Heart Yoga Radio

THE CASE FOR JEREMY CORBYN

This engagement with current affairs has already been over-taken by events. However, it may contain some enduring points. I consider the billionaire-owned media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and his socialist project, including but not exclusively, the charges of anti-semitism. I note the presence of neo-liberal apologists within the UK Labour Party. In the light of my contention that 'business as usual is not an option', given economic, ecological and cultural instability on a global scale, I elucidate and evaluate the idea of a 'Green New Deal' as is being considered by Labour as well as Justice Democrats in the USA, particularly Bernie Sanders. I argue that a glimmer of hope is contained by this movement. [Free. 42 minutes.]

TRUMP, MAY, PUTIN AND MEN IN FUNNY HATS [PART TWO: FRAGMENTATION]

This wide-ranging podcast draws on the same sources as Part One and is similarly stimulated by current affairs. This time, the thesis that the current historical unfoldings of the mutually entangled economic, cultural and ecological systems are characterised by fragmentation is defended and a variety of possible material antecedents of this tendency are considered. We identify environmental degradation, technological developments, contradictions in capitalism in its current phase, cultural fragmentation, the enmeshment of state and corporate power, gross inequalities of wealth and power and movements of populations as mutually dependent factors giving rise to fragmentation, amongst others. [Free. 54 minutes.]

ON OPTIMISM

In this podcast, we take a look at optimism, invoking the help of Voltaire's satirical tale Candide (1759). We end up suggesting that the bouyancy that is the corollary of optimism might extract too high a price in the loss of realism that goes with wearing rose-coloured spectacles, and that dropping the half full- half empty binary might be what William Blake is suggesting we do when he tells us that 'energy is eternal delight'. [Free. 30 minutes.]