Bungacast

/496/ Insane-Washing the War (Which Did Not Take Place)

On the war on Iran that wasn't (yet).

Alex and George review the past month in the world and on Bungacast:

• The crazy will-they-won't-they of a potential US war on Iran

• The ex post facto justifications on all sides

• Where does "sanewashing" come from

• Ways to understand and not understand US political polarisation

And we deal with your questions and comments from the past month:

• Woke Dungeons and Dragons

• Being Safe versus Feeling Safe

• More on victimhood, authenticity and the PMC

[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

Links:

• Trump’s Tariff Gamble and the Decay of the Neoliberal Order, Lee Jones, American Affairs

• Sanewashing, and how Defund The Police stopped meaning Defund The Police, Inverse Florida, Substack

• Did Iran win the 12-day war?, Sohrab Ahmari, UnHerd 

• A Comprehensive History of Woke D&D, Mark of the Weather-Sun, Substack

/466/ Regime Change in the West?

On disinformation, NATO vs Russia, terrorism + more.

[Full episode for subscribers only. Go to patreon.com/bungacast]

We look back at a turbulent last month or so with the help of guest and "disinformation bot" Tara McCormack. We put it all in the context of Trump's return, post-neoliberalism and deglobalisation.

• 00:13:52 – Jacob Siegel  talks to Alex about Meta's policy U-turn on censorship and what it means for the public-private partnership on digital surveillance.

• 00:50:11 – How will European powers react to the US's relative withdrawal of its protection? Will France, Britain and Germany double-down on the Ukraine war?

• 01:06:21 – Why is Luigi Mangione not understood as 'terrorism' while the Magdeburg Christmas market attack is? What drives terrorism and is that even the right term to understand explosive anomie?

•  01:15:24 – Letters to the Editors: on the global radical right, and Trump's foreign policy

Links:

• /369/ Information-War and War-Politics ft. Jacob Siegel

• /34/ War Propaganda ft. Tara McCormack

• To the Finland Station, Branko Milanovic, Substack

• Trumpism & Geopolitics, Tim Pendry, Substack

• Class Patricide, Dustin Guastella, Damage

/457/ AufheBonus Bonus - December 2024

On your questions, comments & criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We're back with a final letters to the editor episode of 2024 in which we discuss:

• the universalisation of 'anti-fascism' as a kind of politics

• whether there are any actual 'family abolitionists' out there

• humanitarian intervention in Palestine

• the hard and less hard facts of US imperial decline

• the legitimacy of 'existential' politics

• whether anti-corruption politics are good, actually

• and why Phil loves Hillary

/449/ Aufhebonus Bonus: Nov 2024

On your questions, comments, criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

It's our letter to the episode show where we have a chance to answer you, the listener. We discuss:

• Has Bungacast gone eco-austerian?

• Are Marx and Freud in conflict?

• Is abortion about healthcare or about freedom?

• Why has the left abandoned liberty?

• Did we underestimate Israel’s existential fears?

• And what’s so “complex” about the Arab-Israeli conflict anyway?

Links:

• 2024/25 Reading Club on Place, Nation, Class

• Direct link to the syllabus PDF

• Our substack newsletter

/441/ Original Source End of End of History

On liberal takes on the end of the End of History.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We start by discussing Yasha Mounk's dismissal of an end to the End of History. Does he underestimate liberal democracy's inability to legitimise itself anymore? Is the talk of populism a way of deflecting from liberalism's undoing?

We then deal with your comments and questions [for patrons only, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

/433/ Aufhebonus Bonus – August 2024 (sample)

On your questions & criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We respond with comments on episodes 420 to 432 and various other points you wanted to us to discuss. In this episode:

• Does our politics lack self-critique?

• When did the breakdown of the UK's political system begin?

• How hegemonic is "settler" discourse?

• Will there be a coup in France?

• Do we need more analysis of the PMC?

• How did victimhood become a means for the expression of political demands?

