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This is a free preview of the episode "The More Than Human World" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
"The More Than Human World" is a phrase that I (Robbie) came across years ago when reading David Abrams's book The Spell of the Sensuous." It immediately struck me as a profound and beautiful perspective on how we perceive of and imagine the world of beings that make up the world that does not include humans. Everything else. And yes, it is more than. Much more than. Especially in an anthropocentric social order that barely values the lives and beings of humans themselves, let alone beings which are not human.
Today's Patreon episode is a reading of a beautiful story told by the author and philosopher Loren Eiseley. The story is about birds, machines, and much more, and is aptly titled "The Bird and the Machine"—just one chapter in a book of stories and essays written by Loren Eisley titled The Star Thrower.
You might want to keep a box of kleenex close by, this one gets a little emotional.
Covert art: Carolyn Raider
Further resources:
Dispossessing the Wilderness Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks, Mark David Spence The Star Thrower, Loren Eiseley Loren Eiseley Society Mount EerieRelated episodes:
Decolonizing Conservation with Prakash Kashwan Post-capitalism w/ Alnoor LadhaUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Happy Solstice! In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on the past year and set some intentions for the year ahead.
Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, and host of the podcast Accidental Gods, which showcases individuals and organizations at the emerging edge of our world to set the foundation for a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. Manda’s latest novel, Any Human Power, is out now and available here.
Nathalie Nahai is a behavior science advisor, author and host of the podcast The Hive, which focuses on psychology, technology, and human behavior. Nathalie is the author of Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and is also the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change.
One of Della’s offerings in the new year is a course she designed about how to cultivate regenerative livelihoods. She created this course with insights that she has found most helpful in bringing Upstream theories and ideas into people’s lives as a Right Livelihood coach. Whether you are in a livelihood transition, want to be in community with others trying to find meaningful work, or you just want to know more about work as a vehicle for post capitalist systems change, this course is a great fit. It includes live sessions, engaging module materials and activities including Upstream episodes, and a lively discussion forum to bring the material to life. Here is the link to learn more and register and use "UPSTREAM25" for a special 25% off coupon.
Further Resources:
A Winter Solstice Celebration for 2023 with Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai [UNLOCKED] How the North Plunders the Global South w/ Jason Hickel Better Lives for All w/ Jason Hickel Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment w/ D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly Breaking the Chains of Empire w/ Abby Martin (Live Show) Righteous Indignation, Love, and Running for President w/ Dr. Cornel West [UNLOCKED] Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia Battling the Duopoly w/ Jill SteinRelated Episodes:
Down the Rabbit Hole Transformative Adaptation How to Be an An Anticapitalist in the Twenty-first Century (book) How to be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century (Jacobin article) God, Human, Animal, Machine The Psychological Drivers of the MetaCrisis Feeding Your Demons, Tsultrim Allione Feeding your Demons (Lion's Roar article) Winter Solstice Meditation Summer Solstice MeditationUpstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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Historical materialism is the science of Marxism. It’s the theory developed by Marx and Engels that explains how human societies develop and change over time based on economic organization. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, historical materialism serves as a powerful tool in understanding the world around us. It explains why societies are arranged the way that they are, why there are classes, why revolutions happen—and when taken together with the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, historical materialism becomes a rigorous scientific tool for analyzing the entire world and, most importantly, acting within it.
Everybody on this planet would benefit greatly from having a clear understanding of historical materialism, and every Marxist should at least understand the basics of it. And in this episode, we’re going to provide an introductory exploration of historical materialism, along with dialectical materialism, which is deeply intertwined with the former. And we’ve brought on the perfect guest to help us to do this.
Torkil Lauesen is an activist and a writer from Denmark who has spent the last fifty years immersed in the study and praxis of historical materialism. Torkil spent many years in his youth engaged in both legal and illegal activities with the purpose of materially supporting anti-imperialist struggles in the Third World, including in Palestine. He spent a decade in prison for this work.
This episode is part of our ongoing series on Marxist philosophy and theory. The first episode in this series takes a close look at dialectical materialism with Josh Sykes as our guest and was published in June of 2024. This episode serves as a follow-up to that episode, but can also be listened to on its own. Historical materialism and dialectical materialism are deeply intertwined, so having a solid understanding of dialectics will help you understand historical materialism—but we do explore both dialectics and historical materialism in this episode.
We also explore concepts from Torkil’s latest book, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, published this last November by Iskra Books, along with many fascinating topics related to historical materialism that span from Marx’s concepts of use value and exchange value, the history of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, anti-imperialism, neoliberalism, the rise of China, and much more.
