A Public Affair Patty Peltekos, Carousel Bayrd, Ali Muldrow, Allen Ruff, & Esty Dinur

In his new book Matt Huber argues that at its root, climate change is a class problem. He joins us on A Public Affair to highlight how the climate struggle needs to focus on production in carbon-intensive industries as he argues in Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet.

Matthew T. Huber is Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is formerly the author of Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of Capital (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

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Joining Allen Ruff on this summer pledge drive addition of A Public Affair is Jon Melrod. A life-long activist and organizer, Melrod is the author of the new book  Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War.







At its heart, the book is a radical memoir that recounts his thirteen-year 1970s-‘80s journey to organize and advance working-class militancy on the shop floor of American Motors in Milwaukee and Kenosha, WI.





Listeners can use the code: FIGHTING for a 40% discount of the book.















Jonathan Melrod grew up in apartheid-like Washington DC. Active in the student movement that opposed the Vietnam War and a supporter of black liberation, Jon embraced the ideology that the working class held the power to radically transform society. He left the campus for the factory in 1973. For thirteen years, he immersed himself in the day-to-day struggles of Milwaukee’s working class, both on the factory floor and in the political arena. Despite FBI surveillance and interference, Jon organized a militant rank-and-file caucus and rose through union ranks to a top leadership position in UAW Local 72. After a mass workforce cutback imposed by AMC’s joint venture partner Renault, he left to attend Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1985. Graduating cum laude with a JD, he opened a law firm in San Francisco, successfully representing hundreds of political refugees.

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When Forward Theater Company’s Jen Uphoff Gray first thought about creating a festival featuring new plays, she was hoping to make Wisconsin a place that celebrates and welcomes playwriters and performers. She joins A Public Affair to talk about the inaugural statewide festival and all the new plays and musicals that are a part of it.

World Premiere Wisconsin kicked off on March 1st and shows continue through June. A full schedule can be found here.

Jen Uphoff Gray is the artistic director of Forward Theater Company. Regionally, she has directed for Madison Rep, Milwaukee Shakespeare, and Four Seasons Theatre. She directed the National Tour of Copenhagen, and was Associate Director on Broadway of Copenhagen, Cabaret, The Blue Room and The Life.

Photo by Rob Laughter on Unsplash

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The birth of her own child sent Linda Janet Holmes on a journey to find a better way. In her forthcoming book, which Ms. Magazine has dubbed one of the “Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023,” she brings the voices of African midwifes and African American midwifes to the reader. 

She joins us on A Public Affair to talk about Safe in a Midwife’s Hands: Birthing Traditions from Africa to the American South which will be published in June.

 

Linda Janet Holmes is an independent scholar and a women’s health activist. She is the former director of New Jersey’s Office of Minority and Multicultural Health. Her writing has contributed to a resurgence of international recognition of the significance of African American midwifery practices. Previous books that she has authored, coauthored, or coedited include Listen to Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife, A Joyous Revolt: Toni Cade Bambara, Writer and Activist, and Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara.

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This Memorial Day, guest host David Ahrens is joined by two of the musicians behind a historical rock and roll musical. Ken Fitzsimmons and Sean Michael Dargan were part of the production team that first performed “The Greatest War: World War I, Wisconsin, and Why it Still Matters” in front of a sold out crowd on November 11, 2018 at the Barrymore. They preformed a second show in 2019.

Today’s program is just a taste of what those audiences experienced. We play music from the show preformed by The Kissers, Hanah Jon Taylor, Sean Michael Dargan, The November Criminals, and The Viper & His Famous Orchestra.

Ken Fitzsimmons is the frontman for Madison-based Celtic band The Kissers. He is the Education Director at Madison Music Foundry. Ken’s interest in the WWI era grew from his study of Irish music and the significance of that time in Ireland’s history. Ken’s grandfather was a POW in WWII and his father was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

Sean Michael Dargan is a professional singer, songwriter, guitar player, and highland bagpiper. He has a deep interest in military history, and even was the piper for a British army reenacting group that portrayed WWI BEF units.

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Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Conley said it was unlikely he would rule to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline on the Bad River reservation. This is despite recent erosion on the river bank that has raised concerns of exposure and eruption of the pipeline. Conley claimed that the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa didn’t sufficiently prove the erosion was an emergency.

A history of Line 5 can be found on the Sierra Club website.

Joining us to talk about the pipeline and efforts to shut it down are Communities United by Water’s Barbara With, Midwest Environmental Advocates’ Rob Lee, and Sierra Club’s Elizabeth Ward.

Barbara With is the co-founder of Wisconsin Citizens Media Coop and Communities United by Water. She lives in Lake Superior on Madeline Island and has been reporting on water issues since 2011. She was part of Harvest Education Learning Project (HELP) Camp to protect Northern Wisconsin from an open mine, participated the effort in Standing Rock to protect the water from Dakota Access Pipeline, and was arrested on Enbridge Line 3 in the summer of 2021. Barbara is currently working to stop a devastating rupture of Enbridge Line 5 running through the Bad River Reservation.

Rob Lee is a staff attorney at Midwest Environmental Advocates, a non-profit environmental law center in Madison, Wisconsin, where he works on a variety of issues including oil pipeline regulation, wetland and waterway permitting, and protecting the Great Lakes.

Elizabeth Ward is the Director of the Wisconsin branch of the Sierra Club which works to prevent a climate catastrophe and protect Wisconsin’s lands, water, and wildlife.

Photo by Salomé Guruli on Unsplash

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