Turbulence

In part two of our conversation with Nathan Tankus, we discuss the finance of settler colonialism—from the Ottoman Empire’s debt crisis to the foreign capital that financed Zionist settlement and facilitated Palestinian dispossession.

Nathan Tankus is a writer, researcher, and president of the publication Notes on the Crises. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: A 250-Year History, under contract with Viking Press. He is also the editor of We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Zionism, Palestine, and Socialism, forthcoming from Haymarket.

Nathan has created a 70% off annual subscription discount for Turbulence listeners! Access here: https://www.crisesnotes.com/turbulence.

You can find Nathan on Bluesky or on Instagram.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

Full Bibliography for parts 1 and 2:

Beardsley Ruml, “Warm Springs Memorandum,” April 1, 1938, Box 1, Series II, Ruml Papers (University of Chicago Special Collections)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QX-moCOXe3sdIdb-D6nahgsZWDAP6gMe/view?usp=sharing

Collins, Robert M. The business response to Keynes, 1929–1964. Columbia University Press, 1981.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1krr_0HETyEGSS47b5tbNnd4yXf_Jciqi/view?usp=sharing

Blackstone, William E. “The Blackstone Memorial.” 1891. “To Show Kindness to Israel”: The Blackstone Memorial, Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives

https://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/docs/BlackstoneMemorial/intro.htm

Blackstone, William E. Jesus is Coming. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1898.

https://archive.org/details/JesusIsComing-raptureByWilliamW.e.b.Blackstone

Hudson, Michael. Super imperialism: The origin and fundamentals of US world dominance. Pluto Books, 2003 [1972].

https://www.crisesnotes.com/june2018manchesterspectrumofmonetarysovereignty/

https://www.crisesnotes.com/did-the-united-states-really-invade-iraq-because-it-started-pricing-oil-in-euros/

https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-oil-market-is-a-conventional-wisdom-processor/

Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej. Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist left and the making of the Palestinian Nakba. Stanford University Press, 2023.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c19cza2D0HpckCDmMUvamOVS2TnHIwYk/view?usp=sharing

Beirich, Eyshe, ed. We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Palestine 1925–1938. Translated by Eyshe Beirich. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2027.

Parks, B. C., Zhang, S., Escobar, B., Walsh, K., Fedorochko, R., Vlasto, L., Zimmerman, J., Sickell, J., Bury, E., Joshi, A., Thome, L., Pandey, O., & Raja Manuri, V. P. R. 2025. Chasing China: Learning to Play by Beijing’s Global Lending Rules. Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William & Mary

https://docs.aiddata.org/reports/chasing-china/Chasing_China_Full_Report.pdf

“We are a rich Nation; we can afford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice our liberties into the bargain. In the first century of our republic we were short of capital, short of workers and short of industrial production, but we were rich, very rich in free land, and free timber and free mineral wealth. The Federal Government of those days rightly assumed the duty of promoting business and relieving depression by giving subsidies of land and other resources. Thus, from our earliest days we have had a tradition of substantial government help to our system of private enterprise. But today the Government no longer has vast tracts of rich land to give away and we have discovered, too, that we must spend large sums of money to conserve our land from further erosion and our forests from further depletion.”

Roosevelt, Franklin D. “April 14, 1938: Fireside Chat 12: On the Recession.” Miller Center, University of Virginia, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/april-14-1938-fireside-chat-12-recession

Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 1, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.

Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 2, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.

Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 3, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.

Portnoy, Samuel A., ed.. Vladimir Medem. The Life and the Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist. New York: Ktav, 1979.

Milgrim, Michael R. “An Overlooked Problem in Turkish–Russian Relations: The 1878 War Indemnity.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 9.4 (1978): 519-537.

Forstater, Mathew. “Taxation and primitive accumulation: the case of colonial Africa.” (2005).

https://web.archive.org/web/20100728002121id_/http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/Forstater/papers/Forstater2005/RiPE%20Forstater.pdf

Merrino, Serena. “Currency and settler colonialism: the Palestinian case.” Review of International Political Economy 28.6 (2021): 1729-1750.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09692290.2020.1803951

Darity Jr, William. “African American reparations, Keynes, and the transfer problem.” Keynes for the Twenty-First Century: The Continuing Relevance of the General Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2008. 199-205.

Darity Jr, William A., and Andrea Kirsten Mullen. From here to equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the twenty-first century. UNC Press Books, 2022.

Nathan Tankus joins us to discuss the monetary foundations of American empire, how sanctions weaponize the global financial system, the possibility of China-led de-dollarization, and what’s really going on with the oil futures market.

