Upstream

Upstream episodes:

• 04.20.2024

  A Blunt Conversation about Cannabis w/ David Bienenstock

  “The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.” This is a quote attributed to...

  
• 04.16.2024

  [TEASER] Degrowth vs Eco-Modernism

  You can listen to the full episode "Degrowth vs Eco-Modernism" by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two or three, as...

  
• 04.09.2024

  Post Capitalism w/ Alnoor Ladha

  “Post capitalism is not simply another ‘ism’ to replace previous ideologies. It’s not a euphemism for socialism or anarchism or Nordic capitalism—although it may contain some elements of each. Post capitalism is a conceptual container for social pluralities based on...

  
• 04.02.2024

  [TEASER] Palestine Pt. 9: Palestine 2031 w/ Nadia Zanghari

  You can listen to the full episode with Nadia Zanghari by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast The revolutionary practice of dreaming, imagining, or simply hoping for a better world is an exercise whose importance is often overlooked. Not only...

  
• 03.26.2024

  Palestine Pt. 8: Indigeneity and Settler-Colonialism w/ Krystal Two Bulls & Sumaya Awad

  As the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people continues, it's crucial that we continue to critically scrutinize and dismantle many of the myths and deadly ideologies that Israel and its Zionist supporters use to try and legitimize their...

  
• 03.19.2024

  [TEASER] Nationalism and the Error of Patriotic Socialism w/ Sina Rahmani and Nick

  You can listen to the full episode with Sina Rahmani of East is a Podcast and Nick of The Intervention Podcast by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to...

  
• 03.12.2024

  [UNLOCKED] Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia

  There’s that saying that you’ve probably heard a million times: doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is a sign of psychosis. Whether or not that’s something you might find in the DSM-5 manual, it certainly...

  
• 03.08.2024

  Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism w/ Kristen Ghodsee

  When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall was toppled, a lot was unearthed and a lot of interesting information became available to scholars and researchers in the West. One of those little bits of information was the answer...

  
• 03.05.2024

  [TEASER] Palestine Pt. 7: Direct Action w/ Max Geller of Palestine Action

  You can listen to the full episode with Max Geller of Palestine Action by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two...

  
• 02.27.2024

  Climate Leninism w/ Jodi Dean and Kai Heron

  Transition is inevitable, we’re past the point of literal climate denialism. Even the fossil fuel industry, which has known about the dangers of climate change for decades now, has a plan for transition. In fact, one could argue that when...

  
• 02.20.2024

  [TEASER] Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia de la Cruz & Karina Garcia

  You can listen to the full episode with Claudia de la Cruz & Karina Garcia by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month,...

  
• 02.13.2024

  Be More Pirate w/ Sam Conniff

  What do you typically think of when you think of pirates? Parrots? Peg Legs? Eye patches? Treasure? Is there more to pirates than these things, than corny jokes and a Disney franchise starring Johnny Depp?  Our guest for today’s episode...

  
• 02.08.2024

  [TEASER] The Problem with Modern Monetary Theory w/ Doug Henwood

  You can listen to the full episode with Doug Henwood by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two or three, as...

  
• 02.06.2024

  [TEASER] Socialism Betrayed w/ Roger Keeran and Joe Jamison

  You can listen to the full episode with Roger Keeran and Joe Jamison by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two...

  
• 02.05.2024

  Important Announcement: We Launched a Patreon

  Join the Upstream Patreon here:  https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast Below is a transcript of the update shared in this announcement episode — TL;DR: we've got tons of bonus episodes and other goodies as part of our new Patreon!  At least 1 bonus...

  
• 01.30.2024

  The Missing Revolution w/ Vincent Bevins

  The past decade or so was marked by mass protests—in fact, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring to the 2020 George Floyd uprisings and even...

  
• 01.16.2024

  Drinkable Rivers with Li An Phoa

  “The sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river,” these are the words of Li An Phoa, an environmental activist and our guest for this episode. In 2005, Li An Phoa canoed the full length of the Rupert,...

  
• 01.02.2024

  Palestine Pt. 6: One State with Ghada Karmi

  It may seem like a distant dream to imagine that the decades-long settler-colonial project which is Israel could finally end and transform into a state where all faiths, ethnicities, and cultures could thrive together in their diversity and equality. It...

