In this episode, recorded mid-2024, we speak with Ted Rutland about the evolution of policing from the mid-20th century's professional model to the counterinsurgency urbanism that emerged in the 1970s and 80s in Canada. Rutland discusses how community policing, initially intended to bring police closer to communities through multicultural training and social services, became a strategy to win over parts of the community while waging a larger war against the rest.    We delve into some of the historical shifts in policing largely as a response to radical movements and urban rebellions. We also examine the role of progressive urban governments in maintaining counterinsurgency policing, the impact of neoliberal policies, and the influence of white nationalism in shaping urban governance. Ted and I further explore the concept of counterinsurgency urbanism, showing how it has become central to not just policing but city-making processes in its entirety where supportive and punitive measures are blended in order to maintain control over urban populations. Ted Rutland is an associate professor of geography and urban studies at Concordia University in Montreal. His research explores how capitalism and white supremacy intersect in contemporary urban politics, planning, and policing. He is the author of Displacing Blackness: Planning, Power, and Race in Twentieth-Century Halifax and the co-author (with Maxime Aurélien) of Out to Defend Ourselves: A History of Montreal's First Haitian Street Gang.   This episode was produced and edited by Aidan Elias & Jared Ware. Music by Televangel.   To support our work contribute to our patreon at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism!   COUNTER-INSURGENCY URBANISM (Draft chapter from in-progress book) 

Frank Kitson's Low Intensity Operations with Orisanmi Burton

Pacification with Mark Neocleous

This is the conclusion of our two part conversation with Maryam Kashani on her book Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival

Among other things, in this conversation we talk about the impact and meaning of 1492 to the Muslim world. We discuss Kashani’s concept of the Blues Adhan by way of Clyde Woods. We discuss the experiences of women muslims, and women scholars in Kashani’s book. We talk about the two jihads and other Muslim practices such as zakat and the contradictions between Islamic thought and practice and those demanded by the capitalist and carceral state. It’s a rich discussion that I hope folks find as interesting as I did. 

Make sure you also catch the first part of this conversation which is linked in the show notes.

Kashani is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition. 

Believers Bail Out has a fundraiser to bail out Muslims during Ramadan which we will link in the show description. We really encourage folks to kick in what they can to support that initiative. 

If you like the work that we do please become a patron of the show. It’s the best way to support our show, and in addition to gaining access to our study groups the next time one opens up, you’ll also get an email for each episode we release. Whether an audio episode like this one and the episode on the writings of Brendan Hughes we released earlier this week or a YouTube livestream like the ones we hosted with Orisanmi Burton, James Kilgore, and Mark Neocleous earlier this week, you’ll always be notified when we have new conversations to check out. You can become a patron for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism 

Links:

first part of this conversation

fundraiser to bail out Muslims during Ramadan

Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival

More on the Blues Epistemology in this interview with César “che” Rodriguez

Zakat fir-Riqab: Becoming Muslim in Colonial Racial Capitalism and its Carceral Regimes by Maryam Kashani

 

In this episode we interview D. Óg, an Irish Republican and Irish language activist who works with Iskra Books, and their Irish language imprint Bradán Feasa. In this discussion we talk about the Iskra Books publication The Dark: Selected Writings of Brendan Hughes. 

Hughes, was a former Irish Republican Army volunteer, political prisoner, and Hunger Striker. And while he is a very well known figure within Irish Republican circles and among those who have studied the provisional IRA, some folks may also have become introduced to him through the book and the Fx/Hulu series Say Nothing. In this episode I talk to D a bit about several of The Dark’s writings, about the politics of Brendan Hughes, his internationalism, his solidarity with Palestinians, and his lifelong commitment to a 32 county socialist Irish Republic. Along the way we talk about Hughes’ response to the so-called Good Friday Agreement, or has Hughes called it “Got F*ck All,” his critiques of the political trajectory of Sinn Féin, and more. 

We highly recommend you check out this book from the comrades at Iskra Books. As with all their work there is a free pdf version you can download from there website, so do that to check it out, but also I really recommend ordering yourself a physical copy to support their work and to add this beautiful book to your collection. 

I also just want to mention that if you’re interested in conversations about counterinsurgency, Orisanmi Burton and I have released part one of a two part conversation on Frank Kitson and his book Low Intensity Operations, for a brief period Kitson was in charge of the counterrevolutionary campaign against the IRA, as well as counterrevolutionary wars in Kenya against the Mau Mau, and in Malaya. We will link that in the show notes along with some other discussions we’ve had about Ireland and Irish revolutionary politics over the years. And part two of my conversation with Orisanmi Burton about Kitson’s Low Intensity Operations will be this coming Friday at 10 AM Eastern Time (US) on our YouTube channel. A link to that will be in the show notes as well. 

