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Downstream: 2023 Year in Review Dec 24, 2023

Show notes

For this end-of-year edition of Downstream, the Novara Media team look back on the biggest stories of the year. Ash Sarkar is joined by Moya Lothian-McLean, Michael Walker and Owen Jones to talk about the Labour Party, the climate crisis, the rise of AI and the war on Gaza.

From clouds brightening to prospects dimming, it’s a conversation with a surprisingly high level of off-brand festive cheer. This conversation was recorded live in London on 7th December.

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

ACFM Microdose: A Festive 50 For 2023 Dec 22, 2023

Show notes

The ACFM gang get together for the last time this year to deliver a Festive 50. Keir, Jem and Nadia select the best bits of culture and politics from 2023, from music, films, books to games, strikes and actions.

Unwrap to find sci-fi blaxploitation, comedy history, gobby glam-punk, Judge Dredd analysis, a fresh angle on Silicon Valley billionaires and much more.

Thanks for listening to the show and for all your support this year – we couldn’t do it without you. https://novara.media/support

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

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

Novara FM: It’s A Wonderful Life w/ James Butler Dec 21, 2023

Show notes

Released in 1946, Frank Capra’s fable of Christmas despair in small town America has become – rather improbably – a staple of festive television. Starring Jimmy Stewart as virtuous everyman George Bailey, It’s A Wonderful Life is not just a feelgood tale of moral redemption, but a clue to the shifting social terrain of post-war America.

Is it a film about capitalism? Angels? Individual liberty? The subversion of community values? The trauma of the second world war? James Butler, co-founder of Novara Media and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books, and host Eleanor Penny reflect on their very first viewing (!) of the movie.

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

Downstream: The Plan To Privatise Everything w/ Brett Christophers Dec 18, 2023

Show notes

Asset management companies like Blackrock, Vanguard and Macquarie have avoided real scrutiny for decades, but their secretive activities are starting to attract attention from political researchers and academics. What do these companies do, and what risk do they pose to society?

Author and academic Brett Christophers sets out to answer this question in his new book, Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World. He sat down with Aaron for a crash course in the world of asset management, discussing the dangers of financialisation, how UK infrastructure has been gutted by privatisation, and what we can learn from the case of the City of Chicago vs. Morgan Stanley.

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

ACFM Trip 39: Protest Dec 17, 2023

Show notes

Millions have protested against the bombing of Gaza by taking part in marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other demonstrations. But what difference does it make, either to the world or to ourselves?

The gang confront a contentious topic in this Trip. Do “A to B” marches ever achieve anything? What about joining hands around an RAF base? Digging up roads? Refusing to pay your taxes? Is squatting a form of direct action?

They discuss Irish hunger strikers, Montgomery bus boycotters, Greenham Common women and the people that Suella Braverman calls “hate marchers”, with music from Lowkey, the Plastic Ono Band, Steel Pulse and more.

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

Music: Rolling Stones – Street Fighting Man / Dylan – Masters of War / Samba extract / Public Enemy – 911 is a Joke / Lowkey – Ghosts of Grenfell / Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution / The Plastic Ono Band – Give Peace A Chance / John Lennon – Working Class Hero

Book: Charles Tilly – Social Movements: 1768-2004

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

Novara FM: Palestine 2048 w/ Basma Ghalayini Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

Science fiction isn’t a mode usually associated with Palestinian literature, perhaps because dreams of the future seem like a luxury when you can barely hold onto your past, or even present.

In 2019, translator and editor Basma Ghalayini asked 12 Palestinian authors to imagine their world in 2048 – a century after the Nakba that violently dispossessed them of their land and rights – for a collection of sci-fi short stories. Some of the dystopias imagined by these authors proved gravely prescient this year.

Ghalayini, who grew up in the Gaza Strip and now lives in Manchester, joined Eleanor for a conversation about literature, symbolism, land and memory in the days after the collapse of the ceasefire. She talked about survivors’ guilt, why disability crops up so frequently in the stories, her experiences at a peace camp in the ’90s and her vision for a peaceful future. Palestine +100 is available from Comma Press.

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

Downstream: This Damage Cannot Be Reversed w/ Daniel Levy Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

Daniel Levy has had a front row seat at some of the most consequential peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in the last two decades, as president of the U.S./Middle East Peace Project and as an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.

He sat down with Ash Sarkar to talk about the failure of the Oslo Accords, the central role of Gulf monarchies in negotiations, and how Israel responds to being labelled as an apartheid state.

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Novara Live Extra: Israel’s Illegal War w/ Norman Finkelstein Dec 07, 2023

Show notes

On Novara Live this week, Michael Walker spoke to renowned political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the collapse of the ceasefire.

In this extended interview, they discuss the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the use of human shields, and whether US pressure can restrain Israel’s “high-tech massacre”.

Subscribe to the Novara Live podcast for news and analysis five times a week: https://novara.media/live

We need 1,500 more people to become monthly supporters in order to hit our fundraising target. Can you help?
Become a supporter from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

Downstream: We Don’t Understand History w/ Blindboy Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

Blindboy Boatclub is the Irish broadcaster, author and musician behind The Blindboy Podcast, a massively popular podcast mixing short fiction, comedy and interviews. His new short story collection, Topographia Hibernica, is inspired by the human, animal and emotional geography of Ireland.

Blindboy sat down with Ash for a freewheeling discussion about everything from Eminem’s ’90s style and the situation in Palestine to why cats are magical.

We need just 1,500 more people to become monthly supporters in order to hit our fundraising target. Can you help?

Become a supporter from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

Novara FM: Fascism Is Not The Exception w/ Alberto Toscano Dec 01, 2023

Show notes

In recent years we’ve spent a lot of time arguing about fascism – what it means, what it looks like, and how we would know if it had returned. That typically brings us back to the European fascism of ’30s and ’40s, with its uniforms, symbols, marches and camps.

But the philosopher Alberto Toscano, currently teaching at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, wants us to look beyond historical comparisons to think of fascism not as an aberration, but as an aspect of a much longer process of colonial domination.

He talks to Richard Hames about the uncomfortable connections between liberalism and fascism, drawing on ideas from Angela Davis, W. E. B. Du Bois and Theodor Adorno and thinking about racial fascism, conspiracy theory, climate denialism and the far-right in Israel.

Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis is available from Verso.

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