Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. ...
The Wellness Company is now selling retatrutide, a weight loss drug currently undergoing stage 3 trials by Eli Lilly. An anti-vax company that uses fear-based marketing to push supplements appears to be overstepping legal lines. Yet will they be held accountable in an RFK Jr-led HHS?
Derek looks at private market healthcare propaganda from Ronald Reagan to Kennedy, showing how health is not the real goal of MAHA. But if they can sell untested products to fat and chronically ill patients along the way, all the better.
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6:07
Brief: Jordan Peterson’s Shady Billionaire Backers
Julian covers the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London. Headlined by Jordan Peterson, featuring Konstantin Kisin, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Jonathan Pageau, and Eric Weinstein, the conference positioned itself as an inspiring cultural gathering focused on reclaiming Western values.
Behind the scenes, a hedge-fund billionaire new media baron, conservative libertarian think tank, shady funding source in Dubai, and an evangelical English aristocrat use the prestige of ARC and its celebrity figureheads to popularize a very specific political, economic, and religious agenda.
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40:41
249: Kings of Pain
Trump administration Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently stated the American economy is going to need a "detox" period. And so today we look at peak the conspirituality convergences between biological and political purification projects.
Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, joins Matthew in the final segment to offer his big picture view on the Kings of Pain.
Show Notes
Johns Hopkins to lose 2,000 jobs after Trump’s $800m cut in USAid funding
Young scientists see career pathways vanish as schools adapt to federal funding cuts
Report: mRNA vaccines are in RFK Jr’s crosshairs; funding in question
FDA Makes Flu Vaccine Recommendations Without Convening Advisors
HHS sends all employees a $25,000 voluntary buyout offer
Exclusive: US CDC plans study into vaccines and autism, sources say
USDA gears up for MAHA dietary guidelines update
Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True.
Watch CNBC's full interview with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
Why we must teach medical students about the role of physicians during the Holocaust | AAMC
Teaching Hard Truths About Medicine and the Holocaust | Journal of Ethics | American Medical Association
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Click here to hear the full episode on Patreon.
Second of Matthew’s two-part examination of why the hell questions of force, non-violent resistance with and without force, unarmed violence and property damage, and armed violence are so incredibly hard to talk about in a culture thick with spiritual and political bypassing. Are we capable of understanding the difference between morality and strategy?
Part 1 focused on philosophy and psychology while today the focus will be on definitions and tactics. Together, both parts will push back on conspiracism about the identities, motives, and methods of antifascists. Both will present slices of the rich discourse on violence and non-violence from antifascist history, including clarifying definitions of key terms. Both will open a space to think carefully about what intensities of self and community defense are both useful and tolerable in the fight against fascism.
Today we’ll get into the very thick weeds of how the “strategic nonviolence” research of Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan is framed as empirical, but may be way more about idealizing Gandhi than about facts on the ground.
Huge list of references for each!
Show Notes
Stopping the Press: The Threats to the Media Posed by the Second Trump Term | The New Yorker
What the FBI Has Done, and Kash Patel Could Do - Columbia Journalism Review
Hakeem Jeffries cracks down on Trump speech disruptions
Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched—You Can Thank the Black Bloc | The Nation
Aamer Rahman: Is it really ok to punch nazis?
$16.5M settlement reached in class-action lawsuit over mass arrests during 2010 G20 summit | CBC News
Meditations at the ringed fence around G20 Toronto - rabble.ca
Remaining Human: A Buddhist Perspective on Occupy Wall Street - Michael Stone
Brief: The Outside Agitator Conspiracy Trope (w/Dr. Peniel Joseph) — Conspirituality
Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years | Donald Trump | The Guardian
40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Sunshine
rules for radicals | saul d. alinsky
198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION | — Gene Sharp
She Interrupted a Town-Hall Meeting and Was Dragged Out by Private Security - The New York Times
Martin Luther King Jr. had a much more radical message than a dream of racial brotherhood
The Enigma of Frantz Fanon | The Nation
Frantz Fanon and the struggle against colonisation | MR Online
Frantz Fanon and the Paradox of Anticolonial Violence – Solidarity
Frantz Fanon—a vital defence of violence by the oppressed - Socialist Worker
Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub] (starting at the collectivization debate scene)
Full Spectrum Resistance — McBay
The Failure of Nonviolence | The Anarchist Library
Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine
Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance | ROAR Magazine
Social movements and the (mis)use of research: Extinction Rebellion and the 3.5% rule
Responding to Domestic Terrorism: A Crisis of Legitimacy - Harvard Law Review
Domestic Terrorism: Definitions, Terminology, and Methodology — FBI
676 | United States Sentencing Commission
Activists use 'Tesla Takedown' protests to fight job cuts by Musk and Trump | Reuters
Tesla vehicles destroyed, vandalized since Musk began role at White House, authorities say - ABC News
Anti-DOGE protests at Tesla stores target Elon Musk's bottom line | AP News
Tyre Extinguishers: A Night Out with the Climate Activists Sabotaging SUVs
Leaflet | Tyre Extinguishers
Tesla Stocks Tumble as Elon Musk’s Political Role Grows More Divisive - The New York Times
Internal Memos: Senior USAID Leaders Warned Trump Appointees of Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths From Closing Agency
Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine
Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic
Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org
10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Director Ken Loach
BBC Taster - How to Make a Ken Loach Film
Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub]
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5:39
Brief: Antifascist Woodshed 2 (Punching Nazis?)
