This is the conclusion of our 2-part conversation with Michael Hardt on his recently published book The Subversive Seventies. Part 1 is here.

In this conversation we talk about the turn among management and the ruling class in the 1970's away from a politics of mediation and discuss the various ways that movements in the 1970's sought to deal with this shift in the political terrain. We talk about the false problem of the so-called debate between non-violence and violence. We discuss various movements including East Asian Anti-Japan Armed Front, Weather Underground, The Black Panther Party, and the Fatsa Commune.

A reminder that this conversation - like part 1 - was recorded in September and this is why we con't reference some more recent events like the Palestinian resistance and Israel's western backed genocidal war on Palestinians.

We also have a little bit of a discussion of Hardt's use of the notion of strategic multiplicity and the idea of non-priority between different forms of oppression within movements.

Lastly I know I acknowledged it last time, but I do mention Sekou Odinga in this episode, who as you all know passed away just recently. Again may he rest in power.

For the month of January we've released three livestreams on our YouTube page. One with Josh Davidson and Eric King on Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners. Another is a wide-ranging discussion with Abdaljawad Omar on The Making of Palestinian Resistance and a conversation with Louis Allday on the debut issue of Ebb Magazine he edited, entitled "For Palestine." Also on Sunday the 21st we have a livestream with Shireen Al-Adeimi on Yemen. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to follow our work there.

We are just winding down our Sylvia Wynter study group and a new study group will be launching in February so keep an eye out for that.

The best way to support the show, to stay updated on our study groups, follow any writings Josh or I may publish, and keep track of our work on both YouTube and our audio podcast feed is to become a patron of the show. You can join that for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

This is part 1 of a 2-part conversation on Michael Hardt's recent book The Subversive Seventies.

Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author, with Antonio Negri, of the Empire trilogy and, most recently, Assembly. He is co-director with Sandro Mezzadra of The Social Movements Lab.

A couple of things I need to say up front. This conversation was recorded in September and initially would have been released in October, but obviously our programming took a quick turn to solidarity work on the Palestinian struggle in light of those events. As I mentioned in the intro to our most recent episode we will continue to do that solidarity work primarily though not exclusively through our YouTube page for a while just so that we can get some of these other conversations out on the podcast feed.

Nonetheless, this conversation and the book and the problems it poses I think are as interesting and relevant today as they were in September. I mostly note it's recording date for two reasons, one it will be glaring that we don't talk at all about events in Palestine in the conversation. The second reason I mention the date is that in the intervening months Michael Hardt's long-time collaborator Antonio Negri passed away. Negri was of course a very serious and renowned political philosopher, militant organizer, and a political prisoner, coming out of some of the very movements that Michael Hardt discusses in this book. May he rest in peace and our condolences to Michael for the loss of his friend and collaborator.

This discussion is about Michael Hardt's book The Subversive Seventies which was one of the more interesting books we read last year on the podcast. And we would definitely recommend it both for its value as a historical text as well as for the theoretical work Hardt is engaged in in the text. As is laid out quite well I think on the publisher's website, it is a book that attempts to reconstruct the history of revolutionary politics in the 1970's, to systematically approach political movements of the seventies within a global framework of analysis, and to bring together a wide range of political movements from the decade highlighting the ways movements in different countries resonated with and were inspired by one another.

Part 2 of the conversation will be released this coming week.

I would also be remiss if I didn't say rest in power to Sekou Odinga who passed away earlier this week. We hope to be able to do more in honor of him and as a tribute to his legacy in the coming weeks and years.

If you appreciate the work we do, our work is only possible through the support of our patrons. You can support our show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

This is a lightly edited version of a livestream we hosted back on December 13th with Steve Salaita.

We'll include a link to that livestream for folks who want to watch the conversation, which is one of my favorites we've hosted since we launched our Youtube Channel as a companion with this audio podcast.

Steven Salaita is an educator and the author or editor of eight books. His written work includes Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, Uncivil Rites, Israel's Dead Soul, and Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where it Comes From and What it Means for Politics.

His forthcoming book An Honest Living: A Memoir of Peculiar Itineraries will be released in March 2024.

