Episodes
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
THE COLD WAR WITH CHINA - INTERESTING TIMES 31
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
This podcast deals with economic, military and propaganda aspects of the developing cold war with China. [Free. 1 hour 25 minutes.]
Friday Jan 01, 2021
LOOKING BACK OVER 2020 AND FORWARD TO 2021 - INTERESTING TIMES 19
Friday Jan 01, 2021
Friday Jan 01, 2021
On New Year's Day 2021, we pause to look both backwards and forwards. We identify and discuss four themes: the defeat of Trump and what that means for the global right Internationale, the fragmentation of the left and signs in movements around the world of its incipient re-emergence, the intensifying struggle to control information and particularly the internet, the impact of certain technological developments such as AI and CRISPR. We indicate how these developments are interlocked and how that points towards what is to be done. [Free. 47 minutes.]
Friday Jun 26, 2020
EMPOWERMENT - INTERESTING TIMES 5
Friday Jun 26, 2020
Friday Jun 26, 2020
In this podcast we examine the way in which organisers a Trump rally in Oklahoma were manipulated by 'TikToc kids' into preparing for a much larger crowd than in fact turned up. We see some hope in the imaginative use of social media by a tech-savvy generation as well as discerning a certain fragility in system of dominance which pervades society. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Monday May 25, 2020
ON DEMONIC SHORTCOMINGS: WHEN A SPAD BREAKS THE LAW WITH IMPUNITY
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
In this podcast, we dissect the furore around Dominic Cummings' breaking of lock-down rules and the PM's refusal to sack him when other officials have been sacked for similar transgressions. We assert that the ramifications of this matter go beyond the indiscretions of one man, easily written off as peccadilloes, or even spun as legal, moral and full of integrity. We find that the matter exposes with great clarity the class nature of UK society, the entrenched nature of the culture of deference which upholds it, the absence of the truth faculty amongst the commentariat and the political class, the representation of gross inequality as the natural order, and much more besides. The public rage with which these events have been met attests to the legitimate resentment which has been subterranean for some time but which may now erupt. [Free. 44 minutes.]
Friday Feb 07, 2020
CONCENTRATIONS OF WEALTH & POWER AND BIG DATA
Friday Feb 07, 2020
Friday Feb 07, 2020
This podcast is structured around a review of Peter Phillips' book, Giants: The Global Power Elite. I elucidate and assess the main points of the book, [1] that seventeen globally active asset management corporations each administer over $1 trillion, together totalling $41.1 trillion, [2] that these corporations are managed by 199 directors who Phillips gives brief biographies of; [3] that there are deep connections between these personnel and the three main propaganda and public relations global conglomerates, various 'think tanks' and policy bodies, and governments. I further relate this connectivity to the role of big data as it is extracted and exploited by the tech giants Google and Facebook. I rely on Shoshana Ruboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism to make the latter connection. In the light of Phillips' and Ruboff's rigorous scholarship, I consider the vilification of the UK left by the billionaire-owned media and the prospect of a radical, progressive turn in world politics and what is needed to ensure it. [Free. 29 minutes.]
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
RESILIENCE: INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY DEVEREUX
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
In this interview renowned Yoga Teacher Godfrey Devereux about a recent turn his work has taken. Godfrey has dropped the language surrounding contemporary Yoga to talk instead about resilience and how it is a consequence of a certain meditative self-enquiry. I ask Godfrey to elucidate this and particularly in the context of impending ecological catastrophe. I give my own take on these matters which is more inclined to speak up for activism. Listen to the following podcast, The Yogi and the Commissar, in which I explore some of the themes that emerged and in the light of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Monday Dec 30, 2019
GE 2019 - WHAT HAPPENED & WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Monday Dec 30, 2019
Monday Dec 30, 2019
In this podcast, I try to discern the reasons behind Labour's defeat in the UK general election held on 12 December, 2019. I consider Labour's move from honouring the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum to backing a second referendum and look at how this relates to voting patterns in contrast to those of the 2017 general election. I go on to examine the relentless propaganda assault on Labour and its leadership mounted by the billionaire owned press and the BBC. In the second part of the podcast, I look at possible strategies that the preceding analysis suggests. These include the development of alternative, independent media, the more effective use of the grass roots, the possibilities of networking and more effective use of social media, including the development of new platforms. And more! [Free. 68 minutes.]
Saturday Nov 30, 2019
THE MAIN-STREAM MEDIA, THE BBC & PROPAGANDA - GE 19
Saturday Nov 30, 2019
Saturday Nov 30, 2019
In this podcast, we cast an eye over the UK main-stream media and the parasitic relationship the state broadcaster, the BBC, has with them. As illustrative example, we consider the furore over leaked trade deal discussions between the UK and the US. [These talks are predicated on a no-deal Brexit transpiring.] The UK government only released these documents as a result of a freedom of information request, and then in almost completely redacted form. Jeremy Corbyn and Barry Gardiner for Labour have the unredacted documents and have implied that they contain evidence of plans to 'sell off' the NHS to US corporations. Right wing ideologue and BBC rottweiler, Andrew Neil, describes this latter as 'scaremongering' and the Tory Party continue to insist that 'the NHS is not for sale'. And more! [Free. 47 minutes.]
Friday Oct 12, 2018
UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME, PLENTY AND SCARCITY
Friday Oct 12, 2018
Friday Oct 12, 2018
This podcast is an abstract consideration of universal basic income which relates it to plenty, scarcity, money in general and political power. I explore both dystopian and utopian possibilities. [Free. 26 minutes.]
Sunday Aug 12, 2018
IS SMALL BEAUTIFUL?
Sunday Aug 12, 2018
Sunday Aug 12, 2018
This meander was stimulated by a recent repudiation by Zizek of the possible role of small communities in any future human flourishing. In this context, I revisit E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1973). I discuss some of the core ideas from that seminal work. In particular, I focus on the treatement of raw materials as [inexhaustible] income and the treatement of the environment as a free dump by capitalism and the economic theories that act as its ideological justification. I touch upon intermediate technology, the role of 'spirituality' in the good life, the way in which economic theories and political practice often treat people as numbers on a spreadsheet, the 1984-5 UK Miners' Strike and the persistence of alienation in nationalised industries. I do this by discerning Zizek's 'inner Schumacher' and Schumacher's 'inner Zizek' and recounting instances of their expression. In both cases these inner others are mostly repressed, but vigorous enough to surface now and then in brilliant insight. [Free. 47 minutes.]