Paul Rogers returns to PTO to talk about Iran's attack on Israel on the 13th of April - the first such direct operation carried out by Iran. We discussed whether the operation was a failure or a qualified success, and the role of the United States, Britain, France, and Jordan in the downing of Iranian missiles and drones. We ...
2024-04-23 05:15:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Since October 7th Israeli politicians, spokespeople, and Israel's supporters have mobilised feminist narratives in defence of the state's genocidal actions in Gaza and sought to portray Palestinian resistance to Israel as suffused with religiously inspired misogyny. In 2024-04-17 05:10:00 +0000 UTC View Post
In part one of a two-part episode Richard returns to give his thoughts on an apparent turn against Israel on parts of the American right, the significance of the protests against Netanyahu within Israel, the role of students in the Palestine solidarity movement, and his view of post-Marxist thought.
Yanis Varoufakis joins PTO to discuss his book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. We discussed why Yanis believes capitalism is no longer the appropriate term to describe contemporary economic and social relations. We also talked about the financial crisis, the Covid19 pandemic, and how central bank responses ...
2024-04-04 05:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostRichard will be returning soon to answer more listeners questions. You may like to ask him about the recent episode on Gaza (and on "normie socialist" or "post-left" takes on the situation) but as always Richard is happy to answer questions on a wide range of political topics.
As usual please send your questions to po...
Richard Seymour returns to discuss the likelihood of Israel launching its assault on Rafah (in the context of Israel's deliberate starvation of the Gazan population). We talked about the position of the United States and its recent resolution at the United Nations security council and the extent to which - if at all - it repr...
2024-03-25 06:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The 1970s is often depicted straightforwardly as the moment when the radical movements of the 1960s fractured, failed, and radicalised in ways that were self-destructive. In The Subversive Seventies Michael Hardt argues that not only is that a much too simplistic understanding of the decade, but that it serves to pre...
2024-03-13 06:05:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Thirteen years have passed since the Arab Spring and the great hopes aroused in 2011 have been overwhelmed by counter-revolution and civil war. And yet, the region is anything but restabilised: Instead of the events of 2011 heralding a brief period of democratic transition akin to earlier developments in East Asia and Eastern...
2024-03-06 06:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
In the latest PTO Extra! Richard Seymour returns to answer your questions on the impact of the Gaza protest movement, Israel's eroding international support, what a Trump presidency might lead to in US domestic politics, and where the late Christopher Hitchens' would have positioned himself in the current conjuncture.
2024-02-25 05:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostRichard will be returning to respond to listeners questions once more. Topics you may want to ask Richard about could include the prospect of an Israeli assault on Rafah, the significance (or otherwise) of the change of tone by the United States and other Western powers towards Israel, and the continuing threat of broader reg...
2024-02-14 11:32:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Naomi Klein joins PTO to talk about her book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. In the first part of our conversation we talked about why at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, parts of the anti-vaccine movement started to adopt the garb and the language of participants in struggles against racism and the ...
2024-02-13 04:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostIn today's show Sai Englert, author of Settler Colonialism: An Introduction returns to the show to answer listeners' questions. We talked about whether Zionism is distinct from other forms of settler colonialism, how struggles against settler colonial projects can tie together with socialist demands for the democrati...
2024-02-03 04:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostYesterday, I was alerted to the fact that on Spotify PTO - which previously had a rating of around 4.5 stars - is now rated an average of just 1.6! There's no way to know for absolute certain, but it seems highly likely that this was a coordinated effort by supporters of Israel to downvote PTO in order to gam...
2024-01-30 16:39:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Palestinian-American legal scholar Noura Erakat joins PTO to discuss South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice and the utility of international law in struggles for global justice. With its roots in providing justification for European settler colonialism in the Americas, can International law ever serve the c...
2024-01-24 16:13:47 +0000 UTC View PostSai Englert will be returning to PTO soon to answer your questions regarding the recent episode on his book, Settler Colonialism: An Introduction. As well as taking questions on the history of settler colonialism, Sai is al...
