I talk to Nora Loreto – podcaster, journalist, and author of Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age and Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Epidemic. We talk about Nora’s journalism on COVID-19, about anti-feminist backlashes of various kinds, about contemporary feminism and the continuing relevance of organizing in the movement, and more.
Tag: Anti-Empire Radio
AEP 92: Q/A on Extraordinary Threat, our new book on Venezuela
Joe and I answer some questions listeners sent in about our new book about Venezuela, Extraordinary Threat, from Monthly Review. Questions include: Was Venezuela “once-prosperous” before Chavez? Has Maduro been true to Chavez’s vision? What’s the COVID vaccination situation? Can we comment on Hong Kong? What is the internal social base of US imperialism in Venezuela? Can all the problems of Venezuela be placed at the feet of US imperialism? And more.
AEP 91: Kung Fu Yoga – US withdraws from Afghanistan and panics about China, with Carl Zha
Another episode of Kung Fu Yoga with Carl Zha, where we talk about the Indian and Chinese angles on world events. With the US withdrawing from Afghanistan like thieves in the night, the greatest agent of chaos may be gone (or mostly gone, for now) and country’s neighbours (Iran, Russia, the Central Asian republics, Pakistan, India, and China) will be playing a bigger role in the future, and so, evidently, will the Taliban. We talk about the differences we see between the Taliban of today and the Taliban of 2001 in terms of the movement’s apparent support in rural areas and ability to win many of them over without fighting; in terms of the Taliban’s perhaps independence from Pakistan; and in terms of the Taliban’s diplomatic agenda in the region. With the US panic about China taking up where the US left off, we consider China’s relationship with Pakistan (eg., the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) and whether that has any insight to offer about what the China-Afghanistan relationship might look like in terms of priorities like infrastructure, the Belt & Road initiative, and China’s concerns with stability and terrorism on the border with Xinjiang. As well as India’s seeming irrelevance to the situation.
AEP 90: Cuba demonstrations and Cuba blockade, with Reed Lindsay
Joe Emersberger and I talk to Reed Lindsay, journalist and filmmaker with Belly of the Beast, a media organization focusing on Cuba and Cuba-US relations. Among their films is a 3-part series called the War on Cuba available on YouTube. Reed was at the recent demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in Havana and talks about how the scarcities and difficulties of life have everything to do with the 60-year, ever-intensifying economic blockade against Cuba imposed by the United States.
AEP 89: Haiti Assassination Aftermath – Cherizier: Hero or Villain? With Kim Ives
Kim Ives from Haiti Liberte joins me and Joe Emersberger to analyze Haiti two days after the assassination of President Jovenal Moise by Colombian and Haitian-American mercenaries. We talk about the new details that have emerged about their Nissan vehicles (from whose dealership?), the class antagonisms inside Haiti, and US interests in re-occupying the country. Kim talks about his meeting with Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the former police officer who announced a revolution from the poor neighbourhoods. We also spend some time debriefing Kim’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! and the ideological differences within the solidarity movement, which we try to unpack.
AEP 88: My comments at the Teaching Palestine / Say Palestine event June 30, 2021
On June 30, 2021, I was honored to be among the speakers on a panel for educators called “Say Palestine”. The entire panel, which was moderated by the wonderful Javier Davila (who I address directly at the beginning of the talk), is available on YouTube. I talk about the dilemmas faced by educators who want to teach about Palestine and who want to #SayPalestine.
AEP 87: Haiti’s president Jovenal Moise assassinated, with Chris Bernadel
An emergency joint broadcast with The East is a Podcast about the assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenal Moise on July 7, 2021.
Chris Bernadel is on the Haiti Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. We talk a little bit about the assassination and the background of protests and massacres in Haiti that have gone on for years now.
Special Broadcast: Canada in the World with Tyler Shipley and The Brief
A Canada Day reckoning as Indian Residential School properties become crime scenes with the (re)-discovery of mass graves of Indigenous children. We are joined by author of Canada in the World, TYLER SHIPLEY to discuss Canada’s first foreign policy – its genocide of the Indigenous nations in the path of capitalist settlement.
This broadcast is a co-production of The Brief Podcast and The Anti-Empire Project. Production by Pierre Loiselle and music by Greg Wilson.
Episode: Settler Canada (special broadcast)
Date: 29 June 2021 | Length: 59:58
AEP 86: A People’s Green New Deal with Max Ajl, and Stan Cox
Max Ajl has a new book, A People’s Green New Deal; Stan Cox, author of The Green New Deal and Beyond and the upcoming book The Path, joins me as a co-host as we talk about Green New Deals and imagine dealing with Climate Change as if the rest of the world existed (and mattered).
AEP 85: The Rise of the Right in India and Elsewhere, with Prof. Apoorvanand
In early May 2021, I had the honor of being on a panel on the Rise of the Right with Prof. Apoorvanand of Delhi University (and some other great speakers as well). I asked Apoorvanand to have a follow-up discussion with me here to analyze how the far-right ecosystem of organizations and institutions infiltrated Indian society and took it over, including the education sector and universities, and what lessons that takeover might have for people interested in trying to defend society. Lessons for India and elsewhere too.