Further Resources
The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism Iskra Books International Forum (Copenhagen) Arghiri Emmanuel Organization Anti-Dühring Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science, Frederick Engels Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, by John Bellamy Foster Monthly Review On Contradiction, Mao Zedong The Commodity (Capital Vol. 1), Karl Marx Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism, Joshua Sykes Fossil Capital:The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Andreas Malm Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), Karl Marx Forget Eco-Modernism, Kai Heron The Accumulation of Waste: A political economy of systemic destruction, Ali Kadri How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis, Jason Hickel and Dylan SullivanRelated Episodes:
Dialectical Materialism w/ Josh Sykes A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things with Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly The Liberal Virus Degrowth vs Eco-Modernism Climate Leninism w/ Jodi Dean and Kai Heron Better Lives for All w/ Jason HickelCover art: Carolyn Raider
Intermission music: "gl0om" by heavy lifterUpstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on.
And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the ideological apparatuses of the capitalist state and the violence which it upholds.
In this episode, we’ll be discussing anti-fatness as anti-Blackness with Da'Shaun Harrison—a writer, editor, speaker, community organizer, co-executive director of Scalawag Magazine, and author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books.
In this conversation, we explore the field of fat studies, the history of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, why we should view anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, the eugenicist history of BMI—or the Body Mass Index—the need to stretch and grow abolition politics, the importance of unlearning supremacist ideology, and much more.
Further resources:
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books Da'Shaun's LinkTree Roxanne Gay Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Sabrina Strings Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies, Andrea ShawRelated episodes:
Abolish the PoliceUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
"Sure, I agree that capitalism sucks—but what's the alternative? We tried socialism in the 20th century and it failed." We've all heard this line from well-meaning friends, family members, or any variety of interlocutors we happen to find ourselves in dialogue with in any variety of contexts. There are a lot of compelling and nuanced responses to this common position, and regardless of what you think of the idea itself, it's an important one for us on the left to be able to answer.
In this Patreon reading series, Robert reads a passage from a book that attempts to answer this question. The passage is the introductory chapter of the excellent new book, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, by Torkil Lauesen. Published by Iskra Books.
What is the response to the idea that socialism is a failed ideology? Why should we see the transition from capitalism to socialism as a long struggle of experiments and struggles that, far from being fruitless, are essential parts of a world-historical struggle that is still playing out? Why is it important to center historical materialism in our analysis of the world? And why should we be more excited than ever at the prospects of human and more-than-human emancipation and thriving in a world organized under socialism? These are just some of the questions we tackle in this reading and analysis of the introductory chapter of The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, by Torkil Lauesen.
Further resources:
Iskra Books The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, by Torkil Lauesen Hyper-Imperialism: A Dangerous Decadent New Stage, Tricontinental: Institute for Social ResearchRelated episodes:
Dialectical Materialism w/ Josh Sykes Historical Materialism w/ Torkil Lauesen The Exhausted of the Earth w/ Ajay Singh Chaudhary Trans Liberation and Solidarity with Alyson Escalante Everyday Utopia and Radical Imagination with Kristen Ghodsee Prefigurative Politics and Workplace Democracy w/ Saio Gradin and Nicole WiresUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
It's been said that “the shortest path to the future is always one through the deepening of the past.” But how do we balance the past, present, and future, when all three weigh so heavily on our consciousness and our social existence?
Perhaps one way to find a balance—or at least to distill these various webbed threads of temporality—might be to pose them as questions: what can we learn from the past to help us in the present? And how can I be a good ancestor for the people of tomorrow? These are the questions that inform and guide the recent work of our guest on today's episode.
Roman Krznaric is a social philosopher, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, and the author of several books including most recently, History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity and The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World.
In this episode, we explore lessons from the past and what it means to be a good ancestor today. We look at how our conceptions of time can expand or limit the way that we answer these questions. We explore what it means to be on the radical fringes of a society, how to build and strengthen solidarity, and how to find meaning and community in a world that has grown increasingly isolating and alienating.
This episode was produced in collaboration with EcoGather, a collapse-responsive co-learning network that hosts free online Weekly EcoGatherings that foster conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and belonging in an enlivened world. In this collaboration, EcoGather will be hosting gatherings to bring some Upstream episodes to life—this is one of those episodes. We hope you can join the gathering on TK to discuss the topics covered in this episode. Find out more at www.ecogather.ing.
Further Resources
The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World Radical climate protests linked to increases in public support for moderate organizations, Nature Sustainability The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, by Ibn Khaldûn The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…Essays, David GraeberRelated Episodes:
Be More Pirate w/ Sam Conniff Doughnut Economics with Kate RaworthCover art: Nina Montenegro
Intermission music: “Seed of a Seed” by Haley HeynderickxUpstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "Palestine Pt. 14: Decolonial Marxism w/ Patrick Higgins." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
The Palestinian resistance movement—when seen as a continuous struggle taking shape in the early 20th century and continuing to this very day—has been one of the most profound and long-lasting resistance movements the world has ever seen. The movement was forged in the struggle against British colonialism, Zionist settler-colonialism, and later, US imperial hegemony, and through its long struggle, was not just inspired and informed by Marxist theory—but it itself developed and expanded Marxist revolutionary theory and tested it in the battlefields of West Asia. The contributions—both materially and theoretically—by the Palestinian left, cannot be overlooked, and we’ve devoted this episode to an exploration of this history and of this development of the global, international, anti-imperialist left. And we’ve brought on a terrific guest for this conversation.
