Trump vs. Comedy . . . Colbert and South Park, w/ Prof. Sophia McClennen (G&R 405)

20 years ago this week Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. On August 29th, the levees broke and created a humanitarian crisis rarely seen before, seen too often now. Over 1800 people died and over a million evacuated with hundreds of thousands being permanently displaced in the aftermath. In the neighborhood of Algiers, a group of anarchists and radicals started the Common Ground Relief to provide mutual aid to the communities impacted by the hurricane, but also by their places in the margins of New Orleans. Over 100,000 volunteers passed through New Orleans over a three year period and it became to largest anarchist inspired organization in modern U.S. history. In our latest, we talk with one of the co-founders of Common Ground, and one of our long time homies, scott crow about Hurricane Katrina, Common Ground and the "long slow history of disaster." We discuss the themes of collective liberation, mutual aid and direct action and how they fit into that history. Bio//scott crow is an international speaker, author and story teller who is proudly from a working class background. Producer- emergency hearts. He is co-founder of Common Ground Hurricane Relief.-------------------------------------outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody🔗 Links🔗 scott's website: https://www.scottcrow.org/🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

Contrary to what happens in many other parts of the world and within Trump’s GOP, the Democratic Party leadership shuns street protests. In fact, discouraging street politics is part of the it’s strategy of punching left. In the latest G&R, we talk about street protests, the corporate Democrats and how political parties and figures have used protest to their advantage in other parts of the world. -----------------------------Outro- "Street Fighting Man" by Carla Olson🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

Since 2008, and even more since 2018 and 2023, private equity firms have been buying up real estate and rental properties across the U.S. No firm has preyed up on peoples' precarity more than private equity firm Blackstone. The fimr is the largest landlord in the United States by... a LOT. It owns 100,00 more rental units than its next closest competitor. In our latest, Scott talks with Jordan Ash, the housing director at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) about private equity, Blackstone and the housing crisis. Bio//Jordan Ash lives in Minnesota and has worked for over twenty-five years doing community and labor organizing. He currently leads the housing work for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project , a nonprofit watchdog organization focused on the impacts of private equity firms, hedge funds, and similar Wall Street firms on workers and communities. Prior to this, he spent more than a decade doing research and strategic campaigning for labor unions, and over a dozen years working for the community organization ACORN, where he played a leading role in the group’s campaign against predatory mortgage lending.------------------------------------------🎶 Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody🔗 Links//💰 Private Equity Stakeholder Project: https://pestakeholder.org/😲 Schumer’s son-in-law works at Blackstone (https://bit.ly/4lArRDJ)🏘️ Private Equity Stakeholder Project report on private equity and housing (https://bit.ly/4oJu7LH)🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

We’re living in challenging times with an escalating climate disaster devastating communities from Texas and Louisiana to Richmond, CA. Few institutions are as responsible for these crisis as Wall Street and Big Insurance companies. We’re also living in a time where large numbers of people have taken to the streets to confront those responsible for these crises. Moderated by Green and Red co-host, and long time climate finance campaigner, Scott Parkin, this panel discussed the role of major financial institutions in providing loans,investments and insurance to fossil fuel companies destroying communities from the Gulf South to Richmond, CA, and about the resistance to these companies. Panelist Bios//* Christa Mancias is the Executive Director for The Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. She has spent many years in the movement along with her family and relatives fighting for Native Indigenous rights and Environmental justice. She continues to help with the Frontline Fights against Border Wall issues, LNG Terminals, Pipelines, Fracking, SpaceX and the continuous destruction and erasure of the Carrizo Comecurdo’s Sacred Sites throughout Texas. *James Hiatt has more than a decade of firsthand experience in the petrochemical industry, he understands the tough choices many workers face—trying to make a living while dealing with the impacts these industries have on health and the environment. Born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, his deep connection to the community inspired him to seek a better way forward. In 2023, he founded For a Better Bayou, a nonprofit focused on helping Southwest Louisiana shift away from extraction-based industries toward a more sustainable, community-focused economy.* Mary Mijares is a first-generation immigrant born in the Philippinesand raised in Richmond, CA. As a campaigner for Amazon Watch, Mary seeks to uplift the demands and support the resistance of Indigenous organizations across the Amazon basin in international campaigns that challenge the fossil fuel industry and its financiers.*Connie Lu began her organizing journey as a student at Dartmouth College, where she was part of the successful campaign to divest the endowment from fossil fuels. Through a fellowship with the unfortunately now-defunct Divest Ed, she learned about climate finance as a crucial strategic piece of climate justice movements, and why we build people power instead of appealing to elites. Event co-hosted by Stop Billionaire Summer, the Green and Red Podcast and Gulf South Fossil Finance Hub.--------------------🎶 Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody.🔗 Links//Stop Billionaire Summer: https://www.stopbillionaires.org/🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

