In late March PTO spoke to Adam Tooze whilst he was in New York as the Covid19 crisis was escalating. In today's episode we return to some of the issues we discussed back then, including the pandemic's role in the rise of China, the increasing entwinement of government and private corporations in the United States and Europe and the return of austerity politics.

Teaser - PTO Extra! Adam Tooze on China and the US Democrats and the return of austerity politics

In a special episode - recorded for The World Transformed festival 2020 - Tobita Chow and David Brophy discuss how the socialist left should think about China, how to characterise China's economy and mode of governance, and what to make of the emerging Cold War between China and the United States and US allies.

Between Washington and Beijing w/ Tobita Chow & David Brophy

Writer Thomas Frank on his book "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism" from Metropolitan Books.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250220110

1243: On populism and anti-populism / Thomas Frank

This week, the Global Research News Hour brings a special presentation proximate to the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Michael Parenti delves into the reality of the elite class within society engaging in these plots in order to protect their own power. Michael Parenti is an internationally known author and lecturer. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 1962 and is one of the nation's leading progressive political thinkers.  His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad. His books include Democracy for the Few, Superpatriotism, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, History as Mystery, and Contrary Notions.

Conspiracy and Class Power: A Talk by Michael Parenti

Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter join PTO to talk about whether Joe Biden's election victory represents a comprehensive repudiation of Trumpism, what we can expect from the Republican Party after Trump, and we also chatted about the significance of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

#105 The mainstreaming of the far right w/ Aurelien Mondon & Aaron Winter

Alison Phipps joins PTO to talk about her new book, 'Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism'. We chatted about the MeToo movement and what it reveals about the mainstream of feminist politics, how violence against women is necessary to the project of capitalist globalisation and how the image of the imperilled white woman has been central to the project of empire both formal and informal.

#106 The trouble with mainstream feminism w/ Alison Phipps

Lawyer and farmer activist Avik Saha on the planned corporate takeover of Indian agriculture.

1281: India's farm law disaster / Avik Saha

Historian Marcia Chatelain on the economic and social dynamics of fast food corporations and Black American life, and her book "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" from Liveright. 

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631493942

1283: McDonald's in Black America / Marcia Chatelain

Imperial expansion is as much about conquering nature as it is about subjugating people. The Russian state’s expansion to the edges of the Eurasian continent exemplifies the challenge of turning frozen and inhospitable land into livable space or converting lush landscapes into profit and prosperity. To get a better understanding of this process in some of the far reaches of Russia, I turned to two people Sharyl Corrado and Paul Josephson to talk about Sakhalin and the Arctic respectively and relationship between Russian imperial expansion and nature, and how environment was imagined and shaped in the process.



Guests:



Paul Josephson, the author of 13 books, is professor of history at Colby College, Waterville, Maine, and visiting, part-time professor at Tomsk State University.  A historian of big science and technology, he conducted archival research in Arctic regions while working on his monograph, The Conquest of the Russian Arctic.  His most recent book, with Polity Press, is called Chicken: A History from Farmyard to Factory.  He is working now on a global nuclear environmental history.



Sharyl Corrado is Associate Professor of History and History Program Director at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.  She has published articles on the environmental history and historical geography of the imperial Russian Far East in a variety of academic journals in English and Russian. She is also known within Russian Baptist circles for her research on Russian Baptist and Evangelical history, including a monograph published in Russian and an edited volume on East European Baptist History.  She is currently working on an annotated collection of letters written by a Red Cross sister serving in the Sakhalin Penal colony.

Conquering Nature in Sakhalin and the Arctic

Abby Martin responds to the outcry against Michael Che's joke on last night's episode of Saturday Night Live about medical apartheid in Israel. 

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Truth Behind SNL’s Controversial Israel Joke

Gavin Mueller joins PTO for part two of our conversation on his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites were Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. We talked about Taylorism and the deskilling of workers, how automation was used by American military planners during the Vietnam war in order to maintain control of the increasingly mutinous US Army, and finally we talked about why - in spite of how the increasing deployment of deskilling technologies made working conditions worse and more dangerous - many union leaders in both the United States and Europe supported the imposition of these new technologies.

#111 Why the Luddites were right (part 2) w/ Gavin Mueller

A podcast on radical politics, critical theory, and history. Hosted by Alex Doherty.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

Contact: politicstheoryother@gmail.com

#106 The trouble with mainstream feminism w/ Alison Phipps

Politics Theory Other