RadioACTive Workshop with the America250 Book Club, Empire Drops the Pretense

  • July 16, 2026
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Thursday, July 16: RadioACTive Workshop's America 250 Book Club continues its exploration of founding documents. This week, join us to explore what was almost possible -- and how the same logic went global -- in Ep. 5, Empire Drops the Pretense. Plus, Meet Your Maker ASMR, Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grants, and Utah Samoan Heritage Festival.

Get More Local, More Vocal with Tonight's Guests

Rallies & Resources Spotlight (full list here):

  • TONIGHT: President Trump Addresses the Nation | 7 PM MDT on most major networks, streamers and C-SPAN.

  • Aug 7-9: Craft Lake City DIY Festival @ Utah State Fairpark, 150 N 100 W, SLC. "The Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival Presented By Harmons is Utah’s largest local-centric art, music, science and technology festival celebrating all things handmade in Utah with over 500 local artisans, vintage vendors, foodies, youth entrepreneurs, performers & STEM exhibitors!" For tickets, click here. 

  • Aug 17: Deadline to apply for the 2027 Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant. Jackson Medel, Folk Arts Coordinator for the Utah Division of Arts & Museums, explains how and who should apply.

  • Sep 5: Critical Thinking for the Conscious Citizen | 1-4 PM @ Marmalade Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library, 280 W 500 N, SLC.  Event by The ThreadWork Collective: "Learn to read between the lines of news, laws & speeches: spot persuasion, ask sharp questions, and think independently, on your own terms. This workshop grows out of ongoing work examining how stories get told and whose voices get left out, but no background is needed. Come as you are, ready to think for yourself." FREE, but RSVP requested for planning purposes.


Community Check-in: Utah Samoan Heritage Festival & Kirikiti Fa’asamoa Tournament


RAW talks with Maria Lupeamanu of Utah Alofa Fa’asamoa, which is hosting the Utah Samoan Heritage Festival & Kirikiti Fa’asamoa Tournament @ Southridge Park, 5051 S 4015 W, Taylorsville, through Saturday. It's free and family-friendly!


Meet Your Maker: ASMR Edition with Craft Lake City Artisan Neuer Geist

It's back! RadioACTive's annual series featuring DIY makers returns every Thursday as we prepare for this year's Craft Lake City DIY Festival. Tonight's special guests include Brighton and Derek Ballard of Neuer Geist, known for its risograph prints, and Craft Lake City's Clara Curtis.

  • "The Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival presented by Harmons is Utah’s largest local-centric art, music, science and technology festival celebrating all things handmade in Utah with over 500 local artisans, vintage vendors, foodies, youth entrepreneurs, performers & STEM exhibitors." For tickets, click here. 

America250 Book Club: Empire Drops the Pretense

Tonight on RadioACTive's American Origins: The 250 Book Club for America's Semiquincentennial, co-hosts Lianna Manibog of The ThreadWork Collective and KRCL's Lara Jones talk about the switch from nation to empire. The new American empire stops pretending, starts exporting its logic on a global scale. Same architecture. New Ocean.

  • Lianna: "Two simultaneous stories in this episode. Domestically: Reconstruction, its promise, and its deliberate undoing. The 13th Amendment's loophole. The Black Codes. Du Bois buried by the Dunning School. Internationally: 1898. The moment the United States stopped pretending it wasn't an empire. The Treaty of Paris, the Insular Cases, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii. The same legal architecture used to exclude Black Americans from the Constitution gets applied to Pacific and Caribbean peoples. The Doctrine of Discovery goes global. José Martí was watching and naming it in real time."

  • DEEPER DIVE: thethreadworkcollective.org/podcast

Primary Documents, Ep. 5:

Question: When did America stop hiding what it was, and what does it mean that the legal architecture of empire is still intact?


How You Like Us Now?

  • NEW: Sound Off to RadioACTive via the KRCL Public Radio App — free wherever you get your apps. Click the menu > Talk to KRCL > Sound Off to RadioACTive. You can send us audio, video, and pictures! 

  • Feedback: Guests' views, thoughts, or opinions are their own and do not reflect those of the board, staff, or members of Listeners' Community Radio of Utah, KRCL 90.9FM. Send feedback to radioactive@krcl.org. 

  • Tonight's RadioACTive team included: 


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