Category Archives: Uncategorized

Podcasts about Snyder’s Road to Unfreedom. Having finished reading Timothy Snyder’s book The Road to Unfreedom, I listened to three podcasts where Snyder is talking about his book. Boy- the guy can talk! Certainly he’s going over the ideas that he has already written in his book, but he can talk articulately about tangential issues as well. He comes over as more optimistic in person than I felt he was on the page. On April 9 2018 he spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia  and answered, not always successfully,  some interesting questions. He made a particular effort to speak about Russia, Ukraine, Europe and America all within the same frame.  It’s notable that he emphasized that the Mueller investigation, which had not reported at that time, would be about the rule of law and not other issues.  In Dan Snow’s History Hit, he speaks more as a historian, about the role of history in reclaiming the importance of time. Finally, Snyder is interviewed in a program titled “Liberal Democracy’s Misplaced Faith in the Future” on Trumpcast, which is a more blatantly politically partisan (i.e. anti-Trump) than the other programs, and this interview is far more U.S. oriented

Rear Vision (ABC) I listened to two podscasts that really tie in with current events. Trump, Greenland and the longer tale of American real estate talks about previous times when America has purchased land – from the French with the Louisiana Purchase, from the Russians when they bought Alaska, from Spain when they bought Florida, and Arizona and New Mexico from the Mexican as part of the Gadsden Purchase. However, in recent years America has been able to exert hegemony through the construction of bases without having to buy the whole country – some 500 of themacross the world. It is suggested that Trump’s plan for purchasing Greenland betrays his real estate developer tendencies, rather than a strategic plan.

The second podcast  Kashmir in lockdown was about Kashmir and India’s revocation of Article 370. The two academics here tell of their perspective of this action from the point of view of their own country (Pakistan or India) although they do have quite a few commonalities.  I’m uneasy about Indian assertiveness here, especially with two nuclear-armed countries.

Rough Translation Two good ones here. DIY Mosul is about the phenomenon in post-war Mosul (in Iraq) where people started volunteering to clean up the city- something almost unheard of after so many years of war. Yet an act that seems so benign wasn’t necessarily perceived that way by the post-war Iraqi government.

We Don’t Say That is about language in France -in particular, language for talking about blackness. There are two related stories here: one about a woman of French/American/Congolese origin who is trying to get a particularly offensive French term changed, and running up against the strict official controls on the French language. The second story is about claiming the word “black” in French, in a culture where race is not spoken about (even though it might operate powerfully). Really interesting.

Saturday Extra. Continuing with her series on Latin America, Geraldine Doogue talks with Gustavo Flores-Macias from Cornell University about the militarization of the Southern Border of Mexico/Guatemala, at the behest of the United States in Mexico Under Pressure. Mexico is beefing up its National Guard, an organization introduced in 2006 to deal with gangs, but which coincided with a higher murder rate in Mexico. Now the National Guard is controlling the Southern Border in a political ‘deal’ where U.S. chooses not to impose tariffs yet, as long as Mexico stops migrants coming through.

Who Runs This Place? (ABC) Another very good episode –the States– this time looking at the states of Australia and the power networks that operate in that state. Think NSW- pokies, Alan Jones and Peter V’Landys and the racing industry; think Tasmania – Federal Hotels (pokies); think Western Australia- mining; think Victoria AFL etc.  I feel like having a good hot shower to wash off the grunge.

Earshot (ABC) With the one year anniversary of Ireland’s referendum result that overturned the constitutional ban on abortion, ‘A Sense of Quietness‘ looks at four women who spoke out – a journalist, a radio producer, the founder of a woman’s clinic, and a woman travelling from Ireland to the UK –  and the consequences of their stance. Very sobering.

The man himself: Karl Marx (Source: Wikipedia)

Revolutions Podcast. We’re heading towards the Russian Revolution, but Mike Duncan is taking pains to really lay the foundations of Marxism first, and these podcasts are excellent.  Episode 2 The Adventures of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is just what the title says- a biographical sketch of the different lives of these two men, drawn together by ideas.  In Episode 3, The Three Pillars of Marxism, (i.e. classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism and revolutionary theory) he explains really clearly the Labour Theory of Value. Excellent.

Conversations (ABC) In Australia’s Romani Gypsies, the ever-interesting Richard Fidler interviews Mandy Sayer who wrote   Australian Gypsies: Their Secret History. It sure is secret- I had very little awareness of the Romani community in Australia. The interview was first broadcast in September 2017.

Duolingo Podcasts  These are just the right level for me, and I can understand them without the transcript, which is very conveniently placed on the Duolingo website. This episode El Regalo (the Gift) is about a young Colombian boy who accompanies his parents on a bus trip to the coast to share Christmas with the extended family. But when three young men board the bus, there is trouble as they steal all the possessions of the passengers.  The transcript has enough English for you to follow along, even if you don’t speak Spanish

Who Runs This Place (ABC) I’m enjoying this series. This time, Richard Aedy looks at The Lobbyists, those groups who use contacts in government and the lobbying miasma that surround it, in order to get what they want. Of all of the flaws of our democracy, it’s the power of lobby groups that disconcerts me the most.

The History Listen (ABC) Two programs this week. The first, The War We Forgot was really good. It examines the loss of Australian civilian life in Rabaul in 1942. I knew that New Guinea was an Australian protectorate after WWI, but I hadn’t realized how ‘Australian’ in was, in a very colonial sense. For example, did you know that people living in Rabaul were listed in the Queensland telephone directory? The mental image of an eleven year old boy holding the hands of his parents as he was shot as a spy by the Japanese stays with me. Well worth listening to.

But I was less enamoured of The surprising story of Wong Shee Ping. He lived in Australia after the gold rush and wrote the first Chinese-Australian novel, which gives a sympathetic insight into the predicament of Chinese women in traditional family structures. However, the author’s life seemed to fly completely in the face of his enlightened attitudes. A bit too Who-Do-You-Think-You-Are- ish for me.