The Skeptical Leftist Podcast

Cory Johnston

Become a Paid Subscriber: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/subscribe Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Include the Red Reviews podcast where Justin Clark talks about a book relevent to leftist theory or practice read less
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Episodes

Sustainability Through Compassion with Ali Horriyat
31-03-2024
Sustainability Through Compassion with Ali Horriyat
In this interview I talked to Ali Horriyat, founder of Compassiviste. Ali left the lucrative, profit-driven world of finance in 2016 to devote himself to his vision of a society where compassion, empathy, and social impact are at the heart of our actions. In 2020, he launched Compassiviste to spread this vision. Born in Dubai, he attended schools in the UAE, France and Switzerland before pursuing his higher education in Canada. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics, political science, philosophy, business, international relations and conflict resolution, and religion. Ali is the author of 12 books, including collections of essays and poetry, with themes ranging from racism and capitalism to spirituality, love and compassion. He believes that humans must “love always, and always love.” We talk a lot about the organization he founded, Compassiviste, and all the things surrounding it from sustainability to hypocrisy to compassion and how his view of things doesn’t differ so much from the views of anarchists, or at least this anarchist.  Here are some links where you can find Compassiviste and maybe Ali while you’re there https://compassiviste.com/ https://twitter.com/compassiviste https://www.tiktok.com/@compassiviste https://www.instagram.com/compassiviste/ https://www.facebook.com/CompassivisteOfficial And check out my linktree and website https://www.skepticalleftist.com/ https://linktr.ee/Skepticalcory --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message
The Toxic Boy's Club of the DIY Music Scene with Nikki EatKS
15-02-2024
The Toxic Boy's Club of the DIY Music Scene with Nikki EatKS
In this interview I talked to Nikki EatKS who is a podcaster in the music scene and who has worked in radio and has many contacts within the music scene. We talked about some of the toxicity that comes when men act as gatekeepers and become apologists for sexual harassment and assault because they like a particular artist. We also talked about some general social justice issues and the Me Too movement. Check out the links below for information on some of our topics. (sorry I couldn’t find any articles about GG Allin that weren’t written by rape apologists so I decided not to include them) Marilyn Manson has faced multiple accusations of which this article covers just onehttps://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57685153  We didn’t talk about this one but Anti Flag frontman has been accused of rape by a lot of women https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/anti-flag-justin-sane-1234817170/ Check out Julie Lalonde https://www.yellowmanteau.com/ https://pipsc.ca/news-issues/human-rights-and-diversity/watch-our-bystander-intervention-training-julie-lalonde Make sure to follow Nikki in all the places https://www.eatks.com/  https://linktr.ee/eatks  https://twitter.com/EatKS https://substack.com/@nikkieatks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6D58hv9NdPYvgIPdYoB2Wg https://bandcamp.com/EatKS https://kolektiva.social/@Eatks@mastodon.social https://bsky.app/profile/eatks.bsky.social  https://www.instagram.com/nikki_eatks/ https://www.mixcloud.com/NikkiEatKS/ And check out my linktree and website https://www.skepticalleftist.com/ https://linktr.ee/Skepticalcory --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message
The Marxist/Anarchist Team Up Show - A review of Revolutionary Affinities
04-01-2024
The Marxist/Anarchist Team Up Show - A review of Revolutionary Affinities
In this extra long episode Justin and I talk about the book Revolutionary Affinities by Michael Löwy and Olivier Besancenot and translated by David Campbell. This book takes us through the history of Marxism and Anarchism when they agreed and when they didn't and helps us come to the conclusion that we have deep affinities with each other despite our differences and it can help us to make the world better when we remember that.  You can get a copy of your own from PM Press https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1293  There were quite a few historical references in this episode and in the book so here are some links if you wish to read more on these subjects and people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Spies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenaventura_Durruti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcomandante_Marcos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gu%C3%A9rin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holloway_(sociologist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Pannekoek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Mandel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Albert Check out Justin's links and follow him https://www.justinclark.org/ https://www.instagram.com/justinclarkph/ https://www.tiktok.com/@justinclarkph https://www.in.gov/history/ https://blog.history.in.gov/ https://newspapers.library.in.gov/ And check out my linktree and website https://www.skepticalleftist.com/ https://linktr.ee/Skepticalcory --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message
Brogressive Hypocrisy with Eiynah Nicemangos
21-12-2023
Brogressive Hypocrisy with Eiynah Nicemangos
