Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

Abdaljawad Omar, a podcast guest, discusses various topics in this episode. Some of the most interesting topics include labor organizing, strike waves, solidarity with Palestine, and getting anticapitalist art through Hollywood. The conversation also delves into resistance, mourning and melancholy in the Palestinian context, and the power and impact of resistance in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Other topics covered include prisoner exchanges, the experiences of Palestinians in 48, and settler responses to immigrants.

This is a slightly edited version of our recent livestream with Abdaljawad Omar.  Abdaljawad Omar is a writer, analyst, and lecturer based in Ramallah, Palestine. He currently lectures in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University. In this conversation we discuss some of his recent writings which we will include in the show notes. Specifically we talk about the Palestinian resistance in relation to concepts of hope, grief, and melancholy. We discuss Abdaljawad’s recent piece “Hopeful pathologies in the war for Palestine: a reply to Adam Shatz” and also got to give folks a sneak peak at some of the arguments that Abdaljawad would bring to his response to Judith Butler which was just published this week. We’ll include links to these pieces as well as the ones he’s critiquing in the show notes in addition to his recent interview with Louis Allday. And if folks like this conversation tomorrow November 30th at 9:30 AM ET we will be live with Abdaljawad again on our YouTube channel. A great reason to go subscribe to that, turn on your notifications and so on. If you miss that livestream it will be up for you to view anytime on our YouTube page. And as I have said before we will be releasing audio versions of many of those conversations as podcasts as we are doing here. And I think as things slow down a bit we will probably settle on 2-3 livestreams each week and at least 1 podcast episode per week.  If you want to support our ability to do more, whether that’s editing more audio or doing more livestreams the best way to do that is to become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month. Huge shout-out to all the people who do support us and make this show possible.    "Can the Palestinian Mourn?" in response to Judith Butler's "The Compass of Mourning"   The original Adam Shatz piece and Abdaljawad's response “Hopeful pathologies in the war for Palestine: a reply to Adam Shatz” "An Unyielding Will to Continue" with Louis Allday in Ebb Magazine     

We recorded this conversation just before the world shifted on October 7th. We actually have several conversations that we still need to release that we recorded in August and September, but I wanted to get to this one first due to the urgency of Shaka Shakur’s situation. Shaka Shakur is a New Afrikan Political Prisoner who has been behind the walls for the majority of his life since he was 16 years old. He’s currently held captive at Beaumont Correctional Center in Virginia. He was mentored by figures such as Zolo Azania and James “Yaki” Sayles. Shaka has an extensive track record of prisoner organizing and exposing injustices and human rights violations behind the walls. I’ll include a more extensive bio from his Jericho Movement page in the show notes. Shaka had reached out to me after the publication of our discussion with Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur on Sanyika Shakur’s political writings. He wanted to share some things and also offer the perspective of someone from Sanyika's generation who spent many years studying and struggling in the same circles, and communicating with Sanyika through the Prison News Service and other publications that circulated behind the walls connecting New Afrikan prisoners and other political and politicized prisoners. Shaka also describes similar experiences of becoming politicized during their first period of incarceration at a young age, struggling upon his return to the outside & ultimately ending up back behind the walls. Shakur shares his reflections on that era, on changes in the prison movement and outside support movements over time and on the disconnect that often exists between revolutionary rhetoric and revolutionary action in the US left in recent years.  Importantly, Shaka Shakur is currently dealing with multiple urgent health issues, including his battle with cancer and we have multiple links and ways people can support his legal campaign and his request for clemency. We will have links to all of this in the show notes, but just to say that he is still asking people to call in and put pressure the Department of Correction for further medical testing. That call is in the show notes as well.  This episode was also recorded before the passing of Ed Mead who we mention in this discussion. Rest well Ed, you've earned it.  The last thing I will say is that although this was recorded before the Palestinian struggle took center stage, I think many of Shaka’s reflections are relevant to that movement as well as the US based solidarity efforts that are currently underway so keep that in mind as you listen. Shaka Shakur Medical Needs/Update Shaka Shakur's Clemency Petition Shaka Shakur's Jericho Movement page Shaka Shakur's Legal Defense Fund Documentary: Shaka Shakur Human Rights Held Hostage Shaka Shakur's Defense Link Tree Aidan Elias co-edited & co-produced this episode

