Heart Yoga Radio

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]

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.]

CORPORATIONS TO RUN CITIES IN THE UK SOON? [PART 1]

In this podcast, we consider the Tory Government proposal to institute eight 'Charter Cities' in the UK. Charter Cities are planned to be areas which are given over to governance by a corporation which is likely to remove workers protections, ban minimum wage laws, dismantle welfare, quash restrictions on working hours and more. All this is thought to be facilitated by Brexit and the subsequent revocation of EU regulations. For its neoliberal proponents, who are universally drawn from the big oil funded right international, this is a utopia which will end world poverty. We argue the contrary, that it will be a monstrously dystopian  anti-democratic nightmare in which workers will be treated like disposable things and which must be stopped. For background, a good shortish read is here - https://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexit-and-the-bigger-picture-4de80dbb69fbhttps://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexit-and-the-bigger-picture-4de80dbb69fb [Free. 58 minutes.]

APOCALYPSE REPORT JUNE 22 - INTERESTING TIMES 54

This wide-ranging episode of Interesting Times deals with the recent rise of inflation in the economy in the context of the reflections on inflation, money-printing and organised labour by a variety of economist, starting with the Thatcher-Reagan guru, Milton Friedman. Amongst related topics, we note a global renaissance in trade union organisation, a global crisis in food distribution, disintegration of UK farming, and the failure of the world to be make adequate provision to mitigate future pandemics. [Free. 53 minutes.]

TORIES ON THE ROPES? - INTERESTING TIMES 43

In the light of the MPs second jobs scandal, we ask, 'How much more will the public put up with?' This leads to questions about the nature of ideology, and the contradictory class consciousness of Tories who make light of in-work poverty and the cutting of Universal Credit on the one hand, and then, on the other hand, plead that MPs need second jobs because they can't discharge their familial duty on £82 per annum! We underscore the point that this current scandal isn't anything fundamentally new, but a symptom of the profound and toxic entanglement of corporate and state power in the UK. [Free. 44 minutes.]

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND - PART3 [THE FUTURE]

This podcast continues our series on economic collapse. It considers what the future might involve using the COP26 climate change conference as an indicator and focussing on economic, ecological and cultural systems. [Free. 1 hour 17 minutes.]

TORY SLEAZE - INTERESTING TIMES 41

In this podcast, we take a look at the resignation of Owen Patterson in the wake of the government U-turn on standards of behaviour for MPs, particularly with respect to paid lobbying. We place this in the context of the gradual turning up of the heat of criticism of Boris Johnson and his cabal by the right wing media and the grooming of Starmer by both Murdoch and the Mail. [Free. 30 minutes.]

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND - PART 2a [THE PRESENT]

In this second episode of our series on economic collapse, we examine a number of current economic crises in the UK and beyond and see if they resonate with what we encountered when examining some historical examples of collapse in Part 1. We focus particularly on the economic aspects of the crises in question. [Free. 1 hour 15 minutes.]

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND? - PART 1 [HISTORY]

In this podcast we look at the economic collapses of 1929 and 2008 to see if we can discern any essential features. The point of this broad-brush historical delving is the get an understanding of economic collapse per se and then, in subsequent podcasts, to see if  we are in danger of a similar collapse in the present. [Free. 40 minutes.]