Heart Yoga Radio

GOD SAVE THE KING! SERIOUSLY? INTERESTING TIMES 64

In this podcast, we take an irreverent look at the forthcoming coronation of King Charles the Third. [Warning: contains profane language.] We conclude, that on balance, it isn't a good thing. We focus particularly on the bizarre onto-theology which attempts to rationalise the event. [Free. 25 minutes.]

INDIVIDUAL & COLLECTIVE, (& FARMING)

This podcast is a wide-ranging discussion which ends up entertaining the suspicion that the individual and collective do not make up a stark opposition, as much right-wing propaganda presupposes. The journey includes some thoughts about soil and ecological degradation and cultural shifts taking place regarding struggles over how agriculture should be best conducted. Not to mention, a stab at answering the pressing conundrum, "What is woke, exactly?"  [Free. 32 minutes.] (Click on the link to buy me a coffee.)

PATHOLOGICAL IRRATIONALISM IN THE UK AND BEYOND

In this rambling rant, we attempt to outline a mass and individual psychology of Thatcherism and trace its fallout in our current situation. We note that science denial which is prevalent on social media is also often promoted by extreme right wing people. We the move on to a suggestion that Thatcher's denial of the social character of human existence is an example of the same pathological irrationalism that is a core feature of historical fascism. (Click the link to by me a coffee.) [Free. 59 minutes.]

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.]

EDEN REVISITED

In this podcast, I examine the  Genesis story and the notion of original sin, considered as a kind of foundational myth for "the West". I entertain the suspicion that this foundation myth doesn't provide a viable answer to the question of why we humans suffer and what to do about it. Not only that, it actually inhibits our abilities to use our ingenuity to secure and enhance human life. (Click the link to  buy me a coffee.) [Free. 20 minutes.]

LAO TZU 55

This podcast considers chapter 68 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. In this chapter, Lao Tzu deals with the application of non-doing, wu-wei, to combat and warfare. [Free. 10 minutes.]

EIE, A GLIMMER OF HOPE - INTERESTING TIMES 59

In this podcast, we appraise the recent demonstrations in 50 UK towns and cities by the Enough is Enough movement, which has largely been instigated by a number of active trade unions to combat the cost of living crisis. We find the broad base of the movement encouraging as well as its grounding in the lived experience of the working class, economically understood. Click BUY ME A COFFEE to make a small donation. [Free. 23 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.]

THE DAY AFTER

In this podcast we entertain the likelihood of an impending sublime moment in which a variety of people's actions bring about some fundamental  disruption of the status quo. We think that such an event is highly likely but that it will present revolutionary and civil-disobedience movements with the problem of what to do the day after the sublime moment. This is a point often elaborated by Zizek. We offer the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring as examples. We proceed by way of allowing the ideas in two recent books, both offering some utopian speculations informed to some degree by Marx,  to collide in order to produce some analytic tools. Those books are Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani and Beyond Money by Anitra Nelson. [Free. 44 minutes]

LAO TZU 52

In this podcast, we consider Chapter 65 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Unusually, we take issue with a proposition put forward by Lao Tzu. This manoeuvre proves to be quite fruitful in underscoring the need to retain ones critical faculty, to push for more and better education throughout society and to  expose the forces of psychological manipulation at play in our fractured culture. [Free. 14 minutes.]