This is part one of a two part episode. Part two, A Financial History of Zionism, will be released later this week on our paid feed.

Works mentioned: A Spectrum Approach to Monetary Sovereignty and our Dollar World; Did the United States Really Invade Iraq Because it Started Pricing Oil in Euros?; Chasing China: Learning to Play by Beijing’s Global Lending Rules; The Oil Market is a Conventional Wisdom Processor; Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire; The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.

Nathan Tankus is a writer, researcher, and president of the publication Notes on the Crises. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: A 250-Year History, under contract with Viking Press. He is also the editor of We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Zionism, Palestine, and Socialism, forthcoming from Haymarket.

Nathan has created a 70% off annual subscription discount for Turbulence listeners! Access here: https://www.crisesnotes.com/turbulence.

You can find Nathan on Bluesky or on Instagram.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

This week we’re joined by returning co-host Alexander Aviña, as well as friend of the show Barry with the NED, to go in depth on Ansarallah’s major ground offensive in Yemen, the downing of a Saudi F-15, and the US’s escalating violence in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Hassan Ould Moctar joins us to discuss Europe’s externalized border regime, the colonial history of race and territory in Mauritania, and how migration control, counterinsurgency, and development policy have fused across the Sahel.

Works mentioned: After Border Externalization: Migration, Race, and Labour in Mauritania.

Hassan Ould Moctar is a Fellow at the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb, University of Tunis and former lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, University of London. His research focuses on the relationship between migration, borders, and development processes, with a regional focus on West and North Africa. He is the author of After Border Externalization: Migration, Race, and Labour in Mauritania, which is available open access from Bloomsbury Publishers.

To support migrants in Senegal and those facing deportation and border violence, consider donating to Boza Fii.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Researcher: KC

We discuss the expanding conflict in Hormuz, Ansarallah’s lightning advance in Yemen, Trump’s oil problem, the surging anti-migrant right across the North Atlantic, and why Javier Milei is ratcheting up Argentine claims on Las Malvinas.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Kai Bosworth joins us to discuss the strange politics of the data center revolt, the AI boom’s place in the global energy system, and what the rise and fall of the climate movement can teach us about the struggles taking shape in its wake.

Works mentioned: Where is the U.S. climate movement?, Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century, AI Data Center Development in Frackland, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, The Production of Space

Kai Bosworth is a geographer and political ecologist, and an Associate Professor at the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century. His current book project is provisionally entitled Protectors of the Subsurface: Militant Investigation and Critical Imagination in Anti-Oil Activism.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Researcher: KC

We welcome Alex Aviña to Turbulence and discuss the Battle of Hormuz, Bessent’s economic D-Day for Iran, the US-Venezuela oil deal, the arrest of Fernando Cerimedo in Bolivia, and Trump’s war on the price of burger.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Josef Burton joins us to discuss the transformation of immigration under Trump, the bureaucrats who administer US machinery of repression, and what intensifying coercion at home and imperial retreat abroad mean for our political future.

Works mentioned: One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention

Josef Burton is a writer and former US diplomat who worked mainly on consular and immigration issues. He tweets at @PinstripeBungle

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

In part two of our double episode with Mujamma Haraket, we discuss the history of Hamas, the relationship between Hamas and the Palestinian left, and how various factions of the resistance are approaching the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman

Arlene Eisen joins us to discuss the transformations in the anti-war movement across the Vietnam War, the interrelation of feminism and anti-imperialism, and what decades of state repression can teach today’s movements about security and survival.

Works mentioned: In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women

Arlene Eisen has been a militant in the struggle against imperialism since the 1960s—first as a protester facing tear gas and later as a teacher and writer. She edited The Movement newspaper, and was a leading voice in the anti-imperialist women’s movement of the 1970s. For the next half century, she joined the anti-apartheid movement, the movement for justice in Palestine, including the olive harvest in the West Bank, the struggle for the right to return to New Orleans after Katrina, the movements against fascist U.S. police and their deputized militias and against the holocaust in Gaza—always standing in solidarity with national liberation struggles both inside and outside the U.S. Empire.

She is the author of Women of Viet Nam, Women and Revolution in Viet Nam, and the influential report Operation Ghetto Storm, which documented police killings of Black people in the United States. Her latest book, In The Worldwide Family of Militant Women, is a social history and memoir of revolutionary movements from 1962 to 1982. You can find her work here.

Please consider donating to the Meera Center for Gazan children in Egypt.

To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.

We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.

For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.

Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.

Subscribe today at turbulencepod.substack.com

Follow along on Twitter/X and Instagram @turbulence_pod

Theme: Eye for an Eye, Haram (2017)

Art: Vivek Venkatraman