Rania Khalek Dispatches

From his perch at the Chapo Trap House podcast, Felix Biederman has been an acerbic observer and commentator. He joined Dispatches with Rania Khalek for a wide-ranging discussion about America’s cultural and political decline. Listen to every episode of Dispatches with Rania Khalek anywhere you get podcasts.Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3za9DRKTIME CODES: 0:00 Intro 1:18 Why does America have so many mass shootings? 6:44 America’s loneliness crisis12:38 Cowboy foreign policy 14:37 Online left vs the grassroots real world23:08 Reactionary Supreme Court 26:59 MMA & physical fitness 33:23 Growing political polarization & fears of civil war37:18 Who will run for president in 2024? Do Democrats like to lose? 43:50 War in Ukraine53:03 Disingenuous far right54:15 The obsession with culture1:04:49 Media challenges on the left

On its face, nothing seems more benign and positive than “wildlife conservation.” But the Wildlife Conservation Society and the German and US governments have now been implicated in supporting organized violence against Congolese villagers, using mortars, RPGs, indisciminate fire, murder and rape. This is the finding of award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Robert Flummerfelt. Flummerfelt and his team uncovered a three-year campaign of violence by park authorities to expel Batwa people from their lands, using funding and trained by the West and conservation groups. Investigators were targeted for murder after their report came out. He joined Dispatches with Rania Khalek to discuss his investigation, the history of Western violence in the Congo and the racist settler roots of some of the biggest players in the conservation movement. Read the investigation here: https://minorityrights.org/publications/pnkb/ TIME CODES0:00 Intro1:55 What Robert uncovered in the Congo9:35 Western-funded extermination 14:14 Wildlife Conservation Society 19:41 Racist settler roots of the conservation movement27:14 Militarization of conservation 38:59 Germany’s role42:34 NGOs behaving like settler/occupiers51:24 History of Western imperialism in the Congo1:02:11 Rwanda and Uganda collaborate with Western imperialism in the Congo1:07:23 UN mission in the Congo: Helpful or harmful?1:19:40 Is ISIS really in the Congo?

To understand why the European Union exists and how it is changing due to the financial crisis and the war in Ukraine, Rania Khalek was joined by Costas Lapavitsas, a professor of economics at SOAS, author of “The Left Case Against the EU” and a former Syriza MP. He also has a forthcoming book out in 2023 called “The State of Capitalism” published by Verso Books. Listen to every episode of Rania Khalek Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3za9DRKTIME CODES: 0:00 Intro2:08 What is the EU?6:24 What happens if Ukraine joins the EU?10:32 Evolution of European left’s view of the EU18:48 EU as an anti-democratic arrangement 26:41 EU creates European periphery and core30:55 Common currency: the Euro33:42 How Germany came out on top39:38 Germany’s conditional hegemony 45:16 American hegemony over Europe52:05 Freedom of capital to move cheap labor 1:03:18 Far right vs the EU?1:08:25 How the left responds1:12:06 The state of capitalism today

Rania Khalek was joined by Arnaud Bertrand, a commentator on economics and geopolitics based in Shanghai, to discuss the sanctions blowback on the West, the narrative management surrounding it, and growing tensions between the US and China. Arnaud on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand TIME CODES:0:00 Intro1:32 Is the West isolating itself?6:09 Russia & China can survive US sanctions11:51 US-led West weaker today than in 1st cold war14:59 How Arnaud ended up in China17:56 Who’s really responsible for global food insecurity?22:16 The latest McCarthyist list26:11 Western aggression unites its adversaries 32:16 US warmongering over Taiwan41:36 Perception over US vs China in Africa46:10 Democracy perception in China vs the West52:45 Xinjiang genocide accusation falling apart 

What’s cryptocurrency really? What are NFTs? Is it as revolutionary as its advocates claim or is it a libertarian fake money Ponzi scheme? Is this digital funny money really the future, and if so why is it tanking? To help break it all down, Rania Khalek was joined by Tom Redshaw, a sociologist and lecturer in digital society at the University of Salford.Tom’s articles on cryptocurrency mentioned in the episode:https://mronline.org/2021/12/28/cryptocurrencies-a-view-from-the-left/ https://mronline.org/2020/12/07/should-the-left-care-about-blockchain-technology/TIME CODES:0:00 Intro1:58 What is cryptocurrency?7:11 Can crypto fit into a leftist system? 13:43 Is crypto a ponzi scheme?17:17 Environmental dangers of cryptocurrency21:07 What are NFTs?25:08 Capitalism’s dying breaths? 31:20 Libertarian influences on crypto 36:12 Paying celebrities to sell Bitcoin 43:57 El Salvador’s crypto gamble 50:07 Utopian technology won’t save us54:14 Crypto integration into global financial flows59:43 What is tether? 1:01:39 Who determines bitcoin’s value?

