• Feed Drop: The Anti-Authoritarian Podcast on Choosing Democracy
    Dec 29 2025

    We are off until the new calendar year. In the meantime we hope you enjoy a sampling of episodes from our network of podcasts!

    Episode Description from November 14, 2024: Following last week's elections, Scot and Sue are joined by Daniel Hunter, co-founder of Choose Democracy, to discuss how we respond to authoritarians emboldened by the election results. In the episode, they take a deeper look together at Daniel's recent post-election essay 10 Ways to Be Prepared and Grounded Now That Trump Has Won (first published by Waging Nonviolence and then shared by Convergence). What should we be doing to defend our democratic institutions? What can we learn from other countries fighting the rise of authoritarianism in their borders? Daniel also touches on the transformative power of trusting ourselves and making space for grieving in movement work.

    Subscribe to the Anti-Authoritarian Podcast for more.

    Support our end-of-year fundraising drive.

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    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
    • Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the show live: Fridays at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT
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    47 Min.
  • Feed Drop: Dear Rad Ops on Multi-Entity Infrastructure
    Dec 22 2025

    We are off until the new calendar year. In the meantime we hope you enjoy a sampling of episodes from our network of podcasts!

    In this episode, Sha Grogan-Brown talks with guest Le Tim Ly, Chief Operating Officer of Center for Empowered Politics, about how multi-entity infrastructure can improve the resilience of organizations.

    Subscribe to the Rad Ops Podcast for more.

    Support our end-of-year fundraising drive.

    Connect with Block & Build and more
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
    • Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the show live: Fridays at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT
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    12 Min.
  • We Will Rise Again w/ Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, Malka Older
    Dec 15 2025

    This week on the show we are joined by the editors of the new anthology We Will Rise Again, Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz (@ghidorahnotweak), and Malka Older. The book is a collection of speculative stories and essays on protest, resistance, and hope, which champions realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories of writers from around the world. To assemble the book they put writers, organizers, scholars, and others in conversation with one another to dive deep on the messy work of making change.

    Read a story from the book online! "Where Memory Meets the Sea" by Laia Asieo Odo was previewed at Electric Literature.

    Support our end-of-year fundraiser.

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    • Movement Media Alliance
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
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    Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Convergence’s Bookshop. Purchases made through our bookshop support our movement media work!

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    50 Min.
  • Reimagining Philanthropy w/ Chris Landry and Maribel Morey
    Dec 8 2025

    Producer and director Chris Landry's new film series Reimagining Philanthropy critically examines the issue of philanthropy as the financial driver of movement and social justice work, and how movement leaders believe it can be fixed. Joining Chris is historian of US philanthropy and the author of White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation's “An American Dilemma” and the Making of a White World, Dr. Maribel Morey. Dr. Morey appears in the series' first episode, alongside many other leading voices reshaping the field and challenging long-held assumptions about how philanthropy operates.

    Connect with Block & Build and more
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
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    • Movement Media Alliance

    Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Convergence's Bookshop. Purchases made through our bookshop support our movement media work.

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    47 Min.
  • The Attention Economy Navigator, November 2025 w/ Nima Shirazi
    Nov 24 2025

    This week on the show we are debuting a new format we’re calling the Attention Economy Navigator. The goal of Block & Build has always been to help organizers figure out what’s happening, how people are responding, and get a sense for what’s working out there in the world. The Attention Economy Navigator came out of a conversation Cayden had at the Narrative Power Summit about Naomi Klein’s 2023 book, Doppelganger. An interesting takeaway from the book is that Klein suggests a new political spectrum in addition to left and right defining political division in our society, and the determining factor is how prominently conspiratorial thinking shapes our political views.

    Joining to help build this month's Attention Economy Navigator in real time are Convergence Managing Editor, Akin Olla, and co-host of the Citations Needed podcast, Nima Shirazi.

    Before diving in, we are joined by co-founder and co-director at Siembra NC, Nikki Marín Baena, to discuss what organizing's happening on the ground in North Carolina with ICE's recent mobilization in the region.

    This month's navigator chart can be found here.

    Stories we referenced in this episode:

    • Corporate media refuses to report on racism from sitting GOP politicians against Zohran Mamdani at In These Times.
    • Electronic Arts is taken private by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, for some $55bn at PC Gamer.
    • The AI bubble is bigger than you think at The American Prospect.
    • Is the MAGA Era "over?" Some mainstream media seems to think so, like The Boston Globe.
    • The US and Russia put together a "peace plan" based mainly on Ukrainian capitulation, at The Guardian.
    • FAIR's roundup of corporate media's refusal to cover the Handala hack vs. Drop Site News's analysis of the data dump.
    • This horrible Charlie Kirk memorial AI slop song, we're sorry. It's like Creed, but worse.
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    1 Std. und 21 Min.
  • How Communities Organized Zohran's Win w/ Alicè Nascimento, Jagpreet Singh, and Alina Shen
    Nov 17 2025

    This week on the show, we will first talk about how on the ground organizing was a factor in Zohran Mamdani’s historic 10-point victory in the New York City Mayoral election last week. We are joined by a panel of leaders from different local organizations who worked on the campaign to learn more about their work and strategies.

    Guests Include
    • Organizing Director of CAAAV Voice (Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence), Alina Shen
    • Political Director of DRUM Beats (Desis Rising Up and Moving), Jagpreet Singh
    • Policy Director of New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Alicé Nascimento

    Then we talk with activist Rafael Uzcátegui, who has been part of the Venezuelan human rights movement for decades. He discusses how the American Left can orient itself to show solidarity as Trump aggressively pursues violent intervention in and around the country.

    Connect with Block & Build and more
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
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    1 Std. und 15 Min.
  • Organizing for Tenant Power w/Josh Poe
    Nov 10 2025

    In this episode, we are joined by Co-Founder and Organizing Director of Kentucky Tenants Union, Josh Poe to discuss how their organizing strategy successfully bringing people together to fight and win against landlords and beyond in a red state.

    Resources from this episode
    • Kentucky Tenants Union Linktree
    • Tenant Union Federation
    • "NYC-DSA Strategy in Zohran's Race Shows the Path to Mass Municipal Governance" - Grace Mausser, Convergence Magazine
    Connect with Block & Build and more
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
    • Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the show live: Fridays at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT
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    46 Min.
  • Listen to This When Things Fall Apart w/ Kelly Hayes
    Nov 3 2025

    This week on the show we are joined by Chicago-based writer, organizer, and podcaster Kelly Hayes, whose new edited volume, Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, is out November 4 from AK Press. You may also know Kelly from their excellent podcast, Movement Memos, their newsletter, “Organizing My Thoughts,” or their previous book, with Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You.

    Connect with Block & Build and more
    • Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com
    • Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the show live: Fridays at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT
    • Support this show and movement media like it: convergencemag.com/donate
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    48 Min.