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ACFM Trip 40: UFOs Feb 04, 2024

Show notes

Should the left care about the existence of aliens? The ACFM gang explore the impact of UFOs on political thought in this Trip.

Keir, Jem and Nadia discuss the connections between UFO conspiracies and right-wing thought, why some communists think aliens will bring about world revolution, and whether Fermi’s paradox means we’re not alone, with music from Sun Ra, The Carpenters and true believers Blink 182.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Books: Mark Pilkington – Mirage Men / Susan Lepselter – The Resonance of Unseen Things / Carl Jung – Flying Saucers / Erich von Däniken – Chariot of the Gods / H. G. Wells – The War of the Worlds / A. M. Gittlitz – I Want to Believe / Kim Stanley Robinson – Aurora

Music:  Blink 182 – Aliens Exist / Sheb Wooley – The Purple People Eater / Sun Ra – Interplanetary Music / The Carpenters – Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Space / Pink Floyd – Interstellar Overdrive / Flying Saucer Attack – The Season is Ours / Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien / The Byrds – Hey Mr. Space Man / Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Downstream: Would the World Be Better Without Religion? w/ Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

Twenty years ago, it was taken for granted that on average, people globally were shrugging off the shackles of organised religion. The world was destined for secularism. But with demographics trends in many countries pointing towards a growing religious population and with secular liberal politics failing to offer solace from falling living standards, we should no longer take this for granted.

Ash Sarkar is joined by Aaron Bastani, Novara’s co-founder to discuss his faith, the socialist interpretation of the gospel and the big guy with the beard – that’s right – Karl Marx.

Novara FM: Who Dares To Rewrite 40,000 Years of History? w/ David Wengrow Jan 25, 2024

Show notes

This episode was first released in November 2021.

In the bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber offer a radically different story of our social evolution.

Drawing on groundbreaking research gathered over a decade of collaboration, the book challenges just about everything we thought we knew about the origins of farming, property, slavery, democracy and civilisation.

Wengrow tells Eleanor Penny about the book’s 10-year gestation and what their heretical conclusions mean for our understanding of humankind.

Help us build people-powered media: http://novara.media/support

Downstream: Everything You Know About The Global Economy is Wrong w/ Philip Pilkington Jan 22, 2024

Show notes

We are in a drastically different world from the one most of us grew up in. This has been proven by the rapid escalation in the events in the Middle East over the last six weeks.

No longer are we in a world where, essentially, the US run the show. And this has huge global implications, especially for Europe.

Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and podcaster who co-hosts the ‘Multipolarity’ podcast. He sat down with Aaron Bastani to talk about what we get wrong about China, cheap high quality weapons technology and what we can learn from the Treaty of Versailles.

ACFM Microdose: Plugged-in Protest w/ Jeremy Gilbert Jan 21, 2024

Show notes

Music has the uncanny power to stir up big feelings, which makes it an obvious vehicle for political statements of hope, anger, despair, or how to cast your vote. In this Microdose episode to accompany ACFM’s recent Trip on Protest, Jem takes us through 60 years of plugged-in protest music – no strumming folkies or broadside ballads this time.

From hip-hop campaign boosters to new wave takes on British imperialism, from anti-landlord lyrics to a requiem for the post-war dream, it’s a narrated playlist revealing the manifold methods of musical persuasion.

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Music: Marlena Shaw – Woman of the Ghetto (1969) / Iggy and the Stooges – Ballad of Hollis Brown (1973) / Max Romeo – Rent Crisis (1974) / Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster (1978) / Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Oliver’s Army (1979) / Pink Floyd – The Gunner’s Dream (1983) / Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy (1984) / Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel – Jesse (1984) / Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning (1987) / Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Television, The Drug of the Nation (1991) / Asian Dub Foundation – Jericho (1995) / Le Tigre – My My Metrocard (1999) / Ms. Dynamite – It Takes More (2002) / Gina Birch – Feminist Song (2021) / The Coup – The Guillotine (2015)

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Novara FM: The Novels That Inspired Class War w/ Mark Steven Jan 19, 2024

Show notes

What role does literature play in revolution? If the question seems bizarre to you and the answer obvious, you’re not alone.

Yet some of the most important revolutionaries in history have turned to literature in times of crisis. Mao Zedong started writing poetry during the Chinese Red Army’s retreat, adopting traditional Chinese forms to do so. Leon Trotsky, founder of the Russian Red Army, having just won the Russian Civil War, turned his mind to the question of literature in a communist society. And Friedrich Engels wrote that he had learned more from the novelist Honoré de Balzac than from any historian, economist or statistician.

For another episode in our series on class, Juliet Jacques and Nihal El-Aasar talk to Mark Steven about revolutionary literature and the struggle for a better world. His book Class War: A Literary History is available from Verso Books.

Help us build people-powered media: novara.media/support

Downstream: We Are in the Post-Climate Change World w/ Gaia Vince Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

Discussion of climate change mainly focuses on mitigating rising temperatures, de-carbonising and getting to ‘net zero’.

Author and broadcaster Gaia Vince argues that we also need to focus on how we’ll deal with with’s already happening and about to get much much worse: huge swathes of the planet becoming uninhabitable and 2 billion people needing to find somewhere new to live.

She argues the solution to this problem is a radical reframing of how we think about migration.

She sat down with Aaron to talk wet bulb temperatures, demographic aging and the Japanese nappy market.

Gaia’s book Nomad Century is available from Penguin.

Novara FM: Escaping the Tourism Trap w/ Dean MacCannell Jan 11, 2024

Show notes

January is historically the busiest month of the year for holiday bookings. But if you’ve ever felt uncomfortable with the idea of being a tourist, you’re not the first. Back in 1976, anthropologist Dean MacCannell theorised both our drive to see the world and its manipulation by capitalism in his book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class.

Travel has changed almost beyond recognition since then: staged authenticity is the norm, and the places you’re most likely to visit are sourced from Trip Advisor and Instagram. Plus, tourism is now shrouded in environmental guilt – what the Swedish call ‘flygskam’.

Fifty years after The Tourist, Novara Media contributing editor Moya Lothian-McLean speaks to MacCannell about disaster tourism, how sightseeing became sacred, and our destructive search for authenticity.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Downstream: White Holes and Radical Politics w/ Carlo Rovelli Jan 01, 2024

Show notes

From his radical youth in 1970s Italy to his research as one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli is as comfortable talking politics as he is explaining quantum theory.

He sat down with Aaron to talk about the future of Europe, his theory of white holes, and why we’re not actually living in a simulation. His book White Holes: Inside The Horizon is available from Penguin.

A huge thank you to everyone who has chosen to back our journalism this year. You’ve made everything we do possible. https://novara.media/support

Novara FM: The People Vs Football w/ Juliet Jacques & Tom Williams Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

Is football the place for political struggle? Is there a limit to the success of fan-owned clubs? How disappointed can we be when pundits and players turn out not to be comrades?

Cultural critic Juliet Jacques and Pro Revolution Soccer host Tom Williams unite for a conversation inspired by Mickaël Correia’s book, The People’s History of Football. They talk about the commodification of football, how a politics of resistance has inspired teams from Cairo to Clapton, and why a supporter-owned club would ever want to sell up to Disney.

A huge thank you to everyone who has chosen to back our journalism this year. You’ve made everything we do possible. https://novara.media/support

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