In this episode, we discussed several of Salaita's recent interventions regarding the Palestinian resistance and Israel's genocidal retaliation. All of the articles we discuss can be found on his website: stevesalaita.com. Because it was a livestream, audience members were also able to ask questions and Steve was gracious enough to answer several of those as well.

A quick update, in order to catch up on some of the fifteen audio podcasts we've recorded but haven't released yet we will focus on editing and releasing those over the next couple of months. So if you haven't yet make sure you also subscribe to our YouTube channel, a link to that is in the show notes. Over there, there are a number of conversations we haven't converted to audio yet, and we will continue to host more livestreams there in the coming weeks as well.

If you want one central place to stay abreast of all of our work, become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month. You will get an email with every new episode, new livestream, new study group, or new publication that Josh or I put out and it is the best way to support our work and keep it coming. You can sign up for that at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

This is the slightly edited version of our December 5th livestream with film director, producer, screenwriter, rapper, and communist Boots Riley. He is the lead vocalist of the musical groups The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. He wrote and directed the film Sorry to Bother You and is the creator and director of the television series I'm A Virgo.

We talked to Boots Riley about the recent labor upsurge, including the wave of strikes and increasing militancy among workers in the US. We briefly discuss United Auto Workers' call for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and establishment of a Divestment and Just Transition working group.

We also discuss navigating the capitalist film and television industry as a communist and possibilities for organizing among creatives. Boots also answers some questions about making anticapitalist art including some behind the scenes insights from I'm A Virgo.

We want to shout-out Boots Riley for joining us for this discussion and definitely recommend I'm A Virgo if people haven't watched it yet. I also want to say there's some really special content we released in the month of December on our YouTube channel. Including our conversation with Steven Salaita and our conversation on Kuwasi Balagoon with several comrades of his and movement elders including Ashanti Alston, David Gilbert, dequi kioni-sadiki, Matt Meyer, Meg Starr, & Bilal Sunni-Ali so if you haven't checked that out yet, make sure you do at youtube.com/@makcapitalism.

This will be our final episode released in 2023. We have a ton of stuff already being edited for release for 2024. This year we released 67 audio episodes, 26 livestreams and our content was listened to or watched over 640,000 times. We're proud of that, and we're also proud that our programs are still entirely dependent upon regular folks like yourself who listen and watch the work we put out. Today is your last day of 2023 to support us and that would be much appreciated, but also we hope many of you who have not become patrons of the show yet will do so in 2024. And we want to profusely thank everyone who supported us in 2023 for making the show possible for another year. You can support us at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

This episode was co-edited and co-produced by Aidan Elias and Jared Ware

In this episode Steven Osuna returns to the podcast.

Steven Osuna is an associate professor of Sociology at CSU Long Beach. He has written extensively on street organizations, policing, the so-called war on drugs, and the ravages of capitalism and neoliberalism. He also has experience organizing in the Philippine solidarity movement and other struggles.

Shout-out and solidarity to all of the Cal State University faculty as I know have been on rolling strikes and are negotiating their new contracts currently.

In this conversation Osuna talks to us about Mao's speech & essay "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." This is a part of our series of episodes with guests where they pick a piece of communist, socialist or other radical thought and we read it as well and we come together and we talk about it.

This conversation was recorded back in August, so you won't hear references to the current struggle in Palestine or other current events, but this discussion is relevant as always to organizing among the people and so it is relevant to today nonetheless.

Thanks again to Steven Osuna for this conversation. We'll include links in the show notes to the Philippine solidarity campaigns he uplifted as well as the Foreign Languages Press website and their journal new Material.

Also once again we do have a Sylvia Wynter study group coming up. That is for patrons or YouTube members only. It will be Wednesdays at 7:30 PM ET during the month of January. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month and support our work at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

Philipine Human Rights Act

International Coalition for Human Rights in the Phillippines

Foreign Languages Press & their new journal "Material"

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In this episode we welcome Abdaljawad Omar back to the podcast.

This is another slightly edited livestream that we've converted to an audio podcast. You can check out the video on our YouTube channel, we'll put that link in the show notes. And Also just to note that we've continued to put lots of content out there, including an interview with Boots Riley from The Coup also the director and creator of the film Sorry To Bother You and the hit series I'm A Virgo. We talked to him about labor organizing, the strike wave, solidarity with Palestine and getting principled anticapitalist art through the gauntlet that is Hollywood.