In addition, we also have a conversation with Mark Neocleous tomorrow Tuesday the 18th at 12:30 PM ET on his new book Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police, and one on Thursday with James Kilgore the new zine he’s put together with Vic Liu on Lessons in Global Solidarity. 

As always if you appreciate the work we do with this podcast, the best way to support our work is to become a patron of the show. It’s also the best way to follow all of our work, you’ll receive an email with every episode whether it’s a YouTube episode or an audio episode and you’ll be notified when we’re starting up any of our study groups which you always have access to as a patron. You can become one for as little as $1 per month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

The Book:

The Dark: Selected Writings of Brendan Hughes

Upcoming livestreams:

Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police

James Kilgore on International Solidarity 

Orisanmi Burton on Frank Kitson's Low Intensity Operations (part 2) / Part 1 is out now!

Other episodes on Irish history:

“Bobby Sands Got More Votes Than Margaret Thatcher Ever Did” C. Crowle on Attack International’s Spirit of Freedom: Anticolonial War & Uneasy Peace in Ireland

Ireland, Colonialism, and the Unfinished Revolution with Robbie McVeigh and Bill Rolston

The Lost & Early Writings of James Connolly with Conor McCabe

Irish Women's Prison Writings: Mother Ireland's Rebels with Red Washburn

Some other items referenced in discussion:

Legion of the Rearguard: Dissident Irish Republicanism by Martyn Frampton

Unfinished business: The politics of 'dissident' Irish republicanism by Marisa McGlinchey

The Pensive Quill 

This is the first part of a two part conversation with Maryam Kashani on her book Medina By The Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival

It’s a cool book that weaves Maryam’s scholarly ethnographic work with her talents as a filmmaker and a DJ to examine and illuminate various strains of Islam in the San Francisco Bay Area from the Black Power Movement to the so-called war on terror and the rise of the surveillance state. She dubs her approach an “ethnocinematic.”  We discuss legacies of anti-imperialist Islam on Turtle Island as well as more assimilative ways of being. We’ll dig into this more in part 2, but we wanted to make sure to get this part out during Ramadan. 

Kashani is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition. We’ll include a lengthier bio in the show description.

Believers Bail Out has a fundraiser to bail out Muslims during Ramadan which we will link in the show description. We really encourage folks to kick in what they can to support that initiative. 

The other thing I wanted to make sure to mention is we do talk a little bit about Imam Jamil Al-Amin in this episode. I’m including a couple of links to projects and campaigns related to Imam Jamil Al-Amin in the show description. According to Students for Imam Jamil he has received a medical transfer thanks to the support and calls of many folks. But there are other ways people can continue to support Imam Jamil Al-Amin (see below). 

And lastly, we have a Samir Amin Accumulation on a World Scale Study Group for patrons only. It will start Wednesday the 12th of March and run through June. I’ll include a link with more details in the show description, but space is limited on that so if you want to reserve a spot make sure to sign up today at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism which is also the best place to support our work on this podcast.

Links:

Purchase Medina By The Bay through Massive Bookshop, the bookstore that bails people out of jail.

For Maryam's essay on Hajja Dhameera Ahmad check out the book Black Power Afterlives

For more on Imam Jamil Al Amin: https://www.imamjamilactionnetwork.org/ and freeimamjamil.com and support the fundraiser for the "What Happened to Rap" film.

Samir Amin Accumulation on a World Scale Study Group (7:30 PM Eastern Time US on Wednesdays)

Believers Bail Out use Zakat to bail Muslims out of jail or immigrant detention

Full bio:

Maryam Kashani works from a deep commitment to the aesthetic and political possibilities of experimental filmmaking, music, and the essay form, whether as 16mm films and videos, text/sound/image installations and live performance, DJing, or written monograph. Her work explores the relationships between physical landscapes and the sociopolitical, material, and spiritual histories and forces that emerge with and against them and is concerned with narration and description, archive, and knowledge production with a particular focus on collective study and struggle in and against colonial racial capitalism across local and global geographies. She recently published Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival (Duke University Press, 2023), which is an ethnocinematic examination of how multiracial Muslim communities in the San Francisco Bay Area survive within and against racial capitalist, carceral, and imperial logics. Her films and video installations (http://www.maryamkashani.com/) have been shown at film festivals, universities, and museums internationally, including the Sharjah Biennial, MoMA, Hammer Museum, Chelsea Museum, and the Pacific Film Archive.

