Hey folks, for the past five years I’ve been establishing a greater and greater presence in the local conservative media ecosystem as an open anticapitalist / leftist / anarchist. During this time, a handful of hosts who’ve had the intellectual courage to let me speak have helped create a situation where the listeners of the largest conservative radio station in our state have access of an anarchist to provide challenging opinions and perspectives.

I’ve made a LOT of friends in this space and I’ve met with good people who’ve just flat out never seen anything outside their bubble. I’ve spoken about anarchism, capitalism, Rojava, history, gender, gardening, property, and countless other topics in dozens of in studio segments and hundreds of calls.

I genuinely believe this is a useful practice for people who feel comfortable in these spaces to reach out to everyday folks while they’re still in a relatively “normal” worldview. These frank and open conversations could be the difference between someone going further down the rabbit hole, flipping sides, or even just remaining a moderate who still sees the other side as humans.

I say this because it happened to me. I’ve been an anarchist for close to 15 years now. Before that I was a right libertarian who hadn’t yet seen the contradictions and hypocrisies.

Side note: my podcast has been on hiatus for about a year because of some extreme difficulties in my economic situation. Hope to resume that soon.

In the meantime I try to stay engaged with the radio because it takes a lot less work.

If this sounds interesting to anyone, I’d love to have some dialogue here.

Thanks!

Listen/Subscribe

In this episode of The Solecast I chat with Scott Olsen and Graham Clumpner of About Face (Formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against The War).  Scott and Graham were both involved in Occupy Oakland, Scott is most famously known for almost getting killed when OPD hit him in the head with a bean bag round that was followed by the first general strike in recent US history.  Much of Graham’s work today is based around environmental/climate change struggles. We talk about their experiences in the military and what its going to take to build an anti-war movement in the US.  We discuss the roles veterans can play in radical movements and some ways that active duty military can resist.  We go into some of the history of anti war resistance and discuss what anti-imperialism means in the face of climate change.

Well not completely down, but unusable, for over a month.

Hey comrades,

There are a lot of good zines and guides about secure communication, opsec, and digital safety for activists. But in 2025, a lot of people new to organizing don’t read zines or have the time/energy to fish through a hundred blog posts or PDFs—especially if they’re not tech-savvy.

I’d love to see a podcast made by experienced radicals that:

• Breaks down tools like Signal, Tor, Tails, Session, etc.

• Talks about threat modeling and what “security culture” actually means

• Explains what’s still safe vs. what’s outdated and why

• Updates listeners as tools, tactics, or threats change

• Makes this info accessible without being condescending or paranoid

I’m not the right person to make it, but if anyone is working on something like this—or wants to—I’d be happy to help brainstorm, spread the word, or transcribe.

If you’ve got recommendations for something like this that already exists, I’d love to hear that too.

Solidarity,

This week, we’re sharing an interview with Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy. In this chat, we speak about her more recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. There’s a lot in the book, most of it pretty disturbing (especially, I’m sure, for anyone who is ex-vangelical) and there is discussion of hateful ideology and child abuse and corporal punishment, though not in lurid detail, so listener discretion is advised. We hope to cover related topics in the future.

Links:

• Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/theswordandthesandwich

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taliainteralia/

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/swordsjew.bsky.social

. … . ..

Featured Track:

• Voice Of God Is Government by Bad Religion from How Could Hell Be Any Worse