*CW - discussion of sexual harassment and assault* In this episode I talked to Eiynah Nicemangos, host of the podcast Polite Conversations. Eiynah has been podcasting for a long time and does high quality work around the far right and the so-called intellectual dark web. Her series debunking and calling out Sam Harris for his bigotry is some of my favorite content covering Sam and the people like him. In this chat we talk about some stuff that happened adjacent to my old online community, the atheist community. There are some reactions to being called out that were truly shitty and there were some allegations of supposed progressive guys that came out a little while ago that exposed some hypocrisy among the men who claimed to be progressive. In some ways this may appear to be a drama episode but that isn’t the intent. People with privilege have to be more aware of and more thoughtful about the ways they behave even when the consequences could be potentially harmful to them.  Here are some links for things we talked aboutNew Atheism and the far right https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/ https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/newatheism https://twitter.com/nicemangos/status/1406646731933167619?s=21 https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/panel-24-defending-new-atheism-maybe-just-dont-pt-1 https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/panel-24-defending-new-atheism-maybe-just-dont-pt-2 Andrew Torrez allegations https://religionnews.com/2023/02/01/american-atheists-board-members-exit-dogged-by-misconduct-allegations/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenArgs/comments/10u2u8i/summary_of_all_the_accusationsallegations_against/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RVYJE0ljCsHLJFiIAP5aMGVhaA1_XmLi2R5wVmB_EwQ/edit Here are some links where you can find, follow, and support Eiynah https://twitter.com/NiceMangos https://bsky.app/profile/nicemangos.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/nicemangosart/  https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations https://www.patreon.com/nicemangos/ Check out my websitehttps://www.skepticalleftist.com/  My Linktreehttps://linktr.ee/Skepticalcory --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message
Is This Radical? Canadian Politics with Nora Loreto
06-12-2023
Is This Radical? Canadian Politics with Nora Loreto
In this interview episode I talked to Nora Loreto, Nora is  a well known podcaster, writer, and journalist who has done amazing work covering politics from a left perspective. She did work on Covid that was truly instrumental to understanding the impact of the pandemic on Canadian long term care homes. She often doesn't get the credit she deserves but her books and her writing have been a huge help for people like me to get a good analysis of what's happening in Canadian politics. I'm a big fan and I really enjoyed this chat.  There is no intro rant because I was trying to get things done despite being sick and busy when I needed to be resting.  Thanks for understanding. If you got left out of the patron credits I apologize, this was done a couple weeks ago and I didn't get a chance to change them. Here are some links where you can find Nora https://noraloreto.ca/ https://sandyandnora.com/ https://twitter.com/NoLore https://bsky.app/profile/nolore.bsky.social Here are some links for topics we discussed https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/yaroslav-hunka-canada-nazi-germany-faq-1.6981437 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/sarah-jama-gaza-statement-1.6992654 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/maid-canada-report-2022-1.7009704https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-support-workers-students-bill-137-1.7003848 And of course you can check out my website and linktree https://linktr.ee/Skepticalcory https://www.skepticalleftist.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message
Big Tech Destroys Creativity: a review of Chokepoint Capitalism
07-11-2023
Big Tech Destroys Creativity: a review of Chokepoint Capitalism
In this episode Justin and I talk about the book Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow and as an extension we discuss some of the ways that capitalism and the drive for profit limits artists and can actually harm the creative process. We also spend some time thinking about Michael Brooks and the impact he had and how his absence has impacted the left over the last 3 years.Some links to go with the videohttps://www.justinclark.org/blog/michael-brooks-against-the-web https://www.youtube.com/@TheMichaelBrooksShow https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/cory-doctorow/pdf-epub-information-doesnt-want-to-be-free-laws-for-the-internet-age-download/?id=000039228275 https://www.stereogum.com/2230667/anti-flag-announce-break-up-following-possible-rape-accusations-against-frontman/news/ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/the_casualties_frontman_jorge_herrera_quits_band Justin's linkshttps://www.justinclark.org/ https://www.instagram.com/justinclarkph/ https://www.tiktok.com/@justinclarkph  You can check out the full shownotes with pictures on my website - www.skepticalleftist.com and you can find all my social links on my linktree https://linktr.ee/skepticalcory You can rate and review the show here - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftis-1779751 You can support the show here - - https://www.patreon.com/skepticalleftist - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/skepticallefty --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/skepticalleftist/message