Out d’Coup Podcast

Out d'Coup | PA Public Park Privatization; New Restrictive Anti-Abortion Bill; and High Tech Wage Theft All in One Week! Sean Kitchen Breaks It Down

Today on Out d'Coup, Sean Kitchen fills us in on why his head nearly exploded yesterday after learning about PA legislators' plans to open up Pennsylvania's public parks to profiteers. And this time we can't just blame the Republicans - almost all PA Democrats were on board with the privatization scheme until Rep. Greg Vitali, a Democrat from Delaware County broke the consensus and came out strongly against the bill. And this one would have passed too, since it seemed that Gov. Tom Wolf was on board with the scheme. 

Then yesterday, a modified version of the high tech wage theft bill that Sean Kitchen has been reporting on passed the Senate yesterday with little opposition from Democrats. Only six representatives with strong records supporting workers voted in opposition. 

And, it wouldn't be Pennsylvania if there wasn't another restrictive anti-abortion bill to talk about. Last week state lawmakers - again, on a bi-partisan basis - were waging more attacks on women's access to medical care and abortion services. Monday's historic pro-choice Supreme Court decision only underscores that PA lawmakers are moving in the wrong direction.

  

The Sit Down | Amy Lynch-Biniek on the Need for Adjunct & Tenure-Line Solidarity in APSCUF Contract Fight

Today on the Sit Down, Dr. Amy Lynch-Biniek is back on the program to talk about the contract fight brewing in the PA State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). Amy is a faculty member in the English Department at Kutztown University and her research and writing engages questions of pedagogy, literacy, and labor studies. Her forthcoming book, Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor & Action in English Composition is a co-edited anthology with Seth Kahn & Bill Lalicker that explores the ways and means of labor reform on college campuses. She is the Chair of the State APSCUF Adjunct Faculty Committee and she is the current editor of Forum, a peer-edited journal from the National Council of Teachers of English.

The faculty union, APSCUF, has been working under an expired contract for almost a year. After refusing to negotiate for months, PASSHE negotiators showed up to the June 10th negotiation session with a contract proposal that seeks to fundamentally change - or “transform” labor conditions in Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities. Currently, APSCUF’s contract is considered by many in the higher education labor movement to be the gold standard when it comes to issues of parity, stability, and justice for adjunct faculty members. PASSHE seeks to change that. 

In an episode Raging Chicken Radio’s Out d’Coup on June 15, I discussed PASSHE’s full proposal in detail if you’re interested in getting into the weeds a bit. At the core of PASSHE’s proposal is an attempt to divide and conquer the faculty - pitting tenured and tenure-track faculty against adjunct faculty.  Amy wrote a piece for her blog this past Friday,  “Why the Contract’s Treatment of Temporary Faculty Members Matters to Tenure-line Faculty,” that makes a case for solidarity among adjunct, tenure-track, and tenured faculty.  Her article is now available on Raging Chicken Press as well.  I’m glad to have her on the program once again to talk about her article and APSCUF’s contract fight.

For related coverage check out: Kevin Mahoney's article on APSCUF's call for a strike vote.

Out d'Coup | Sean Kitchen Back from Vacation! We talk PennLive Grouping Peaceful Anti-Fracking Activists with the Ku Klux Klan; Election 2016 Catch Up; & Legalizing Marijuana in PA?

Today on Out d'Coup, Sean Kitchen is back from his vacation in the great mountain west! Was he lost in the Rockies or in one of Boulder's many marijuana dispensaries? We'll find out.

Plus, we'll talk about his most recent article calling out PennLive for grouping peaceful anti-fracking protesters with the Ku Klux Klan and right-wing white militias under the rubric of "Domestic Terror Threats." We talk about what this says about the state of establishment media and why we need to support independent progressive media. 

In the second segment, we talk about the next round in the fight to legalize marijuana for recreational use in PA. Sean discusses State Representative Jordan Harris's co-sponsorship memo in favor of legalization. We also get Sean's first-hand account of his experience navigating Colorado's marijuana dispensary system.

Finally, we talk Colorado craft beer and some upcoming craft beer events in PA. Hope you'll join us!

The Sit Down | Jason Del Gandio, Author of "Rhetoric for Radicals," on Communicating for Social Change, Bernie Sanders, and Activist Intellectuals in Academe

Today on The Sit Down we’re talking social movements and public intellectuals with Jason Del Gandio. We talk about the role of communication, language and rhetoric in building and sustaining social movements, the future of the political movement that coalesced around the Bernie Sanders campaign, and the role of activist intellectuals in higher education.

