[PREVIEW] #12: The Institute for Social Ecology with Chaia Heller & Mason Herson-Hord

#51: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy with Ross Wolfe

For this week's episode, Amogh and Matt are joined by Ross Wolfe to discuss Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe 1985 book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. We talk about the text's deconstructist take on hegemony, and their post-structuralist reclamation of Gramsci and Althusser. We reflect on the legacy of Post-Marxism in the period prior to the rise of millennial socialism. READINGS: --"Socialist Strategy: Where Next?" - Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe, 1981: https://ftp.unz.com/PDF/PERIODICAL/MarxismToday-1981jan/19-25/ [https://ftp.unz.com/PDF/PERIODICAL/MarxismToday-1981jan/19-25/] --"Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics" - Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe, 1985: https://tinyurl.com/ycxtz8up [https://tinyurl.com/ycxtz8up] --"Against Losurdo" - Ross Wolfe, 2025: https://www.newintermag.com/against-losurdo/ [https://www.newintermag.com/against-losurdo/] Ross Wolfe is a Marxist and a high school history teacher.

#50: Kazembe Balagun on Fighting for Time in NYC

For our 50th episode Kazembe Balagun returns to discuss Gemini season, America 250, the Knicks Finals run, Mayor Zohran's changing NYC, Jacobin's Chris Smalls piece, and Boots Riley's new film I Love Boosters.

#49: Data Centers and Fossil Fuels with Candice Bernd & John Kendall

For this week's episode Candice Bernd and John Kendall join Matt and Sam to talk about their reporting and research into the nexus of the fossil fuel industry and the build-out boom of data centers across Texas and Pennsylvania. We discuss the repurposing and co-location of coal and fracked natural gas plants with the data centers, along with the lobbying efforts being done to situate the apparently futuristic AI technology as a lifeline to the historic fossil fuel industry. We hear about the populist localism inspiring some of the movements emerging to protest the data centers, but also how those same coalitions might be mobilized to protest green energy transition. READINGS: --"AI Data Center Development in Frackland" - Phases, 2025: https://phases.substack.com/p/ai-data-center-development-in-frackland [https://phases.substack.com/p/ai-data-center-development-in-frackland] --"Crypto’s Cryptic Texas Takeover" - Candice Bernd, 2025: https://www.texasobserver.org/crypto-energy-grid-texas-bitcoin-water/ [https://www.texasobserver.org/crypto-energy-grid-texas-bitcoin-water/] --"The Fossil-AI Nexus: Petrostate Capitalism, Computing Power, and the Production of Powered Land" - Justin Kollar, 2026: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400945937_The_Fossil-AI_Nexus_Petrostate_Capitalism_Computing_Power_and_the_Production_of_Powered_Land [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400945937_The_Fossil-AI_Nexus_Petrostate_Capitalism_Computing_Power_and_the_Production_of_Powered_Land] Candice Bernd is a special investigative correspondent for the Observer covering climate justice and grassroots movements. She is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Austin whose work has also appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, In These Times, Salon, Truthout, and Earth Island Journal. She is the author of Blood, Soil, and Oil: Far-Right Acceleration in the Age of Climate Crisis. John Kendall is a postdoctoral researcher in energy geographies at Penn State. Currently, his research is primarily focused on the political and industrial ecologies of natural gas and petrochemical development in northern Appalachia. His most recent publication, written for the think tank Common Wealth, analyzes how the fracking boom continues to thwart decarbonization initiatives in the US. Sam Law is an Austin-based researcher and organizer focused on the data center buildout across Texas — the water, energy, and permitting fights behind the AI boom — and, more broadly, on how AI is reshaping surveillance, policing, and war. He’s also a cultural anthropologist, writing a book on an autonomous social movement in Mexico.

