Conversations from the Edge of Chaos [videos]
With Medea Benjamin, Richard Wolff, and Sonali Kolhatkar.
Violence in the streets, vengeance in the air: this week’s Zero Hour conversations address our American chaos in three ways.
Medea Benjamin: Free Speech is Under Siege
The problem isn’t speech. It is the structure of oppression.
The peace group Code Pink found itself at the center of the whirlwind after the killing of Charlie Kirk, when Trump and the MAGA right sought to use that murder to silence voices of opposition. We spoke with the group’s co-founder, Medea Benjamin, who had been arrested earlier in the week for attempting to ask a Congressman a question.
We discussed the escalating repression of dissent in the U.S., particularly against Code Pink and pro-Palestinian activists, under both Biden and Trump. We agreed on the pressing need for grassroots solidarity, structural reform, and louder citizen activism in the face of creeping authoritarianism.
Richard Wolff: The Empire’s Final Act
Like empires before it, America turns to force when legitimacy fails—but decline also brings opportunity for change.
Empires end, not with renewal, but with repression. Rome had bread and circuses; we have drone strikes, flotilla blockades, and military occupations in our own cities. The through-line is the same: a ruling class unable to sustain its power through legitimacy will always resort to force. Today, as Professor Wolff and I discussed, the United States has entered this imperial pattern. The real choice is whether we accept this decline disguised as order—or tell a new story rooted in justice, truth, and democracy for everyone.
Sonali Kolhatkar: ICE Invades America
Zero Hour Senior Correspondent Sonali Kolhatkar and I discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling on ICE raids in Los Angeles. That ruling has effectively legalized racial profiling, empowering the government to detain people arbitrarily and accelerating the country’s drift toward authoritarianism. The U.S. is prioritizing militarization over social investment and pouring resources into paramilitary forces, while cutting the very programs that reduce inequality and keep communities safe. Trump’s deliberate targeting of racially diverse, Democratic-led cities exposes the racialized nature of this strategy, weaponizing demographics for political gain. Sonali and I discuss the implications of this assault and explore the best ways to resist it.
