Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

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

In this episode Max Ajl returns to the podcast. 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. We caught up with Max back in early August to talk about one of his recent pieces, from Agrarian South. The article is entitled “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet.”  It’s a very interesting article that covers a range of ostensibly left-wing approaches to ecology and the ecological crisis through a critical lens. Recording this conversation in the middle of summer there were a number of events and conversations we reference that folks will recall. This will be a two-part release. In this first portion we talk about the theory of ecologically unequal exchange, wheat and cereal grains as weapons of imperialism, bananas and fresh fruits in the first world, and get into some of Alj’s critiques of different strains of political ecology. In particular in this episode Max talks about Andreas Malm’s formulation of “Fossil Capitalism,” and also critically engages with the frameworks of eco-modernism and extractivism.  Ajl challenges the euro-centric variants of Marxism that dominate much of the first-world Marxist engagement with ecological questions, raising the importance of bringing anti-imperialist analysis, a world-system level understanding of capitalism and solidarity with national liberation movements into the theory and practice of ecological movements.  We will link the article we discuss in the show notes as well as some of the articles that Max mentions in the discussion.  In part two of this conversation which will come out in a few days, we will talk a little more about eco-modernism and get into degrowth as well. This is our first episode of the month of October, we thankfully hit our goal of new patrons for the last month. And have set a goal once again to add 40 new patrons this month to keep up with nonrenewals and hopefully slowly increase our base of support for the show. Thanks to everyone who contributes. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism   Links/Citations: “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet.” by Max Ajl (the subject of the episode) Patrick Higgins articles referenced Charlotte Kates article referenced Archana Prasad mentioned    

In this conversation Breht from Revolutionary Left Radio join the podcast to talk about the Friedrich Engels’ short piece, "The Principles of Communism." This piece which is presented in Question and Answer form was a draft that would inform the creation of The Communist Manifesto. This is part of our series of episodes we’ve been doing lately where we talk to friends of the podcast about some of their favorite works, particularly works by authors who are no longer with us. So far we’ve talked to Thandisizwe Chimurenga & Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur about Sanyika Shakur’s Stand Up, Struggle Forward, we’ve discussed an E.P. Thompson piece with Ivan Stoiljkovic. We also have an episode with Steven Osuna where we discuss Mao’s “On The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among The People,” which will be coming soon.  We definitely want to give a big shout-out to Revolutionary Left Radio, Guerrilla History, and the Red Menace podcast. Breht puts countless hours into those projects and I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts, but I do check out work from all of those projects and encourage others to do the same and support them financially if you’re able to do so.  Now of course it is time to remind listeners that this is our seventh, and likely final episode for the month of September. If just five people either become new patrons or increase their pledge in these last four days of the month we will hit our goal, so we’re really close, it’s within reach and if you’ve been thinking about kicking in even just a $1 a month it’ll help us hit that goal and keep sustaining the show. You can do that at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. One final plug I will be joining Sina Rahmani of The East Is A Podcast over on his YouTube page for a live episode on this Thursday September 28th. We would love it if folks would come through hang out with us, it’ll be more relaxed, we’ll just be having fun talking about current events and hopefully if some folks come through we’ll even get a little bit of Q&A in with the audience.  Other Links: Is Marxism Just Religion By Another Name? What is this document and why are we discussing it? What is the proletariat and why is it important to communist theory? China Miéville discussions on the Communist Manifesto: Rev Left's, ours Other Red Menace Episodes on Engels, including the 3-part episode on The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State  Red Menace episode on Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

This is the conclusion of our discussion with César “che” Rodríguez (part 1 is here), who works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and organized with Change SSF.  Here we get into the actual history of the murder of Oscar Grant, trigger or content warning on that discussion for folks. It’s not needlessly graphic, but it is descriptive of the events as they took place. Then we get into how various types of citizen journalism, movement journalism, organizing, protest, popular mobilization, and rioting broke the cycle of police impunity for a moment in time. We talk about that, weigh the limitations of the so-called reforms put in place and think about implications for future struggles against the relentless scourge of police terrorism in this country.  We’re getting closer to our goal for the month of September, with just 5 days left in the month we’re 10 patrons away from it. Shout-out to all of our new patrons this month and to the folks who have been contributing for years. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year. Links: https://www.indybay.org https://sfbayview.com “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California” - The essay we're discussing in the episode