Kashani is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition.

 

 

In this episode recorded mid-2024, Josh spoke with Dylan Saba about some of his essays beginning with one titled  "A Struggle to Destroy the World,” where he argued that the condition of Palestine is the condition of the modern world. We discuss the role of the Iron Dome as an offensive system, its historical context, and its implications for the colonial-imperialist power imbalance in the region. Saba also provides an overview of the strategic use of aid as a weapon to maintain control, division, and weaken Palestinian resistance. We also touch on how the Israeli military's inability to defeat Hamas forces the US and Israel to adopt different strategies of counterinsurgency in an effort to try to replace Hamas with a more compliant Palestinian authority. Dylan Saba is a civil rights attorney and writer who lives in New York City. He works at Palestine Legal, where he represents individuals and groups in the US who are facing suppression for supporting Palestinian rights. He has written about Palestine and other issues for a variety of publications, including The Nation, n+1, Jewish Currents, American Prospect, and The Baffler. If you like what we do and want to support our ability to have more conversations like this. Please consider becoming a Patron. You can do so for as little as a 1 Dollar a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism   This episode was produced and edited by Aidan Elias. Music by Televangel.   A Struggle to Destroy the World:    Iron Dome is Not a Defensive System    Aid Wars 

Dylan's interviews at Phenomenal World

 

This is a light edit of a recent livestream video we hosted with Abdaljawad Omar on our YouTube channel. The conversation was so timely and incisive that we wanted to ensure there was also a version on our audio podcast feed. 

In this discussion we cover the Tufan of Return, talk about the ceasefire, the prisoner exchanges, the decimation of Gaza’s infrastructure, and the concept of Nakba within Palestine, getting into the issues that Abdaljawad has with the divergent meanings of the word, which get conflated in many analyses of 1948 and into the present.

There are 16 episodes we’ve hosted with Abdaljawad Omar on our YT channel, about different topics from the Making of the Palestinian Resistance, the Palestinian Resistance and the Western Left, to Counterinsurgency in the West Bank and analyses during different phases of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, while we have converted 5 of them to audio now, that’s eleven episodes you may have missed if you are only subscribed to our audio podcast feed. So if you are not subscribed to our YouTube channel, hit the link in the show description and subscribe now, we’re only about 650 subscribers away from hitting 10,000.

If you like what we do the best way to support our work is to become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. That is where we get the funds to do this podcast and to do our patron-only study groups, which will be starting a new book at the end of this month. So sign-up now.

Also as we note throughout this conversation, supporting direct aid efforts in the Gaza Strip is as urgent as ever, we’ll include a link where you can support the Sameer Project in the show description as well.

The background is a screenshot taken from a video by Mustafa Musallam. Help him rebuild his life in Gaza.

In this episode, we speak with Darryl Li about some of his essays. We begin by discussing his work and experiences in Palestine. His transformation from an NGO worker in the early 2000s to a scholar and political activist. Li explores the interpolation of Jewishness into a racial category globally. He also explores the Law of Return, which allows any Jew in the world to not only settle in Israel but also to enjoy superior rights to the land than Palestinians. The conversation covers the evolution of Palestinian armed resistance, particularly in Gaza, and the shift in Israeli strategies from direct occupation to economic strangulation and remote control bombardment. Li explains how Israel's reliance on Palestinian labor has fluctuated, leading to the importation of migrant workers from other countries, which weakened Palestinian leverage in resistance negotiations. He also addresses the impact of the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority, and how it has undermined anti-Zionist critique by implicitly accepting Zionism. Additionally, Li touches on the intersection of the black freedom struggle and Jewish assimilation in the U.S., noting how Holocaust memory culture—in service of zionist imperialism—has helped elevate anti-Semitism above other forms of racial, ethnic, and religious antagonisms. Darryl Li is active in Palestine solidarity work in the United States as an organizer, lawyer, and writer. He lived in the Gaza Strip from 2001 to 2002 and made regular visits until 2011 working for various NGOs, especially the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Darryl's day job is teaching anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity (Stanford University Press 2020).   To support our work please become a patron of the show for as little as $1 per month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism   Links:   On Law and Racial Capitalism in Palestine    Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism   The Rise and Fall of Baby Boomer Zionism

This is the conclusion of our two part interview with Andrew Krinks on his recently published book White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization. 

