Michael Dukakis on Campaign Jujitsu, Improving Obama’s Communications Strategy, and Occupy

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Monday December 26, 2011 · 8:00 AM PST

2011/12/26 · 08:00

Michael Dukakis was the 1988 Democratic nominee for president. He also served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975-1979 and 1983-1991.

On December 6th, I spoke with him about the lessons of ’88, Obama’s communications strategy, and the Occupy movement.

[Note: This interview was originally published here.]

TheWheatAndChaff

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Wednesday November 30, 2011 · 7:46 AM PST

2011/11/30 · 07:46

In October of 2009, MP David Bahati introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan Parliament. The bill – which proposed the death penalty for homosexuality – immediately became infamous around the world.

At that time, Val Kalende was a veteran activist in the struggle for LGBT rights in Uganda.

Kalende had come out in 2003 when, as a student at Makerere University in Kampala, she co-founded the country’s first lesbian activist organization, Freedom and Roam Uganda. “The idea was to come out and to be political,” she says, “and to actually start demanding rights from the government.” Two years later, in 2005, Kalende helped reestablish Sexual Minorities Uganda, which has since become a network of LGBT groups in Uganda.

* * *
In the weeks after the introduction of Bahati’s bill, Kalende agreed to be interviewed about her sexuality in a cover story for a national newsmagazine called The Daily Monitor. In a country in which homosexuality is widely viewed with suspicion, misunderstanding, and outright enmity, the interview was an act of enormous courage.

* * *

Today, Kalende is a second-year master of theological studies student at the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA. In the interview that follows, Kalende and I discuss how her understanding of God has evolved as she has come to terms with both her sexuality and her calling as an activist. We also discuss the various roles that religion has played in the homosexuality debate in Uganda.

Note: this interview originally appeared at The Wheat and Chaff.

TheWheatAndChaff

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Sunday November 06, 2011 · 12:37 PM PST

2011/11/06 · 12:37

In the early 1960′s, Marshall Ganz dropped out of Harvard to join the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. He then spent 16 years working with César Chávez and the United Farm Workers before returning to Harvard to finish his BA and earn a Ph.D. in sociology. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he architected Barack Obama’s organizing effort.

Ganz currently teaches at Harvard Kennedy School. In 2010, he published Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement.

This interview took place via telephone on October 28. It originally appeared at The Wheat and Chaff.

TheWheatAndChaff

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Thursday November 03, 2011 · 7:38 PM PDT

2011/11/03 · 19:38

Timothy Patrick McCarthy is core faculty and director of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He also served as a founding member of Barack Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council.

McCarthy’s books include: The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition (New Press, 2003), now in its second printing; Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (New Press, 2006); and Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (New Press, 2010).

TheWheatAndChaff

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Wednesday November 02, 2011 · 6:59 PM PDT

2011/11/02 · 18:59

Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. In 1963-64, Gitlin served as the third president of Students for a Democratic Society. Later, he helped organize the first national demonstration against the Vietnam War and the first American demonstrations against corporate aid to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Gitlin is the author of fourteen books and has written for a wide range of periodicals.

This interview took via telephone on Saturday, October 15.

MATT: During a panel last week at Harvard’s Kennedy School, you suggested that there’s a key difference between the Occupy Movement and other social movements. While most social movements begin with sparse public support, the Occupy Movement begins with potentially widespread support for its goal of reducing wealth inequality. Say more about this distinction and what it might mean for the Occupy Movement.

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Michael Dukakis on Campaign Jujitsu, Improving Obama’s Communications Strategy, and Occupy

Religion and Reckless Courage: Activist Val Kalende on the Fight for LGBT Rights in Uganda

Marshall Ganz, Obama’s 2008 Organizer-in-Chief, on the Moral Urgency of Occupy Wall Street

Harvard Professor and LGBT Activist Tim McCarthy on Life as a Second-Class Citizen

“Desperation and Wild Inspired Hope”: Todd Gitlin on Why the Occupy Movement is Different