Patrick Higgins is a researcher and writer with a PhD in Arab History. He is a co-editor of the publication Liberated Texts. He is currently adapting his dissertation into a book on the history of Palestinian resistance against US imperialism.
In this conversation, Patrick walks us through a history of revolutionary Marxist parties and organizations in Palestine, from the Palestine Communist Party in 1919 all the way up to the present resistance coalition of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—among others. We explore the role that pan Arabism and Arab Nationalism played in the development of the Palestinian left’s struggle, the rise of Israel as a US proxy in West Asia, the aims and goals of US imperialism and the United States’ involvement in the region, the contributions of the Palestinian left to anti-imperialist theory, and how the current genocide can be analyzed and contextualized from the perspective of the Palestinian revolutionary left.
Further resources:
Resistance News Network A Study of Physical Education, Mao Tse-tung The Palestine Communist Party 1919-1948: Arab and Jew in the Struggle for Internationalism, Musa Budeiri Ghassan Kanafani: The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Despard, Peter Linebaugh al-Hadaf “Lessons from the Paris Commune”. Al-Hadaf (Beirut), February 28, 1970 Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)Related episodes:
Our ongoing series on Palestine Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-StellyCover art: “The Path of Armed Struggle” issued by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1970.
Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Exhaustion. What a perfect and powerful word to describe our times. Exhausted bodies—over-worked, over-productive, over-stretched. Bodies pushed to their limits, treated like machines whose sole existence is to produce profit. Exhausted ecosystems—extracted, ruined, plundered. Viewed as nothing but raw material for the ceaseless flow of capital accumulation. Exhausted minds—hurried and harried, no time for joy, for introspection, for pondering the cosmos. Our minds are tethered to an orbit delineated by distraction, denial, and despair. Exhaustion.
2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record—and unless you’ve been consciously avoiding it you’ve probably seen the videos of the devastating floods, wildfires, and “once in a thousand years” storms that are increasingly becoming a part of our daily lives. The reality of climate change is no longer one of the future, one that can be framed in a discussion about coming generations—it’s here already. And it’s not even a question anymore of capitalism being the driving factor—that’s an old conversation. The question now is: what are we going to do about it? How do we respond, right now?
Ajay Singh Chaudhary is the executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and core faculty member specializing in social and political theory and author of The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World, published by Repeater Books.
In this episode, we analyze and unpack the many forms of exhaustion that shape us and our world today. We explore the politics of climate change, from right-wing climate responses to those coming from the left, we explore the extractive circuit of capitalism as it stretches its tentacles from lithium mines in The DRC to Doordash drivers in the suburbs of the West. We explore imperialism, Marxist theory, revolutionary classes, revolutionary strategies, and why the “exhausted of the earth” are the mass political subject of our times.
Further Resources
The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World, by Ajay Singh Chaudhary Brooklyn Institute for Social ResearchRelated Episodes:
The Fight for The Congo w/ Vijay Prashad Degrowth vs Eco-Modernism Buddhism and Marxism with Breht O'Shea Climate Leninism w/ Jodi Dean and Kai HeronIntermission music: "Non-Metaphorical Decolonization" by Mount Eerie
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shuan Harrison," which will be unlocked in a few weeks. To can get early access to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on.
And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the ideological apparatuses of the capitalist state and the violence which it upholds.
In this episode, we’ll be discussing anti-fatness as anti-Blackness with Da'Shaun Harrison—a writer, editor, speaker, community organizer, co-executive director of Scalawag Magazine, and author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books.
In this conversation, we explore the field of fat studies, the history of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, why we should view anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, the eugenicist history of BMI—or the Body Mass Index—the need to stretch and grow abolition politics, the importance of unlearning supremacist ideology, and much more.
Further resources:
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books Da'Shaun's LinkTree Roxanne Gay Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Sabrina Strings Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies, Andrea ShawRelated episodes:
Abolish the PoliceUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Prefigurative politics, building the new within the old, exercising our muscles of collectivity and collaboration—muscles that have grown weak and atrophied under capitalist hegemony—these are all ideas and practices that play a crucial role in our revolutionary movements. And examples of prefiguration can and do take many interesting and inspiring forms—one of these forms is worker self-direction, or worker cooperatives.
In today’s episode we’re talking prefiguration and worker self-direction—and we’ve split the episode up into two parts so that we can dive deeply into both. Part one of our conversation takes a deep dive into the concept and practice of prefigurative politics, which is, simply put, the attempt to implement the world that you want to live in, now. And we’ve brought on the perfect guest to talk about it.
