Heart Yoga Radio

GOVERNMENT UNPREPAREDNESS FOR COVID19 & THE CYGNUS EXERCISE

In this podcast, we outline the Cygnus exercise of 2016 which tested the NHS preparedness for emergencies, including pandemics. We proceed to question the fact that the resulting report which found gross deficiencies in the country's ability to properly manage a pandemic was suppressed by government. Further analysis reveals that the ideological commitments of the Tory government make it inevitable that they are unprepared for emergencies. [Free. 30 minutes.]

WHEN MSM TURN ON THE GOVERNMENT

In this podcast we ask what happens when the MSM turns on the government, as it appears to be so doing at the moment as the UK government mismanages the COVID19 pandemic. Is the essentially propaganda function of the press changed by this development? We analyse the way in which it isn't. [Free. 25 minutes.]

PANDEMIC TRAUMAS

In this podcast we identify four types of trauma that the global CORVID19 pandemic is inflicting on individuals and societies. They are to do with isolation and restriction due to lock-down, fear, anxiety and panic, increased awareness of death, and political / economic disillusionment. In the second half we attempt to discern how these traumas will continue to act in the future when the pandemic has subsided. [Free. 38 minutes.]

NATURALLY OCCURRING COMMUNISM

In this short podcast, we revisit the theme of naturally occurring communism, this time as it appears as a response to the COV19 pandemic and comes to be more widely valued. We consider whether it can further develop when the pandemic finally subsides and conclude that it might, but it will have to fought for. [Free. 14 minutes.]

VIRUS POLITICS

In this podcast I sketch out the features of the COVID-19 pandemic as it stands at the time of recording [15/3/20] before considering its political aspects. I argue that one feature of the catastrophe is that it is a black swan event further destabilising already unstable global capitalism. The inability of markets, neo-liberal ideologies and corporate profit fetishism to address the consequent, dire public health and economic crises is exposed very vividly, I claim. I then describe how the right will inevitably attempt to weaponise the resulting chaos, placing the human enterprise itself in jeopardy and how the broadly progressive wing of humanity must seize the initiative, both in terms of mutual aid organisation and on the ideological plane. Claiming the pandemic should not be politicised plays right into the hands of the malignant right. [Free. 24 minutes.]

ON APOCALYPSE

In this podcast, I distinguish between rational and irrational apocalyptic fears. I discuss the Cuba missile crisis of 1962 and the subsequent retreat from the brink through various treaties and weapons inspection regimes. I also outline briefly how an incipient new cold war / arms race seems to be on the horizon. I also consider the eco-apocalypse in the light of a real-life encounter with militant climate deniers. My conclusion is not entirely pessimistic and underscores the role of human agency. [Free. 28 minutes.]

CONCENTRATIONS OF WEALTH & POWER AND BIG DATA

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.]

THE YOGI AND THE COMMISSAR: REVOLUTION?

In this podcast I question the nature of revolution, particularly as to its ultimate ground, which for some should be consciousness, and for others, the power structures of society, particularly materialistically understood. I outline the thought that both must be involved as it is found in the ongoing historical conversation. This includes Freudian Marxism, and the existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir, who gives us the figures of the yogi and the commissar to imagine. [Free.  28 minutes.]

RESILIENCE: INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY DEVEREUX

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.]

TORYISM, CRUELTY & POWER

In this podcast we examine the assertion that "A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for cruelty". We proceed by way an account of the ideological underpinnings of contemporary Toryism and their 'philosophical' roots, an empirical look at exemplary and actual sufferings caused by austerity, the psychology of Tory leaders and the class they represent and the psychology of the Tory base. The latter two are exposed through the use of the concept of resentment and the truism that power is a narcotic. We conclude that cruelty and the quest for the narcotic effects of power are deeply defining of conservatism. [Free. 19 minutes.]