Heart Yoga Radio

BORIS JOHNSON’S PERFECT POST-TRUTH MOMENT - INTERESTING TIMES 66

In this podcast, we reflect on the resignation of Boris Johnson from the UK parliament after having been found by the Commons Privileges Committee to have lied to Parliament. We take it that Johnson's subsequent and immediate appointment on a six-figure salary as a columnist for the Daily Mail is significant as a kind of culmination of the UK's deep immersion in post-truth confusion, which has for some time been an advantageous state for global oligarchs in a time of wide-spread unrest. [Free. 26 minutes.]

AI - THREAT OR PROMISE?

In this podcast, we discuss AI and its recent emergence into the public sphere. We examine four main aspects of AI; what the term 'AI' signifies, the knowledge status of its products, the political and economic ramifications of AI, especially its role in automation, and its position in current affairs public discourse. [Free. 61 minutes.] 

NAT-C OR NAZI? INTERESTING TIMES 65

In this rather long podcast, we analyse  various moments from the National Conservatism conference which was recently held in London, and some of the commentary that has ensued. We focus on the ideological substrate of the organising group, The Edmund Burke Foundation which is named after the 18th Century writer and Parliamentarian who is often hailed as the founder of both UK and US conservatism. [This despite Burke belong to the Whigs rather than Tories.] We ask, is this movement fascist and/or dangerous?" [Free. 96 minutes.]

CLICK BAIT, RAGE BAIT & CALM BAIT

In this podcast, we discuss rage bait and its role in the manipulation of behaviours through news and social media and what seems to be the deliberate arousal of strong emotions. We consider the application of behavioural science in conjunction with massive amounts of data collected by big tech in the persuasion business, especially as applied to nudging election results. The discussion ranges wide and includes  a comparison of psychoanalytic approaches to behaviour manipulation with those derived from behaviourism. [Free. 34 minutes.]

ON STRIKES - INTERESTING TIMES 61

In this podcast, I outline the general characteristics of strikes and the structural antagonism between economic classes at the core of capitalism with which they are entangled. I give examples from the current wave of strikes in the UK and the government, gutter press and social media troll responses to them. In the process I identify and analyse a handful of  propaganda methods we encounter there. [Click here to buy me a coffee.] [Free. 37 minutes.]

GROWTH, GROWTH, GROWTH? - INTERESTING TIMES 60

In this podcast, we examine what UK Prime Minister Truss means by the mantra "Growth, growth, growth." We follow by discussing how economic growth is defined formally by The Bank of England. Growth is understood by such institutions as being an increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation state over time. We take issue with the notion that GDP is a measure that is useful to facilitate global human flourishing and look at alternative metrics for determining the health and size of an economy. We note that the Bank of England also identifies shortcomings in GDP for getting a good picture of an economy.  We take The Happy Planet index as an example of an alternative metric to GDP and tease out some of the features of its threefold  desideratum, for a good, healthy economy of  "long, happy and sustainable lives". We point out that the GDP measure is useful only to gamblers in the exclusive global casino of finance capital.  Click the link to by me a coffee :) [Free. 36 minutes]

EIE, A GLIMMER OF HOPE - INTERESTING TIMES 59

In this podcast, we appraise the recent demonstrations in 50 UK towns and cities by the Enough is Enough movement, which has largely been instigated by a number of active trade unions to combat the cost of living crisis. We find the broad base of the movement encouraging as well as its grounding in the lived experience of the working class, economically understood. Click BUY ME A COFFEE to make a small donation. [Free. 23 minutes.]

DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES OF TRUSSONOMIC - INTERESTING TIMES 58

In this podcast we discuss the recent UK mini-budget and its immediate consequences. We draw out the necessity for a wide range of co-ordinated radical activisms to bring about necessary system change, the inter-relatedness of the many crises facing the UK and the world beyond, and the centrality to any cogent analysis of an understanding of economic class-antagonism. [Free. 41 minutes.]

RIOT AND REFUSAL - INTERESTING TIMES 57

In this podcast we compare and contrast the current situation in the UK, particularly the initiative to produce a mass refusal to pay  exorbitant energy bills, with the success that mass action had in getting the 1990 Tory Government to reverse its poll tax policy. The discussion is set in a wide historical/economic context. [Free. 42 minutes]

 

THE DAY AFTER

In this podcast we entertain the likelihood of an impending sublime moment in which a variety of people's actions bring about some fundamental  disruption of the status quo. We think that such an event is highly likely but that it will present revolutionary and civil-disobedience movements with the problem of what to do the day after the sublime moment. This is a point often elaborated by Zizek. We offer the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring as examples. We proceed by way of allowing the ideas in two recent books, both offering some utopian speculations informed to some degree by Marx,  to collide in order to produce some analytic tools. Those books are Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani and Beyond Money by Anitra Nelson. [Free. 44 minutes]