Saio Gradin teaches Politics at Kings College, London and is a community organizer and educator who has spent twenty years running workshops, campaigns and organizations for global justice. They are the author of the book, Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today, published by Polity Books.
Part two of our conversation is going to take a deep dive into one form of prefiguration—worker self-direction—specifically, we’ll exploring the ins and outs of working at a self-directed not-for-profit, which is structurally similar to a worker cooperative, but we’ll get into more those details in the conversation. The point is, we’ll be talking about what it’s like to work in a democratically-run organization. And to have that conversation, we’ve brought on Nicole Wires. Nicole is an organizer and the Network Director for the Nonprofit Democracy Network and a worker-member of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
In this episode, we explore the concept of prefiguration and how it compares and contrasts to other revolutionary strategies. We explore examples of prefiguration in history and today and why prefigurative politics are an important component of our revolutionary movements. In part two we take a deep dive into the process and practice of prefiguration specifically in the context of worker self-direction, exploring the benefits and challenges of being part of a self-directed organization, the different types of decision-making processes utilized by certain worker-run firms, and how worker cooperatives—and the many forms they take—fit into a broader ecosystem of individuals and organizations striving to live their values in a world dominated by the logic of capital.
Further Resources
Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today, published by Polity Books Could pre-figurative politics provide a way forward for the left? by Siao Gradin in OpenDemocracy Indian Home Rule Movement Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (Marcus Garvey) The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo FreemanRelated Episodes:
Worker Cooperatives Pt. 1: Widening Spheres of Democracy (Documentary) Worker Cooperatives Pt. 2: Islands within a Sea of Capitalism (Documentary) Be More Pirate w/ Sam Conniff Craftivism with Sarah Corbett Transition Towns with Rob HopkinsIntermission music: "Garbage Factory" by Bobby Frith
This episode was produced in collaboration with EcoGather, a collapse-responsive co-learning network that hosts free online Weekly EcoGatherings that foster conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and belonging in an enlivened world. In this collaboration, EcoGather will be hosting gatherings to bring some Upstream episodes to life—this is one of those episodes. Join the EcoGather team on Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 5pm ET for a warm and welcoming conversation! Find out more here.
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
“This is the most important election of our lifetimes.” “Voting for a third-party candidate? Might as well throw away your vote!” “You may not like her, but you’ve just got to hold your nose and vote for her — otherwise, Trump might win.”
We're sure you’ve heard each of these lines many times — we know that we have. But, at some point you have to ask: how can every election be the most important one? Am I really throwing away my vote by voting for a candidate whose policies I agree with? Can we ever actually affect change if we’re always voting for the "lesser evil" candidate or party? Isn’t that just a race to the bottom — or, as we're seeing currently, a race towards genocide?
Well, in this conversation, we’re going to tackle all of those questions — and much more — with our guest, August Nimtz, Professor of political science and African American and African studies in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. Professor Nimtz is the author of The Ballot, The Streets, Or Both? published by Haymarket Books.
In this conversation, Professor Nimtz explores the question of electoralism as it relates to revolutionary left politics through a deep dive into the history of the Russian Revolution — examining how Marx, Engels, and Lenin approached electoralism and then applying their analyses and viewpoints to today’s situation.
What is the role of elections for the revolutionary left? How can we engage with electoralism without falling into what Professor Nimtz refers to as “electoral fetishism”? What about the "lesser evil" or "spoiler" phenomenon? How can we build a party for the working and oppressed classes without falling prey to opportunism or bourgeois distraction? What can we learn from the European Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, and other historic attempts at revolution — both successful and unsuccessful? These are just some of the questions and themes we explore in this episode with Professor Nimtz.
Thank you to Bethan Mure for this episode’s cover art and to Noname for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond.
Further resources:
The Ballot, The Streets, or Both? by August NimtzRelated episodes:
[UNLOCKED] Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia Battling the Duopoly w/ Jill Stein Righteous Indignation, Love, and Running for President w/ Dr. Cornel West Upstream: What Is To Be Done? with Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante Socialism Betrayed w/ Roger Keeran and Joe JamisonUpstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
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This is a free preview of the episode "Disabled Ecologies w/ Sunaura Taylor." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
Disability is a state, or an idea, or a process even that is often associated with human beings—somebody becomes “disabled” or is experiencing “disability.” We don’t typically attach this state of being or this process to things other than human beings, much less to, say, geological formations. When is the last time you heard somebody refer to a contaminated body of water as “being disabled?” But utilizing the language and framing of disability when thinking about the impacts of capitalism and imperialism on our bodies and our biosphere is not just a useful exercise—it’s a profound and crucial analysis.
The story that we tell in this episode is one of disabled ecologies and has its origins deep beneath the ground in Tucson, Arizona—but it stretches all across the globe, from Gaza to Yemen to Korea—from the cells in our bodies to the water that lives in aquifers many feet below the ground. And really, the story doesn’t actually originate in Arizona—it begins somewhere in Europe sometime between the 12th to 16th centuries, during the dawn of capitalism. But that’s a different story for a different time.
