We’re in a five-alarm shit-storm of trouble to be sure, and the overlapping crises can feel overwhelming—racial reckoning, catastrophic capitalist climate collapse, a financial system that parodies a massive, out-of-control Ponzi scheme, a legislature impersonating a medieval auction block, and more. We meet up with Danny Katch to help us name this political moment. Danny offers a delightful and accessible primer on socialism as a living alternative, and he shows us that Love and Imagination are still durable weapons to deploy in our fight for freedom—he reminds us that socialism is for lovers, not losers.
Featured Poem:
Democracy, Langston Hughes
A poetic tribute to Vladimir Lenin:
Lenin walks around the world.
Black, brown, and white receive him.
Language is no barrier.
The strangest tongues believe him.Lenin walks around the world.
– Langston Hughes
The sun sets like a scar.
Between the darkness and the dawn
There rises a red star.
Free write:
Tell the story of a time when you gave someone a gift. What was it? Why’d you give it, and what happened, that is, what was the response, or what were the consequences?
Under the Tree Podcast 