The Shadow of Nuclear Colonialism
The film Oppenheimer has reignited public interest in the Manhattan Project, the WWII-era secret program to develop the atomic bomb. But the movie leaves out important parts of the story. On today’s show, we hear about the impact of nuclear colonialism and the Manhattan Project on the people and places of New Mexico with Myrriah Gómez, author of Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex...
Toxic Tracks (Encore)
On today’s show, we’ll hear an encore of a show from our archives that first aired in April. We’ll be looking at the environmental impact of the rail industry and hear from people in two communities currently impacted by rail-related contamination. In February, a Suffolk Northern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and residents are still recovering from the disaster over two...
Pandemic and Profit (Encore)
On today’s show, we’ll revisit the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic by looking at two alternative supply chains for masks during the fallout from the Trump administration’s failure to prepare. We’ll be speaking with the ProPublica reporter David McSwane about his book Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick. The book details the shadowy supply chain of brokers...
Agitation to a System: Trans Resistance in Louisiana
Hundreds of bills targeting the trans and queer community have been introduced across state legislatures this year – a new record. Louisiana, like many other states, has seen a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session. But the state is somewhat of an outlier in the South, and activists have been successful in pushing back against these types of bills in the past. Sophie Ziegler joins today’s episode to show us what legislative...
Powerlands
On this week’s Making Contact, we feature an extended interview with Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a queer Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning documentary Powerlands. Powerlands traces how multinational energy corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows Indigenous activists in Navajo Nation, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines who...
The Nakba: 75 Years On
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, or the “catastrophe” in Arabic. It refers both to the events starting in late 1947, when Zionist militias expelled over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, and the ongoing destruction and occupation of their lands. Today, Palestinians continue to commemorate the Nakba by reclaiming their history, resisting the occupation, and calling for their right to return. We start...