Del Gandio is a scholar-activist and Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy at Temple University. His scholarship focuses on the theory and practice of social justice, especially when it comes to activism and social movements.  He approaches these topics through the intersections of rhetoric, philosophy, and performance.  

His public writing has engages with issues such as corporate control, the rhetoric of the Obama and Bush administrations, immaterial labor, autonomy, performance art, the Occupy movement, spontaneous uprisings, and the relationship between neoliberalism and the university.  His writings have appeared in CounterPunch, Truth-out.org, Radical Philosophy Review, New Political Science, Dissident Voice, and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest.  

In his book, Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Activists, Del Gandio seeks to help activists focus on effective communication that is often lacking in even some more experienced activists. As he argues, radicals have important messages to deliver, but are often so caught up in the passion of their causes that they often suffer from a credibility gap because of their lack of coherent message and delivery. Rhetoric for Radicals is a guide that can help activists develop strategic communication skills to be effectively heard.

Jason is also the co-editor with Anthony Nocella of Educating for Action: Strategies to Ignite Social Justice, and The Terrorization of Dissent: Corporate Repression, Legal Corruption, and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

The Sit Down | Marlana Eck of Lehigh Valley Vanguard Talking Millennial Radicalism, Bernie Sanders, Citizen Media, and Working Class Activism

Today on The Sit Down we’re talking with Marlana Eck is the Founder of the Lehigh Valley Vanguard and co-founder of Rag Queen Periodical. We're talking Millennial radicalism, citizen media,  Bernie Sanders, and working class activism.

The Lehigh Valley Vanguard resides at the intersection of art and politics. The Vanguard features narratives which speculate on late capitalism, the efficacy of mainstream politics, explorations of identity, and the fetishization of market relationships (neoliberalism). 

Rag Queen Periodical, co-founded with Kailey Tedesco, features writing about the embodiment of womanhood, regardless of how that's manifested one’s life. Rag Queen deviates from neoliberal, corporate feminism; focusing instead on subverting the erasure of female agency and identity. Nuance, intersectionality, and evocative storytelling are Rag Queen’s signposts. www.RagQueenPeriodical.com/

Marlana is also President of the Board and founding member along with Rick Smith and yours truly of the Citizen Media Center. 

Marlana has published extensively on issues of class, labor, feminism, marginalization, and precarity. A small sampling of her publications include: 

- "The Responsibility of Déclassé Intellectuals" in The Déclassé Intellectual

- "Jesus Can’t Save Us From Capitalist Patriarchy: a Memoir," in Rag Queen Periodical

- How to be an Adjunct (and a Cliché)," in The Chronicle of Higher Education

- Decolonizing Writing and Critical Participation: a Year of Publishing on the Margins,” in Hybrid Pedagogy

- "Property Over People, or, What We Can Learn from Baltimore,” in Raging Chicken Press

Marlana holds a Master’s Degree in English Language and Literature from Kutztown Univesity; a Master’s in Globalization and Educational Change from Lehigh University; and, she is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 

Out d'Coup | Mahoney Goes Solo talking APSCUF Contract Fight. Sean Kitchen Lost in Mountain Wilderness

This week, Sean Kitchen is STILL on vacation in the great Mountain West. We fear he's lost in the wilderness with nothing but his cell phone and Instagram account. So, today, it's Kevin Mahoney going solo on Out d'Coup.

Today is of course the last primary in this year’s presidential election. It will take place in DC. I am sure that we are going to see lots of movement in the Democratic Party after tonight’s results come in and we’ll talk about that next week by way of recapping the road to the Democratic and Republican conventions in July. All eyes are on the next moves of the political movement that coalesced around Bernie Sanders; and, of course, what will be the next great circus act in the show that is Donald Trump.

But today we’re going to go with a little bit of a different format. Last night, that’s Monday, June 13, I was on the Rick Smith Show talking about the APSCUF contract fight with the PA State System of Higher Education. APSCUF is of course 5,500 member union that represents faculty and coaches in the PA State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). This past Friday, June 10, PASSHE basically dropped a 146 page proposal on the table after claiming for months it did not have any formal proposals - just “ideas.” The proposal amounted to a full-frontal attack on public higher education in Pennsylvania. Today I want to get in the weeds a bit and take a look at PASSHE’s contract proposal.