To tell the story and concept of disabled ecologies—a story of the web of interconnection between humans and the more-than-human world—we’ve brought on Sunaura Taylor. Sunaura is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, a critical disability scholar and activist, an artist, and the author of two books: Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, published by The New Press, and, most recently, Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert, published by University of California Press.
In this episode we tell the story of Tucson, Arizona’s aquifer and how it came to be contaminated by the US military. We trace the contours of death and destruction from the water beneath Tucson’s Southside neighborhood to the bodies living above it, from the chemicals that disabled ecosystems in Arizona and to the bombs drenched in those chemicals that were dropped on people across the Global South. We explore disability politics, environmental racism, classism, and the importance of organizing. And we celebrate the wins and the successes—not yet complete—of those in Tucson, Arizona who are taking on the capitalist state machinery to fight for justice and personal, community, and ecological healing.
Further resources:
Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert Nature is Disappearing: The Average Size of Wildlife Populations has Fallen by a Staggering 73%Related episodes:
Breaking the Chains of Empire w/ Abby Martin (Live Show) Health Communism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton Terra Viva with Vandana ShivaCover art: Sunaura Taylor
Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, or The DRC, is—despite being in one of the most resource-rich regions on the planet—one of the poorest countries in the world. It sits atop a wealth of minerals that form the central components to much of our technology in the 21st century, and yet, none of this wealth remains in the country. Well, almost none of it—there is of course some that is skimmed off the top by local elites. But the vast majority of the wealth, along with the raw materials, are exported from the country and end up not just lining the pockets of multinational corporations and their shareholders, but, of course, the wealth ends up in the pockets of Western consumers in the form of iPhones, for example, that should be priced much more highly than they actually are.
In this episode, we’re going to take a deep dive into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in doing so, explore why this resource-rich country is as impoverished and as immiserated as it is. And we’ve brought on the perfect guest to talk us through it all.
Vijay Prashad is a journalist, political commentator, and executive-director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He’s the author of Washington Bullets: The History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, and Red Star Over the Third World.
In this episode, we explore the history of The Congo and situate it within a much broader framework of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism which shaped—both literally and figuratively—the continent of Africa for hundreds of years. We explore the Congolese’s fight for independence and sovereignty as it manifested through their independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in 1961. We explore the current state of the country, what many refer to as the “silent genocide,” with millions of Congolese having been killed, displaced, and impoverished as a result of war, destabilization, super exploitation, and voracious extraction. And finally, we explore how the Congolese are fighting for their sovereignty and independence.
This episode was produced in collaboration with EcoGather, a collapse-responsive co-learning network that hosts free online Weekly EcoGatherings that foster conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and belonging in an enlivened world. In this collaboration, EcoGather will be hosting gatherings to bring some Upstream episodes to life—this is one of those episodes. We hope you can join the gathering on Monday, November 11th at 8pm Eastern to discuss the topics covered in this episode. Find out more at www.ecogather.ing.
Further Resources
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth, Tricontintental Letter from Thysville Prison to Mrs. LumumbaRelated Episodes:
[UNLOCKED] How the North Plunders the South w/ Jason Hickel Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly Better Lives for All w/ Jason HickelCover art: Sanyika
Intermission music: “African Jazz” by Grand Kalle, part of album Joseph Kabasele and the Creation of Modern Congolese Music, Vol. 1Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
Western Marxism. What is it? Where did it arise from? And what is it in opposition to? Not simply a geographic indicator, although much of what it depicts exists in what we understand to be the West more broadly, Western Marxism is a term deployed, in particular, by the great Italian Marxist Domenico Losurdo, to describe a form of Marxism that, in a nutshell, does not concern itself with anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, but, instead, rejects much of the actually-existing socialism that exists in the very real, material world—a world which Western Marxism, over the years, has become more and more alienated and estranged from.
Western Marxism stands in opposition to what Domenico Losurdo calls Eastern Marxism, which, again, is not necessarily delineated by a specific geography, but is a form of Marxism that has cut its teeth in real struggles for power, in real anti-colonial revolution.
In his penultimate book—which shares the title of this episode—Domenico Losurdo presents a scathing but honest, passionate, and deeply sincere critique of Western Marxism. Far from just a diatribe, Losurdo’s text spells out exactly why the West abandoned so much of Marxism that was central to Marx, Engels, and Lenin’s understandings of Marxist theory and, most importantly, practice.
The vast majority of Losurdo’s fifty or so books have not been translated into English, and he died in 2018, but this book, Western Marxism, was just recently translated into English for the first time, and we’ve brought on the edition’s editor, the terrific Gabriel Rockhill, to discuss it.
