We created this podcast in recognition that there are a number of podcasts for the American "left," but many of them focus heavily on the organizing of social democrats, progressives, and liberal democrats. Aside from that, on the left we are always fighting a war of ideas and if we do not continue to build platforms to share those ideas and the stories of their implementation from a leftist perspective, they will continue to be ignored, misrepresented, and dismissed by the capitalist media and…
In this episode we are joined by Emmaia Gelman , author of The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, a critical history of the ADL as a Cold War neoconservative institution. Gelman excavates the Anti-Defamation League's origins as a white, settler colonial institution founded by German-Jewish elites—not to combat antisemitism broadly, but to manage class respectability and suppress Eastern…
In this episode, Nihal El Aasar returns to this podcast to discuss the competing progressive alternatives in the Arab world prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Arab attempts to join capitalist systems were obstructed by British and Zionist colonial power, leading to the maintenance of a hegemonic state. We also reference the Union of Arab States and the role of the Zionist entity in…
In this episode we are joined by Rob Arcand to discuss his work on Spotify, streaming, and the financialization of culture. We begin with Spotify's emergence as a supposed democratizing force for working musicians, even as its model relied on surveillance and data-trawling. We explore how this data-driven promise — that listener analytics could be leveraged for touring and merch — reshaped the…
In this episode, we sit down with Gerald Perreira, longtime Guyanese anti-imperialist activist, educator, and organizer, for a conversation on Cuba, U.S. power, and the unfinished struggle for true independence in the Caribbean and broader Global South. We unpack the tightening of U.S. pressure on Cuba, including the attack on Cuban medical brigades across the region, and examine why Guyana's…
In this episode, we are joined by Idris Robinson to unpack his book, The Revolt Eclipses Whatever the World Has to Offer , a searing meditation on race, revolt, civil war, and the psychic wreckage of American life. Reflecting on the 2020 uprisings, Robinson challenges the myth of Black leadership, reframes racial violence through the lens of a "morbid libidinal economy," and argues that revolution…
In this episode, longtime revolutionary activist and author Torkil Lauesen returns to the show. Our conversation revolves around two of his recent works published by Iskra Books: The Long Transition to Socialism and the End of Capitalism and Unequal Exchange: Past, Present, and Future . Drawing on a lifetime of political engagement and his close relationship with theorist Arghiri Emmanuel, Lauesen…
In this episode, we are joined by organizers from Dare to Struggle , a multinational organization committed to struggling against all forms of domination. Throughout this conversation we discuss some of their tactics deployed in response to the recent uptick in ICE raids happening nationally. We take a critical look at what has been effective and what has not, and the stakes for those who are…
In this conversation a group of us interviewed Dr. Ali Kadri about his book The Accumulation of Waste: A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction . This conversation was the final discussion in a study group which began last October and involved participants from all over the world. The book provides a theoretical framework which understands waste as a value making process where war-making, the…
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Ashley Farmer to discuss the life and legacy of Queen Mother Audley Moore—an organizer, theorist, and political visionary who helped shape the very foundations of modern Black nationalism and the contemporary reparations movement. Though she was, as our guest writes, "one of the most important activists and theorists of the twentieth century," Mother Moore's…
In this conversation we speak with Ed Vogel from Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure about the rapid expansion of various police surveillance programs. We talk about the nexus of private corporations, policing agencies, and nonprofit foundations and organizations that facilitate the expansion of these technologies and how they seek to circumvent democratic processes and…