It’s got the makings of all the best right-wing tactics from their now familiar playbook: divide and conquer, destroy job security, shift power to highly-paid administrators, and turn education into a mindless process of producing cogs for the corporate machine. So, we’ll take a quick break now and then we’ll get into the weeds of a contract fight that might just lead to the first-ever strike by the faculty at the 14 state-owned universities in Pennsylvania.

Here's your resource list for this episode:

• Mahoney on the Rick Smith Show talking about APSCUF contract
• Raging Chicken article: "Wall Street on the Susquehanna," on PASSHE's Enron-style accounting schemes
• Background on PASSHE Chancellor, Frank Brogan's long association with education privatization as Jeb Bush's right-hand man in Florida
• PASSHE contract proposal
• APSCUF contract proposal

The Sit Down | Interview with Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth on Failings of Obama's Clean Energy Plan and Mobilizing for Clean Energy Revolution in Philly!

Today on The Sit Down we’re talking with Karen Feridun, the founder of Berks Gas Truth, a Kutztown, PA based grassroots community organization of over 600 concerned citizens fighting to stop unconventional natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania and across the country. 

Check out Berks Gas Truth here. You can also connect with them on Facebook and follow @BerksGasTruth on Twitter. 

We’ll be talking about a critique of Obama’s Clean Power Plan by the coalition Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, of which Berks Gas Truth is a member.  We'll also get Karen's take on former PA DEP Secretary John Quigley's email rant against his "friends" in the environmental movement. And, finally, we'll look ahead to the March for a Clean Energy Revolution on July 24th in Philadelphia. That’s on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. 

To read Pennsylvanians Against Fracking's critique of the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan, CLICK HERE.

Read John Quigley's email rant HERE.

 

Get the info on the July 24th March for a Clean Energy Revolution in Philadelphia RIGHT HERE.

And find a ride to the March RIGHT HERE. 

Out d'Coup | Episode 14 | Democratic Primary Day, Bankrupt Trade Policies, & APSCUF Contract Fight. Special Guest: Glenn Richardson

This week, Sean is on vacation in Boulder, Colorado, one of the craft brew meccas in the U.S. We hope to catch up with Sean later in the week to get an update on his Rocky Mountain high.

But today is a BIG DAY! Today California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota hold their primaries and Caucuses. The California race is, of course, the big kahuna, with its 546 delegates at stake. But in this increasingly tense race on the Democratic side, today’s final Super Tuesday can’t be without controversy. Last night, the AP and then NBC and others reported that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee based upon Democratic Party super delegate commitments. The fact that the media declared victory for Clinton before voters had a chance to vote today is leaving a sour taste in lots of people’s mouths. We’ll get into that with my surprise special guest on today’s Out d’Coup, Glenn Richardson!

Richardson is a Professor of Political Science at Kutztown University. He is the author of Pulp Politics: How Political Advertising Tells the Stories of American Politics published in a second edition by Rowman and Littlefield. He specializes in American government and political commmunication, especially campaigns and elections, political advertising, social media and news coverage of politics. His articles include "Visual Storytelling and the Competition for Political Meaning in Political Advertising and News in Campaign 2000," which earned the 2002 American Communication Journal Article of the Year Award; and "Ad Watch 3.0: Developing Audiovisual and Narrative Techniques for Engaging the Audiovisual Content of Political Advertising," in Poroi. He is currently working on projects focusing on the use of Twitter and politics and on political advertising.

Richardson is Chair of the state APSCUF Legislative Committee - APSCUF is the faculty union for the 14 state-owned universities in PA.

We’ll get Richardson’s take on today’s primaries, the tensions in the Democratic Party, and what’s happening in APSCUF’s current negotiations...faculty have been working without a contract for nearly a year.

The Sit Down | Interview with Paul Ricci from CSI Without Dead Bodies Blog. It's Statistics and Politics, Hate Groups and Forgotten Towns of PA

Editor's note: My apologies for the distracting audio. There was a lot of noise on Paul's end of the call. 

Today on The Sit Down, we talk with Paul Ricci who blogs over at CSI Without Dead Bodies. We're talking the 2016 election, organizing in the forgotten cities and towns of PA, and how the presidential candidates do in regions with lots of hate groups! It's stats and politics today on The Sit Down.