Vaya Con Muñoz 7.31.21

This week we are joined by our regulars Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, and Nathaniel Waring, and we discuss Biden’s recent announcement about federal workers and vaccines; whether we are wearing masks, and why; the Olympics, and how the pandemic has affected the athletes; Simone Biles, and what her choice to sit out of the team event means for gymnastics and humanity alike; a spy program out of Israel, and whether we should be more afraid of spying, or identify theft online; how algorithms predict our online behavior, and what we can do to try and avoid them; the January 6th hearings, and what they have to do with white supremacy;and the life expectancy dropping, and what factors lead us here.

Vaya Con Muñoz 7.24.21

Vaya Con Muñoz 7.10.21

This week on Vaya we are joined by our regulars Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, and Nathaniel Waring to discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and what’s different about this batch of anti-vaxxers; how extremist religion primes people to be taken in by the likes of QAnon; how white Christianity differs from black Christianity, and how the history of white supremacy and colonialism being held up by Christianity effects that difference; what GOP obstructionism is aiming to do, and how the arch of justice is forcing their hands; how the cultural homogenization of white ethnic groups has led to a loss of cultural identity, and how that plays into the QAnon and GOP cult of personality; how the advent of smartphones has changed the way that we hold people accountable, and how social media is working to take that power back away from us; how the erosion of the voting rights act has lead us to republican voters suppression; Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the social media world, and what will come from it; modern lynchings, and whether having a record of them has or hasn’t changed things

Vaya Con Muñoz 7.3.21

This week we are joined by our regular guests, Matt Szafranski, Kate Albright-Hanna, and Nathaniel Waring to discuss what is happening in the mayoral race in Holyoke, and what the candidates OCPF (or lack there of) says about their seriousness in the coming election; how the rash of heat related deaths in the states and Canida is connected to a lack of access to social services, and how we can fix that; The climate change movement, and why it’s had trouble gaining traction like similar social justice movements; what we can do as individuals to help lessen the effects of climate change, and what our not doing those things says about our commitment to the cause; the enviornmental cost of cell phones and social media, and the societal and interpersonal costs of social interaction moving online; Some of the lessions we have learned, or have failed to learn, during the pandemic, and what we can do to learn from them in hindsight; what can be done to rehabilitate social media and online life to make it more condusive to human nature; how we are dealing with coming out of a pandemic, and how inertia plays into people being comfortable in their current state; and what the future of the Coronavirus will look like in the US, and what can be done to apply the lessons learned to other viruses.

Vaya Con Muñoz 6/26/21

This week on the show we are joined by our regular guests, Nathaniel Waring, Tanisha Arena, Kate Albright-Hanna, and Matt Szafranski to discuss Sonia Chang Diaz’s announcement that she will be seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor, and why Martha Healey’s name keeps coming up when we talk about the Governor’s race; about how the Massachusetts democratic party differs from its counterparts in other states, and how that plays into the action (or inaction) that our legislature takes; Juneteenth becoming a national holiday, and how it’s just window dressing if the bill doesn’t have some teeth; India Walton’s victory in Buffalo NY and what it means for Socialists countrywide; Bipartisanship and the filibuster, and how the left wing and the right wing are both from the same bird; Joe Manchin’s obstruction, and how the demographics of West Virginia play into his actions; and Patriarchy versus Matriarchy, and how things have changed in the last 20,000 years.

Vaya Con Muñoz 6.19.21

This week Natalia is joined by Kate Albright-Hanna, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring to discuss the Springfield City council enforcing a new rule that would end city council meetings at 10:00 pm, and how Holyoke City Council could use to take a cue from them; Danielle Allen’s recent announcement that she is running for Governor of Massachusetts, and how we feel about her passionate plee in her first campaign ad, and how it relates to Kate and Nathaniel’s own reasons for running for office; What it would mean for the State if Maura Healey ran for Governor, and left her position as Attorney General; The defund the police movement in Northampton, and how their reaction to the newly created Department of Community Care’s proposed budget helps or hurts thier goals; A republican member of congress’s reaction to meeting one of the capitol police officers who was present on Jan 6th, and how it plays into the greater GOP disconnect from the truth; How the news plays into GOP conspiracy theories, and how a large part of our country not trusting the mainstream news has lead us to where we are now; The supreme court’s recent refusal to hear a challenge on the Affordable Care Act, and what it means for the respectability of the current court; the Juneteeth holiday, what it is about, and what a near unanamous decision by the Senate to make it a national holiday says about the state of politics in which bipartisanship is all but impossible.

