Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with political writer William Hawes. We discuss his sharp and insightful essay, Questioning The Extremely Online. As we dig into William’s insights into how being “extremely online” has informed our social behaviors in the past several decades, his most cutting criticisms are aimed at contemporary political activism — both in its theory and praxis — and how even the most die-hard eco-radicals, anti-capitalists, and leftists of all stripes are (not-so) subtly impacted by the pervasive algorithmic logic of being “extremely online.” William’s insights including a recognition of who stands to benefit from this massive shift in how we process and react to information, and most importantly in how this dynamic inherently limits how we imagine and actively manifest a post-capitalist future. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/william-hawes // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Sam Adler-Bell, freelance journalist and co-host of the Know Your Enemy podcast, “a leftist's guide to the conservative movement.” The subject of this interview is his article, Why White Supremacists Are Hooked on Green Living, published by The New Republic. In this discussion with Sam, I ask him to elaborate on his research into the deeper connections between the roots of environmentalism and conservationism in the United States and rise of “eco-fascism” in our present time—an ideology expressed in the manifestos and stated intentions of white supremacist mass shooters in recent years, and in the rise of reactionary far right populism to refugee crises around the world. As Sam explains in his piece for The New Republic, the first thing we need to understand about this subject is that “most eco-fascists are sincere in their environmentalism,” and that the earliest forms of fascism in Europe were directly inspired by the earliest forms of environmentalism and conservationist efforts in the United States, as embodied in the projects of Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, and Madison Grant (co-founders of the Sierra Club, 1892) with the formation of the National Parks Service in the United States. The point of this discussion with Sam is to understand, as leftists, how we can more fully engage with an often misunderstood but crucially important component of fascist ideology, currently manifesting as "eco-fascism" in contemporary discourse. The emergence, or reemergence, of an ecologically-conscious fascism does not come from a vacuum; it is a direct response to the ecological and climate crises manifesting across the globe right now. Mass migrations and the inevitable sociopolitical responses (ultranationalism, xenophobia, the hyper-militarization of borders) are a part of this trend. We must learn to counter these trends and the dehumanizing narratives that allow space for them to grow (e.g. the Malthusian narrative of overpopulation as the main driver of these crises), and Sam and I discuss some of how that might be accomplished in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/sam-adler-bell // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Barbara Cecil and Dahr Jamail, co-authors of the How Then Shall We Live? series published at Truthout. // Episode notes + transcript: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/cecil-jamail // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In the episode, I speak with Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, and author of The Terror of the Unforeseen. How has neoliberalism paved the way for the rise of far right ideologies and populists around the world? As demonstrated in the elections of, and policies enacted by, such leaders as Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, a “neoliberal fascism” is emerging globally. As Henry elaborates in his book, The Terror of the Unforeseen, “neoliberalism creates an all-encompassing market guided by the principles of privatization, deregulation, commodification, and the free flow of capital. Advancing these agendas, it weakens unions, radically downsizes the welfare state, and wages an assault on public services such as education, libraries, parks, energy, water, prisons, and public transportation. As the state is hollowed out, big corporations take on the functions of government, imposing severe austerity measures, redistributing wealth upward to the rich and powerful, and reinforcing a notion of society as one of winners and losers.” (http://bit.ly/2LSXjzn)  To further this point more succinctly, Henry states, “neoliberalism became an incubator for a growing authoritarian populism fed largely by economic inequality.” (http://bit.ly/2Om8oL8) As societies become subsumed politically, economically, and culturally by the logic of a neoliberal ideology, the outcome is widespread social fragmentation and disintegration. This in turn has manifested into a groundswell of authoritarian and fascist politics in nations that have been traditionally defined as “open and free democratic societies.” As Henry challenges us in this interview, unless we critically address neoliberal capitalism and the impact this ideology has played in lives of countless human beings across the world, we cannot even begin to adequately understand and effectively resist this trend of rising of far right populist movements globally. