exposing Israel’s covert influence operations in the United States that remains largely unseen almost three years after its completion due to a successful pressure campaign from the Israel lobby to get the government of Qatar to censor the film, later obtained and released by the Electronic Intifa

As a special treat, we've unlocked our recent sporting edition of Delete Your Account AFTER HOURS. Kumars was joined once again by Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op, who host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their weekly collaboration with Means TV.  The Sams give listeners a rundown of newsworthy events in the worlds of sports and politics, including the hijacked NBA players’ strike over the killings of James Blake and other black victims of police and vigilante violence, a campaign to organize the first tennis players’ union that leaves much to be desired, and the Big Ten buckling to pressure from conservatives to proceed with the college football season in the face of rising COVID-19 numbers at universities. The gang rounds out the hour nerding out about soccer, dissecting their memories of World Cups past, their favorite players, and their varying degrees of hatred for the USMNT.  You can follow Sam Sacks on Twi

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two veterans of arguably the first successful video game worker strike in history, writer Krissy Perez and returning guest Emma Kinema. Krissy is the most senior writer for Lovestruck, a mobile visual romance novel game distributed by the US subsidiary of Japanese developer Voltage Inc. and played by millions worldwide, and a member of Voltage Organized Workers (VOW). Emma Kinema is a former game developer, one of the founders of Game Workers Unite, and currently serves as Campaign Lead for the CODE-CWA, the Communications Workers of America's initiative to organize unions in the North American tech industry.  Krissy gives listeners a lay of the land at Voltage USA, explaining how the Lovestruck writers’ famously prolific output has come at the cost of brutally tight deadlines and industry-low pay. The gang walks through a timeline of the VOW strike, which lasted 3 weeks and ended in a decisive win, securing the workers substantial p

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two organizers with the Southwest Louisiana chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America: Phil Peterson, an activist, organizer, and educator based in Lake Charles Louisiana, and Megan Romer, also an organizer, writer, and educator based in the neighboring city of Lafayette, Louisiana. After introducing listeners to their communities and their personal paths to organizing, Phil and Megan describe the devastation on the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Laura as DSA SWLA and allied groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief continue their recovery efforts despite a lack of interest from national media.  Phil discusses his experience of being displaced by the storm and the significance of Louisiana activists as innovators at the vanguard of climate struggle, and Megan explains the key lessons we can learn from DSA SWLA about organizing during a pandemic, along with the convoluted local politics behind the city of Lafayette’s refusal to accept re

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Kimberly Galindo, lead organizer for Southern California’s High Desert region with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, an alliance of over 40 civil society organizations providing support to immigrant communities. Kimberly starts off by describing about her own political development growing up undocumented and later becoming a DACA recipient. She gives listeners an introduction to ICIJ’s various aid projects and advocacy campaigns since the start of the pandemic, recounting their spectacular direct action at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento California, where 14 undocumented organizers and immigration attorneys were arrested after chaining themselves to Gavin Newsom’s front gate demanding an end to ICE transfers and the release of those behind bars as coronavirus runs roughshod through the US prison system.  Kimberly talks about her work acting as a liaison with detainees at the privately-owned Adelanto Detention Facility, d

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Madeline Peltz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America and the world’s foremost expert on Tucker Carlson. Madeline is best known for combing through the Fox News host’s weekly guest spots on the talk radio program of C-list shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, exposing a history of openly bigoted statements that put Carlson’s seeming descent into white nationalism in its proper context. Madeline breaks down several of her recent articles for Media Matters on the revolving door between the Trump administration and conservative media personalities as well as how One America News Network and Fox News are covering the QAnon movement and the rise of white nationalism generally. Madeline begins by discussing her explosive report on former OANN correspondent Emily Miller, who was appointed FDA spokesperson by Trump and fired 11 days later, shortly after Madeline’s reporting. Madeline and Kumars review the responses of

This is only part of our interview with Eoin Higgins. If you want to get the whole interview, support the show, and receive access to tons of other bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!  Roqayah is still off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by onetime guest host and freelance journalist Eoin Higgins, who has written for The Intercept, Common Dreams, FAIR.org, Vice, and the Washington Post. After sharing a bit of his personal background and political trajectory, Eoin breaks down his most recent reporting for The Intercept on the ongoing scandal surrounding Massachusetts Democratic Party efforts to torpedo the primary challenge of progressive House candidate Alex Morse, mayor of the Western Massachusetts town of Holyoke, who is running to unseat entrenched incumbent Rep. Richard Neal in MA’s 1st congressional district on Sept. 1. 

