The Radicalist

David Volodzko speaks with Doug Klain (website, X), a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, where he focuses on Russia’s war on Ukraine. He is the former assistant director of the Eurasia Center and currently a policy analyst at the nonprofit Razom for Ukraine.

The conversation covers the recent German military leak and what was actually said, the kinds of weapons Ukraine needs, the general state of the war, the impact of U.S. politics, Ukrainian grain exports, a potential Trump presidency, whether Putin will stop at Ukraine if he wins the war, Russia’s genocidal actions in Ukraine, the evisceration of Russian media, the impact of sanctions, Zelenskyy’s recent change in generals, Russia and Ukraine’s respective methods of waging war, Ukrainian drone warfare, why it matters for Americans to support Ukraine, his work with Razom for Ukraine, the impact of Samizdat Online, and more.

David Volodzko speaks with Stefan Tompson, the founder of Visegrád 24, which aggregates and curates news and current affairs on various social media platforms including X, where it currently has over 900,000 followers.

The conversation covers disinformation on social media, the Israel-Hamas War, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, TikTok as a Chinese psyop, the West’s enemies within, the origins of woke progressivism, the glories of Western civilization, the importance of civil discourse, immigration, the beauty of Muslim and black pride, slavery, white guilt, the Jewish community, drag shows, Roman Catholic faith, and more.

Arash Azizi reacted to my recent essay, The Case for Colonizing Gaza, by responding to a troll who had called the essay “blatantly racist,” to which Arash Azizi replied, “It’s not just racist but outright fascist.”

There is nothing racist or fascist about it, any more than there was about the U.S. occupation of Germany since that is precisely what I am recommending. Moreover, when he was a guest on this show, he commiserated with me as I described my anguish over the suffering in the Israel-Hamas War, so he knows better than anyone not to accuse me of racism against Palestinians.

That said, here are some unprepared thoughts on this and the deplorable pattern of deliberate misunderstanding and accusations of racism on social media these days.

Update: Arash Azizi unfollowed me on X shortly after this post went live.

David Volodzko speaks with David Brin about comet dust formation, anti-institutionalism in Hollywood, how science-fiction has saved humanity, the moral philosophy of Star Trek, how tolerance and diversity have metastasized into a cancer, the infantile nihilism of Star Wars, how AI may buttress authoritarianism, the sinister laws of Wall Street AI, the existence of alien life, his recent WIRED article on AI, his Newsweek article on “empathy bots,” and much more.

David Brin (website, X) is an astrophysicist and NASA consultant whose science-fiction novels have won multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other awards. His books include The Postman, which was adapted as a film by Kevin Costner, Earth, Existence, and Foundation’s Triumph, the last in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. His nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award. His new book is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.

Jonathan Choe (profile, X) is a journalist and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center of Wealth and Poverty, where he focuses on the homelessness crisis in Seattle.

In our conversation, we talked about Korea, his family life, his firing from KOMO for covering a Proud Boys rally, the pattern of news outlets caving to radical leftists by firing their own journalists, crime in Seattle and the failure of “defund the police,” Seattle’s stalled revitalization efforts, the homeless-industrial complex, the fentanyl epidemic, the pro-Palestinian protests in Seattle and their link to the city’s communist protest network, the failures of corporate media, how platforms like X have democratized information, and the future of independent journalism.

Ryan Ruffaner (Substack, YouTube) is an industrial-organizational psychologist specializing in organizational development and selection systems. He is also a member of the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Ethics (CAPE) in the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychologists (SIOP), a DEI researcher, and a member of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR).

His writing on DEI includes the Quillette essay “Ditching Diversity Myths” and Substack essays such as “DEI May INCREASE Surface-Level Divisions, Hurt Information Elaboration” and “DEI Destroys Organizational Justice.”

Ramesh Sepehrrad is an Iranian-American international relations and conflict resolutions expert who is also the advisory board chair of the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC), a D.C.-based non-profit with 40 chapters nationwide. She is also an adjunct professor of Middle East studies at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore.

During our conversation, we discussed Iran’s influence behind October 7, what the U.S. has done right and done wrong in its approach to Iran, the persecution of Sepehrrad’s own family under the Iranian regime, the ongoing protests in the country, and prospects for the nation’s future.

Christine Abely is the author of the new book The Russia Sanctions: The Economic Response to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine. She is also an assistant professor of contracts and international business transactions at New England Law.

Abely (website, university profile, X) formerly worked at several Massachusetts law firms in business litigation and international trade and sanctions law and was an adjunct lecturer at Boston University School of Law. She has written in the areas of compliance, contracts, and international trade and sanctions.

In this conversation, Abely explains everything you ever wanted to know about Russia sanctions, especially in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware are the authors of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America.

Hoffman is a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations and has been studying terrorism and insurgency for almost half a century. He is a professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, professor emeritus of terrorism at the University of St. Andrews, and the former corporate chair in counterterrorism at RAND Corporation.

Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he studies domestic and international terrorism and counterterrorism. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and serves on the editorial boards for the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and the Irregular Warfare Initiative at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

Julie Behling was a Christian missionary in Russia in the late 1990s. She earned a dual master’s in Russian languages and literature as well as Russian and East European studies at Florida State University, working on the side as a Russian language teacher. She wrote her thesis on the survival tactics of underground Christian movements in the Soviet Union. In 2022, she published her book, Beneath Sheep’s Clothing: The Communist Takeover of Culture in the USSR & Parallels in Today’s America. Now she has written and directed a documentary film based on the book. I saw the official trailer last week and contacted Behling for an interview. You can now also watch the film’s intro.