This week as the negotiations for a Global Plastic Treaty fail in Geneva, Switzerland over a cap on plastic production, we look at the undue influence of the fossil fuel and plastic industries. False solutions to the climate crisis, and now the plastic pollution crisis, are part of an industry playbook to misinform the public and deflect from actual solutions. In the case of plastics, it's promoting plastic recycling that doesn't actually work. In our latest, we talk with researchers Davis Allen and Rebecca John to discuss industry strategies to undermine any progress on curbing plastic pollution. Bios//Rebecca John is a Research Fellow at the Climate Investigations Center. She is also a freelance journalist and award-winning documentary film maker. As a Producer and Director of the acclaimed “Extreme Oil” / “Curse of Oil” series for PBS /BBC her work was awarded a Cine Golden Eagle for News Analysis. Other award-winning and nominated series and films include “Churchill” for PBS & ITV, “The Secret World of Richard Nixon” for The History Channel/BBC and “Ambush In Mogadishu” for PBS Frontline/ BBC (winner of the Edward R. Murrow Overseas Press Club of America ‘Best Documentary on Foreign Affairs Award’). Davis Allen is a Senior Investigative Researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, where he identifies and compiles evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s historical — and ongoing — deception. Prior to joining CCI, Davis completed a PhD in History at Case Western Reserve University.-----------------------------------------------------------Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by MoodyLinks//+ "‘Maddening’ Proof Plastics Industry Knew Recycling Was False Solution in 1974, New Document Shows" (https://bit.ly/45QWEHE)+ "The Fraud of Plastic" (https://bit.ly/4lt3Xd6)+ Plastic pollution talks fail as negotiators in Geneva reject draft treaties (https://bit.ly/45xljzF)🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

Scott talks with organizer and comrade Patrick Young (@patrickjyoung.bsky.social) about the state of resistance eight months into the Trump Administration. They get into the act of disobedience that the Texas Democrats take to avoid federal redistricting. They also talk about the mass non-compliance trainings happening, how DC is preparing for a possible Trump takeover and the latest Gaza actions. Bio//Patrick Young: labor organizer, climate organizer. Worked with a number of labor unions. Rising Tide North America, Shutdown DC and more recently the Movement Infrastructure Project. ------------------------------------------------------------Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

It's the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has the Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight, while Trump moves nuclear submarines closer to Russia in response to social media posts by Russian officials. Aerial photographs of the Gaza Strip look eerily similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago. It's a good a time as ever to consider and re-consider the lessons of Truman's "Atomic Diplomacy" in 1945. So we're reposting our episode on the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War Two. -----------------------------------------From the 2020 episode: “For years, large majorities of Americans have believed that the U.S. had to use the A-Bomb against Japan on August 6th, 1945 to end the war quickly and avoid a land war and thus save one-million American lives. Scott and Bob discuss the use of the bomb, why it was used as a message to the Soviet Union and not a military necessity, the chronology behind the development and deployment of atomic weapons, the U.S. public response to it, and the creation of a new history, a propaganda piece, regarding the use of the bomb. The dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima was vital in the development of the Cold War, the arms race, the military-industrial complex, and the National Security State. Seventy-five years after the first atomic weapon was used by the U.S., it’s still a highly-debated and important topic.”------------------------------------Outro- Green and Red Blues by Moody🔗 Links//🤔 80 years later, Americans have mixed views on whether use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki was justified (https://bit.ly/4mbPPXc)😬 Gar Alperovitz: The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—and the Generals Who Dropped the Bomb Knew It (https://bit.ly/47mDGtJ)🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

