There's a reason we chose Roger Casement as the symbol for this podcast: a queer figure in Irish revolutionary history (queer here meaning gay, a failure and truly disruptive) and a genuine anti-imperialist who saw through a persuasive ideological hegemony in order to understand the brutality and illegitimacy of colonialism and dedicated his life to fighting it, he represents an active, civic republicanism that offers the contemporary Left so much. 
It's about time we dedicated an episode to him, and so Helen and Glen are joined by Professor Gerry Kearns to discuss Casement's life and the lessons we can take from his actions and ideas. They examine his cruising and the intersectional spaces of encounter that this carved out for him, his ability to identify and articulate the problems of colonialism in an explicitly socialist, materialist way, the importance he placed on love and humanity and his haunting final speech before his execution. 
They debate the limits of cultural nationalism, specifically with a 1916 framework, and look at how nationalism can be expanded through a re-imagining of the nation, an impetus on what kind of nation you want to build, and a centring of love, loyalty, legitimacy and humanity.  As if this wasn't enough, they finally discuss contemporary colonialism and how unregulated late stage capitalism has led us into a world as confusing and inhospitable as the one Casement faced, and use Casement's many lessons to try to understand how to make our way into a future he would be proud of. 

Prof Gerry Kearns has written a piece on Casement which can be read here: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/11094/1/Kearns%2CNally%2CAn%20accumulated%20wrong.pdf

*Note: around 19 minutes in Gerry mentions Thomas Davitt, but this should actually be corrected to Michael Davitt. 

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That's right, we're giving the people what they want: another Mark Fisher episode! We obviously couldn't do it without Matt Wrafter from @therockisdead, so here he joins Helen and Glen to review Mark Fisher's recent posthumously published book; Post-Capitalist Desire. 
The book is a transcript from Mark's final lecture series and it's a revisiting of both the failures and successes of past countercultures in order to try and build a movement for the future. It's a beautiful, optimistic text which holds so much for any Leftist. Matt, Helen and Glen chose certain moments or quotes that meant to a lot to them and discuss why and how we can use them out here in the real world. 
They attempt to answer some of the scary questions about coping with material desire as an anti-capitalist, and discuss everything from the power of building a collective consciousness and how we'll manage this in our fractured, digital, post-covid world to the real problems with identity politics (not just right wing talking points about them) and how to move past their limitations into a shiny new post-capitalist world. 

Buy Post-Capitalist Desire here: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/postcapitalist-desire-the-final-lectures/

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The sequel to Anne Rice's cult classic is here and this time it features an even more deranged, amoral and blood sucking protagonist! 
As you well know Casement's Leftovers are committed socialist republicans and we wanted our own go at the age old brawl between those who want to fix the state and make it a socialist dreamscape and those who want to burn it down and build ehh something  they're not sure. Glen and Helen got one of those little gremlins into the studio and engaged them in half debate about how we'll build the future and half vicious roast of their character and the character of anarchism as a whole.  Time to decide: which side are you on? 

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It was a time of helicopters to work, fire dancers of a Wednesday evening, Girls Aloud at your 21st and the meddling of Deutsche Bank. How did we fuck it up so badly, what do we have to show for it all and where did all the money go? 
Helen, Glen and Heather revisit the hazy, heady years of Celtic Tiger tomfoolery to explore the most hysterical excesses and finally boil down to the pivotal question: why is Conor McGregor still haunted by the ghost of the boom and what lessons can we head from him? Tune in to find out .

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Tackling astrology, witchcraft, and the expansive Irish diaspora, the Casement's Leftovers clan raise a few important questions. What are the motivating factors for today's modern emigrants? Is the Irish state at fault? And why are Libras... so Libra?

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Casement's is back after a long Christmas hiatus to discuss what has rightfully dominated Irish headlines for the last few weeks. We're joined by our new co-host Heather to cover what struck us about the report, whether the influence of the church really has waned as much as is said, the state's perpetual practices of incarceration, and what needs to be done now, by church and state, to bring about any sort of justice. 

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You might have seen there was an election in America there the other day. Bit o Drama. We all heard a lot about it, cause we're all happy colonial subjects in the Grand American Empire, tuning in every day for the Great Choosing Ceremony of our new Leaders and Masters. 

This week we're joined by Matt from @therockisdead for the nihilistic and irritated election coverage that you didn't know you needed. 

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We've all heard the stats: unless we act radically in the next ten years, the world as we know it is fucked. But across the political spectrum, this doesn't seem to have sunk in . A lot of environmentalist activists, famously XR and Greta Thunberg, call themselves politically agnostic, which can be confusing for those of us committed to the Left. Environmentalism can often be seen as a middle class movement or worse: co-opted by the right as an excuse for fascism. As our environmental problems get worse, the threat of climate Nazis increases, and the most vulnerable populations in the world are the most at risk. 

We clearly need radical solutions, but closer to home, Irish politicians have been continually uninspiring, unimaginative and unwilling to challenge capitalism in the name of environmentalism, the Green Party now infamous as Fine Gael on bikes. 

Helen and Glen are joined by Environmental researcher and friend of the pod David O'Keeffe - @TheDOKpit - who debunks the myth of green growth, explains the problems with technological solutions and market strategies and explains that we cannot save the earth without radically changing our economy: the only answer is Degrowth. 

Learn more about Degrowth from the expert, Jason Hickel, here: 
https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/tag/degrowth

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Our Halloween episode is about the scariest thing of all: Neoliberalism and the futures it robbed from us. 

We're joined by political and cultural blogger Matt Wrafter - @therockisdead - in a tribute to The OG blogger, Marxist theorist Mark Fisher, with a focus on his work about Hauntology. 

Are we haunted by potential futures that feel promised but never came? Is this the end of history or does the Left have a coherent vision of the future to struggle for? Were things truly better in the 70s? How have we let a revolutionary tool like the internet become the playground for hyper capitalists and surveillance? How can we create class consciousness in the high-panic individualised society that Neoliberalism has created? And most importantly, if the recession proved that Neoliberalism is a zombie, proved a failure but still struggling on, how can we ever kill it? 

If you seek answers you'll find them in this episode, but for now we'll leave you with some of Fisher's words: "Our struggle must be towards the construction of a new and surprising world."

Some of Fisher's work that's publicly available: 
Exiting the Vampires Castle: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/

How to Kill a Zombie: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-to-kill-zombie-strategizing-end-of-neoliberalism/

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It's the one you've all been waiting for: The People vs. RuPaul Andre Charles. The people being Dublin's brightest and best drag entities, Avoca Reaction and Goblins Goblins Goblins. 

Should Mama Ru be taken to task for her completely unqualified therapising, her commodification of queer experience and her profiting off vulnerable contestants? Or is she offering unprecedented cultural and economic opportunities to a historically downtrodden community, unashamedly thrusting the gay agenda into the lives of the straights and ushering in a new era of acceptance and prosperity? 

With Glen and Helen on the prosecution and Avoca on defence, it is now up to you, The Grand Jury of the Listeners, to decide the fate of the most frackin' controversial queer this town has ever seen. 

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