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by the hosts of the Left POCket Project Podcast, returning guest Wendi Muse and Richard, who makes his Delete Your Account debut. Wendi is the creator of the Left POCket Project and a PhD Candidate in History at New York University, where her dissertation analyzes the impact of anticolonial struggles in Portuguese Africa on the Brazilian left during the Cold War. Richard is a gig worker and cohost the now defunct Progressive Army’s The Discourse podcast.  After sharing a bit about his political origin story, Richard talks about what he learned from participating in the uprisings in Washington state this summer, and Wendi updates listeners on what’s been new in her life since her previous appearance. Wendi and Richard react to this week’s Democratic National Convention and the selection of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. They discuss Democrats’ appropriation of identity politics and pro-worker rhetoric, corporate attempts to co

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Food Not Bombs cofounder and veteran organizer Keith McHenry. Keith has been active with various chapters of the network of mutual aid collectives known as Food Not Bombs for four decades and is the author of several books including Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community, which is the original handbook for the group’s model of movement building through vegan food distribution.  Keith shares moments from an eventful life, like the mentorship of Howard Zinn and facing massive repression and criminalization from the highest levels of government, including staring down 25 to life under California’s “three strikes” law. Keith talks about the stories of organizers from Myanmar to Iceland who have engaged in direct action under the banner of Food Not Bombs, and Keith and Kumars reflect on the legacy of the movement, including the role of anarchism and punk culture in sustaining and how mutual aid projects inspired by Fo

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Olivia Katbi Smith and first-timer Albert Lee, both members of Portland DSA who have been in the streets of Portland since the uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing began. Olivia is the co-chair of Portland DSA and a board member of CAIR Oregon. Albert Lee is a Portland-based activist, a member of Portland DSA and former Our Revolution-endorsed congressional candidate who earlier this year ran as an open socialist in an unprecedented primary challenge to incumbent Democrat Earl Blumenauer in Oregon’s 3rd.  Olivia and Albert share their experiences of the ongoing federal occupation of Portland by DHS and paramilitary forces from other agencies as well as their insights into the way imperial tactics and far-right ideology have become more glaringly apparent in policing practices from local cops to the now nationwide wave of federal repression. The gang closes out by discussing the latest out of Portland, including

This week, Kumars and returning guest host and policy analyst with Open the Government Freddy Martinez are joined by The Intercept’s Micah Lee, a journalist, activist, and prolific open-source software developer involved in the publication and analysis of recent leak, dubbed Blue Leaks, of about 270 gigabytes of police data from more than 200 police departments and fusion centers and some 700,000 cops.  Freddy and Micah are both members of the advisory board of the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which acquired and released the data before being banned from Twitter and raided by the German government. The gang runs through the different components and major takeaways from the vast trove, delving into Micah’s analysis for The Intercept and Freddy's report on fusion centers for Open the Government, including how fusion centers massively oversold the threat of left-wing protesters to local police departments while downplaying the threat of far-right violence and what th

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Albuquerque-based community organizer Selinda Guerrero, founder of the Albuquerque Mutual Aid Coalition and National Action Coordinator for Save the Kids, an all-volunteer organization working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Selinda also organizes with Building Power for Black New Mexico, Forward Together, and the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), and heads the New Mexico chapter of the prison-industrial complex abolitionist group Millions for Prisoners.  After sharing a bit about her background as an organizer and the genesis of the mutual aid project she helped kick-start earlier in the pandemic, Selinda fills listeners in on the plight of her husband and fellow Black Lives Matter activist Clifton White, who helped organize BLM protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and was arrested on June 1 by Albuquerque police under extremely dubious circumstances. Selinda and Kumars

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Vincent Bevins, an award winning journalist who has covered Southeast Asia and Latin America extensively for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and the author of a must-read history of US regime change operations during the Cold War, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World. Vincent begins by reacting to the breaking news that the far-right Brazilian government claims president Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for coronavirus. As is customary, Vincent shares a bit about his political evolution and background as a journalist before sketching the basics of his argument in the book, which moves beyond its primary focus on the US-backed military coup in Indonesia to tell the story of the Cold War as colonialism by other means. Vincent outlines the peculiar ideological landscape of postwar Indonesia, including the blend of nationalist, communist and Islamist fo