Hear the story of how one tough-as-nails group of young women took on a huge corporation whose celebrity pitchman glorified rape in a rap lyric... and how these women pushed and pushed and pushed until a whole lot of powerful people, after far too long, woke up. Ultraviolet versus Reebok: the Rick Ross Rumble. 

A year ago, our founding producer Aaron Swartz guest-hosted an episode of The Flaming Sword of Justice when Ben Wikler was out of town. Four months ago, facing trial, Aaron took his own life. Today, in his memory—and in support of the Demand Progress and Internet Defense League Week of Action, which is working to reform the unjust Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that was used to charge Aaron—we're airing his episode for the first time.

You'll hear Aaron interview Mike "Rortybomb" Konczal, who tells the story of how he went from being a financial engineer to a leading voice for regulatory reform. And then you'll hear an interview of Aaron by Ruairi McKiernan, an Irish activist and youth organizer, which you can also see on YouTube here, where Aaron explains how he became an activist.

As you listen, please sign the petition calling for justice for Aaron and share this episode in your social forum of choice. And if you're in Boston, please make plans to attend the rally this Saturday, starting at noon in Dewey Square Park.

When a billion-dollar private prison company donates millions to your university in exchange for the right to name your new athletic stadium, what do you do? Our guests today had one answer: fight back. The inside story of a campaign nobody thought could succeed, by the people who won it. 

Social Security benefit cuts: bad idea, or spectacularly awful idea? On today's episode, we explore this complex question with help from two key voices in the debate: Max Richtman, who received an in-person, direct commitment from the President of the United States just a few months ago that the White House wouldn't cut Social Security, and Sarita Gupta, who is helping lead a national conversation about how, as a society, we should handle the aging of the baby boom generation. 

In the course of the show, your host comes to a totally new understanding of the Social Security fight... and how there's a much deeper, richer debate we should be having instead.

Social Security is under attack. And we've traced the cuts. They're coming from inside the party. 

On today's Flaming Sword of Justice, we report to the barricades, bringing you inside the front lines of the fight to make sure America's most important social insurance program remains untouched. Our guests are some of the central strategists in what could well be one of the defining political battles of the year: the leaders of MoveOn, Social Security Works, CREDO, and the PCCC. Tune in and mount up... the battle is on.

When the AP announced this week that it would stop using the phrase "illegal immigrant," American media (and Americans in general) took notice. But in all the many, many news accounts of the AP's decision, few reporters acknowledged the highly coordinated, strategic, and empathic campaign that made it happen—a campaign that built on work by leaders and citizens in social movements dating back decades. Our guest, Monica Novoa, the coordinator (and sole full-time employee) of the "Drop the I Word" campaign, was at the heart of making it happen—and in this episode, she tells her story, and the story of this movement, like you've never heard it before. You'll laugh, sing, cry, and cheer. Tune in and spread the word!

There are times when changing the world can feel like pushing a pickup truck up Mount Everest. But there are also times when something clicks—and the world seems to change in an instant.  Last Tuesday was one of those times: a day when, to the amazement of so many who worked for so long to build support for equal marriage rights for LGBT Americans, millions upon millions of citizens announced their support in the most public way possible: changing the photos on Facebook that represent themselves. Their personal profile photos. To red and pink symbol for equality.  Suddenly, from that moment on, nobody who believed in full rights for gay Americans could think they were all alone. It was the kind of cultural sea-change moment that's impossible to plan. But it wouldn't have happened without our guest—the one and only Anastasia Khoo, director of Marketing for the Human Rights Campaign, who created the equality logo that swept news feeds from coast to coast and beyond.