I really wanted to get an audio version of this episode with Abdaljawad out this week. Many will know that Refaat Alareer was assassinated this week by the Israeli military. And while we don't talk about Refaat in this conversation directly, I needed to go back and listen again to Abdaljawad's commentary on resistance and on mourning and melancholy in the Palestinian context. I hope that this conversation will be therapeutic for others in a way that enables you to continue to put one foot in front of the other and continue to struggle and resist in whatever capacity you can. And in doing so I hope that we can honor Refaat memory and all of the thousands of other martyrs as we continue to seek to find courageous ways support the struggle for Palestinian liberation, which is an important front in the struggle for the liberation of all people.

Just a note this conversation was recorded back on November 30th amid the prisoner exchanges, so if that portion of the conversation where we discuss that feels a bit dated that is the reason why, but it still feels like an important and pertinent discussion nonetheless. We will include the pieces we discussed in the show notes.

Lastly I will say that we are launching our Sylvia Wynter study group in the beginning of January you can find out more about that on patreon, and becoming a patron is the best way to support the show, but also to keep up with all of our episodes whether they are released first on YouTube or via this podcast feed.

Links:

"Can the Palestinian Mourn?" - Abdaljawad Omar's piece (the primary subject of discussion)

Judith Butler "The Compass of Mourning" (the piece Abdaljawad responds to)

Fundraiser for Sekou Odinga (mentioned in episode)

'Army and Arabs': truth, play, and illusions in the West Bank (another piece written by Abdaljawad that we briefly touch upon)

This is a slightly edited version of our recent livestream with Abdaljawad Omar.

Abdaljawad Omar is a writer, analyst, and lecturer based in Ramallah, Palestine. He currently lectures in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University.

In this conversation we discuss some of his recent writings which we will include in the show notes. Specifically we talk about the Palestinian resistance in relation to concepts of hope, grief, and melancholy. We discuss Abdaljawad's recent piece "Hopeful pathologies in the war for Palestine: a reply to Adam Shatz" and also got to give folks a sneak peak at some of the arguments that Abdaljawad would bring to his response to Judith Butler which was just published this week. We'll include links to these pieces as well as the ones he's critiquing in the show notes in addition to his recent interview with Louis Allday.

And if folks like this conversation tomorrow November 30th at 9:30 AM ET we will be live with Abdaljawad again on our YouTube channel. A great reason to go subscribe to that, turn on your notifications and so on. If you miss that livestream it will be up for you to view anytime on our YouTube page. And as I have said before we will be releasing audio versions of many of those conversations as podcasts as we are doing here. And I think as things slow down a bit we will probably settle on 2-3 livestreams each week and at least 1 podcast episode per week.

If you want to support our ability to do more, whether that's editing more audio or doing more livestreams the best way to do that is to become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month. Huge shout-out to all the people who do support us and make this show possible.

"Can the Palestinian Mourn?" in response to Judith Butler's "The Compass of Mourning"

The original Adam Shatz piece and Abdaljawad's response "Hopeful pathologies in the war for Palestine: a reply to Adam Shatz"

"An Unyielding Will to Continue" with Louis Allday in Ebb Magazine

We recorded this conversation just before the world shifted on October 7th. We actually have several conversations that we still need to release that we recorded in August and September, but I wanted to get to this one first due to the urgency of Shaka Shakur's situation.

Shaka Shakur is a New Afrikan Political Prisoner who has been behind the walls for the majority of his life since he was 16 years old. He's currently held captive at Beaumont Correctional Center in Virginia. He was mentored by figures such as Zolo Azania and James "Yaki" Sayles. Shaka has an extensive track record of prisoner organizing and exposing injustices and human rights violations behind the walls. I'll include a more extensive bio from his Jericho Movement page in the show notes.

