Just what is it good for?

This time on ACFM, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn respond to the Ukraine invasion with a conversation about war. Is it an aberration, or an unavoidable product of human power struggles? Are conflicts between nations better understood as a reflection of domestic divisions? And how is war used to divert the working class from progressive politics at home?

The gang think through these questions and more as they relate to global politics and the UK left, with music from Stiff Little Fingers, Rage Against The Machine, Robert Wyatt, Digital Mystikz and more.

Books &amp; articles: Deleuze & Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus / Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine / Michel Foucault – Society Must be Defended / Jeremy Gilbert – The Bennites’ revenge: how Jeremy Corbyn and his allies survived political exile / Keir Milburn – The August riots, shock and the prohibition of thought / Why war? A letter from Freud to Einstein

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Trip 23: War

In 1999, an anonymous Italian collective published a spy novel called Q. Imagined by its left-wing authors as an "operation manual for cultural disruption," the book has had a bizarre political afterlife, with its story arc and themes of Satanic ritual and paedophilia seemingly providing the basis for alt-right conspiracy theory QAnon. Did a '90s literary prank foment an American insurrection?

In a Microdose to accompany an ACFM Trip episode about magic, Keir Milburn speaks to Wu Ming 1, one of Q's co-authors and a founding member of the Wu Ming collective, about the universal appeal of conspiracies. 

Books: Q – Luther Blissett / La Q di Qomplotto – Wu Ming 1 / The Tyranny of Algorithms – Miguel Benasayag / The Critique of Judgement – Immanuel Kant

The stage magician mentioned by Wu Ming 1 is Mariano Tomatis and the walking tour of Leeds mentioned by Keir is a NovaraFM podcast called Riots and the Red Flag.

ACFM Microdose: Fantasy and Conspiracy with Wu Ming 1

Dimitri talks with curator Aaron Moulton about THE INFLUENCING MACHINE, his controversial 2022 exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Poland, which explores the largely forgotten but deeply consequential activities of the Soros Centers for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in early ‘90s Eastern Europe, including:

How the SCCA “landed like a UFO” in former eastern bloc countries from 1992 to 1995, engineering the scripted avant-garde, the rise of socially-engaged practice, comparing and contrasting SCCA with the CIA’s promotion of abstract expressionism, ontologies of randomness and meritocratic achievement in the art/media world…

Unleashing a dump truck of cash on two dozen cities at the height of shock therapy and currency collapse, the curiously advanced new media practices of the Centers, a Trojan Horse called “art”, grooming local artists to embrace Open Society values, subtly blacklisting artists who thrived under the socialist system of Artist Unions, building early internet infrastructures in Romania, Eastern Europe as the bleeding edge of the cyber-frontier, “cowboy wizard internaut” Jonathan Peizer, artists as the first point of call for any new technology, the mysterious "British spy lol" Bill McAllister, the 1994 “Alchemic Surrender” false flag exhibit on a Ukrainian battleship…

Suzy Meszoly’s intriguing journey from SCCA “czarina” and faithful Soros lieutenant to Buddhist vibrational healer and New Age conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, the challenges of discussing George Soros the Boogeyman, the prescient 1989 profile of Soros from a recently deceased friend of the show named TRAIN, comparing Meszoly’s 1990 Romanian exhibit “The Media Were With Us” with the 2003 German documentary “Checkmate: Strategy for a Revolution”, the CIA dramaturgy of Ceaușescu’s overthrow, Josh Harris, Pynchon’s “Bleeding Edge”, Gelitin, 9/11, Marina Abramovic and crossing the Pizzagate event horizon…

Part one of two.

For access to full-length premium episodes, upcoming installments of DEMON FORCES, and the SJ Grotto of Truth Discord, subscribe to the Al-Wara’ Frequency at patreon.com/subliminaljihad.

[#142] ALCHEMIC SURRENDER: George Soros & the Rise of the Influencing Machine w/ Aaron Moulton, Pt 1

Cory Doctorow — returning champion, friend of the show, and author of the new novel Red Team Blues — joins us to chat about fiction (science), finance (crypto), forensics (accounting), and much more. You never knew forensic accounting could be so radical and thrilling, but Red Team Blues is an immanent critique of techno-financial capitalism in the guise of a page ripping novel. We cover a lot of ground, all of it fascinating, as we always do when Cory comes on TMK.

••• Buy Red Team Blues: https://craphound.com/shop/
••• Follow Cory: https://twitter.com/doctorow 
••• Cory’s blog: https://pluralistic.net/ 

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills   

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

257. Red Team Blues (ft. Cory Doctorow)

Once upon a time we dreamed of a world free from household drudgery, helped by robot butlers, self-cleaning appliances and "smart" homes that saved energy and tidied after themselves. Yet despite decades of high-tech innovation in the home, we've barely reduced our workload – and still no one's managed to automate the folding of laundry.

So why is household labour stuck in the past? If technology won't save us, what kind of political fix will? And why does the list of chores just keep getting longer? These are some of the questions explored by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek in their new book, After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time.

