Episodes

Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
EDEN REVISITED
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
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.]

Saturday Aug 27, 2022
THE DAY AFTER
Saturday Aug 27, 2022
Saturday Aug 27, 2022
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]

Thursday Jun 02, 2022
THE JUBILEE, PSYCHOANALYSIS & OTHER GOSSIP - INTERESTING TIMES 53
Thursday Jun 02, 2022
Thursday Jun 02, 2022
In this podcast, I consider the question of the nature of the UK monarchy as revealed by the current jubilee celebrations, and if psychoanalysis might be useful for answering it. Recorded as I take my constitutional so contains some real-world sounds :) [Free. 39 minutes.]

Thursday Mar 10, 2022
UKRAINE & THE FOG OF WAR 2 - INTERESTING TIMES 51
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
In this podcast, I examine important historical antecedents to the war in Ukraine. In particular, I appraise the argument that the eastward spread of NATO bears some responsibility for what is now so catastrophically unfolding. [Free. 1 hour, 12 minutes.]
![ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND - PART3 [THE FUTURE]](https://deow9bq0xqvbj.cloudfront.net/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Saturday Nov 13, 2021
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND - PART3 [THE FUTURE]
Saturday Nov 13, 2021
Saturday Nov 13, 2021
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.]
![ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND? - PART 1 [HISTORY]](https://deow9bq0xqvbj.cloudfront.net/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Friday Oct 15, 2021
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE UK & BEYOND? - PART 1 [HISTORY]
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Friday Oct 15, 2021
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.]

Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
WELSH LABOUR - A GLIMMER OF HOPE
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
In this podcast, we take a brief look at a couple of the interesting and hopeful initiatives of the Senedd Cymru [The Welsh Parliament] which is currently under Labour Party control. These are the Well-Being of Future Generations Act of 2015 which requires public bodies to consider the long term consequences of their actions, and The One Planet Development initiative which encourages ecologically sustainable development. [Free. 27 minutes.]

Friday Jan 01, 2021
LOOKING BACK OVER 2020 AND FORWARD TO 2021 - INTERESTING TIMES 19
Friday Jan 01, 2021
Friday Jan 01, 2021
On New Year's Day 2021, we pause to look both backwards and forwards. We identify and discuss four themes: the defeat of Trump and what that means for the global right Internationale, the fragmentation of the left and signs in movements around the world of its incipient re-emergence, the intensifying struggle to control information and particularly the internet, the impact of certain technological developments such as AI and CRISPR. We indicate how these developments are interlocked and how that points towards what is to be done. [Free. 47 minutes.]

Monday Dec 07, 2020
LABOUR'S CIVIL WAR, BREXIT, FRAGMENTATION - INTERESTING TIMES 17
Monday Dec 07, 2020
Monday Dec 07, 2020
This episode of the current affairs series offers comment on the suspension of Jewish socialists and critical left voices in Constituency Parties from the Labour Party on very dubious grounds. I conclude that this isn't about anti-semitism or racism in general but a purge of the left from the party. The suspicion is compounded by the soliciting of funding from billionaires by party leadership. I go on to relate this fragmentation to the fragmentary forces expressing themselves through Brexit as the clock ticks down. On the hopeful side, I mention the world's biggest strike of farmers and workers in India which involved 250 million people! [Free. 36 minutes.]

Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
WHAT IS FASCISM? 2 - THE PRESENT DAY UK & USA
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
In this podcast, I ask the question, "Are the US and UK fascist?" I attempt to address this question by checking if any of the features I identified in the first podcast of this series are observable in the current situations in the UK and the US. [I leave aside the matter of the economy for a future podcast.] I conclude that many of the elements of fascism are present and that some are venerable, others incipient and some are being actively cultivated. I suggest briefly what needs to be done about this dangerous situation. [Free. 1 hour 2 mins.]