Rev Left Radio

Eric Mann on Revolutionary Struggle Part 2: Labor Organizing, The Working Class, and Proletarian Internationalism

Breht speaks with veteran organizer, revolutionary strategist, Elder of the movement, and author Eric Mann. Together they discuss Eric's life and work, including his book on George Jackson, the Hard Hat riot against Vietnam protesters, how to organize effectively in the work place, Eric's personal relationship with Howard Zinn, the importance of revolutionary journalism, combatting chauvinism, and SO much more. Check out Part One of Breht's discussion with Eric HERE [https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/eric-mann-on-revolutionary-struggle-the-weather-underground-the-long-1960s-and-the-fight-for-liberation-today-part-1] Opening clip from Mother Country Radical podcast [https://crooked.com/podcast-series/mother-country-radicals/] More Biography of Eric Mann: Eric Mann (born December 4, 1942) is a civil rights, anti-war, labor, and environmental organizer. He has worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Black Panther Party, the United Automobile Workers (including eight years on auto assembly lines) and the New Directions Movement. He was also active as a leader of SDS faction the Weathermen, which later became the militant left-wing organization Weather Underground. He was arrested in September 1969 for participation in a direct action against the Harvard Center for International Affairs and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after two bullets were fired through a window of the Cambridge police headquarters on November 8, 1969. He was instrumental in the movement that helped to keep a General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California open for ten years. Mann has been credited for helping to shape the environmental justice movement in the U.S. He founded the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, California and has been its director for 25 years. In addition, Mann is founder and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union, which sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for what it called "transit racism", resulting in a precedent-setting civil rights lawsuit, Labor Community Strategy Center et al. v. MTA. Get 15% off any book at Left Wing Books HERE [https://leftwingbooks.net/discount/REVLEFT] ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio [https://www.patreon.com/revleftradio] Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio [https://buymeacoffee.com/revleftradio] Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/ [https://revleftradio.com/]

Eric Mann on Revolutionary Struggle: The Weather Underground, the Long 1960s, and the Fight for Liberation Today (Part 1)

Breht speaks with veteran organizer, revolutionary strategist, and author Eric Mann. In this wide-ranging conversation, Mann reflects on his decades of struggle; from his early work with SNCC and SDS, through his involvement with the Weather Underground and his time as a political prisoner, to his rank-and-file organizing as a UAW autoworker. Along the way, Mann wrestles with the realities of repression and counterinsurgency, the need for disciplined cadre and a Black-led united front against imperialism, and the history of the Marxist Left in the 60's and 70's in the USA as told through his personal experiences. His story is both a living history of the U.S. Left and a revolutionary call for commitment and organization for a new generation of revolutionaries. More Biography of Eric Mann: Eric Mann (born December 4, 1942) is a civil rights, anti-war, labor, and environmental organizer. He has worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Black Panther Party, the United Automobile Workers (including eight years on auto assembly lines) and the New Directions Movement. He was also active as a leader of SDS faction the Weathermen, which later became the militant left-wing organization Weather Underground. He was arrested in September 1969 for participation in a direct action against the Harvard Center for International Affairs and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after two bullets were fired through a window of the Cambridge police headquarters on November 8, 1969. He was instrumental in the movement that helped to keep a General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California open for ten years. Mann has been credited for helping to shape the environmental justice movement in the U.S. He founded the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, California and has been its director for 25 years. In addition, Mann is founder and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union, which sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for what it called "transit racism", resulting in a precedent-setting civil rights lawsuit, Labor Community Strategy Center et al. v. MTA. Mann is the author of books published by Beacon Press, Harper & Row and the University of California, which include Taking on General Motors; The Seven Components of Transformative Organizing Theory; and Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. He is known for his theory of transformative organizing and leadership of political movements and is acknowledged by many as an veteran organizer on the communist left. ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio [https://www.patreon.com/revleftradio] Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio [https://buymeacoffee.com/revleftradio] Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/ [https://revleftradio.com/]

[TEASER] The Anti-Human Nihilism of the Techno-Oligarchs

This is a small snippet from a much larger patreon exclusive episode, which you can sign up for (and support the show in the process) here: www.patreon.com/revleftradio [https://www.patreon.com/c/RevLeftRadio]

The Years of Lead in Italy: Strategy of Tension, Operation Gladio, & the Long 1970s

Most people, even on the Left, only know fragments of Italy's "Years of Lead." This episode pulls the whole picture into focus: the mass worker upsurge after the boom years, the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, the rise of the Red Brigades, the kidnapping and execution of Aldo Moro, and the 1980 Bologna massacre. Alyson and Breht trace how far-right stragismo (mass bombings) intersected with far-left clandestinism, and how segments of the deep state, intelligence services, and the Cold War Gladio architecture shaped a strategy of tension that isolated social movements, kept the socialist and communist left from power, and cleared the way for the establishment of neoliberalism in Italy and beyond. Alyson and Breht then discuss what lessons we can learn from this history and if there are any similarities to the contemporary United States. Clips for this episode are pulled from this YT documentary HERE [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2m32ruOx3o&t=802s] Check out our episode on the Italian fascist Julius Evola HERE [https://redmenace.libsyn.com/website/ride-the-tiger] Check out our episode on Carl Schmitt's Concept of the Political HERE [https://redmenace.libsyn.com/website/size/5/?search=carl+] ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio [https://www.patreon.com/revleftradio] Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio [https://buymeacoffee.com/revleftradio] Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/ [https://revleftradio.com/]

They Called Her Rebel: Speculative Fiction, Revolutionary Art, and the Politics of Imagination

In this episode, Breht speaks with Jacob Dallas-Main, co-host of Workers' Lit [https://open.spotify.com/show/4KincvQBKgIbwmhE7gwh6b?si=7a14c4c85d7a4af2] and author of They Called Her Rebel [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/they-called-her-rebel-jacob-dallas-main/1147015851]; a dazzling fusion of fantasy, class struggle, and storytelling set in a world of debtors' camps, collapsing empires, and revolutionary possibility. The two discuss how speculative fiction can illuminate political struggle, not merely as metaphor but as a call to break the boundary between audience and participant. They explore what makes a work of art revolutionary rather than consumable, the dangers of reactionary storytelling in popular culture, declining literacy in the U.S., the threats posed by AI, the need for socialist transformation, and why imagination is a vital force in times of despair. From Le Guin to Kim Stanley Robinson to Lee Mandelo, they trace a lineage of speculative art that refuses cynicism and insists on transformation -- both political and personal. Check out our episode with Kim Stanely Robinson on his book "Ministry for the Future" HERE [https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/ministry-for-the-future] Subscribe to Workers Lit podcast on youtube HERE [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOSzBW-fDp7RPfyLBWQCUlw] ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio [https://www.patreon.com/revleftradio] Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio [https://buymeacoffee.com/revleftradio] Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/ [https://revleftradio.com/]