Moshe Kasher’s podcast Hound Tall takes several comedians and one expert on a subject and makes either a glorious or terrible mess of things. When the podcast is great, it is so great. And when it misses, it really misses. Last year I watched the electronic music episode and it was so much more than I thought it would be. This year the topic was “Planning a Non-Violent Revolution in the Age of Trump”. The topic was exactly what I needed, and maybe what everyone needs after spending a day being inspired by the Women’s Marches around the country.
I’m not sure what to say about witnessing the recording of this podcast. It was intense and so full of information my head was feeling overly full of new information. But being in that room after the day of marches and the terrible inauguration felt so good. Not only was it a vocal crowd and panel of like minded people, but it was so full of hope. There were so many suggestions and ideas and discussions of how non-violent protest really can work. Which is exactly what I needed to hear on that sad, sad weekend.
As for the actual quality of the show, Moshe Kasher did an amazing job keeping the panel focused and asking leading questions. He seemed extra engaged and excited to speak on this topic and added another level of passion to what was going on. The expert, Paul Engler was excellent too, and perfect for the topic having written the book This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. He had a lot to say and did argue a bit with the rest of the panel when he felt they were not aware of the facts he was aware of.
The panel was also an excellent one for the topic. Nato Green has had a fair amount of experience in protesting and politics and had a lot of intelligent things to say. Eddie Pepitone’s anger was fun, but sadly he kept being stopped from going on a full angry rant by Kasher who was trying to keep the discussion focused. I really enjoyed Solomon Georgio who is an impassioned and interesting man. He added a lot of ideas and fun quips to the conversation. He was so good I’m going to have to seek out more from him in the future.
The best part was this podcast gave ideas and hope for how to continue the fight in the future. The two main things that I will share just in case you don’t listen to it (though you should!) are as follows. First, it statistically takes 3.5% of the population doing a non-violent march to overthrow the government. On Saturday for the women’s march we got just over 1%, which is a huge accomplishment. So we just need two friends of everyone who went to go to the next one. Second, it requires training and organization to maintain and escalate these numbers of non-violent protesters and the best way to do this is to join an already existing progressive organization. I am working on picking one myself, luckily we have the benefit/challenge of a large amount of these in the bay area. If you want a huge list of them you can start with the Bay Area Progressive Directory. If you want to start with some suggestions, Paul Engler suggested starting with MoveOn and Solomon Georgio suggested (I think I heard him right) the JL USA. And listen to the podcast for many more inspiring and hopeful words than what I could possibly give you.
