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Latest Episodes:

Downstream: Does International Law Even Work? w/ Kenneth Roth Apr 28, 2025

Show notes

Today the leaders of Israel, Russia, and Hamas all stand accused of war crimes. Yet it seems doubtful that these men will ever face justice – so what’s the point of international law?

For 30 years, Kenneth Roth was the director of Human Rights Watch. In that time, his organisation exposed hundreds of human rights abuses and pressured governments to cease committing them.

On Downstream, Kenneth Roth told Ash Sarkar how human rights law actually works on the ground, and how exposure, shame, and the shaping of public opinion are essential tools for this work.

He also discusses his young life as a child of a refugee from Nazi Germany, how democracies are responding to mass migration, and the age-old question of whether political violence can be legally or morally justified.

ACFM Microdose: Make Way For Winged Eros! Apr 27, 2025

Show notes

The ACFM gang gather for a springtime reading of a prototype acid-communist text by Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai.

Download the text and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem get their teeth into Make Way for Winged Eros! A Letter to Working Youth, published in 1923.Check out the AK-47 podcast mentioned in this show: https://kristenghodsee.com/podcast

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Committed: 2. How Do Climate Activists Cope in Prison? Apr 24, 2025

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Locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day, how are Britain’s jailed climate activists coping with a life of inaction? In episode two of Committed, Rivkah and Clare follow the Just Stop Oil inmates to find out how they’re adjusting. How does JSO prepare activists for incarceration? What’s it really like inside Britain’s prisons? And what do the guards and other inmates think of Just Stop Oil activists’ crimes?

Episode 3 coming on 29 April.

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Committed: 1. What Kind of Person Goes to Prison for Their Politics? Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

In episode one of Committed, Clare Hymer and Rivkah Brown meet the imprisoned Just Stop Oil activists who took direct action against the climate crisis and faced dire consequences.

By blocking roads, climbing bridges and throwing soup at paintings, they made headlines – and became national hate figures in the process. We find out how four ordinary young people ended up as convicted criminals, at the sharp end of the government’s crackdown on protest.

Episode 2 coming on 24 April.

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Downstream: Has Israel Become A Fascist State? w/ Ilan Pappé Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Aaron Bastani was joined by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé for a live recording of Downstream on 7 April at EartH in East London. They discussed the origins of Britain’s Israel lobby, the indoctrination of Israelis, and whether the recent atrocities committed in Gaza and the West Bank are signs of Israel’s imminent collapse.

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Committed: A New Series Out Now Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

How does a teenage goodie-two-shoes grow up to be a convicted criminal? On Committed, a new four-part series from Novara Media, we go behind bars to find out why dozens of young climate activists are risking prison for what they believe in – and why Britain’s courts are sending more of them to jail for longer. Committed begins on 22 April in this podcast feed.

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Downstream: What’s The Real Point of Trump’s Tariffs? w/ Slavoj Žižek Apr 16, 2025

Show notes

Donald Trump has been ripping up the rule book on global trade, implementing huge tariffs and sending markets into a frenzy. But is there any method in his apparent madness? Legendary Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek regales Aaron with his thoughts on US trade policy – not to mention Franz Kafka, fully automated luxury communism and whether he’s a “GILF”. Žižek’s new book, Zero Point, is out now on Bloomsbury.

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Novara FM: How the West Tried to Co-opt Iranian Feminism w/ Bahar Noorizadeh Apr 10, 2025

Show notes

When you think about neoliberal states, maybe you think of the UK, or Russia in the 90s, or Chile. You probably don’t think about Iran.

And yet, argues Bahar Noorizadeh, the Islamic Republic has been, since before the 1979 revolution, a neoliberal state – and an imperial one as well.

It has suppressed the Kurdish and Baloch nations inside its own borders.

How can we show solidarity with feminist and national struggles inside Iran and resist the warmongering of the Trump regime at the same time?

Bahar spoke to Eleanor Penny about how to resist the appropriation of the feminist movement by the West, the question political Islam, and how feminist struggles are linking up from Palestine to Balochistan and Kurdistan.

Downstream: On Palestine, Prisons and British Vs. American Racism w/ Ta-Nehisi Coates Apr 07, 2025

Show notes

There are few, true, public intellectuals anymore. But Ta-Nehisi Coates – author of ‘Between The World And Me’ and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant – is unquestionably foremost amongst them. His new book, The Message, is a sweeping exploration of how stories shape our politics – from the parameters of black struggle to Israel’s imposition of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. He and Ash Sarkar talk about Shakespeare, class politics, and the shared experiences of Black Americans and Palestinians.

Novara FM: How Forensic Architecture Mapped the Gaza Genocide w/ Samaneh Moafi Apr 03, 2025

Show notes

Forensic Architecture is a research agency that investigates state violence and environmental destruction.

It reconstructs events that states worldwide wants obscured, from Israel to the UK and from the Mediterranean to Ukraine.

In doing so, they have invented a whole new discipline of investigation.

On Novara FM, FA’s Assistant Director of Research, Samaneh Moafi, tells Eleanor Penny about their new report A Cartography of Genocide on the ongoing Gaza Genocide.

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