Gabriel Rockhill is a philosopher, cultural critic, and activist teaching Philosophy and Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University. He runs an educational nonprofit called the Critical Theory Workshop and is the editor of Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, by the Italian Marxist Domenico Losurdo, published by Monthly Review Press.
In this Patreon episode, we discuss Western Marxism and Eastern Marxism—tracing their histories and outlining their differences. We explore how the CIA and other anti-communist forces infiltrated the left and spread the influence of Western Marxism through academia, media, and other avenues in order to purge the Western left of its communist tendencies and to poison our perception of actually-existing socialism in places like the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Vietnam—among others. We explore how the left in the West can unlearn this propaganda and reintroduce a robust anti-imperialist, pro-communist analysis into our movements, and why it is so crucial to understand that the left must start with anti-imperialism.
Further resources:
Gabriel Rockhill Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, by Domenico Losurdo Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism, Gus Hall Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? Volume I of The Intellectual World War: Marxism versus the Imperial Theory Industry, by Gabriel Rockhill (forthcoming in 2025 by Monthly Review Press) Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, by Frances Stonor SaundersRelated episodes:
What is To Be Done? w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante The Liberal Virus Will the Revolution Be Funded? w/ Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly Dialectical Materialism w/ Josh Sykes Socialism Betrayed w/ Roger Keeran and Joe Jamison The Missing Revolution w/ Vincent Bevins The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class with Catherine Liu Palestine Pt. 11: Israel and the U.S. Empire w/ Max Ajl Palestine Pt. 13: Al-Aqsa Flood and the Resistance Axis w/ Matteo CapassoUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation, which took place one year ago today, was perhaps one of the most important blows against U.S. imperialism that we’ve ever seen—both ideologically and materially. Nothing can ever be the same—and it shouldn’t, because what we considered normal, if we even thought about it at all, was a nightmare for the vast majority of people on the planet. The Global South and the Resistance Axis that has taken up the fight against the U.S. and Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, have shown themselves to be a leading force against U.S. imperialism, earth’s greatest enemy.
In this episode, we’re going to explore the Al-Aqsa Flood military operation from a year ago and contextualize it within the broader resistance movement against U.S. imperialism and the Zionist entity (Israel) that helps to uphold it. And we’ve brought on the perfect guest to walk us through it all. Matteo Capasso is Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Venice. His research focuses on the impact of US-led imperialism across the modern Middle East and North Africa. He is the Editor of Middle East Critique and the author of Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, published by Syracuse University Press.
In today’s episode we’ll take a deep dive into the history of resistance in the region and its context in broader resistance movements in the Global South. We’ll explore the history of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other parts of the resistance, talk about the overall impact that the Palestinian resistance has had, and explore how we in the imperial core can contribute to the destruction of the U.S. empire and support the resistance against it in the Global South.
Further Resources
Middle East Critique Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, by Matteo Capasso The Thorn and the Carnation (Part I), by Yahya Al-Sinwar The urgency of anti-imperialist feminism Lessons from Palestine Walaa Alqaisiya Palestine and the Ends of Theory, Max Ajl The Hegemony of Resistance: Hezbollah and the Forging of a National-Popular Will in Lebanon, Abed Kanaaneh The Imperialist Question: A Sociological Approach, Matteo Capasso Al-Aqsa Flood: Imperialism, Zionism and Reactionism in the 21st Century, Hassan Harb Join us in supporting Palestine at MECA, Anera, or the Palestinian Red Crescent SocietyRelated Episodes:
Palestine Pt. 11: Israel and the U.S. Empire w/ Max Ajl [UNLOCKED] How the North Plunders the South w/ Jason Hickel Upstream's ongoing series on PalestineCover art: Beesan Arafat
Intermission music: “From Ansar to Asklan” by George Kirmiz, reissued by Majazz project, an archival record label and alternative research platform reissuing and remixing vintage Arab vinyl and cassettes.
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Oil is much more than just a source of energy—it’s a commodity that has shaped—and has been shaped—by the forces of capitalism perhaps more so than any other commodity. The story of oil is one of monopoly capitalism, one of imperialism, one of cheap labor, resource extraction, ecosystem devastation, climate change, assassinations, environmental disasters, genocides—the list goes on. Oil is the commodity which not just lubricates the actual, literal machinery driving the system—but which also lubricates the entire process of U.S. imperialism—the blood flowing through the empire’s many tentacles wrapped around the globe.
As today’s guest has written, “Oil's centrality stems from what it does for the imperatives of accumulation: its ability to accelerate and expand capital's turnover, cheapen the costs of production (including labor), and knit together an international market. No other commodity plays this role.”
Adam Hanieh is a Palestinian professor at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, published by Haymarket Books, and most recently, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market, published by Verso. Adam was on the show last year to talk about the political economy of Palestine, part of our ongoing series on Palestine.In this episode we explore the early history of oil, its emergence as a fuel source and how it eventually overtook other fuels like coal as the primary energy source of capitalism. We explore the role that oil has played in shaping geopolitics—from colonialism to coups, assassinations, and more, focusing on the way that oil has shaped the Middle East to this day. We talk about the major oil companies and how the world market for oil works, and finally, we bring into stark relief the environmental implications of this hydrocarbon and the way that oil companies continue to dominate and shape our response to climate change.
