Turbulence is a podcast about the end of the American empire, or the end of the world—whichever comes first. Join Dylan Saba, M Ceniza, and friends as they navigate the geopolitical chaos of a world-system in flux.
We discuss the third anniversary of 10/7, the French school riots, Ansarallah’s continued offensive in Yemen, their use of FPV drones, the response from the Saudi-led “coalition,” and Iranian strikes on shipping in the Gulf.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
We discuss the upcoming Brazilian elections, US plans to invade Cuba, the end of the third (?) Iraq war, military escort missions in Hormuz, the detention of migrant children in Texas, and Netanyahu’s pre-election gambits.
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BONUS: A Financial History of Zionism w/ Nathan Tankus
In part two of our conversation with Nathan Tankus, we discuss the finance of settler colonialism—from the Ottoman Empire’s debt crisis to the foreign capital that financed Zionist settlement and facilitated Palestinian dispossession.
Nathan Tankus is a writer, researcher, and president of the publication Notes on the Crises. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: A 250-Year History, under contract with Viking Press. He is also the editor of We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Zionism, Palestine, and Socialism, forthcoming from Haymarket.
Nathan Tankus joins us to discuss the monetary foundations of American empire, how sanctions weaponize the global financial system, the possibility of China-led de-dollarization, and what’s really going on with the oil futures market.
This is part one of a two part episode. Part two, A Financial History of Zionism, will be released later this week on our paid feed.
Nathan Tankus is a writer, researcher, and president of the publication Notes on the Crises. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: A 250-Year History, under contract with Viking Press. He is also the editor of We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Zionism, Palestine, and Socialism, forthcoming from Haymarket.
This week we’re joined by returning co-host Alexander Aviña, as well as friend of the show Barry with the NED, to go in depth on Ansarallah’s major ground offensive in Yemen, the downing of a Saudi F-15, and the US’s escalating violence in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
Episode 41: Mauritania at Europe’s Frontier w/ Hassan Ould Moctar
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 • Duration 01:07:16
Hassan Ould Moctar joins us to discuss Europe’s externalized border regime, the colonial history of race and territory in Mauritania, and how migration control, counterinsurgency, and development policy have fused across the Sahel.
Hassan Ould Moctar is a Fellow at the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb, University of Tunis and former lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, University of London. His research focuses on the relationship between migration, borders, and development processes, with a regional focus on West and North Africa. He is the author of After Border Externalization: Migration, Race, and Labour in Mauritania, which is available open access from Bloomsbury Publishers.
To support migrants in Senegal and those facing deportation and border violence, consider donating to Boza Fii.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
We discuss the expanding conflict in Hormuz, Ansarallah’s lightning advance in Yemen, Trump’s oil problem, the surging anti-migrant right across the North Atlantic, and why Javier Milei is ratcheting up Argentine claims on Las Malvinas.
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
Episode 40: Counter-Space and the Data Center Revolt w/ Kai Bosworth
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 01:23:35
Kai Bosworth joins us to discuss the strange politics of the data center revolt, the AI boom’s place in the global energy system, and what the rise and fall of the climate movement can teach us about the struggles taking shape in its wake.
Kai Bosworth is a geographer and political ecologist, and an Associate Professor at the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century. His current book project is provisionally entitled Protectors of the Subsurface: Militant Investigation and Critical Imagination in Anti-Oil Activism.
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
BONUS: The Chud International w/ Alexander Aviña
Thursday, September 3, 2026 • Duration 57:36
We welcome Alex Aviña to Turbulence and discuss the Battle of Hormuz, Bessent’s economic D-Day for Iran, the US-Venezuela oil deal, the arrest of Fernando Cerimedo in Bolivia, and Trump’s war on the price of burger.
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit turbulencepod.substack.com/subscribe
Episode 39: The Bureaucracy of Repression w/ Josef Burton
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 • Duration 01:42:31
Josef Burton joins us to discuss the transformation of immigration under Trump, the bureaucrats who administer US machinery of repression, and what intensifying coercion at home and imperial retreat abroad mean for our political future.
Josef Burton is a writer and former US diplomat who worked mainly on consular and immigration issues. He tweets at @PinstripeBungle
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
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Discover shows related to Turbulence, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
Blackstone, William E. “The Blackstone Memorial.” 1891. “To Show Kindness to Israel”: The Blackstone Memorial, Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives
Beirich, Eyshe, ed. We, Traitors: Bundist Writings on Palestine 1925–1938. Translated by Eyshe Beirich. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2027.
Parks, B. C., Zhang, S., Escobar, B., Walsh, K., Fedorochko, R., Vlasto, L., Zimmerman, J., Sickell, J., Bury, E., Joshi, A., Thome, L., Pandey, O., & Raja Manuri, V. P. R. 2025. Chasing China: Learning to Play by Beijing’s Global Lending Rules. Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William & Mary
“We are a rich Nation; we can afford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice our liberties into the bargain. In the first century of our republic we were short of capital, short of workers and short of industrial production, but we were rich, very rich in free land, and free timber and free mineral wealth. The Federal Government of those days rightly assumed the duty of promoting business and relieving depression by giving subsidies of land and other resources. Thus, from our earliest days we have had a tradition of substantial government help to our system of private enterprise. But today the Government no longer has vast tracts of rich land to give away and we have discovered, too, that we must spend large sums of money to conserve our land from further erosion and our forests from further depletion.”
Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 1, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.
Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 2, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.
Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, vol. 3, Herzl Press / Thomas Yoseloff, 1960.
Portnoy, Samuel A., ed.. Vladimir Medem. The Life and the Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist. New York: Ktav, 1979.
Milgrim, Michael R. “An Overlooked Problem in Turkish–Russian Relations: The 1878 War Indemnity.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 9.4 (1978): 519-537.
Forstater, Mathew. “Taxation and primitive accumulation: the case of colonial Africa.” (2005).
Darity Jr, William. “African American reparations, Keynes, and the transfer problem.” Keynes for the Twenty-First Century: The Continuing Relevance of the General Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2008. 199-205.
Darity Jr, William A., and Andrea Kirsten Mullen. From here to equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the twenty-first century. UNC Press Books, 2022.
To support Palestinians in Gaza, consider donating through The Sameer Project.
We’re committed to independence and will never run ads or take money from institutions. That means Turbulence is entirely listener-funded.
For $5 a month, paid subscribers gain access to weekly news analysis bonus episodes, where we respond to events as they unfold, follow up on previous discussions, and draw connections across the conflicts shaping our world.
Most importantly, paid subscriptions make it possible for us to keep doing this work independently, week after week.
