From Mahabad to Rojava: The Past and Present of Kurdish Resistance
Cosmopod
Rudy joins two guests to trace the multi-faceted history of the Kurdish movement across the Middle East. We discuss the origin of the Kurdish people, their situation during the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar empires, and how this fractured Kurdish lands across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, sparking over a century of varied liberation struggles. From the short-lived 1946 Republic of Mahabad and the rise of competing feudal, leftist, and tribal politics to the legal parliamentary movement in Turkey and the contrasting modern governance models of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and...
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Escaping the Left Populist Impasse: Varn and Tutt on "The People Are Not One"
Cosmopod
Donald interviews C Derick Varn and Daniel Tutt, authors of "The People Are Not One" in the wake of their recent tour promoting their book. With MAGA losing steam and centrist liberalism, a left-wing populist movement within the Democratic Party seems to be on the rise. Our guests bring their work to bear on this phenomenon, discussing the long-term viability of left populism (and premature obituaries), their debate with Geese Magazine, the fraught discourse around "wokeness" and escaping the framings of the bourgeois media, the question of the PMC and their unique take on it and how the...
info_outline![[ARCHIVE] The Border is a Mirror: Europe and the politics of migration with Iker Suarez show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/item/42275925?height=50&width=50)
[ARCHIVE] The Border is a Mirror: Europe and the politics of migration with Iker Suarez
Cosmopod
In view of the political situation, we have reuploaded a podcast with Iker Suarez on the border situation in Spain. We hope to have an updated episode soon. ------ In this episode, Rudy joins , author of to delve into the politics of migration and borders in Europe, examining how imperialism, class, and race intersect in what our guest describes as a “genocide at sea.” We explore who the people migrating to Europe are, why they move, and how their journeys expose the contradictions at the heart of European liberalism. Our guest argues that immigration today represents the return of...
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The Long Red Scare: Inside the FBI's Secret War on American Communism with Aaron Leonard
Cosmopod
Aaron Leonard and Donald Parkinson sit down for a conversation on Leonard's recent book 'Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism'. Relating this history to current events, Leonard and Parkinson discuss the various ways that the U.S. government, and in particular the FBI, subverted civil liberties and indulged in state repression according to the ebbs and flows of geopolitics while never abandoning its agenda of surveillance and subversion of the Communist Movement. From the early days of Criminal Syndicalism laws and the Palmer Raids to the rise of the New Left and the...
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What Was Bolshevism? (Part I)
Cosmopod
Christian, Donald and Parker sit down to discuss Lars Lih's new book They situate the context of the book, and discuss what this new manuscripts adds to Lih's existing oeuvre. Topics discussed include Lih’s use of narrative to frame the continuities in Bolshevism from begging to end, the centrality of Vlast and sovereignty to Bolshevism, how Lih exposes the misunderstanding of past historians about war communism, the importance of Bukharin and Preobrazhensky’s ABCs of Communism and the nature of Bolshevik policies such as the grain monopoly, requisition, and sowing committees during the...
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Corbynism vs Partyism: the rise and demise of Your Party
Cosmopod
Charlie and Bryce rejoin Donald and Jack for a recap on what has transpired since the Your Party founding conference. We discuss the recent local elections, which show massive losses for Labor and gains for Reform and Greens. Then we go into the challenges around the formation of Your Party, divided between a grassroots left and Corbynism. Was this project a complete failure? Is there any hope that it can be salvaged and the project of building a principled mass socialist party carried forward? Links: Please
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Communism = Soviets + Electrification: The Electric Grid
Cosmopod
Matt and Rudy join RK to discuss several facets of the electric grid. We talk about the USSR's and China's attempts at electrification, how a modern grid looks like, the current US grid and its governing authorities, and a discussion on possible futures for electricity. References: RK's thoughts con rural cooperatives: Matt T. Huber & Fred Stafford's articles: Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid, The Utility of Utilities and Won't Somebody Please Think of the Grid? Further recommendations, National: by Gretchen Bakke, 2016 by Leah Stokes, 2020 by Katherine Blunt, 2022 by...
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The Marxist in Residence: an interview with David Harvey
Cosmopod
Ira and Rudy join renowned geographer David Harvey for a chat on his pedagogy and his theories of economics, neoliberalism and imperialism.
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Interview: Oliver Larkin for Congress
Cosmopod
Aliyah and Cliff sit down with Oliver Larkin, who's running for US Congress from Florida's District 23 with revolutionary ambitions such as unseating Jared Moskowitz, abolishing the Electoral College, and Finishing Reconstruction.
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The Last Soviet States? Scandinavian Social Democracy
Cosmopod
Brage, Mikael and Rudy sit down to talk about Scandinavian social democracy, with a focus on Norway and Sweden. We discuss the periodization of social democracy, starting from the 1905 independence of Norway, through the first World War period, the rise of social democracy in the interwar period, the golden years and the unraveling. We discuss why social democracy was able to take hold in Scandinavia through several historic compromises, what the economics of the countries were, the limits of the politics and how the parties tried to transcend these limits, before concluding with the...
info_outlineRudy sits down with Hank Kennedy, author of From Champion of the Oppressed to Truth, Justice, and the American Way: Who Took the Socialism Out of Superman? to discuss the surprising political journey of Superman, tracing his evolution from a Depression-era defender of the oppressed to a complex symbol shaped by changing American ideologies. We dive into the roots of Superman's creation by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, how Superman originally tackled social injustices head-on and follow his evolution from his early anti-authoritarian stances to his shifting roles in WWII, the Cold War, and beyond -including his emergence as a “SuperRepublican” in the 1980s and a more progressive figure in the 21st century. We also talk about the broader role of comics as a political tool in the left, and how they correspond to the Zeitgeist and culture.