Delightful and Provocative Podcasts + Two Events
In this issue, we feature podcasts that moved, provoked, or inspired us.
But first, here are two events we hope you’ll join:
On Tuesday, May 3, from 12-1 pm ET, Deepak will be moderating “Leading for Democracy and Social Justice in A Time of Backlash,” an event featuring Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Jen Disla, Lorella Praeli, Andrew Rich, and Chris Torres. We’ll explore how progressive leaders and organizations are responding to threats to democracy and to the escalating backlash against gains for people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants. The event is sponsored by Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice and is free if you register here. (On the topic of racial backlash, we recommend a new piece in The Emancipator by Xavier de Souza Briggs and Lora-Ellen McKinney, “Impunity is a Kill Switch for Racial Progress,” which explores the “fraught gap between real moral awakening and stubborn resistance to institutional change” and how savvy inside/outside strategies can overcome the “institutional impunity” that perpetuates racism.)
Ana Maria Archila is running for Lieutenant Governor of New York, and Deepak is excited to be co-hosting an event for her with Gara LaMarche and Brian Kettenring. Ana Maria is a visionary progressive leader and a longtime community organizer who has dedicated her life to building power for low-income people of color. And in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the establishment candidate, she has a real chance to win — offering the prospect of a breakthrough in machine-dominated statewide politics and a rebuke to a governor who has tacked to the right. The event will be held on Zoom at 6 pm ET on May 18, and there is a $100 minimum to join. You can register here.
Podcasts We’ve Loved
Staci Haines talks about the relationship of somatics to social justice in this podcast. She explains what embodied leadership looks like, how we can break out of habitual patterns, and frames somatic approaches to healing trauma as useful not only in the service of individual well-being but to change the world. It’s a brilliant introduction to a crucial body of work that provides a roadmap for how individual and collective transformation can be pursued together.
Sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman talks about the disastrous consequences of the conquest of policymaking by economists, who have introduced filters and frames that are now pervasive — and have unfortunately even been adopted by many center-left advocates arguing for liberal solutions.
Drew Lanham is a professor of wildlife ecology, an ornithologist, and the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair With Nature. In his interview with Krista Tippett for the podcast On Being, he discusses how land and nature have been shaped by the history of racism in the U.S. and shares his own love of birds and the wild. His meditation on joy is inspiring. Lanham says, “joy is the justice we do for ourselves.”
Novelist Hari Kunzru hosts a brilliant podcast called Into the Zone, and we got hooked by episode one, “Druid Like Me,” which tells the origin story of the Druids, the “native” people of England. We won’t spoil the ending, but let’s just say the truth about the original Druids would make many racist Tory wankers irate. “The Guru of Ojai” explores connections between the Indian Independence movement, the reluctant sage Jiddu Krishnamurti, and the birth of New Age spirituality in the U.S. “It’s Always Sunny in the Dialectic” contrasts the philosophy of Frankfurt School founder Theodor Adorno with the self-hypnotic positivity of Norman Vincent Peale, the governing style of Donald Trump, and the music of the rock band Journey.
Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer break down the Amazon win in this Daily podcast. It is a masterclass in organizing.
We are always provoked by Andreas Malm, the climate historian who argues in “Fighting Fire with Fire” that conventional strategies to beat the fossil fuel industry aren’t working and that far more radical tactics are needed.
If you’re a domestic U.S. activist like us who knows you should be paying more attention to global movements for human rights and social justice, we suggest you tune into Akwe Amosu’s podcast Strength and Solidarity, an important series that features conversations with frontline activists in every part of the world. You might start with this remarkable interview with Indian social justice campaigner Harsh Mander, but there are gems everywhere.
We’re big fans of Steve Phillips’s podcast Democracy in Color and recommend this recent conversation with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein on Georgia politics, the machinations of the state Republican Party, the genius of Stacey Abrams, and how the state turned blue in 2020.
On the Captialisn’t podcast, former Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis argues that since 2008, our economic system has been not so much capitalist as it has been “techno-feudalist,” a system that is not only unjust but less efficient and less conducive to human freedom than an alternative society based on cooperatives.
We love Eric Marcus’s podcast series Making Gay History and particularly recommend six episodes on Coming of Age During the AIDS crisis. Episode 3 tells the stories of volunteers for Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the People With AIDS that they cared for in the early years of the crisis. It is profound.
The University College of London podcast Global Governance Futures featured a fascinating two-hour conversation with historian Alfred McCoy about his new book To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change. McCoy considers the rise and fall of major world systems over the past several centuries, the tension in each between power and principle, and the nearly inevitable replacement in the coming decade of the US-led world system with one led by China. He concludes with a discussion of the impact of global warming on the world overall, notably in vastly increasing the number of climate refugees and in threatening China’s hegemony.
Pulitzer-winning journalist David Cay Johnston has been following the career of Donald Trump since the 80s. In this interview about his new book The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family, he offers a powerful indictment of the Trump family’s unprecedented corruption.
The “Limits of Forgiveness” is a provocative conversation with philosopher Lucy Allias about the role of forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa and how forgiveness works (and doesn’t!) in a highly polarized democracy.
Finally, in an archived episode from the early 2000s of the BBC show Desert Island Discs, the immensely influential cultural theorist Stuart Hall talks about what records he would take with him if he were stranded on a desert island. Amid the delightful conversation about music — from Bach to Bob Marley to Miles Davis — Hall reflects on his career as a West Indian intellectual who challenged the British academy. (We’ve been reading Hall’s collection of essays Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left and have found his discussion of Thatcherism’s project of gaining cultural hegemony deeply relevant to our own times.)