#48: Revolutions of Our Times with The Peoples Want

For this week's episode Benj and israa' from The Peoples Want join Malek and Matt to discuss the network's new book Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto. We discuss the global uprisings since the Arab Spring leading to new understanding of revolution and internationalism. We talk about the figure of the exile, migrant, refugee, and diaspora translating new conceptions of the local and neighboring - values and ideology - and whether a shared orientation towards revolt can produce new subjective categories of solidarity. We end by hearing a history of The Peoples Want network, its emergence in the Syrian Canteen outside Paris, and the series of international gatherings they've organized since 2019. READINGS: --Mujawara: Weaving a Revolutionary Neighbouring Beyond Borders (published May 2026): https://thepeopleswant.org/en/mujawara/mujawara-weaving-a-revolutionary-neighbouring-beyond-borders [https://thepeopleswant.org/en/mujawara/mujawara-weaving-a-revolutionary-neighbouring-beyond-borders] --Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times] Benjamin is a member of the Limousine Mountain Syndicate in Tarnac, France, which is part of The Peoples Want network. israa' is a Queer Egyptian Muslim anarchist, co-founder of From the Periphery Media Collective, and an activist scholar working to build a world where many words fit. They are a member of The Peoples Want network. The Peoples Want is a network comprised of collectives, organisations, places and individuals from across the world working together to build an internationalist practice suited to our times. We share a committment to internationalism from below, focusing on people and movements rather than states. An internationalism that promotes solidarity and mutual aid between those in struggle, at times of crisis or uprising.

[PREVIEW] #12: The Institute for Social Ecology with Chaia Heller & Mason Herson-Hord

Chaia Heller & Mason Herson-Hord join Andrew and Matt to discuss their work with the Institute for Social Ecology, co-founded by communalist philosopher Murray Bookchin in Vermont in 1974. We reflect on the ideas and legacy of both Bookchin (1921-2006) and Occupy Wall Street; the need for joy and the celebration of life; the limitations within both Marxism and anarchism for facing our present ecological crisis; the task of counter-hegemony and keeping a set of ideas alive across generations; and the role of feminism and creating new forms of socialization together. --"Ecology, Desire and Revolution: An Interview with Chaia Heller" - Rebecca DeWitt, 1999: http://www.cwmorse.org/archives/perspectives.on.anarchist.theory.vol3.no.2-fall1999.pdf [http://www.cwmorse.org/archives/perspectives.on.anarchist.theory.vol3.no.2-fall1999.pdf] --"Notes on an Ecology of Everyday Life" - Chaia Heller, 1999: http://new-compass.net/articles/notes-ecology-everyday-life [http://new-compass.net/articles/notes-ecology-everyday-life] --"Biotechnology, Democracy, and Revolution" - Chaia Heller, 2005: https://social-ecology.org/wp/2005/01/biotechnology-democracy-and-revolution/ [https://social-ecology.org/wp/2005/01/biotechnology-democracy-and-revolution/] --"A Government From Below" - Mason Herson-Hord, 2018: https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/fall-2018/a-government-from-below/ [https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/fall-2018/a-government-from-below/] --"Assembled in Detroit" - Mason Herson-Hord, 2020: https://assemblymag.org/assembled-in-detroit/ [https://assemblymag.org/assembled-in-detroit/] Chaia Heller is a writer, activist, anthropologist, and artist who has been teaching political and feminist theory at the Institute for Social Ecology for nearly four decades. Chaia has been active in movements ranging from ecofeminism and the Left Greens, to the global justice movement, and Occupy. Chaia is the author of The Ecology of Everyday Life (Black Rose Books) and Food Farms and Solidarity (Duke University Press). Mason Herson-Hord is an organizer and writer in Detroit, Michigan, where he is an active participant in the development of neighborhood assemblies and the solidarity economy. He is a founding member of Symbiosis, a North American federation of dual power organizations, and a board member of the Institute for Social Ecology. His work has been published by outlets like the Next System Project, ROAR Magazine, The Ecologist, and Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. Andrew volunteers at Woodbine and is currently working toward finishing a master’s degree in Political Ecology, Degrowth, and Environmental Justice at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.