Hulk Hogan died recently. He's been denounced by some, praised by others. On his impact on the sport, pro wrestling historian Brian Soloman remarked on his passing "Wrestling history is divided in two parts: Before Hulk Hogan, and after Hulk Hogan…He was larger than life, inspired millions of people, many of whom spent decades being gradually let down by him.” But, also, some contend, his influence on our current cultural and political moment is significant as well. Generations are influenced by his muscles and swagger, he introduced Trump at last year's Republican National Convention and his personal political actions are also worth noting. In our latest, we talk with our friend and comrade, and host of This is Revolution, Jason Myles about Hogan's importance.Bio//Jason Myles is a writer, musician and co-host of This is Revolution Podcast. ------------------------------------------Outro- Green and Red Blues by Moody🔗 Links//🌐 This is Revolution: https://www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com/✊ G&R:“Kayfabe:” The Politics of Trump and Pro Wrestling w/ This is Revolution’s Jason Myles (https://bit.ly/4jMeDDm)📢 Kayfabe on Means TV (https://bit.ly/4jRgeru) 🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

We had another fantastic interview w/ Professor Sophia McClennen (@mcclennen65) of Penn State who's the foremost authority and satire and politics. We had lively discussions of the firing of Stephen Colbert and the South Park episode showing Trump in bed with Satan, as well as the general role of comedy in taking on Trump. Trump is thin-skinned and has no ability to take a joke, so satirists and comedians have been able to put him into meltdowns . . . .About Our GuestSophia A. McClennen is a professor at Penn State University who focuses on the intersection of culture, politics, and society. She’s the founding director of the Center for Global Studies and a columnist at Salon.com. Her research explores how storytelling, satire, and media shape political consciousness and resistance.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🎧 Outro Music: "Green and Red Blues" by Moody🔗Links//📚 Website: https://www.sophiamcclennen.com📝 Article: "Stephen Colbert Wasn't CBS's First Satirical Sacrifice"🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ Donate: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 WAMF (90.3 FM), New Orleans: https://wamf.org🏆 Top 100 Progressive Podcasts (#68): https://bit.ly/432XNJT✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: https://unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more radical analysis of U.S. politics, satire, and leftist resistance.

In our latest, we talk to Texas based journalist Candice Bernd (@candicebernd.bsky.social) about the devastating floods that hit the Hill Country on July 4th weekend. We discuss the effect of the floods on locals, failures of early warning systems, how DOGE's cuts to the federal government contributed to it, and how mutual aid has stepped in to support the community. Bio//Candice Bernd is a special investigative correspondent for the Observer covering the climate and ecological crises. She is a freelance journalist based in Austin whose work has also appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, In These Times, Salon, Truthout, and Earth Island Journal. She’s received awards from the San Francisco Press Club, the Fort Worth chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, and the Dallas Peace and Justice Center. -------------------------------------------Outro-- "Texas Flood" by Stevie Ray Vaughn🔗 Links//*‘I Think We’re Gonna Stay’: Texans Hang On in Tragedy-Stricken Hill Country (https://bit.ly/40FkRho)🎙️ Follow Green and Red//🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/M24GyqrS📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast//🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks//🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org🏆 We're in the Top 100 Progressive Podcasts (#68): https://bit.ly/432XNJT✊ Unions Power America Sweepstakes: unionpowerusa.com🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)