Eleanor Penny visited Helen and Nick at home in Surrey to discuss the impact of automation on our domestic lives, the neoliberal fixation on the nuclear family, the possibility of public luxury, and how raising their own family has informed their thinking on the promise of the post-work society.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

Novara FM: We Were Promised Robot Butlers w/ Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek

Adam Shatz joins PTO to talk about his new book, 'Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination'. 

We talked about why Adam, though a huge admirer of Edward Said and his classic work Orientalism, feels that some of the work subsequently inspired by Said has failed to give a well rounded picture of middle eastern societies in all their complexity. We also talked about why Adam thinks that there can be value in reading reactionary writers whose politics we might abhor, and why nuance and complexity are not the enemies of radical political commitment. Finally, we discussed the ways in which early experiences of trauma can be the starting point for creativity.

Writers and missionaries w/ Adam Shatz

Dimitri and Khalid beam themselves back to the foundational recurring SJ topic of UFO “disclosure”, focusing on serrrious journalist Leslie Kean’s most recent exposé in The Debrief (??) about Pentagon UAP whistleblower David Grusch, who claims that the US government possesses crashed alien spacecraft. 

Topics include: mispronouncing Leslie “Kaaayyn” because you didn’t go to the Spence School or Bard, Tucker soyfacing, silk topper UFO maestro Chris Mellon, a possible Yankee-Cowboy war simmering over the framing of Disclosure, comparing the UFO and psychedelic communities, critical support for Ezra Klein erming the shit out of Kean’s story, Dr. Garry Nolan’s shifting narratives around his ET fixation, his insistence that he’s not a eugenicist, Kean downplaying the Pentagon’s interest in cryptids and psi phenomena, the trickster element of the Phenomenon, Jacques Vallée’s  “Messengers of Deception”, and more. Part One of Two.

For access to full-length Patreon episodes, upcoming installments of DEMON FORCES, and the SJ Grotto of Truth Discord, subscribe to the Al-Wara’ Frequency at patreon.com/subliminaljihad.

[#157] AINT NUTTIN UAP UNDA DA SUN Pt 1: Leslie Kean, Dave Grusch & Disclosure Season, 2023 Ed.

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.

ACFM Microdose: Californian Capitalism w/ Malcolm Harris

art work par Alice Rosa, Mulher Branca : https://alicerosa.portfoliobox.net/images
Strabisme Auditif : https://soundcloud.com/user3052871

tracklist 
    1 Résidents de la République, intro 
    2 Magma, Tröller Tanz, 1976 
    3 A glade, Earthling, 2023
    4 Strabisme auditif, Manifestacio 
    5 Brigitte Fontaine, Interview. 
    6 Tulgirdas, NU KĄ? AAA!!!, 2020
    7 Spontaneous Overthrow, Party, 1984
    8 Fulguromatic, Top 5 des citations d’Einstein sur internet (la 3ème va vous surprendre), 2023
    9 Fred Weinberg, Animosity, 1970
    10 La Pisse, Un café une fois par an, 2022
    11 Massicot, Cuska, 2020
    12 Un éternuement venu de loin 
    13 The Space Lady, Interview. 
    14 Jimmy Hendrix, EXP, 1967 
    15 Tatsound, Go (Where you want to go), 2022
    16 Ingetrapt, Le Carnaval des animaux de Tchernobyl, 2023
    17 Strabisme Auditif, Cum Shlago Spiritu, 2022
    18 The Space Lady, Domine libera nos, 1990
    19 Cam Wicked, This year ahead, 2019
    20 Pavel Matela, Už se nám to krátí, 1993
    21 Norma Tanega, Illusions, 1971

Paravision invite Strabisme Auditif ~ 18.10.2023

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

CHRONOLITHE 12 pm Tuesday 27.02 Lyl radio

Ce collage sonore porté sur la voix : parlée, prononcée, bredouillée, chantée, est un assemblage de field recording, musiques électroacoustiques et chants traditionnels de Sardaigne, de Bretagne, de Bulgarie, de Mantras argentins et pakistanais, mais aussi : d’une respiration inversée et de poils qui crépitent, de Space Lady dans son jardin au printemps, d’une séance de spiritisme qui fonctionne, d’un ordinateur qui s’appelle John Wayne, de mâts sifflants sur le port de Locmiquélic, d’une balade nocturne en Aveyron et d’un animal non identifié, d’un cours de yoga, d’un apprentissage d’un sonnet de Shakespeare, de chuchotements imperceptibles et d’un enfant qui veut vous croquer l’oreille.
L’instrument, capté à travers des époques et des territoires disparates, devient le matériau élémentaire, presque le liant, d’un composite sonore. Sa permanence se fait révélatrice de ses conditions d’enregistrement et de leur granularité singulière.
Les percussions résonantes de Felicia Atkinson entrent en écho avec celles de Geir Jenssen recueillies au Tibet , les nappes électriques vivantes d’Aho Saan parfument les micros sons de Qoa - issus d’une biocénose Abletonienne qui titille le tympan - Le ressac thailandais dans les tuyaux vibrants de Félix Blume donne un espace aquatique à la monodie de Roxane Métayer et autres jeux d’associations d’hétérophonies.

Novara FM: We Were Promised Robot Butlers w/ Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek

Novara Media

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