We created this podcast in recognition that there are a number of podcasts for the American “left,” but many of them focus heavily on the organizing of social democrats, progressives, and liberal democrats. Aside from that, on the left we are always fighting a war of ideas and if we do not continue to build platforms to share those ideas and the stories of their implementation from a leftist perspective, they will continue to be ignored, misrepresented, and dismissed by the capitalist media and as a result by the general public. Our goal is to provide a platform for communists, anti-imperialists, Black Liberation movements, ancoms, left libertarians, LBGTQ activists, feminists, immigration activists, and abolitionists to discuss radical politics, radical organizing and share their visions for a better world. Our goal is to center organizers who represent and work with marginalized communities building survival programs, defense programs, political education, and counterpower. We also plan to bring in perspectives on and from the global south to highlight anti-capitalist struggles outside the imperial core...
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episode 97: “To Only Fight For White People Would Be Counter-Revolutionary” - Hy Thurman on Becoming a Young Patriot and The Forming of The Rainbow Coalition
In this episode we interview Hy Thurman, founding member of the Young Patriots, and the Rainbow Coalition.
Our conversation focuses on his recently published memoir Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes From The Struggle On The Edge Of The Rainbow.
We begin the conversation discussing growing up in a family of poor white farm workers in Appalachia and the conditions in Tennessee that lead to his migration to Chicago along with tens of thousands of other displaced Appalachians. We talk about how police harassment, bigotry and violence structured his adolescent years in both Tennessee and when he arrived in Chicago. And then he gets into various aspects of the conditions in Uptown, the Daley political regime in Chicago, and the extortive practices of the Chicago PD that gave rise to radical organizing and would eventually lead to the development of the Young Patriots Organization (YPO).
Hy talks about the organizing work of the YPO fighting gentrification, organizing health clinics, and touches on others aspects of their survival programs and organizing against police brutality. Ultimately Hy gets into conversations around their approach to questions of racism, class and gender. And we talk about their controversial use - and eventual denouncement - of the Confederate flag. And we discuss their 11 point program and their participation in the Rainbow Coalition. Along the way Hy shares memories of his interactions with Fred Hampton and Bobby Lee from the Black Panther Party, and shares his thoughts on Judas And The Black Messiah.
Finally Hy talks about his current work with the North Alabama School For Organizers.
Just a content notice there are discussions of state violence including murder and sexual assault by police.
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