Rag Radio:
Representatives of the Occupy movement
discuss activist projects in Austin
By Rag Radio | The Rag Blog | February 29, 2012
A group of Austin activists discussed the Occupy Austin movement with host Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio last Friday, February 24, 2012.
Listen to the show here.
Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
They talked about Occupy Austin, and plans for Occupy Southby — a series of events, including the Million Musicians March for Peace, a yearly Austin tradition — scheduled to occur during the massive South by Southwest music, film, and interactive festival, March 9-March 18, 2012.
Representatives of Occupy UT discussed the movement on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, including plans for a Teach-In and other events scheduled for Thursday, March 1, on the UT campus. And the group also included representatives of the Legion Co-Op Coffeehouse, a soon-to-open worker-owned coffeehouse that grew out of the occupy movement in Austin.
The guests included Richard Bowden, an Austin fiddler extraordinaire, long-time peace activist, and primary organizer of the Million Musicians March for Peace, Austin’s unique, musician-led, annual community peace event. Joining Bowden on the show was Austin-based singer-songwriter Mo McMorrow, who has also worked as a visual artist, actress, and stand-up comic. McMorrow and Bowden performed live during the show.
Others on the program included Joe Cooper, who has been involved in Occupy Austin since the first planning meeting in September 2011, and was present almost daily during the four months of the 24/7 occupation; and Lucian Villaseñor, a student in Mexican-American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and an intern with the Workers Defense Project, who is a primary organizer of Occupy UT.
Also, Nate Cowan, an organizer of the worker-owned Legion Co-Op Coffeehouse, who has been a peace activist since high school, where he started Youth Activists of Austin to fight military recruiting in schools, and who has worked full-time with Occupy Austin; and Brian J. Overman, a writer and video producer, who is also an Occupy Austin activist and a developer of the cooperative coffeehouse which organizers envision as both a “sustainable economic model and a safe space for local activists.”
This episode of Rag Radio was produced during the spring membership drive of KOOP 91-7-FM, Austin’s cooperatively-run community radio station; fundraising pitches, underwriting announcements, and recorded music have not been edited out of the podcast.
Rag Radio, which has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history.
Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP and streamed live on the web. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.
Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Tracey Schulz is the show’s engineer and co-producer.
Coming up on Rag Radio:
March 2, 2012: Music writer Margaret Moser and screen actor Sonny Carl Davis on the movie, Roadie, the Austin Music Awards, and SXSW.
March 16, 2012: Journalist and labor activist David Bacon on how U.S. policies fueled Mexico’s great migration.