2024-01-22 17:32:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard returns to answer listener's questions on the history of Yemen and the emergence of the Houthi militia, comparisons made between Israel's actions in Gaza and the Nazi Holocaust, and on the way in which the Trump presidency has influenced the current situation in the Middle East.
2024-01-20 09:38:49 +0000 UTC View PostLater this week Richard Seymour will be returning to PTO to answer patron's questions. Feel free to ask anything relating to the recent episode on regionalisation of the Gaza war and South Africa's case against Israel at the ICJ, b...
2024-01-14 09:56:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard Seymour on the possibility of Israel's assault on Gaza leading to broader escalation in the Middle East. We talked about the strategic calculations of Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthi militia, and Israel, the possibility of the United States increasing its involvement on Israel's side, and whether the attack on Gaza might ...
2024-01-11 15:34:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Israel's assault on Gaza has led to a huge upsurge in discussion of settler colonialism and the extent to which the term accurately describes the Zionist project in Palestine. In Settler Colonialism: An Introduction, Sai Englert provides an authoritative overview of the history of settler colonialism and resistance to it, fro...
2024-01-02 06:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostA noted historian of the Holocaust, Omer Bartov is also one of the world's leading authorities on genocide. In our conversation we discussed the history of the idea of genocide as well as its application to Israel's assault on Gaza. Unfortunately, we had something of a disaster with the recording of this episode and mor...
2023-12-30 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard returns to answer listener's questions on the situation in Gaza, the extent to which Joe Biden's support for Israel is about electoral calculations, the anti-Deutsch tendency and the pro-Israel current on the German left, and the threat of a global war, amongst other topics. Thanks as ever for your continued support f...
2023-12-14 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostRichard Seymour will be returning to respond to your questions once more. You may like to ask him about Israel's expansion of its assault to southern Gaza, or something on our recent episode on liberal Zionism, or the broader geopolitical consequences of the situation in the Middle East. Richard has also 2023-12-05 11:05:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Palestinian writer and academic Leila Farsakh joins the show to talk about the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the parallels Leila sees between the current situation and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. We also talked about the revival of the idea of the one state solution and why Leila believes a two-state resolut...
2023-12-05 10:58:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard Seymour responds to the arguments of Jonathan Freedland and other liberal Zionists who, despite the marginalisation of the liberal Zionist tradition within Israel itself, continue to produce talking points for supporters of Israel and the Western media in their coverage of Israel-Palestine.
2023-11-27 10:38:31 +0000 UTC View Post
A 'start-up country', the world's first 'AI superpower', an 'innovation nation', those are some of the breathless descriptions used by Israeli politicians, security officials, journalists and business leaders to hail Israel's high-tech industry and its synergy with the Israeli military. But on October 7th, Israel's obsession ...
2023-11-16 06:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Palestinian writer Amjad Iraqi joins the show to talk about where Israel's assault on Gaza is going. We talked about Israel's professed goal to wipe out Hamas in the Gaza strip and what Israel intends to do with the territory and its population after the end of Operation Iron Swords. We also discussed how seriously to take th...
2023-11-08 11:04:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Kevin Ochieng Okoth joins PTO to discuss his new book, Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics. We talked about the concept of Afropessimism and why Kevin believes it relies on a fundamentally parochial, US-centric understanding of Blackness and we discussed how it's leading theorists mischaracterise the ...
2023-11-01 06:40:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard returns to answer questions sent in by listeners on Gaza, Israel and the broader ramifications of the ongoing crisis.
2023-10-23 19:59:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace joins PTO to discuss the dire situation in Gaza and the West Bank, and the dramatic escalation of islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in the United States. In the second half of the episode, international security expert Paul Rogers joins the show again to talk ab...
2023-10-17 18:48:32 +0000 UTC View PostThis Sunday Richard will be returning to answer your questions on the situation in Gaza and the broader regional and international ramifications. If you have a question for him please comment below, or email politicstheoryother@gmail.com with 'Seymour Listener's Questions' in the subject line. Please free also to respond to R...
2023-10-17 09:57:38 +0000 UTC View Post
