ACFM

A month after racist riots engulfed the country, the ACFM crew ask what fascism – and antifascism – look like in Britain today. Do the riots and counter-protests mark a return to “street politics”? Why didn’t the Labour party align itself with opponents of the pogroms? And how popular are extreme rightwing views among Britain’s frustrated youth?

Jem, Nadia and Keir take a closer look at the make-up of the rioters and the reaction from the public, the media and politicians.

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Produced by Matt Huxley.

Everybody hates a tourist, as Jarvis Cocker once pointed out, and the ACFM gang are no exception in this ACFM Trip exploring the allure of holidays.

Keir, Jem and Nadia consider all the different ways we avoid work, from holy days and vay-cays to grand tours and gap yahs. Does travel make fools of us all, or is there a smarter, more ethical way to go sightseeing? Is the promise of an annual getaway the only thing keeping the working population docile?

Featuring ideas from John Urry, David Harvey and Arun Saldanha, plus music from Dead Kennedys, Cliff Richard and Madonna.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

What happens when you lose? In this Trip, the ACFM crew explore the role of humility – and humiliation – in politics.

Should we cultivate humility to cope with political weakness? Is fear of humiliation a product of patriarchy? Can humility help us be better political thinkers and organisers? And who’s the humblest ACFM host of them all?

Nadia, Keir and Jem apply their weird-left lens to the topic with ideas from Nietzsche and Lyotard, and music from Erik Satie, Kendrick Lamar, Ravi Shankar and Joni Mitchell.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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The ACFM crew offer their first reactions to Labour’s landslide election win. Can Starmer’s government rescue the public sector? Where will the money come from? And can they make it to a second term?

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Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

After investigating the politics of cool on the last Trip episode, the crew turn their attention to another distinctly modern sensibility: camp.

Digging into Susan Sontag’s formative 1964 essay on the camp aesthetic, Nadia, Keir and Jem think about how elements of the artificial, the theatrical and the sentimental come together in camp objects, from porn movies to Tiffany lamps to risqué radio comedy.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

What exactly is cool? Well, if it was that easy to describe, it obviously wouldn’t be cool. In this Trip, Keir, Jem and Nadia wonder if cool can ever be politically useful, and what happens when cool is used as a disciplining force.

With ideas from Pierre Bourdieu, Norman Mailer and Paul Gilroy, and music from OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Miles Davis, the gang adopt a blank expression to explore the mysterious rules of this singular modern concept.

Check out all the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

How do mainstream politicians and pundits contribute to the normalisation of far-right ideas, even as they claim to reject racism and populism? That’s one of many vital questions asked by Aaron Winter and Aurelien Mondon in their book, Reactionary Democracy.

Following ACFM’s recent Trip about Fascism, Keir and Jem speak to Aaron and Aurelien about the making of the “woke conspiracy”, how illiberal politics absorbs liberal rhetoric, and why the left has to stop falling for reactionary narratives – and give up “debating” the far-right.

Follow our Spotify playlist of all the music discussed on ACFM and subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

A lot of people are saying that fascism is on the rise. But what are we pointing to when we call a system, or a person, fascist? On this Trip, Nadia, Keir and Jem map out a complicated ideology, from its roots in 19th century industrialisation to its resurgence in ethnonationalism and eco-apartheid.

Exploring how different political traditions try to explain fascism, they look for signs of the f-word in contemporary politics and play music from Woody Guthrie, Heaven 17 and Black Sabbath.

ACFM will be recording a live episode at How The Light Gets In, the philosophy and music festival at Hay-On-Wye in Wales, on 27 May. Listeners can get 20% off festival passes over at the How The Light Gets In website by applying the discount code NOVARA20.

See the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

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Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

From fecal transplants to the yoghurt-industrial complex, we’ve never been more absorbed in the workings of our gut. But can we trust it?

Nadia, Jem and Keir investigate the mysterious connections between mind and body, reason and instinct. How did capitalism separate our minds from our bodies? Is a belief in intuition filling the gap left by religion? And will reclaiming our biomes be a win for anti-capitalism?

They digest their thinking with music from Björk and Olivia Rodrigo and ideas from Max Weber and Daniel Kahneman.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Books and films: Jeanette Winterson – 12 Bytes / 
Chinatown
 / Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski – The New Spirit of Capitalism / Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast and Slow / Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams – Hegemony Now / The Last of Us

Tracklist:
 Devo – Gut Feeling / FSOL – Stomach Acid / FSOL – Papua New Guinea / Frenzy – Fire in my Gut / Guts – Voyaging Bird / John Cale – Guts / Björk – Sweet Intuition / Olivia Rodrigo – Love is Embarrassing

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Last time on ACFM, the gang explored the impact of UFOs on politics, from deep-state conspiracies to the Posadists.

But to really understand how aliens influence our thought – and what our belief in E.T. says about ourselves – we have to go to the movies.

In this Microdose, Keir, Jem and Nadia sweep through a century of aliens on screen, from Martian invaders to Mulder & Scully to talking heptapods.

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Films, TV & Books: H. G. Wells – The War of the Worlds / The Day the Earth Stood Still / Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Quatermass / The Midwich Cuckoos / The Blob / Solaris / Close Encounters of the Third Kind / Alien / The Thing / E.T. / They Live / The X-Files / Men in Black / The Host / Godzilla / Cloverfield / District 9 / Sector Zero / The Expanse / Arrival / Nope

Produced by Matt Huxley.