Further resources:
Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World MarketRelated episodes:
Upstream's ongoing series on PalestineUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "Will the Revolution Be Funded? w/ Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
How do we resource the necessary work to dismantle capitalism and transition to a more democratic, just and regenerative economy—especially when capital will fight and/or co-opt any attempt to disrupt the status quo that they benefit from and when capital owns and controls most foundations and granting institutions?
This is the important and highly relevant question we will tackle today with our two guests Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman. Nairuti is a racial and economic justice researcher-practitioner and the Founder and Principal of Nuance, a social impact consulting firm, as well as a senior researcher at Beloved Economies. Zac is the Resource Mobilization Director at the New Economy Coalition, a steering committee member of Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network, and board member of LittleSis. Together they recently wrote an article titled, “Will the Revolution be Funded?” published by The Forge.
In this conversation we explain why it is so hard to find funding to do anti-capitalist movement work and how we can find aligned funding both within and outside of mainstream philanthropy. We learn about ways that activists and organizations are working to fight against and transform the nonprofit industrial complex and the existing philanthropic culture and institutions. And finally, we ask what it truly means to resource the revolution and support ourselves beyond financial capital.
Further resources:
Will the Revolution be Funded? Will the Revolution be Funded? Youtube event recording New Economy Coaltion Funding Library Post Capitalist Philanthropy New Report: Gilded Giving 2022, Institute for Policy Studies Funding Freedom: Philanthropy and the Palestinian Freedom Movement, Solidaire Sylvia Rivera Law Project Poder Emma Drivers Cooperative A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition, Movement Generation How we Contest for Power, Mijente Resource Generation What Organizers Need From Lawyers, Part 2: Help Build Deep Democracy, Convergence Mag The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex The Financial Activist Playbook, by Jasmine Rashid Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World By Anand Giridharadas Related organizations: Sustainable Economies Law Center, Invest for Better, Slow Money Institute, NC3, Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, Transform Finance, The Next Egg Values aligned Wealth advisors and managers: Mission Driven Finance, FSL Public Finance, Chordata Capital, Mission Driven Finance, Adasina Social CapitalRelated episodes:
Post Capitalism w/ Alnoor Ladha A World Without Profit with Jennifer HintonUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
Capitalism’s addiction to growth doesn’t just show up in the external world. It can also be found inside us—in our manufactured desire for more and better. Not only do we have to keep wanting to keep the machine going, we have to keep wanting what is “scarce” and easily privatizable or commodifiable so that the capitalist class can continue to profit.
Critical hedonism(s) is an approach to pleasure and care that is critical of capitalism. It is a politics of pleasure that invites us to remake our desires to be less antisocial, competitive, and harmful, and to instead be more prosocial, collaborative and mutually beneficial.
The idea of critical hedonism(s) has been deeply studied and explored by our guests in today’s episode. Zarinah Agnew is a trained neuroscientist formerly at University College London, and then UCSF, a self-described guerrilla scientist, and part of the Beyond Return organization. Eric Wycoff Rogers is a historian, writer, community organizer, and designer currently based in London. Eric runs a thirdspace project in London, convenes a discussion series on the politics of pleasure, and is the author of the Critical Hedonist Manifesto.
This is Eric and Zarinah’s second time on the podcast, they joined us in 2022 to talk about Fully Automated Luxury Communism, which is a great compliment to this episode. This is also a great episode following our most recent conversation with Jason Hickel, Better Lives for All. Where that conversation focused on human needs, this one takes up the topic of human wants.
In this conversation, we explore what capitalism tells us to desire and why, we interrogate what is truly “cheap,” “expensive,” and “valuable,” and explore what it would be like to participate in a politics of pleasure based on critical hedonism(s)—creating conditions and opportunities for distributed pleasure that don’t cause harm to people or the planet. Finally, we are invited to learn about community gatherings and how to do the work of reclaiming and remaking pleasure.
