In 1990, the Berlin Wall came down and the experiment of communist East Germany came to an end. Yet for a time it was a successful project, raising living standards against massive odds and providing stability for the first time in half a century. So is it time to reassess Europe’s most wealthy, and advanced communist country, the DDR? Aaron Bastani speaks to author and historian Katja Hoyer, author of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

Downstream: The Country Where Communism Almost Worked w/ Katja Hoyer

Many people would agree that corporations have undue influence over our democracies. But exactly how this influence is exerted is tricky to work out - and that is by design. Behind innocuous-sounding acronyms and worthy-sounding trade agreements are the real cogs that allow the global corporate machine to corrupt societies. Our guest this week Matt Kennard has spent the last two years investigating these cogs.

In his new book, ‘Silent Coup’, he and co-author Claire Provost relay shocking examples of how corporations exert, expand and consolidate control over the lives of practically everyone in the world.

Downstream: How Corporations Control the Government w/ Matt Kennard

On the 23rd of June, following months of increasing tension between the Wagner Group and the Russian Ministry of Defence, Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his rebellion. Prigozhin's forces quickly took control of the head quarter's of Russia's Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don, after which an armoured column of Wagner troops advanced towards Moscow.

In today's episode of Interregnum I asked Richard Seymour about Prighozin's background in crime and his early business ventures, the founding of the Wagner Group, the scope of its operations and its reputation for appalling violence. And we also talked about why Richard thinks Prighozin can accurately be described as a fascist. Finally, Richard addressed the claim, made by some analysts that the abortive rebellion actually leaves Putin in a stronger position.

Interregnum - The meaning of Prigozhin's rebellion

‘Plateau’ is a auditory time-lapse history of Scotland’s Cairngorm high plateau. It is composed of four sections corresponding to the fluctuations of cold (Stadial) and warmer (Interstadial) climatic conditions: 

(1) The Last Glacial Maximum / (Late) Dimlington Stadial (27,000 to 16,000 BP)
(2) The Late-Glacial Interstadial (c.14,670 to 12,900 BP)
(3) The Loch Lomond Stadial (12,900 to 11,700 BP) 
(4) The early Holocene (11,700 to c.9,000 BP)

‘Plateau’ is part of ‘Looking Up’, a research project focusing on the post-glacial landscape, archaeology and heritage of the Scottish Uplands, led by Sam Kelley (University College of Dublin, School of Earth Sciences), Graeme Warren (University College Dublin, School of Archaeology) and Alice Doughty (University of Maine, School of Earth and Climate Sciences). 

The technique used to determine the timing of deglaciation on the high plateau involved project scientists collecting samples of rock containing quartz grains — a common mineral that is resistant to weathering. The rock samples were crushed, pulverised, sieved and sorted, before being subject to magnetic and mineral separation in order to isolate the quartz grains which contain ‘cosmogenic nuclides’ from the other minerals that make up the rock. In turn, these nuclides provided a direct means of timing their prehistoric exposure to cosmic radiation as the overlying cover of ice finally melted. In total, these samples give us a picture in space and time of the former glaciers in the Cairngorms in the face of warming post-glacial climate.

This process of sample collection and analysis directly informed the composition of ‘Plateau’. Stones from the locality were collected and their surface interactions recorded at high frequency sample rates. The resulting waveforms were then subjected to granular analysis, so that ‘single-cycle waveforms’ displaying tonal characteristics could be isolated and extracted. These grains of sound became the foundation of the musical composition.

https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/research/lookingup/

‘Looking Up: the future of early prehistoric heritage in Europe’s mountains’ is funded by the Irish Research Council’s COALESCE programme 2021–2023 (IRC COALESCE/2021/78) and is coordinated by University College Dublin’s School of Archaeology and School of Earth Sciences, with partners in University of Maine, Purdue University (both USA) and Aberdeenshire County Council.

https://www.richardskelton.net/land-music/plateau

Plateau

Ahead of an ACFM Trip about the internet, Keir Milburn is joined by Malcolm Harris to talk about the unique political history of his hometown of Palo Alto, the intellectual laboratory for a century of American hegemony.

The Kids These Days author tells a story that connects the founding of California, the violent removal of its native population, Stanford University’s eugenicist agenda, and the parallel emergence of Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex. Is the entire project of personal computing and the internet tainted by this brutal history?

Malcolm’s book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, is out now.

