The Fire These Time‪s‬ Joey Ayoub

Today we'll be talking to Saleem Haddad. He is the author of Guapa, the director of Marco and a 2nd time guest on The Fire These Times.

Topics discussed:

What constitutes queer literature?; Muhammad Abdelnabi; Ocean Vuong;  James Baldwin; The Personal is Political; Pedro Lemebel; Israeli  pinkwashing; criticizing the so-called ‘gay international’ by Joseph  Massad; how ‘anti-imperialism’ and ‘post-colonialism’ is used by  authoritarian groups and regimes including Hezbollah and Assad;  Queerness in revolutionary settings (in the Arab-majority world);  Revolutionary feminism; LGBTQ liberation and the Syrian revolution;  being sensitive to authoritarian logic; queerness as a changing and  developing identity; understanding social constructs.

Books/Works Mentioned:


In the spider’s room: a novel by Muhammad Abdelnabi
On earth we’re briefly gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Go tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin
Manifesto (I speak for my difference) by Pedro Lemebel
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
The appointment by Katharina Volckmer

PATREON Help me make more podcast episodes by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes

PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ibnbaldwin

BLOG POST https://thefirethisti.me/2021/02/16/63-queerness-literature-and-revolution-with-saleem-haddad/

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by  sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!

Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Kai Kuhnhenn and Linda Schneider. They recently co-wrote a really important and freely-available study exploring a Societal Transformation Scenario (STS) on how to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Topics Discussed:


The importance of the study
The problem with assuming economic growth in studying environmental impact
The reliance on growth in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports
Risks of geoengineering
Degrowth for the Global North
How the Societal Transformation Scenario (STS) differs from mainstream economics
The problems with uncritical techno-optimism
The risks of overshoot
Why Recycle is the least important of the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
What about the Global South?
Addressing economic justice
What exactly does Net Zero mean?
Keystone pipeline
Exploring the possible
Having hope
Climate anxiety

Recommended Books


The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency by Andreas Malm

You can also make use of a really good FAQs section.

If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer.

Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options.

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!

The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro, Vurbl and RSS.

Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Anand Gopal about his essay for Catalyst Journal entitled ‘The Arab Thermidor‘ in which he presents a class analysis of the Arab Spring. We spoke about a number of Arab-majority countries but with a focus on Syria. We briefly mentioned Afghanistan too. 

PATREON Help me make more podcast episodes by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes  

PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ibnbaldwin  

BLOG POST https://thefirethisti.me/2021/01/26/61-a-class-analysis-of-the-arab-spring-with-anand-gopal/  

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!  

Music by Tarabeat.

Today we'll be talking to Emmi Bevensee again. They're a data journalist who utilizes a data storytelling approach to make complexity understandable.

Topics discussed:

Fifth Section: Eco-Fascism; the ‘Thanos’ tendency;  Climate grief; Climate anxiety; Climate denialism; Manipulative  algorithms; Network effects; Peer-to-peer technology; Gab; Alt-right  echo chambers; Machine learning vs human moderation; Leftism in the 21st  century; Anarchism; Post-leftism; Internationalism;  Anti-authoritarianism;

Sixth Section: Mutualism; Currency; Capitalism;  Economic Coordination; Iroquois Longhouse Systems; Tragedy of the  commons (disproving it); Revealed vs Stated Preference; Reading  authoritarian literature; Prioritising and Strategising within activism.

Seventh Section: Emotional Anarchism; Recommended books.

PATREON Help me make more podcast episodes by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes

PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ibnbaldwin

BLOG POST https://thefirethisti.me/2021/01/26/59-60-anti-fascism-and-the-future-of-complex-warfare/

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by  sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your  podcasts! 

Music by Tarabeat.

Today we'll be talking to Emmi Bevensee. They're a data journalist who utilizes a data storytelling approach to make complexity understandable.

Topics discussed:

First section: Complex Warfare; Disinformation Warfare; Drones; 3D-printed Guns; Houthis and Saudi Arabia; Asymmetrical  Warfare; Surveillance; Anti-authoritarian communities; Open-source intelligence  (OSINT); Katehon; Russia; Complexity Dynamics; Pandemics and Viral Spreads; Ukraine/Russia/Syria.

Second section: 8kun; 8chan; 4chan; Gamergate; Gab; Parler; January 6 Coup Attempt; Jim Watkins; Ron Atkins; QAnon; Child  sexual abuse (not  in detail, just in the context of the Watkins family’s role in the online hate scene); Swarm tactics; BBC Eye investigations; Shabbiha; Mexican government, paramilitary troops and the Zapatistas; role of governments in conspiracies like QAnon; Kraken; Dominion Conspiracy; Trump; ‘Stop The Steal’; Cults; Hezbollah; “Q Clearance: Unmasking QAnon” podcast with Jake Hanrahan;

Third Section: Syncretism; Fascist entryism; Alt-Imperialism; Legacy of 2003 Invasion of Iraq on Campism; Boomer socialism; Answer coalition;  Stop The War in the UK; Anti-semitism; Assadists; Hong Kong; Dugin and Duginism; Ajamu Baraka and the US Green Party; Code Pink.

Fourth Section: Syria; Living on the Turkey-Syria Border; No Fly Zone;  Syrian Refugee Crisis; Lessons from the Syrian  experience for  anti-authoritarians; Syrian-related disinformation and authoritarianism; Libya; London Syria scene.

PATREON Help me make more podcast episodes by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes  

PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ibnbaldwin  

BLOG POST https://thefirethisti.me/2021/01/26/59-60-anti-fascism-and-the-future-of-complex-warfare/  

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by  sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your  podcasts!  Music by Tarabeat.

Today we’ll be talking to Rohini Hensman.

She is an India-based Sri Lankan labor activist and feminist and an  independent scholar whose book “Indefensible: Democracy,  Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism” I’ve reviewed some years ago, and which will be the topic of our conversation today.

In that book, she argues that the apparent anti-imperialism of many  self-professed socialists amounts to explicit or implicit support for  totalitarianism, fascism, Islamist theocracy and, ironically enough,  imperialism.

She goes through the examples of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Bosnia, Russia and Ukraine.

This has been a concern of mind for a few years now and I wanted to  take this opportunity to bring it to a wider audience, so I invited  Rohini on to explore how such a supposedly noble political position –  anti-imperialism – can be so easily corrupted.

You don’t have to identify with any -ism to find this topic  informative. You just need to be someone who opposes authoritarian  politics.

If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer.

Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options.

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!

The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS.

Music by Tarabeat.

Photo taken from ‘The Syrian People Know Their Way’