Shaka had reached out to me after the publication of our discussion with Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef "Bunchy" Shakur on Sanyika Shakur's political writings. He wanted to share some things and also offer the perspective of someone from Sanyika's generation who spent many years studying and struggling in the same circles, and communicating with Sanyika through the Prison News Service and other publications that circulated behind the walls connecting New Afrikan prisoners and other political and politicized prisoners. Shaka also describes similar experiences of becoming politicized during their first period of incarceration at a young age, struggling upon his return to the outside & ultimately ending up back behind the walls.

Shakur shares his reflections on that era, on changes in the prison movement and outside support movements over time and on the disconnect that often exists between revolutionary rhetoric and revolutionary action in the US left in recent years.

Importantly, Shaka Shakur is currently dealing with multiple urgent health issues, including his battle with cancer and we have multiple links and ways people can support his legal campaign and his request for clemency. We will have links to all of this in the show notes, but just to say that he is still asking people to call in and put pressure the Department of Correction for further medical testing. That call is in the show notes as well.

This episode was also recorded before the passing of Ed Mead who we mention in this discussion. Rest well Ed, you've earned it.

The last thing I will say is that although this was recorded before the Palestinian struggle took center stage, I think many of Shaka's reflections are relevant to that movement as well as the US based solidarity efforts that are currently underway so keep that in mind as you listen.

Shaka Shakur Medical Needs/Update

Shaka Shakur's Clemency Petition

Shaka Shakur's Jericho Movement page

Shaka Shakur's Legal Defense Fund

Documentary: Shaka Shakur Human Rights Held Hostage

Shaka Shakur's Defense Link Tree

Aidan Elias co-edited & co-produced this episode

In this episode we talk to Ali Kadri.

Ali Kadri is the author of Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment, The Unmaking of Arab Socialism: Anthem Frontiers of Global Political Economy and Development and The Cordon Sanitaire: A Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World

Max Ajl recently recommended that everyone needs to be reading Dr. Kadri's work in these times, and so we reached out to have a conversation with him and I'm so glad that we did and we can share it with you all. In this discussion we talk to Ali Kadri about his theory of waste, and how we make sense of war and genocide within our analysis of how capitalism functions on a global scale. Dr. Kadri gets into these dynamics in relation to the struggle to the genocide of Palestinians today. And we talk about imperialism and the class dynamics at play in the current struggle. I found this to be a super illuminating discussion in the current moment. This was recorded on November 8th, 2023.

Check out all 16 of our recent livestreams on our youtube channel.

Tonight, November 16th at 8 PM ET we will be hosting a screening of the film The Lobby - USA and we will host a panel afterwards. This is a documentary film that goes into the aims, strategies and tactics of the pro-Israel lobby in the US with regards to crushing Palestinian solidarity organizing among students and I highly recommend it. If you're listening to this after November 16th you can catch the replay at the same link which will be in the show notes.

Links:

The Lobby - USA screening & panel

Support us on patreon or by becoming a member of our youtube channel

This is the slightly cleaned-up audio of our most recent conversation with Fred Moten.

This was recorded on October 25th. Given the evolution of this struggle and the increasingly genocidal character as well as the ongoing resistance, our comments if we were to hold this discussion today on November 11th would undoubtedly be different.

Nonetheless I think a lot of what we cover remains important and we wanted to try to create an audio version of this conversation which held true to the character of the original which we will link in the show notes, but also share it with our broader audience, much of whom prefer the audio format. The audio quality of this version is hopefully also slightly better than the original YouTube version.

I would note that we now have fourteen of these livestreams up on our Youtube channel which everyone can check out. All of them are related to this current struggle for Palestinian liberation as well as the struggle against the genocidal settler violence we see unleashed on Gaza with full support material, ideological, military of the US as a settler empire in particular and the institutions and governments so-called Western World writ large.

I want to acknowledge and shout-out everyone who is taking action and trying to deepen and expand their own anticolonial practices in these times until Palestine is free, until we all are free.

Once again thank you to Fred Moten for this conversation

If you like our work of course you can as always support our work on patreon or by becoming a member of our YouTube channel. Thank you for listening and I hope you are finding new comrades in the streets every day.

Fred Moten's conversation with Robin DG Kelley, Aqua Cooper & Rinaldo Walcott that is mentioned in the episode

Previous episodes with Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, and his conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib that we've hosted.