First of Matthew's two-part examination of why the hell questions of force, non-violent resistance with and without force, unarmed violence and property damage, and armed violence are so incredibly hard to talk about in a culture thick with spiritual and political bypassing. Are we capable of understanding the difference between morality and strategy?
Part 1 focuses on philosophy and psychology while Part 2 focuses on definitions and tactics. Together, both parts will push back on conspiracism about the identities, motives, and methods of antifascists. Both will present slices of the rich discourse on violence and non-violence from antifascist history, including clarifying definitions of key terms. Both will open a space to think carefully about what intensities of self and community defense are both useful and tolerable in the fight against fascism.
Part 2 gets into the very thick weeds of how the “strategic nonviolence” research of Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan is framed as empirical, but may be way more about idealizing Gandhi than about facts on the ground. Drops Monday on Patreon.
Huge list of references for each!
Show Notes
Stopping the Press: The Threats to the Media Posed by the Second Trump Term | The New Yorker
What the FBI Has Done, and Kash Patel Could Do - Columbia Journalism Review
Hakeem Jeffries cracks down on Trump speech disruptions
Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched—You Can Thank the Black Bloc | The Nation
Aamer Rahman: Is it really ok to punch nazis?
$16.5M settlement reached in class-action lawsuit over mass arrests during 2010 G20 summit | CBC News
Meditations at the ringed fence around G20 Toronto - rabble.ca
Remaining Human: A Buddhist Perspective on Occupy Wall Street - Michael Stone
Brief: The Outside Agitator Conspiracy Trope (w/Dr. Peniel Joseph) — Conspirituality
Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years | Donald Trump | The Guardian
40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Sunshine
rules for radicals | saul d. alinsky
198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION | — Gene Sharp
She Interrupted a Town-Hall Meeting and Was Dragged Out by Private Security - The New York Times
Martin Luther King Jr. had a much more radical message than a dream of racial brotherhood
The Enigma of Frantz Fanon | The Nation
Frantz Fanon and the struggle against colonisation | MR Online
Frantz Fanon and the Paradox of Anticolonial Violence – Solidarity
Frantz Fanon—a vital defence of violence by the oppressed - Socialist Worker
Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub] (starting at the collectivization debate scene)
Full Spectrum Resistance — McBay
The Failure of Nonviolence | The Anarchist Library
Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine
Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance | ROAR Magazine
Social movements and the (mis)use of research: Extinction Rebellion and the 3.5% rule
Responding to Domestic Terrorism: A Crisis of Legitimacy - Harvard Law Review
Domestic Terrorism: Definitions, Terminology, and Methodology — FBI
676 | United States Sentencing Commission
Activists use 'Tesla Takedown' protests to fight job cuts by Musk and Trump | Reuters
Tesla vehicles destroyed, vandalized since Musk began role at White House, authorities say - ABC News
Anti-DOGE protests at Tesla stores target Elon Musk's bottom line | AP News
Tyre Extinguishers: A Night Out with the Climate Activists Sabotaging SUVs
Leaflet | Tyre Extinguishers
Tesla Stocks Tumble as Elon Musk’s Political Role Grows More Divisive - The New York Times
Internal Memos: Senior USAID Leaders Warned Trump Appointees of Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths From Closing Agency
Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | ROAR Magazine
Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic
Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org
10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Director Ken Loach
BBC Taster - How to Make a Ken Loach Film
Land and Freedom (1995 Ken Loach) [ENG Sub]
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.