Vaya Con Muñoz 6.12.21

This week Natalia is joined by our regular pannellists Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring to discuss Juneteenth, and how Massachusetts will be officially observing the holiday this year; Springfield police commissioner Clapproodt’s issues with racism, and why a group of springfield seniors have called for her resignation; why a recent judge’s decision to uphold the springfield city council’s decision to go back to a police commision, rather than a single commissioner , complicates the issue; The American Rescue Plan, and where the money that Springfield got from it is going to go; the recent appointment of the former head of the election commission for springfield Gladys Oyola-Lopez, and how Mayor Sarno made the process more complicated with his nomination; whether Democrats are experiencing burnout after the 2020 election, and what that will mean for the 2022 midterms; what redistricting will mean following the 2020 cencus, and what the gerrymandering will mean forfuture elections; Joe Manchin’s reluctance to end the fillibuster and support the For The People Act, and what can be done to influence him between now and 2022; how immigration policy and the concept of unskilled labor intersect, and what can be done to both make our immigration polcies more fair while also making wages more fair; why immigration is fundementally a part of the American experiment, and why it’s important for America in 2021 and beyond

Vaya Con Muñoz 6.5.21

This week we are joined by our rebular pannelists, Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring, to discuss the recent article about the NFL blocking black players from accessing traumatic brain injury setttlement funds because of their race, and how it plays into the greater systemic racism in America; Lord Jeffrey Amherst, and his legacy of destruction; the 215 bodies of indigenous children found under a Canadian school, and how those schools were an integral part of the cultural genocide perpetuated against the Native Americans; East West rail, and what the Baker administration does – or doesn’t – have to do with it taking forever to materialize; And how reparations would work, and what the underlying message it would send about the history of our country;

Vaya Con Muñoz 5.29.21

This week our panelists, Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel join Natalia is discussing the upcoming election in Springfield, and what’s going to happen to Adam Gomez’s old council seat; how Springfields voter turnout efforts of late have played out, and what we can except for turnout this fall; Canada’s prime minister’s recent appology to Italian Canadians who were interned durring World War II, and how that relates to other internments that the US and others have imposed on different groups; what we can learn from oral tradition around the world, and why we should pay more attention to the women throughout history; former Springfield diocese priest Lavigne’s recent death, and why it took 50 years for law enforcement to formally accuse him of the murder of a 13 year old altar boy, Danny Croteau; how we can draw parallels between what is happening in Palestine with other conflicts worldwide and through history; how the media protrays looting accross racial lines, and how it’s part of systemic racism; the recent international incident in Belarus, and how it plays into the other conflicts happening around the world; and the intermin Mayor of Holyoke’s recent decision to recind former mayor Morse’s racism declaration, and why he felt like he needed to do so.

Vaya Con Muñoz 5.22.21

This week our engineer Nathaniel Waring fills in for Natalia and is joined by Kate Albright-Hanna and Matt Szafranski to talk about the January 6th commision vote, and whether the senate will pass the bill passed in the house; if a democrat led investigation in the house would be able to get past calls of non-partisanship, and if that even matters given players in the inserection potentially being Republican members of congress; the recently declassified UFO videos released by the Biden administration, and what it means for believers that aliens are among us; the Hartford Current’s looming takeover by Alden, and how it plays into the ongoing trend of local newspapers being gobbled up by conglomerates; how Billionaires buying up media outfits is part of their power grab, and how money hoarding is as much a problem as any other types of hoarding; what the so called labor shortage says about the working conditions and pay in the service industry; the confusion around an OCPF filing by the acting mayor of Holyoke, and what it means for the field of candidates; and how the youth of america are becoming politically motivated in a way we haven’t seen in generations.