In the first CounterVortex meta-podcast of February 2018, we noted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight, citing the threats of nuclear weapons, climate change and "cyber-based disinformation." The clock was most recenty moved to 90 seconds to midnight in January 2023, in light of the Ukraine war—the closest it has ever been. The clock did not move forward in 2024, despite Israel crossing the genocidal threshold in Gaza—a conflict now spreading to Lebanon, with potential to ignite the entire Middle East and even the world. The threat of Iran being drawn into the conflict could bring its patron Russia nose-to-nose with Israel's patron, the United States. This comes just as Vadimir Putin has announced a revision to Russia's nuclear weapons doctrine, allowing a first strike if its territory is atacked even by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a state with nuclear weapons. This appears to add frightening credibiity to the mounting nuclear threats from Moscow. All this as the "normal" functioning of the capitalist system conintues to compel the apocalypse. The some 50 left dead by Hurricane Helene in the US South are among hundreds killed in extreme weather events around the world in recent days—obvious signals of global climate destabilization. The multi-facetated systemic crisis portends imminent human extinction.

Amid all this, small efforts at Jewish-Arab co-existence by the besieged peace camp within Israel point to the potential for the ongoing protests against Netanyahu to take on an explicit anti-war character. Similarly, small steps by cities around the world to expand space for the human organism and human-powered transport begin to callenge the hegemony of the fossil-fuel economy. In Episode 245 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that such measures, however seemingly modest, constitute a countervortex to humanity's general doward spiral toward devastating war, ecological collapse and fascism.

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/countervortex

Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 70 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 71!