The Fire These Times – Details, episodes & analysis

For episode 200 (!) of The Fire These Times, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor join Dana & Elia to talk about their piece "the rise of end times fascism."

Naomi Klein is the author of Doppelganger, On Fire, How to Change Everything, the Shock Doctrine & No Logo, among others. Astra Taylor is the co-founder of the Debt Collector and is the author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age and The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, among others.

The Fire These Times is a proud member of⁠ ⁠From The Periphery (FTP) Media Collective⁠⁠. Check out other projects in our media ecosystem: Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution, From The Periphery Podcast, The Mutual Aid Podcast⁠, ⁠Politically Depressed⁠, ⁠Obscuristan⁠, and ⁠Antidote Zine⁠.

Support FTP on Patreon!

Referenced:

• Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan

• Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff podcast (on all podcast apps)

• Resistance is Fertile: The Star Trek Anarchist Podcast (on all podcast apps)

• The Book of Records 

For more:

• Naomi Klein has a website, a newsletter, and is on Instagram and Bluesky

• Astra Taylor has a website and is on Bluesky

• Elia Ayoub is on ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠Mastodon⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and blogs at ⁠Hauntologies.net⁠ 

• Dana El Kurd is on Bluesky

• The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠

• From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠

Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and will be published on⁠ The Fire These Times' transcript archive⁠.

Credits:

Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), Dana El Kurd (host), ⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics). 

“Fascism isn’t just about power—it’s about controlling the stories we tell. It warps narratives to justify oppression, trapping us in cycles of dominance and despair. But stories can also resist, break those cycles, and open the door to something new.“ 

This is how YouTuber and hardcore Trekkie Jessie Gender starts her video essay “The Stories Fascism Fears Most“ which we highly recommend. A few weeks ago, Elia Ayoub sat down with Jessie to talk about it. They got into their love of Star Trek - because of course they did - as well as other franchises like The Matrix. 

This is a special crossover episode between The Fire These Times and Resistance is Fertile, a Star Trek Anarchist podcast by Elia and carla joy bergman. 

Show Notes

• Support the making of RIF on Patreon

• RIF BlueSky: @thestartrekpod.bsky.social‬

• RIF IG

• Elia’s work

• carla’s work

• Jessie Gender’s YouTube channel

• Music by NinePulse

• Tech by Chris Bergman

• RIF is co-produced by carla and Elia

• The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠

• From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠

• Transcriptions: Transcriptions are usually done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and published on⁠ The Fire These Times' transcript archive⁠. However, this time it's the RIF gang that did the transcripts.

Thanks for listening! 

We got a new podcast! We're happy to announce that Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution (STIR) is now out on Patreon and wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this episode,⁠ ⁠Leila Al-Shami⁠⁠ (⁠⁠Burning Country⁠⁠) and Elia Ayoub (⁠⁠The Fire These Times⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠Hauntologies⁠⁠) introduce themselves and the podcast.

What is STIR about? From the Assad regime to the Arab Spring and beyond, we will dive into questions of reconstruction, prisoners, the forcibly disappeared, transitional justice, minority rights, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental politics, culture and more.

STIR is part of the From The Periphery Media Collective. To support all of our projects please head out to⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/fromtheperiphery⁠⁠

STIR is also on⁠ ⁠Bluesky⁠⁠!

Credits and More:

• Leila Al Shami (Host, Lead Researcher). More:⁠ ⁠Bluesky⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠Mastodon⁠⁠ and her⁠ ⁠Blog⁠⁠

• Elia Ayoub (Host, Producer). More:⁠ ⁠Bluesky⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠Mastodon⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and his⁠ ⁠Newsletter⁠⁠

• Hisham Rifai (Illustration)

• Omar Offendum and Sami Matar (Music)

Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik is the Argentinian author of The Memory We Could Be: Overcoming Fear to Create Our Ecological Future and amongst the most fascinating thinkers I know. He's also a good friend.

We spoke about reckoning with past ecological violence of, bio-cultural memory and our collective ecological heritage. Basically, why we need to mix futurism and ancestrality. Also: storytelling, trauma, healing, climate change and The Office and Gilmour Girls, because why not.

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EARTHQUAKE DONATION LINKS:

The White Helmets
whitehelmets.org/en/

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) Foundation
sams-usa.net

Huquqyat
https://www.huquqyat.org/

Molham Team
Molhamteam.com

Kurdish Red Crescent
heyvasoruk.org

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Book recommendations:

• Ideas to Postpone the End of the World by Ailton Krenak
• Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Emergent Strategy Series by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia by Stan Cox and Paul Cox

Also, the poetry of Joy Harjo, Ilya Kaminsky, Victoria Chang, Dunya Mikhail and Vito Apushana.