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/henry-giroux // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Steven Elliot Martyn, author of Sacred Gardening: Seeds for the Reemergence of Co-Creative Agriculture, and The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden: Co-creating Integrated Polyculture. He is the co-creator of the Sacred Gardener Earth Wisdom School. In this discussion, I ask Steven to expound on his journey of becoming a “sacred gardener,” which has included years of deep intellectual and spiritual introspection and experimentation with agricultural production, gardening, and foraging—a journey that has led to him to a recognition of the roots of our dominant culture’s profound disconnection from the sacred roots of agriculture and land use. On this path of exploration (fleshed out more fully in The Story of Madawaska Forest Garden and Sacred Gardening), Steven has cultivated an intuitive and deeply expressed capacity of being able to truly listen to the spirit(s) of the land and the living beings that reside there, having gained superb insights into how to reacquaint our culture with our sacred roots of participation and co-creative relationship with the living Earth. Steven’s development of this intuitive knowledge has manifested into something that is altogether missing in much of the dominant culture’s conception of land use and agricultural production in the modern age (a culmination of our culture’s obsession with logic, or as Steven has called it, the “cult of Reason”). In this interview, Steven refutes the idea that the development of agriculture in human societies is the result of a “wrong turn” in our development as a species (a primitivist assertion), and instead asserts that the roots of agricultural land use is rooted in our intuitive, sacred, and co-creative capacities as cultural beings with the living Earth, and that deprograming ourselves from the overly-reductionist approach to land use is essential in reclaiming our right role within the broad matrix of life, both on the local and global scale. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/steven-elliot-martyn // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Liyah Babayan, author of Liminal: A Refugee Memoir. In this discussion, we delve into Liyah’s profound, disturbing, and moving retelling of her childhood experiences fleeing the pogroms enacted against the Armenian minority population in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-1990, as expressed in her memoir Liminal. After experiencing incomprehensible trauma and dehumanization, Liyah and her family fled to Armenia, where they were homeless for over three years. Liyah recalls the hostility and derision (with notable punctuations of deep generosity) her and her family experienced from her fellow citizens during this time, as is too often the case with displaced and traumatized refugee populations around the world, regardless of the context of the displacement for each respective group. After this period, Liyah's family was finally granted the refugee status required to make their way to the United States, ultimately resettling in Twin Falls, Idaho through the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Resettlement program. While Liyah and her family were fortunate enough to be able to escape the horrific violence in Baku and their desperate living situation thereafter, their difficult journey toward integration and healing was only just beginning. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/liyah-babayan-3 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with the creator of the Nordic Animist Calendar and Historian of Religion, Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen. Rune has spent much of his academic career studying and highlighting various animist spiritual traditions and perspectives, with a special focus on Afro-Atlantic and Nordic traditions—the latter being the focus of this discussion. In his work, Rune has attempted to integrate the animist worldview into his academic research into religious and spiritual traditions, highlighting the very pragmatic and grounded function the animist perspective has served in human cultures and societies throughout human history. As Rune explains, the animist worldview integrates human community with the grander cycles of the cosmos and seasons of the Earth through ritual and story, serving as a sort of technology that integrates human life with the broader communities of life on the planet through spiritual practice. Of particular concern to Rune is how the animist worldview and mythologies can inform our understanding of the contemporary environmental and climate crises unfolding on the planet right now. In this discussion, Rune uses the myth of Ragnarok—a sort of end-of-days apocalyptic vision involving environmental cataclysm and war famously depicted in the Old Norse poem Völuspá—as a means of comprehending and reframing the unfolding ecological, cultural, spiritual crises in our troubled times. (http://bit.ly/2mfFEaM) How can myth, and in particular the animist worldview, help us to not only reframe these current crises, but provide the tools required to build connection and deeper relationship to the land, community, and the living systems of the planet? This is just some of what we explore in this discussion. