Today we turn the tables; Allen Ruff sits in the guest seat to talk about his life and times. Ruff has been hosting the show for over 20 years and logged over 1000 hours of tape over that time, many of which you can find on the WORT website. Guest host, Bert Zipperer, interviews Ruff about what brought him to Madison, how he developed his subversive analysis, and the early days of WORT. 

In this rare interview, Ruff opens up about how his youth amidst working class radicals in New Haven and later education at American University and UW-Madison developed his critical thinking. Ruff says he learned the intellectual tools to interrogate cold war liberalism from his PhD studies. He says that traveling the world, including to Israel, “stripped away” the myth of Israel as a nation by seeing the ethnic and class differences there. 

Ruff hitchhiked to Madison in January of 1974 and it was the coldest place he’d ever been. He immediately noticed a movement culture here, influenced by the Civil Rights, anti-war, and feminist movements. He found WORT and other local institutions to be paragons of how to build a new society.

We also hear from listeners who share their anecdotes about the station, memorable moments with Ruff, the history of Rainbow Bookstore, and more. Ruff says that he finds hope in friendship and comradeship, that “true community is a subversive thing” because under capitalism people are atomized into individual consumer parts. 

Featured image of Allen Ruff and Bert Zipperer in the WORT studio. Photo courtesy of Sara Gabler/WORT.

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