Europe has ceded its core decisions to the US warmongers flooding Ukraine with arms, expediting the global economy’s collapse and extending the war against their own interests. But Ukraine isn’t the only major event stressing the global order: the US flexing against China, global inflation, a possible victory for the left in Colombia, massive protests in Sri Lanka, and even the senseless school shootings in the US reverberate across the world. To help make sense of it all, Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and author of “Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations,” joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek. Time codes:0:00 Intro1:46 Why has Europe ceded control to the US?8:43 Inflation & madman theory to dominate Russia & China16:43 NATO expands to Sweden & Finland22:03 Is Ukraine losing?31:08 Media complicity in whitewashing Nazis37:59 Russia’s resilience against sanctions 46:10 Food insecurity & fuel shortages in Sri Lanka55:00 Republicans are NOT antiwar1:00:49 Mass shootings in the US1:06:38 Death of liberalism

Iran nuclear deal negotiations appear frozen and the Biden administration is busy pouring fuel onto the Ukrainian fire and trying to encircle China. To help us understand why attempts to salvage an agreement with Iran have not succeeded, Rania Khalek was joined by Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran. Prof. Marandi also speaks about recent events in the region.TIME CODES0:00 Intro1:56 Why is there no agreement yet? Who’s at fault?11:55 Western dishonesty18:34 What do the Europeans want?22:56 Did Russia obstruct an agreement?28:12 American sanctions 31:23 What’s wrong with Biden’s negotiating team? What do the Americans want?36:27 An escalatory cycle? 41:56 Yemen, Syria, Palestine45:50 Saudi-Iranian talks58:42 Increased cooperation between UAE & Iran1:04:33 America is starving Afghanistan1:11:58 Assassination of IRGC officer in Tehran (we recorded this before the Israelis took credit)1:22:23 The PKK in the region

Lebanon’s May 15 elections results were confusing, with contradictory claims of victory and defeat. Much of the mainstream media coverage further obfuscated the results, with journalists celebrating the few self-described independents and reformists as a sign that some kind of change might be coming, while also appearing to cheer the apparent defeat of Hezbollah and its allies. Except they weren’t defeated, and the independents are actually quite dependent, and the reforms they propose are likely to expedite the nation’s collapse. To help parse what actually happened and why, Rania Khalek was joined by Jamal Ghosn, a columnist and editorial board member at Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper.

Africa’s Sahel region encompasses Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad and has been an arena of French colonialism, liberation struggles, ongoing imperialist interventions, the war on terror, and coups d’etat. To discuss this and more Rania Khalek, was joined by Hannah Rae Armstrong, a long-time researcher with years of experience living and working in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and then covering the Sahel for the International Crisis Group from her base in Senegal.Hannah’s latest article in Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/morocco/2022-05-12/north-africas-frozen-conflict

Libya seems to be trapped in endless conflict between rival militias and outside powers, with migrants trapped in neo-slavery and others drowning in the Mediteranean trying to flee to the European. Prior to the 2011 Arab uprisings and subsequent NATO regime change operation that destroyed the country, most outsiders knew little of Libya except for its caricature as a bizarre authoritarian country led by the idiosyncratic Gaddafi. But history did not start in 2011. To understand the Libya of today requires going back many decades.To discuss how and why the US-led imperial order destroyed Libya, Rania Khalek was joined by Matteo Capasso, a Marie Curie Research Fellow between the University of Venice and Columbia University. Matteo’s latest article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09692290.2022.2028180?journalCode=rrip20 TIME CODES:0:00 Intro2:06 Libya’s Jamahiriya 6:00 Impact of sanctions and international isolation on Libya’s economy 12:28 Accomplishments of Gaddafi and Libya’s revolution 18:04 Understanding Libya through the context of imperialism21:01 Dependency on oil26:08 Hybrid war 30:19 Impact of 1973 civil war in Chad37:02 Capitalism & Libya’s ideological contradiction 40:08 Religious extremism & tribal groups47:52 Support for national liberation & then collaboration in war on terror53:12 Centrality of war & militarism to US capitalism58:37 Emergence of militias in Libya1:00:58 How imperialism underlies the ongoing destruction of Libya1:06:47 2011 uprising: What really happened?1:11:50 Libya’s destruction destabilized Africa