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Microdose: Californian Capitalism w/ Malcolm Harris

Richard Seymour returns to PTO to discuss the crisis and background to the crisis in Israel-Palestine. A little over a week ago US national security advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking at the the Atlantic festival, rattled off a list of positive developments in the Middle East which he argued had allowed the Biden administration to focus on issues elsewhere in the world. Referencing the truce in Yemen, a decline in hostility in the US's relationship with Iran and what he characterised as America's stable presence in Iraq - where around 2,500 US soldiers remain - he commented that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

On Saturday Sullivan's comments came back to haunt him as Hamas carried out an unprecedentedly large scale breakout from the Gaza strip and launched attacks on the Israeli military and Israeli civilians that have claimed over 1200 lives at the time of recording. Deaths on the Palestinian side from Israel's predictable assault on Gaza are heading towards parity, and undoubtedly those numbers will escalate dramatically as Israel continues its air campaign and prepares to launch a ground assault. The following interview with Richard Seymour was recorded earlier today - the 11th of October - and before it became apparent that a national unity government would be formed in Israel.

Interregnum - The Israel-Hamas conflict

Millions have protested against the bombing of Gaza by taking part in marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other demonstrations. But what difference does it make, either to the world or to ourselves?

The gang confront a contentious topic in this Trip. Do "A to B" marches ever achieve anything? What about joining hands around an RAF base? Digging up roads? Refusing to pay your taxes? Is squatting a form of direct action?

They discuss Irish hunger strikers, Montgomery bus boycotters, Greenham Common women and the people that Suella Braverman calls "hate marchers", with music from Lowkey, the Plastic Ono Band, Steel Pulse and more.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Music: Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man / Dylan - Masters of War / Samba extract / Public Enemy - 911 is a Joke / Lowkey - Ghosts of Grenfell / Steel Pulse - Handsworth Revolution / The Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace A Chance / John Lennon - Working Class Hero

Book: Charles Tilly – Social Movements: 1768-2004

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 39: Protest

How do mainstream politicians and pundits contribute to the normalisation of far-right ideas, even as they claim to reject racism and populism? That's one of many vital questions asked by Aaron Winter and Aurelien Mondon in their book Reactionary Democracy.

Following ACFM's recent Trip about Fascism, Keir and Jem speak to Aaron and Aurelien about the making of the "woke conspiracy", how illiberal politics absorbs liberal rhetoric, and why the left has to stop falling for reactionary narratives – and give up "debating" the far-right.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Microdose: Reactionary Democracy w/ Aaron Winter & Aurelien Mondon

What exactly is cool? Well, if it was that easy to describe, it wouldn't be cool at all. In this Trip, Keir, Jem and Nadia wonder if cool comes from within, if cool can ever be politically useful, and what happens when cool is used as a disciplining force.

With ideas from Pierre Bourdieu, Norman Mailer and Paul Gilroy, and music from OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Miles Davis, the gang adopt a blank expression to explore the mysterious rules of this singular modern concept.

Books:  Dick Pountain & David Robins - Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude / Pierre Bourdieu - Distinction: A Sociology of the Judgement of Taste / Sarah Thornton - Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital / Norman Mailer - The White Negro / Georg Simmel - The Metropolis and Mental Life / Paul Gilroy - The Black Atlantic / The New Spirit of Capitalism / Thomas Frank - The Conquest of Cool / Jean Genet - Prisoner of Love

Music:  Gwen Stefani - Cool / Dua Lipa - Cool / OutKast - Take Off Your Cool / The Stooges - Real Cool Time / Miles Davis - Jeru / Ricardo Villalobos - Hireklon / New Order - Blue Monday

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 43: Cool

The right have ditched climate denial and found something worse.

They're doubling down on the exhaustion of people and planet alike, making us run ever-faster just to stay in place.

Can we turn our collective exhaustion into a climate politics of rest and recuperation?

That's the urgent question Ajay Singh Chaudhary asks in The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World.

On Novara FM, he told Richard Hames about the strange new alliances forged by climate change, what we can learn from global peasant struggles, and the possibilities buried in a world coming apart at the seams.

Novara FM: The Right Is Getting Real On Climate. Can We? w/ Ajay Singh Chaudhary

What exactly is cool? Well, if it was that easy to describe, it obviously wouldn't be cool. In this Trip, Keir, Jem and Nadia wonder if cool can ever be politically useful, and what happens when cool is used as a disciplining force.

With ideas from Pierre Bourdieu, Norman Mailer and Paul Gilroy, and music from OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Miles Davis, the gang adopt a blank expression to explore the mysterious rules of this singular modern concept.

Check out all the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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ACFM Microdose: Notes on Camp

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