The Counterpower Half Hour

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two anarchists who immigrated from Italy to the United States in the early 20th century. They were arrested and convicted of robbery and murder, and were executed in 1927. The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was internationally criticized because the men were found guilty and executed, but there was little evidence that tied the men to the crime, and it was widely believed that the men were targeted because they were Italian and anarchist. The protests against the verdict and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti were one of the first international protests by the masses, in which global political organizations and global communications were used together to foster mass mobilization. In this episode, we look at what led to the trial, the international scope of the protests against the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the legacy of the two men.

Ever since President George W. Bush’s Iraq War, there’s been revived interest in the military-industrial complex. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously discussed the “unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex” in his farewell speech in 1961. But Eisenhower wasn’t the only one to warn against, or critique, the military-industrial complex. In this episode, we look at some conceptions of, and arguments against, America’s military-industrial complex by President Eisenhower, Major General Smedley Butler, and Juan Bosch, first elected president of the Dominican Republic.

Henry David Thoreau is one of those historical figures that’s admired by people across the political spectrum. Liberals, socialists, conservatives, and libertarians all look to him for guidance in their own politics. He’s most known for his book Walden, but his political thought has an extremely important place in history. His essay Civil Disobedience influenced major figures who fought for justice, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. In this episode, we examine the life and thought of the radical Thoreau.

When we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, we tend to think of them as opposites. King is thought of in terms of nonviolence and integration, while Malcolm is characterized by violence and hate. At the time of King’s death in 1968, black leaders thought of them as alternatives between which black people had to choose, instead of thinking of them as both offering answers to the problems of African-Americans. In this episode, we challenge these conceptions by examining how King’s and Malcolm’s thought moved towards one another’s towards the end of their lives.

The violation of citizens' privacy by their governments has become a huge issue in recent years. But state surveillance of citizens isn't anything new. In this episode, we examine COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterintelligence program during the 1950s and 1960s which targeted political dissenters and challengers of the status quo.

In this episode, we examine the rise of the New Right, a populist conservative movement that originated in the 1960s. The characteristics of the New Right can help us look at some of the issues that led to Trump’s presidential win in 2016, as well as the appeal of Trump today.