  
• 12.21.2023

  A Winter Solstice Celebration for 2023 with Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai

  Happy Winter Solstice! In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on the past year and set some intentions for the year ahead.  Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, and host of the Accidental...

  
• 12.19.2023

  Palestine Pt. 5: The Political Economy of Palestine with Adam Hanieh

  The ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip has been front and center in the world’s attention for the last couple of months, and it's important that we keep it there. But it's also important to remember that this latest escalation...

  
• 12.12.2023

  Palestine Pt. 4: False Solutions and Paths of Resistance with Sumaya Awad

  Before the Zionist project and the state of Israel placed their boots on the neck of Palestine, this region was a multicultural, multi-religious land, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side-by-side in relative peace and harmony.  And despite what Israeli...

  
• 12.05.2023

  Palestine Pt. 3: Settler-Colonialism and Medical Apartheid with Rupa Marya & Jess Ghannam

  As the ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians continues, it’s important that we also continue to raise a magnifying glass to its perpetrators, not just looking at the state of Israel as a whole or the IDF—as blood-soaked as their...

  
• 11.23.2023

  Palestine Pt. 2: Justice for Some with Noura Erakat

  For those of us living in the United States, today — what we call Thanksgiving — is a very significant holiday because, for some of us at least, it’s a day to recognize and remember the violent, genocidal, settler-colonial history...

  
• 11.21.2023

  Black Scare / Red Scare with Charisse Burden-Stelly

  The Red Scare — perhaps most well known through the era of McCarthyism that dominated the social, political, and legal spheres of the U.S. in the 1950s — is actually much more than just a brief window of time where...

  
• 11.07.2023

  A Marxist Perspective on Elections with August Nimtz

  “This is the most important election of our lifetimes.” “Voting for a third-party candidate? Might as well throw away your vote!” “You may not like him, but you’ve just got to hold your nose and vote for him — otherwise,...

  
• 10.24.2023

  How We Show Up with Mia Birdsong

  As we continue to work towards outer transformation, building the structures and models that will shape the transition to a post-capitalist society, it’s also important to think about the inner transitions within ourselves — particularly, how we relate to one...

  
• 10.20.2023

  Palestine Pt. 1: A Socialist Introduction with Sumaya Awad

  Before 1948, the land of Palestine was dotted with olive groves along rolling hills between mountains and the Mediterranean sea. Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lived alongside one another in relative harmony, practicing agriculture and embroidery, or working...

  
• 10.17.2023

  What Is To Be Done? with Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante

  What Is To Be Done? This is the question so profoundly posed by the Russian Revolutionary and Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, in his landmark text of the same name. Although it was written well over a century ago, this text,...

  
• 10.09.2023

  How to Decolonize and Indigenize with Sikowis Nobiss

  What is the connection between capitalism, colonialism, consumerism, and Christianity? How do these systems and ideologies uphold and support one another? How do we work to dismantle them and cultivate in their place a decolonized culture and politics that supports...

  
• 09.26.2023

  Class War and Beer with Brace Belden

  Although the reference to war that you just heard could very much be real, actual military conflict — after all, our guest on today’s episode has fought as a freedom fighter in a Kurdish militia in Syria — today’s episode...

  
• 09.12.2023

  Microlending and the Financialization of Poverty with Sohini Kar

  It was once very difficult for people experiencing poverty in the Global South to obtain credit and loans because they were seen as unable to provide adequate collateral. This situation changed with the emergence of microfinance, a model pioneered by...

  
• 08.29.2023

  Capitalist Realism with Carlee Gomes

  “It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Those words have been attributed to both the philosophers Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek decades ago, but they couldn’t feel more true today. As we continue...

  
• 08.14.2023

  Life Beyond the Clock with Jenny Odell

  Do you ever feel like time is marching in a particular direction? Towards, say, rising global temperatures, mass extinctions, ever-increasing divisions — and ultimately, towards inevitable collapse? What if this particular perception of time contributes to our feelings of despair...

  
• 08.01.2023

  Buddhism and Marxism with Breht O'Shea

  When you think about the philosophies and practices of Buddhism and Marxism, you might not immediately think that they have much in common. However, you might be surprised at how much overlap and complementary resonance there actually is between these...