Ali Kadri, author of Arab Development Denied and other books, discusses the theory of waste in relation to war, genocide, and imperialism. The podcast explores the impact of war on global capitalism, the struggle in Palestine, interconnectedness of the global economy, the role of economic growth, the concept of waste, challenges of overcoming structural barriers, and the presence of liberal left and Western Marxist ideologies.

This is the slightly cleaned-up audio of our most recent conversation with Fred Moten. This was recorded on October 25th. Given the evolution of this struggle and the increasingly genocidal character as well as the ongoing resistance, our comments if we were to hold this discussion today on November 11th would undoubtedly be different.  Nonetheless I think a lot of what we cover remains important and we wanted to try to create an audio version of this conversation which held true to the character of the original which we will link in the show notes, but also share it with our broader audience, much of whom prefer the audio format. The audio quality of this version is hopefully also slightly better than the original YouTube version. I would note that we now have fourteen of these livestreams up on our Youtube channel which everyone can check out. All of them are related to this current struggle for Palestinian liberation as well as the struggle against the genocidal settler violence we see unleashed on Gaza with full support material, ideological, military of the US as a settler empire in particular and the institutions and governments so-called Western World writ large.  I want to acknowledge and shout-out everyone who is taking action and trying to deepen and expand their own anticolonial practices in these times until Palestine is free, until we all are free. Once again thank you to Fred Moten for this conversation If you like our work of course you can as always support our work on patreon or by becoming a member of our YouTube channel. Thank you for listening and I hope you are finding new comrades in the streets every day. Fred Moten's conversation with Robin DG Kelley, Aqua Cooper & Rinaldo Walcott that is mentioned in the episode Previous episodes with Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, and his conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib that we've hosted.  

This is a slightly edited audio version of one of the MAKC livestreams we’ve hosted on our new Youtube channel. We will continue to polish the audio versions of those livestreams and release them as episodes here as well. Due to the amount of labor that goes into making them viable audio podcast episodes there will be a little bit of a delay on that. In the meantime I of course encourage folks to check them out on our YouTube channel and we will play with ways to get audio versions, perhaps even unedited audio versions to our patreons in a more timely manner. Please bear with us as we attempt to meet the importance of this moment with the livestreams and balance that with maintaining the catalogue for our podcast.  I will just note that prior to October 7th we already had 12 episodes of unreleased audio episodes so we will begin to get back to releasing some of those starting next week as well. As far as the livestreams the next one which we will release a properly edited audio version of will be our conversation with Fred Moten, which you can currently watch on Youtube. This conversation is an episode we recorded with the creators of Decolonize Palestine, Rawan Masri and Fathi Nemer from Ramallah in the West Bank. This conversation was recorded on October 19th so any description of current events or predictions made must be understood from that moment in time. It is our duty to continue to resist the genocidal onslaught that the United States and Israel have unleashed upon the Palestinian people, in particular the people of Gaza. I will be in DC tomorrow for the national march, which is a small act, but I look forward to being in the streets with hundreds of thousands of you tomorrow.  We will include links to many of the websites and groups they highlighted in the episode. In some cases they were responding to questions posed by folks in the chat so to that full experience you can watch this stream on YouTube. Another note you can now become a member of our Youtube channel. This will have some perks, basically very similar to being a patron of the podcast. Also we are in the process of finalizing our next study group and will have details on that for Youtube members or for patrons of the show very soon. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism On a more urgent note, there are many ways mentioned in this episode which you can also support Palestinians directly in this time from a humanitarian perspective. In these times of severe crisis caused by the US government and western support for Israeli settler colonialism and its genocidal expressions, there are urgent needs there and there are links where people can support those efforts. See below: Medical Aid for Palestinians Palestine Children’s Relief Fund Adalah Articles: "'Operation Al Aqsa Flood' was an act of decolonization" by Rawan Masri (we discuss this piece in the beginning of the episode). This was released after our episode, but expands on themes Fathi touches on in the discussion: "The world would rather show solidarity with our corpses than honor our resistance" - Fathi Nemer Decolonize Palestine & other political education materials: Decolonize Palestine Decolonize Palestine Myth Database Support Decolonize Palestine https://www.1948movie.com Institute for Palestine Studies Palestine Film Institute  Discusses martyr Heba Zagout (mentioned the podcast) Palestine Action US Launches to join global campaign to Shut Elbit Down - YouTube episode    