Today we explore the religious functions police play for Christian societies, in particular the US, and their relationship to theological concepts of redemption and salvation. We also talk about religious discipline, labor discipline and regimes of prison labor, which is obviously topical with renewed discussions of incarcerated fire fighters with the recent wildfires in Southern California. Krinks also explains why the dehumanization of prisons should not be understood as a violation of their mandate, but a fundamental aspect of it, one that also serves a function within the religious ideologies from which the prison emerges.

Definitely check out part one of this conversation if you missed it and if you are inclined to up a copy of the book, which is a fascinating read, check out our friends at Massive Bookshop who use the proceeds from their book sales to bail people out of jail. 

I also just want to plug that we have an ongoing video series on our YouTube channel with Mtume Gant who is a filmmaker, media critic, and professor of film, where we are reading and discussing Cedric Robinson’s book Forgeries of Memory and Meaning. And if you like this conversation I think you’ll find a lot of resonance with those discussions as well as they really go into how and when race-making processes are instrumentalized in the media, using historical examples.

We aim to bring you content multiple times per week, sometimes it’s in video from, sometimes it’s in audio form, so make sure that you subscribe to our podcast feed as well as to our YouTube channel. In order to release this much work, requires a great deal of support from our listeners and viewers. We will have another study group starting up in late February and that will be open to all of our patrons as well. Thank you so much for all of your support, and if you would like to join the wonderful community of folks who make this show possible, become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at Patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.  

Links:

Billy Graham and the caskets made at Angola Prison.

Recent video episode on the California Wildfires with Mel Lopez and Alejandro Villalpando

Forgeries of Memory and Meaning with Mtume Gant

White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization through Massive Bookshop

 

 

 

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In this episode we speak with Andrew Krinks about his recent book White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization. 

The book is really interesting and I highly recommend it, this is part 1 of a 2 part discussion we recorded on it. You can pick it up from Massive Bookshop the bookstore that uses their revenue from book sales to bail people out of jail.

In this discussion Krinks goes into the religious function that the mass criminalization of Black, Brown, and dispossessed peoples serves within the racial capitalist system. Engaging with Marxist and materialist explanations as well as Christian theologians and bourgeois philosophers, we get into how police and prisons are tethered deeply with religious ideology, which also finds quarter within the so-called secular theorists who provided the political philosophical underpinnings of the capitalist system. We also get into dynamics of race making and racialist thinking by way of folks like Cedric Robinson and Ruth Wilson Gilmore to examine the connection between race making and property relations.  

I’ll also note that last year we hosted a video conversation with Melayna Kay Lamb and Tia Trafford about the philosophical underpinnings of police power that has some important areas of overlap with this discussion as well, but focuses a bit more on European secular philosophy and policing.

Starting on Monday the 6th we’ll be hosting a new live series on our YouTube channel with Mtume Gant who is a filmmaker, media critic, and professor of film, where we will be talking about Cedric Robinson’s Forgeries of Memory and Meaning. So if you like this conversation I think you’ll find a lot of resonance with those discussions as well as they really go into how and when race-making processes are instrumentalized in the media, using historical examples.

And lastly it is a new year, and we have a ton of new content coming this year. Last year we published 115 video episodes, and 38 audio episodes. We hope to be similarly productive again this year, but in order to do that we do need your support to be able to put in the amount of time necessary to get all that work done. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month. We should have another study group starting up in February and that is open to all of our patrons as well. So head over to Patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism and kick in a $1 a month or more to that effort.

In this episode we speak with Hala Sabbah about the work of the Sameer Project and their various initiatives providing tents, food, water, milk, medical aid, diapers, and cash aid to Palestinians surviving amid the US-backed, zionist enacted genocide in Gaza. 

We are going to close the year by making a $50 contribution to the Sameer Project, and we encourage our listeners to give if they can or boost their incredible work, which you can see examples of on their instagram or twitter feeds. In this conversation Hala discusses their campaigns, responds to criticisms from the western left of mutual aid in times of genocide, talks about creative initiatives that groups like Workshops4Gaza are using to direct resources to The Sameer Project, and discusses some of their ideas for the day after a ceasefire. We also talk about some of the ways The Sameer Project’s model differs from the approaches taken by large NGOs operating in Gaza, whose work is not grounded in the horizon of Palestinian liberation.

We’ll include links to the Sameer Project and Workshops4Gaza please consider groups like these as you think about your last minute holiday shopping or places to direct funds if you receive money this holiday season. 

We also had a previous conversation with Hala on our YouTube channel which we will link in the show description.

We’ll probably have a few more audio episodes coming as we close out 2024, but we just want to thank everyone for their support of our work this year.

Links:

The Sameer Project Linktree (links to their fundraising campaigns and instagram), their twitter page as well. 

Workshops4Gaza