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

Want to help our with transcribing episodes? Check out this link.

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You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List
Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website
The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Sound editor: Ibrahim Youssef
Episode design: Joey Ayoub

This is an episode with writer and filmmaker Shane Burley, editor of the must-read book published by AK Press: "No Pasarán! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis." It is an anthology of antifascist writing that takes up the fight against white supremacy and the far-right from multiple angles. From the history of antifascism to today's movement to identify,  deplatform, and confront the right, and the ways an insurgent fascism is  growing within capitalist democracies, a myriad of voices come together  to shape the new face of antifascism in a moment of social and  political flux.

Burley is also the author of a number of books incl. Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017).

No Pasarán also features Leila Al-Shami and Shon Meckfessel, authors of a chapter on the links between White supremacists and tge Assad regime. Both Leila (previous guest of the pod) and Shon are upcoming guests on the topic.

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Recommended Books:

• Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream by Leonard Zeskind
• Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Kathleen Belew
• As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation by Zoé Samudzi & William C. Anderson

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

Want to help our with transcribing episodes? Check out this link.

----

You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List
Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website
The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Episode design: Joey Ayoub

Jessie Gender is a known YouTuber and commentator who deals with the nuance in the nerdy, focusing on LGBTQ issues (especially the transgender community), women, nonbinary and autistic people as well as other social and political issues through geek topics.

Both Jessie and Joey also happen to be Trekkies on the autism spectrum which gave this conversation an added layer of complexity.

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Book Recs:

• Second Self by Uma McCormack
• Star Trek Lower Decks
• Star Wars Andor

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

You can also follow The Fire These Times on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List

Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website

The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub  

Producer: Joey Ayoub  

Music: Rap and Revenge

Main theme design: Wenyi Geng

Sound editor: Joey Ayoub

Episode design: Joey Ayoub

Luka Dowell joins Joey Ayoub to talk about Hauntings, Futurisms, and Solarpunk. Luka is the host of the podcast Solarpunk Now! which I highly recommend. They are passionate about theory, politics, art, science/tech,  sustainability. Topics that interest them include ecology, psychology, economics, digital media and online communities, and our future.

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Recs:

• Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han
• Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper
• The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society by Pierre Dardot & Christian Laval

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

You can also follow The Fire These Times on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List 

Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website 

The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Episode design: Joey Ayoub

This is a conversation with teacher, linguist, and writer Rob Cameron about Solarpunk and Afro-Solarpunk.   

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Book Recs: 

• Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures edited by Christoph  Rupprecht, Deborah Cleland, Norie Tamura, Rajat Chaudhuri and Sarena  Ulibarri 
• Cities of Light: A Collection of Solar edited by Joey Eschrich and  Clark A. Miller  
• Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer 
• Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction edited by Sheree Renée  Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight   
• Humankind by Rutger Bregman   

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

You can also follow The Fire These Times on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List

Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website

The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Episode design: Joey Ayoub

And we're back!

This is a conversation with hacker, gardener and writer Andre, aka HydroponicTrash (on Twitter, TikTok and Mastodon). You can also find Andre on Substack at AnarchoSolarpunk. The title is taken from one of Andre's essays.

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Book Recs:

• Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
• The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
• Lo—TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism Julia Watson

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You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

You can also follow The Fire These Times on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List

Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website

The newsletter is available on Substack

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Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Episode design: Joey Ayoub

In this special episode of The Fire These Times, Stadio co-host Musa Okwonga, football and MENA journalist Justin Salhani and human rights researcher Fabien Goa join Joey Ayoub to talk about the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Also, check out Stadio!

Happy winter solstice, Hanukkah and Christmas

Book Recs:  

• Justin Salhani: Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France by Laurent Dubois
• Musa Okwonga: The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt
• Fabien Goa: The Turbulance of Migration by Nikos Papastergiadis

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon @ patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation.

You can also find it on 

Twitter @firethesetimes
Instagram @firethesetimes
TikTok @thefirethesetimes.

Joey Ayoub can be found on
Twitter @joeyayoub
Instagram @joeyayoub91
Mastodon @ https://kolektiva.social/web/@ayoub

The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

Music by RapNRevenge, Episode design by Joey Ayoub, Podcast design by Wenyi Geng