  
• 07.17.2023

  Health Communism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton

  When we think of health under capitalism, it's easy to go straight to the fight for universal healthcare, and understandably — that battle is one of the most contentious and important in the ongoing class war between the mass of...

  
• 07.03.2023

  Capitalism, The State, and How We Got Here with Christian Parenti

  Elements of capitalism have existed throughout history — in institutions like markets, class relations, ownership laws, credit systems, etc. But they were never dominant until they came together, escaping the isolated, laboratory conditions in which they once existed, to coalesce...

  
• 06.19.2023

  Everyday Utopia and Radical Imagination with Kristen Ghodsee

  It’s perhaps more important than ever in these especially tumultuous, lonely, and oppressive times that we continue to believe that another world is possible. Simply reimagining the way we raise our children, the homes that we dwell in, the property...

  
• 06.06.2023

  The Political Economy of Jazz with Gerald Horne

  The music we know today as jazz has deep and contested roots, but likely arose in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The music is based on the musical traditions of Africans, newly...

  
• 05.23.2023

  A History of California, Capitalism, and the World with Malcolm Harris

  We’ve been taught to think of staggering economic inequality, the disposability of nonwhite  labor populations, hyper-exploitation, and minority rule as bugs within the capitalist system — things to be corrected by capitalist technology and innovation — but in fact, all...

  
• 05.08.2023

  Documentary #15: The Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism

  Although its intellectual handmaidens love to insist otherwise — capitalism is not a system that truly embodies freedom. We all feel it, of course — that nagging sense that we lack any agency over the choices that shape our lives,...

  
• 04.25.2023

  Reclaiming Time with Oliver Burkeman

  At the beginning of the 20th century, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a century, thanks to the growth of wealth and the advances of technology, that no one would have to work more than 15...

  
• 04.24.2023

  Trans Liberation and Solidarity with Alyson Escalante

  Our transgender comrades are under attack — not just by incendiary reactionaries on the right, but also by many of those on the more liberal or even left side of the political spectrum. The attacks come in many forms, from...

  
• 04.10.2023

  Half Farmer, Half X with Mika Furugori and Naoki Shiomi

  Imagine this week you spent half your time growing, harvesting, preserving, and cooking food for yourself, your family, and perhaps your community — and the other half your time doing something else that you love, something that brings...

  
• 03.14.2023

  Stop Cop City with Keyanna Jones and Matthew Johnson

  For the past couple of years, the city of Atlanta, Georgia, has been pushing forward a project known as “Cop City” — a tactical training compound featuring a mock city which has been referred to as a kind...

  
• 02.28.2023

  Surviving the Collapse, Agroecology, & Mutual Aid with Andy C. of Poor Prole's Almanac

  Today on the show — surviving the collapse, permaculture and agroecology, native seed bombing, and much more with Andy C. from Poor Prole’s Almanac.   This week’s Conversation is a rebroadcast of an interview originally...

  
• 02.14.2023

  Whiteness and Capitalism with Eleanor Hancock

  In order to understand the disconnection, alienation, and immiseration wrought upon us by capitalism, it’s imperative to understand this social and economic system’s reliance on separation — separation from nature, from each other, from ourselves, and, crucially, from...

  
• 01.31.2023

  Radical History: The Roots of Race & Class in the U.S. with Dr. Gerald Horne

  Much of what we learn about U.S. history — from middle school to high school to, well, most of adulthood, is a myth. Oftentimes these tales leave out important information, sometimes they draw misleading conclusions, and a lot of the...

  
• 01.17.2023

  Liberation Ecotherapy with Phoenix Smith

  Although many therapists are beginning to understand the importance of the natural world in healing and overall mental health — for example by recommending “time in nature” to help with depression and other mental health challenges — very few also...

  
• 01.03.2023

  Breaking Things at Work with Gavin Mueller

  As the capitalist class continues to glom onto a kind of tech-utopianism, many of us are starting to recognize not just the detrimental impacts of certain technologies on our lives, but also the lies that have been sold to us...

  
• 12.19.2022

  A Winter Solstice Celebration for 2022 with Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai

  Happy Winter Solstice! In the 3rd year of this annual tradition, Upstream host and producer Della Duncan joins two friends to reflect on the past year. Manda Scott is a novelist, podcaster, regenerative economist, and host of the Thrutopia Masterclass,...