This is the slightly edited audio from a livestream conversation we had with Max Ajl on the morning of October 17th. This conversation was held on our new YouTube channel and we’ll include a link to that in the show notes. We encourage folks to head over there to subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications for all episodes so that you don’t miss any of our livestreams. We held three livestreams this past week the one you’re about to hear, one with Morgan Artyukhina, and a third one with Decolonize Palestine. We also are planning to release at least four new livestreams this coming week so make sure you check those out as well. We will eventually get these all edited and released as podcasts, but in the meantime you can head over to our YouTube channel and watch and listen to any of them in full unedited fashion. We mobilized to have these conversations to help folks find the clarity they need to act and act in a strategic and decisive manner in these times.  Max Ajl is a friend of the show and has been on multiple times now. He is an educator and a researcher and the author of A People’s Green New Deal, which we highly recommend and had a previous discussion of back in 2021. We also recently hosted him for a two-part series on theories of political ecology. He is also the associate editor of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy.  In this discussion we talk to him about his time in Gaza, about the notion of so-called non-violent resistance within a Palestinian context, about key dynamics to pay attention to in the coming weeks, and understanding Palestinian Liberation as a key component of the world we want to bring about. As I’ve mentioned before, adding video content to the audio content we’re producing on a weekly basis is a major lift in terms of our labor commitment to the podcast. We will also need to bring on some additional support to make it sustainable over time. Which also means that we need your support. If you appreciate the work that we do and find it useful then kick in something to our patreon. You can join for as little as $1 a month and of course we encourage folks to do more than that if they are able to do so. Our patreon is patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