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/rune-rasmussen // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode with Brian Mier, co-editor at Brasil Wire and correspondent for TeleSur English, we discuss the fires and deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, the United States intervention in the Brazilian political system, and the rise of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. On August 19th, the city of São Palo, Brazil experienced a complete blackout of the sun. To understand the context of this event, Brian provides an overview of the various international corporate and political forces responsible for the ongoing devastation of one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. In particular, Brian describes the direct role soy farmers and cattle ranchers have played in this process, as they continue to expand operations into the virgin rainforest, invading and killing Indigenous people and destroying their lands, all with the tacit approval of elected president Jair Bolsonaro and his administration. To understand the rise of Bolsonaro, Brian explains the U.S. backed coup that made way for his rise to power (http://bit.ly/2m4PnRr), as well as the international corporate interests that benefit from the ruthless environmental deregulation emblematic of the Bolsonaro regime. On his visit to the regions most impacted by these fires, Brian quotes local journalist Luciana Oliveira in an article for Brazil Wire, in which she states: “We warned everyone that this was going to happen […] we said that President Bolsonaro’s rhetoric would pull a mental trigger. He gave the order when he relativized the issue of environmental crimes, when he discredited the work of the environmental protection agencies, and when he ridiculed the fines, he gave an order. He said, ‘do it.’” (http://bit.ly/2kwd4Bq) // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/brian-mier // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep, and Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It. I ask Alexander and Shane to discuss the curious case of Andy Ngo—right-wing provocateur, so-called “independent journalist” (https://nyti.ms/2lwcMuz), former Quillette editor, and grifter. (http://bit.ly/2lvaU5r) Ngo is best known for using his prominent social media platform to promote and spin provocative right-wing media narratives, demonstrated in his coverage of street clashes between antifascists and far-right groups over the past several years—most notoriously in Portland, Oregon. His promotion of the concocted narrative that antifascists activists (antifa) are anti-free speech and even terroristic (#antifaterrorists), has had real consequence in the lives and safety of journalists and activists, including Alexander and Shane. (http://bit.ly/2koyQHe) While Ngo is discussed in this episode at some length, Shane and Alexander contextualize the rise of right-wing media figures like Ngo within the wider media environment. Capitalist and centrist liberal values, as embodied by the most prominent media outlets in the country, often consistently fail to provide proper context to a wide range of events, which in turn leaves room for a sort of “fascist creep” to take place in way these events are discussed and presented to the wider public. Without proper investigative research, prominent media outlets fail to do their part in connecting the dots in the rise of white supremacist violence, whether that be in their coverage of the frequency of racially motivated mass shootings in the United States and abroad, the increasingly visible street violence between antifascists and far-right groups, and rising far-right populism in nations around the world. There is real danger here in the concocted narratives spun by figures like Ngo: without proper vetting by mainstream journalists in their coverage of these events, disingenuous media personalities with far-right tendencies like Ngo are given a pass and even legitimized, giving space for misinformation surrounding antifascist activism to spread. Alexander and Shane discuss this, and much more, in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/ross-burley // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with musician, poet, anthropologist, educator, community organizer and public speaker Lyla June. This discussion with Lyla covers a variety of compelling subjects, including Lyla’s journey of connecting with not only her Indigenous Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) identity and ancestry, but also with her European lineage as well. In connecting with that neglected line, Lyla uncovers and speaks not only to the intergenerational trauma that Indigenous peoples have endured since the colonization of the Americas began, and also to the deep and yet-to-be-reckoned-with trauma European settlers have carried with them to the so-called “New World” (e.g. the Black Death, the enclosure of the Commons, the Witch Hunts, etc.). In addressing this fundamental truth about the underlying trauma that replicates itself up to the present day in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike, solidarity can be forged—potentially serving as a force for healing in our time. Along with this, Lyla also discusses the sacred (and desecrated) roles of the masculine and the feminine within human community, and how our understanding of the nature of these roles (including in the non-binary sense) can allow for another layer of this much needed healing and alignment to take place. We discuss this, and much more, in this discussion. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/lyla-june // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast