You may have grown up with the term “nonviolence” shining like a pole star over every discussion of how we accomplish socio-political change. But what does it really mean? And who defines violence for that matter—beyond the police, the courts, and others in power?
Today, the theory of non-violence has grown beyond its Gandhian, spiritual aspiration roots, while retaining an irrational faith and offering a distorted view of resistance history. It is now a think-tank-approved, purportedly evidence-based method that guarantees movement success.
That reasoning comes from the pioneering scholarship of the pacifist Gene Sharp in the 1960s, and his inheritors in strategic nonviolence discourse, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan. They argue that Gandhi’s sacred ideal of satyagraha also happens to be the only successful pathway to lasting change—and they have the data to prove it.
But do they? Nope. Matthew’s guest today persuasively shows that the movements we think of as “nonviolent” never really are. Why don’t we know this? Through a tangle of academic malpractice, spiritual bypassing, liberal wish fulfillment, and erasing anticolonial voices. Oh, and Gene Sharp also got a lot of funding from the Department of Defense.
Benjamin S. Case is a retired professional Muaythai fighter, an organizer, educator, and writer. He is a researcher at the Center for Work and Democracy and a fellow at the Resistance Studies Initiative.
P.S.: During our conversation, Ben mentioned that there are antifascist fighting clubs out there. Here are a few to look into:
Haymaker in Chicago.
SKN Muay Thai in Pittsburgh, PA.
Balagoon Boxing Club in Philly, PA.
Show Notes
Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | Case
Why Civil Resistance Works | Columbia University Press
Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org
Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part One) – Nonsite.org
Have Repertoire, Will Travel: Nonviolence as Global Contentious Performance
Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
47:48
257: AI Gurus
The chat bot flashes its elipsis at the bottom of the screen. What is it thinking, what does it want from you, what do you want from it? Beneath those pixels lies a sea of mined data and lightning storms of electricity heating up servers in barren deserts. What will it find for you in the past labor of the generations?
According to a stunning new article in Rolling Stone, it will find whatever the fuck makes you feel like a god—incuding all the NewAge pablum it has scarfed down—because oops, ChatGPT released a model that is just too sycophantic.
But as we break down today, the AI nonsensient flattery machine is designed to hook you into the regurgitative process of self-seduction. Is this a new spiritual delusion, or more of the same? And what does that kind and agreeable bot conceal?
Show Notes
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Chatgpt induced psychosis
ChatGPT And Generative AI Innovations Are Creating Sustainability Havoc
LLM Can Be A Dangerous Persuader
You'll Be Astonished How Much Power It Takes to Generate a Single AI Image
A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots
Intelligent Computing: The Latest Advances, Challenges, and Future
AI Data Centers Pose Regulatory Challenge, Jeopardizing Climate Goals
AI, Climate, and Regulation: From Data Centers to the AI Act
AI could impact 40 per cent of jobs worldwide in the next decade, UN agency warns
The Future of Jobs Report 2025
History’s Magic Mirror: America’s Economic Crisis and the Weimar Republic of Pre-Nazi Germany
The Great Filter: A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox
Academic Publisher Sells Authors’ Work to Microsoft for AI Training
Address of the Holy Father to the College of Cardinals (10 May 2025) | LEO XIV
Capitalism's Fascistic Tendencies — McGowan
McGowan, Todd. 2016. Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets. Columbia University Press.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. 1997. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Verso.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
1:14:31
Bonus Sample: The UFO Race-War Apocalypse is Coming!
It begins with a failed human sacrifice in Detroit in 1932. Some would say it actually starts with an evil god-scientist who created the first white people—white devils, really—some 6,000 years ago. Either way, the Nation of Islam has had an important cultural and political presence for almost a century in America.
Today’s installment of Julian’s Roots of Conspirituality series covers the incredible real world history of this extremist new religious movement, as well as its outlandish sci-fi mythological theology.
Show Notes
UAP in Nation of Islam?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
5:42
Brief: What Will Universal Healthcare Actually Require?
In 2022, Oregonians passed Measure 111, which amends the state constitution to declare access to affordable healthcare a right for every citizen. As it happens, this was the first ballot Derek voted on when moving to the state.
Now that the long journey to universal healthcare is a reality in Oregon, what does that actually entail? Derek is joined by two members of the nonprofit organization, Health Care for All Oregon: Collin Stackhouse, the Social Media Coordinator, and Rebecca Schoon, an Associate Professor of Public Health at Pacific University, who’s on the board. Together, they map out the journey ahead.
Health Care for All Oregon
Measure 111 passes, giving Oregonians a constitutional right to access affordable health care
Maga’s era of ‘soft eugenics’: let the weak get sick, help the clever breed
Show Notes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
33:10
256: Quacks, Cancer, and Kangen Water (feat Mallory DeMille)
Cancer, as physician and author Siddhartha Mukherjee writes, is the emperor of all maladies. The disease—the over 200 different diseases all falling under this umbrella term—has been with us as long as we’ve been us. If anything is truly ancient, it is the cancer cells that are in all of our bodies, just waiting to be turned on if the conditions are right, or if our genes dictate the inevitability.
Deep in wellness land, cancer is something entirely different. It’s avoidable if you stop consuming seed oils, stop using 5G, stop thinking negative thoughts, and by god, stop taking those jabs that cause all the turbo cancers going around. And with every wellness warning comes a wellness solution. Today our correspondent, Mallory DeMille, returns for a deep dive into the treacherous depths of one of the more insidious grifts: treating cancer with the power of…water.
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.
Österreich