This is a special announcement. Given the critical nature of the Palestinian Liberation struggle in this moment.  We have made some quick shifts. As we announced on patreon this past weekend we have launched a YouTube channel where we will hold multiple weekly livestreams. Those conversations will eventually be available through the podcast stream as well, but for now you can find them at YouTube.com/@MAKCapitalism.  Make sure to check our page out there, subscribe to our channel, which you can do free of charge, and when you watch videos make sure to click the like button and turn on notifications and all that good stuff. I feel silly saying all of that, but it will help the channel be successful and reach more people, and enable us to grow and bring you even more work. We’ve been planning to make this transition for a while, which is why we’ve been collaborating more via live streams and things of that nature.  We decided to launch now, given that there is so much misinformation and disinformation around the Palestinian liberation struggle against the US and Western Europe’s sponsored settler colonial outpost known as Israel. We don’t want to overstate our role in that struggle, the real struggle is in the streets, it is in organizations, it is locally in the west against our own governments and institutions, and primarily it is on the ground in Occupied Palestine. But we do think that we can play an important role in utilizing our platform to help people gain ideological clarity and orient our thinking as we engage in physical struggle as well as ideological struggle with those around us.  So far this week we have already hosted two conversations over there. The first one with Max Ajl is an uncompromising perspective of the Palestinian Liberation struggle and why it must be supported and indeed why we must see it as part of our own struggle for the world we want. We also hosted a livestream with Morgan Artyukhina on Zionism, Judaism and Genocide where she demystifies some common misconceptions and also talk a little bit about Far-Right Nationalism and Christian Zionism.  Hopefully both of these are useful conversations in breaking down propaganda, demystifying the current situation, and ideologically clarifying the importance of this current moment and the struggle for decolonization in Palestine. We’ll include links to both of these conversations in the show notes for this special announcement. Tomorrow, October 19th at 10 AM ET the co-creators of Decolonize Palestine, Rawan Masri and Fathi Nemer will be joining us live from the West Bank. These are two amazing comrades that we hosted on the podcast back in 2021. We’ll be talking to Rawan about her latest piece “‘Operation Al Aqsa Flood’ was an act of decolonization.” And we’ll also be discussing the latest developments in Occupied Palestine and in the region. We will include a link to this livestream in the show notes. If you miss it you can replay it at any time on our YouTube page. If we can work it out we will also have a live stream on Saturday so again make sure you head over to that YouTuge page and subscribe and turn on notifications or become a patron and you’ll get all the episodes emailed to you whether they are audio podcasts or YouTube videos.  Lastly I will say that many of our current patrons and a few new folks have helped us start this endeavor up by increasing their pledges or joining our patreon for the first time. And a few folks have also made one-time contributions. We greatly appreciate that support. If you are able to support our work, but haven’t yet or used to be a patron and have taken a break, we can definitely use the support. In order to sustain this we will likely have to add some additional support to our team and we will need more resources to make that possible. You can support our work at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.  Links: Tomorrow’s Live Stream with Decolonize Palestine Max Ajl Reflects on Time in Gaza and Palestinian Resistance Zionism, Judaism and Genocide with Morgan Artyukhina Decolonize Palestine’s website Our previous episode with Decolonize Palestine “‘Operation Al Aqsa Flood’ was an act of decolonization” by Rawan Masri

Frances Hasso and Sina Rahmani discuss the complexity of Zionism and Palestinian resistance, the historic shift in Palestinian resistance, fractures within the Left on supporting Palestinians, geopolitical ramifications of the conflict, impact on the decline of the US Empire, strategies in resisting Zionist control, and the significance of sharing powerful videos to bear witness to the suffering in Gaza.

In this episode is the conclusion of our 2 part conversation with Max Ajl.  Max Ajl is an educator and a researcher and the author of A People’s Green New Deal, which we highly recommend and had a previous discussion of back in 2021. He is also the associate editor of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. Here we continued our discussion of his piece “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet." In this section of the conversation we talk about China’s role in the world system and Max discusses the question of imperialism with regard to China, specifically on the African continent. From there we get into a discussion of degrowth, what Ajl sees as its strengths and weaknesses as a camp of ecological thought engaging at a popular level. We also dig deeper into Max’s interventions in the realm of ecologically unequal exchange, something we began to discuss in part 1 of the conversation. We thank Max Ajl for this conversation and will include links to a bunch of the citations in the show notes as well as to the article we’re discussing and Agrarian South Journal. We recorded this conversation way back in early August, but this is the first episode we’ve released since the most recent phase of Palestinian Resistance to apartheid and colonialism began on October 7th and since the apocalyptic Israeli siege on Gaza began as a form of collective punishment. We want to express our unequivocal solidarity with the Palestinian people in this time in their anticolonial struggle, and enduring the crimes against humanity that the Israeli state is enacting on the whole population of Gaza. We will be looking to do some more work on that specific topic soon. But for now we want to make sure to relay that to our listeners along with this episode. Links/Citations: “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet.” by Max Ajl (the subject of the episode) https://www.agrariansouth.org Ching Kwan Lee's The Specter of Global China The Future is Degrowth Jason Hickel  Ali Kadri Danny Faber  Vladimir Kontorovich  Zeyad El Nabolsy -  pieces on Cabral