 

Links:

• The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café americain

• Vulnerability as Ideology, Peter Ramsay, The Northern Star

/424/ Aufhebonus Bonus - July 2024 (sample)

On your questions & criticisms about fertility, culture war, and more.

[Patreon Exclusive]

In our monthly mailbag episode we take points from the discussion on patreon, including on futuristic music, holocaust movies, german populism, whether culture war can be global, and the link between modernisation, productivity and birth rates.

 

 

/406/ AufheBonus Bonus (sample)

On Euro censorship + your comments and criticisms.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

We discuss censorship in Brussels and Berlin, and put it in the context of the incorporation of right-populism. How will European politics come to look as national-conservatives become part of the establishment? What's up with these "sovereigntists" who are unserious about sovereignty?

 

Also we discuss your comments:

• If cultural production is already monopolistic, can it be democratically planned?

• Should we problematise "mental health"?

• Is love a dangerous political emotion?

• What happens if you leave the left?

• How do we kill the ghosts of the 20th century?

• Is a generational analysis of left-populism wrong?

• How do we get beyond a world of media and images?

Links:

• NatCon: are centrists the real threat to free speech?, Alex Hochuli, UnHerd

 

Excerpt: /348/ Aufhebonus Bonus: June 2023

On your questions and criticisms.

 

Bumper edition of Aufhebonus Bonus where we discuss whether we're technologically determinist with regard to artificial intelligence; whether the left should be bulding stuff; why criticising wokeness is boring; work, retirement and time; more on family abolition; and everyone's favourite topic – the PMC/new elite, etc.

 

Event: The Professional-Managerial Class and their Politics, London, Wednesday 28 June, 7pm

Excerpt: /333/ Aufhebonus Bonus (April 2023)

On your questions & criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Is the Left dead? Did the turn to culture really kill it? Or is the nostalgia for the post-war Left the real problem?

We also debate what the function of imperialism in Africa is; the 'pro-worker' conservatives in the US; surveillance of app workers; what economic growth is for; and whether to f**k models. 

Excerpt: /320/ Aufhebonus Bonus (Feb 2023)

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

On your questions and criticisms.

 

A bumper episode as we respond to your points from December through to the end of January. We discuss 'political capitalism', where the left is today, atomisation, degrowth, disciplining the working class, critical cinema, and family abolition.

/316/ From Emergency to Emergency: 2022 Review, ft. Ashley Frawley

On the key events and developments in 2022.

 

We look back at how the world transitioned from the pandemic to war over the past year, and what the socio-political fallouts have been. Is everything "better than expected"? Has managerial technocracy been rejuvenated? 

 

We discuss whether we're in a Third World War, how the US empire is strengthening its grip on Europe, and how cultural populists are taking over from economic populists.

 

Part two is available at patreon.com/bungacast

Excerpt: /307/ Aufhebonus Bonus (Dec 2022)

On your questions & criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We debate what kind of work 'shared-labour socialism' would involve in a complex society, and what role 'dispossession' or 'expropriation' has in the contemporary economy. Plus: strategies on Ukraine – backing independence, guerilla warfare, and what an 'anti-NATO' stance actually looks like; and whether the forces exist for exiting the EU.

Fill out our 2022 Listener Survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XNLTVLB 

Excerpt: /302/ Aufhebonus Bonus (Nov 2022)

On your questions & criticisms.

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

The weakness of anti-EU forces; the implications of defending Ukrainian sovereignty; what should we call the new far-right and what does it *do* in power? And the gravity of nuclear war

 

Also, is Phil okay?

Excerpt: /295/ Aufhebonus Bonus: October

On who's responsible for prolonging the Ukraine War + your questions & criticisms.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

We start off by discussing whether the Zelensky tail is wagging the NATO dog, and what possible exits to conflict there might be. 

 

Then, in the main section, we respond to listener comments: we talk about the possibility of a "Chinese Dream", what the point of economic growth is, the monarchy and modernisation, and whether 'fascism' is an appropriate term for the far right today.