Further Resources:
Critical Hedonist Manifesto Critical Hedonism(s) Beyond Return Decoding Labs The Joyless Economy, by Tibor Scitovsky The Right to Sex, by Amia Srinivasan The Zero Marginal Cost Society I Dream of Canteens The Listening Society: Possible and Necessary Post-Growth Living: For An Alternative Hedonism, by Kate Soper Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, by Adrienne Maree Brown Becoming Feminist: Consciousness Raising and Social Ecology, Eric Woycoff Rogers (blog)Related Episodes:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism with Zarinah Agnew and Eric Wycoff Rogers Better Lives for All w/ Jason Hickel Grassroots Urban Placemaking with Mark Lakeman Sex, Desire, and the Neoliberal Subject Suburban Hell and Ugly CitiesIntermission music: Night Cafe Radio
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
This is a free preview of the episode "Palestine Pt. 12: Resistance in the West w/ Max Geller and Sanyika." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
From the student-led encampments on college campuses all over the U.S. to direct actionists in the UK bursting through weapons factory walls with sledge hammers in their hands—the fight for Palestinian liberation in the West takes many forms. The response—repressive, heavy-handed, and fascistic—has also taken many forms, from draconian charges to outright mob violence. In this Patreon episode, we’ll take stock of some recent on-the-ground actions, from the Palestinian solidarity encampment at UCLA to the work of Palestine Action in both the US and the UK. And we’ve brought on two guests to help walk us through it all.
Sanyika is the current co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Chapter at UCLA and a current, second year law student at UCLA who has been an organizer for the past 10 years, most recently at the UCLA student encampment for Palestine. You might have heard about the UCLA encampment after news of a violent series of attacks by Zionists hit headlines after the encampment was attacked on May 1st. The Zionist attack was followed up in the early hours of May 2nd by a police attack, where the LAPD and highway patrol attempted to clear the encampment using rubber bullets and flash bangs. The violence and brutality of the zionists and the police on those days captured the country’s attention as news feeds were packed with images and videos that left us feeling like we were staring fascism in the face. But we also saw the community response of over a thousand people who showed up to protect and defend the encampment.
Our second guest for this episode is Max Geller, a public-facing member of Palestine Action in the UK. Max is a return Patreon guest who you might recall from our episode Palestine Pt. 7: Direct Action w/ Max Geller of Palestine Action, part of our ongoing series on Palestine.
In this episode, we take a deep dive into the UCLA encampment—its origins, its demands, its fight against campus administrators, zionists, and cops, while situating this specific encampment within the broader encampment movement, which is very much still active. We also explore one of the most recent actions by Palestine Action which has left 11 direct actionists facing felony charges in the UK. We talk about the importance of direct action and organizing, what we can learn from the past eleven months of actions, the struggle for liberation both in the West and in Palestine, and how we can plug in and get involved ourselves.
Cover art: Sanyika
Further resources:
Palestine Action Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) UC Divest The Mapping Project Join us in supporting Palestine at MECA, Anera, or the Palestinian Red Crescent SocietyRelated episodes:
Palestine Pt. 7: Direct Action w/ Max Geller of Palestine Action Upstream's ongoing series on PalestineUpstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. -
U.S. empire—the world’s greatest enemy. U.S. imperialism is not a "single issue," it's directly connected to hundreds of millions of people's lives, capital accumulation and global inequality, climate change, fascism in the US, crumbling infrastructure, monopolies, and much, much more. U.S. imperialism is the issue that ties all of the other issues together, founded as it is on capital's need to accumulate profits and maintain U.S. political hegemony. There is not a single issue in your life that cannot be traced back to our empire and its maintenance.
Today’s episode is a special live conversation we did last month in Los Angeles with the terrific Abby Martin. Abby is journalist, filmmaker, activist, founder of The Empire Files and director of the films Gaza Fights for Freedom and the upcoming documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy, which focuses on one particular aspect of U.S. empire: its environmental impact. The U.S. military is the largest institutional source of climate emissions on the planet—and yet it’s exempt from the climate protocols that aim to reduce emissions. However, this is not the only way the US Empire harms the planet.
Abby’s upcoming film, as well as our conversation with her, take a deep dive into imperialism’s wider environmental impacts. We also discuss Abby’s other work, including her 2019 film, Gaza Fights for Freedom, which documents the Great March of Return in Palestine. We talk about what she learned in 2017 from her time in Jerusalem and witnessing Israeli society first hand, her experience being an unapologetically anti-Zionist voice for so many years, the business of war, the upcoming elections, the role of alternative media in breaking the chains of empire and much more.
Thank you to All Power Books in Los Angeles for organizing this event—they are a radical bookstore and community space that are the real deal. Check them out and support their incredible work at: allpowerbooks.org. And also, visit earthsgreatestenemy.com to chip in and support Abby and her team in getting their film past the finish line—they are still raising funds to complete production.
Further Resources:
Donate to Earth’s Greatest Enemy Gaza Fights for Freedom Breakthrough News Project Censored Jerusalem street interviews All Power Books Donate to All Power Books Join us in supporting Palestine at MECA, Anera, or the Palestinian Red Crescent SocietyRelated Episodes:
Better Lives for All w/ Jason Hickel Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly [UNLOCKED] How the North Plunders the South w/ Jason Hickel Palestine Pt. 11: Israel and the U.S. Empire w/ Max Ajl Nationalism and the Error of Patriotic Socialism w/ Sina Rahmani and Nick Climate Leninism w/ Jodi Dean and Kai Heron Upstream's ongoing series on PalestineCovert art: Gage from All Power Books
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