Episodes
Monday Sep 21, 2020
LAO TZU 27
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Monday Sep 21, 2020
This podcast offers a reading of Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching. This short chapter deals with the nature of the Tao itself and how it creates all things from nothing. I consider the nature of the Tao as process based rather than thing based. I also draw out resonances between this chapter, particularly with regard to nothingness, and insights into particle physics as suggested by Fritjof Capra in his book, The Tao of Physics (1975). [Free. 20 minutes.]
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
COVIDIOCY: WHO BENEFITS? - INTERESTING TIMES 10
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
In this podcast, we analyse the covid-is-a-hoax movement which demonstrated recently in London, demanding the abandonment of all remedial measures against the global pandemic. We do so primarily by asking the question that we identified in a recent podcast [Grassroots and Astroturf] 'Who benefits from this movement?' The question proves revelatory of how this movement plays to the far right and upholds the status quo, whilst claiming the contrary. The involvement of far right parties in the loose coalition of new-agers, antivaxers, climate deniers, and adherents to fantastic conspiracy theories is not accidental. These elements are stitched together by irrationalism. [Free. 24 minutes.]
Friday Aug 28, 2020
AGAINST FLAG-SHAGGING - INTERESTING TIMES 9
Friday Aug 28, 2020
Friday Aug 28, 2020
In this podcast, we argue that patriotism is ideological, irrational, based on arbitrary boundaries, implicated in the weaponisation of history, employed by dead-cat culture wars, and rooted in a pathological narcissism. We suggest how those afflicted with it might return to health. [Free. 27 minutes.]
Monday Aug 24, 2020
WHY HAS SOCIALISM BECOME A DIRTY WORD?
Monday Aug 24, 2020
Monday Aug 24, 2020
In this podcast, we investigate why and how socialism has become a dirty word through the operations of propaganda and ideology. This naturally entails giving a characterisation of socialism, which we do, starting with the observation that it isn't one thing and that the word has a range of meanings. We conclude that the ideological war has to be fought alongside concrete organisation and that values cannot be bracketed out of the conversation even as we offer robust materialist analysis. [Free. 50 minutes.]
Friday Aug 21, 2020
GRASSROOTS AND ASTROTURFING
Friday Aug 21, 2020
Friday Aug 21, 2020
In this podcast we analyse the phenomenon of astroturfing in which billionaire money is martialled to produce artificial facsimiles of authentic grass roots movements. As well as giving some examples, we outline some methods which can be employed to detect astroturfing and similar ruses to mystify the nature of society and the economy. The discourse follows on from our recent podcast, What Can We do? [Free. 42 minutes.]
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
STUDENTS WIN! INTERESTING TIMES 8
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
This podcast deals with the A-level 'results' crisis and the protests the government decision to implement an algorithm to determine grades (in the absence of actual exams) and therefore access to university places. This decision brought the inequitable nature of access to the goods of higher education along socio-economic class lines into very sharp focus. Students who had fallen foul of this further example of Tory government incompetence staged impressive protests, which, alongside pressure from teachers' unions and parents lead to the English government backing down, having sworn they wouldn't. [The devolved governments had already done the right thing.] We argue that the student action was significant and signals hope. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Wednesday Aug 12, 2020
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Wednesday Aug 12, 2020
Wednesday Aug 12, 2020
In this podcast, I apply some raw thinking to characterising what seem to be the two primary political orientations in Western 'democracies' today. These are conservatism and progressivism. I identify and characterise two tendencies in progressivism, majoritarianism and vanguardism. Both of these pose practical and theoretical dilemas. I propose a broad way forward for progressives which mitigates those dilemmas. The discussion passes through a range of issues, amongst them, the natures of inequality, wealth, power and revolution. [Free. 1 hour.]
Wednesday Jul 29, 2020
RICHARD WOLFF ON THE ECONOMY - INTERESTING TIMES 7
Wednesday Jul 29, 2020
Wednesday Jul 29, 2020
In this podcast, we recommend the veteran economist Richard Wolff as a source of accessible and reliable analysis of the current economic situation in the US and beyond and its historical precedents. We explore two main themes, the lie that the US and global economies are thriving because the stock markets are buoyant, and the resonances between the New Deal of the 1930s and current calls for a 'Green New Deal'. We conclude that the future cannot be left to chance and that grass-roots organisation is vitally necessary. [Free. 44 minutes.]
Friday Jul 24, 2020
BRITAIN-TRUMP, PORTLAND, YELLOW-HAMMER - INTERESTING TIMES 6
Friday Jul 24, 2020
Friday Jul 24, 2020
This wide ranging podcast flows out of the question of the influence of the USA on the UK and the rest of the world. We outline the nature of US hegemony and its roots in the dollar's status as world reserve currency, in military power, and in soft power. Trump's employment of federal military force in Portland and other US cities is analysed and its origins in the Right-Internationale play book is discussed. The wider significance of the Trump presidency and its symptomatic nature is thus bought into focus, particularly with regard to the decline of the hegemon and its desperate, rear-guard reliance on Goebellian propaganda techniques. In the context of UK current events, we re-visit the Yellow-Hammer report on the possible consequences of a no deal Brexit and picture how the added economic catastrophe of the COVID19 pandemic might well give rise to civil unrest. Despite this gloomy picture, we find reasons to hope, but they must entail grassroots action which goes beyond protest into the practical building and defending of communities, whilst not abandoning the need to capture the state. [Free. 40 minutes.]
Friday Jul 10, 2020
LAO TZU 22
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Friday Jul 10, 2020
This podcast offers a reading of Chapter 35 of the Tao Te Ching. It deals with the character of Lao Tzu's ideal leader who is a sage with connection to the Tao. We tease this out and relate it to modern leaders of the 'strong man' type and ideals of social organisation. [Free. 19 minutes.]