Last Born In The Wilderness

Emma Kathryn, author of Reclaiming Ourselves from Gods&Radicals Press, joins me to discuss her writings exploring the practical steps we all can take to reclaim basic skill sets, such as foraging, cooking, folk medicine, and witchcraft. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/emma-kathryn // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Kristen Ghodsee, professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, joins me to discuss her work and lived experience researching the collapse of the Soviet Union and state socialism in Eastern Europe, the immediate and long-term impacts this event had on those that previously lived under those regimes, and how the rapid privatization and the imposition of capitalism impacted their lives in the decades thereafter. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/kristen-ghodsee // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

[Intro: 13:14] Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute, returns to the podcast to discuss the massive power outages several regions of the United States, in particular Texas, have experienced over several weeks in February, leaving millions of people without electric power and potable water. He explains the increasingly precarious situation we find ourselves in as fossil fuel energy production meets numerous intersecting crises, including, but not limited to: an aging and outdated energy grid, abrupt climate disruption-related weather events, rapidly depleting cheap fossil fuel reserves, and the fracturing of consensus reality.   We discuss the viability and, in his view, the necessity of undertaking the massive shifts needed to address these mounting problems with more sustainable energy production and distribution models. In addressing this subject, I ask Richard to discuss his thoughts on Jeff Gibbs' and Michael Moore's documentary film Planet of the Humans, which he was

Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise and Come of Age, returns to the podcast to discuss what he and musical collaborator Gregory Hoskins have been up to since their Nights of Grief and Mystery global tour was cancelled when coronavirus lockdowns began last year. Released in November, they put together two albums, DARK ROAD and ROUGH GODS. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/stephen-jenkinson-3 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

[Intro: 11:04] Political strategist and organizer Akin Olla joins me to discuss the history of the FBI’s assault on left-wing activists over the decades and the absolute necessity for organizers to have operational security in today’s political climate as Big Tech companies “depoliticize” their platforms in the wake of the Capitol siege last month. We address several of his recent articles published at The Guardian, including ‘The FBI can't investigate white extremism until it first investigates itself,’ ‘Facebook is banning leftwing users like me – and it's going largely unnoticed,’ and ‘The US Capitol riot risks supercharging a new age of political repression.’ In this interview, Akin dives into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's long and violent history of surveilling, attacking, and undermining leftist organizing in the United States since the agency’s inception in the early 20th century. Since the Capitol siege on January 6th, the FBI has turned its attention and resources toward identifying and det

[Intro: 11:50] David Nickles — Managing Editor of Psymposia, underground researcher, and harm reduction advocate — joins me to discuss the ongoing commodification, medicalization, and corporatization of psychedelics and the intersections between the far right, conspirituality, and psychedelia.  Psychedelics have gone mainstream. With major corporate interests now pushing for the legalization and commodification of psychedelic compounds in the US and abroad, David, along with his colleagues at Psymposia, have been critiquing the various claims these well-funded groups have been making in their effort to profit off the normalization and broader public acceptance of these controlled substances. In this interview, I ask him to elaborate on the various issues he has raised in his work, including the various forms of misinformation that have been presented to the public about the efficacy of psychedelic therapy in treating metal health disorders, particularly within the broader socioeconomic context we currently

[Intro: 8:08] Award-winning writer, poet, and scholar Frank B. Wilderson III joins me to discuss his book ‘Afropessimism,’ a "seminal work on the philosophy of Blackness" that, through a combination of profound personal reflection and meta-critical theory, peers deeply into the heart of the Black experience in the world today. “Why does a perpetual cycle of slavery—in all its political, intellectual, and cultural forms—continue to define the Black experience? And why is anti-Black violence such a predominant feature not only in the United States but around the world? “Combining trenchant philosophy with lyrical memoir, Wilderson presents the tenets of an increasingly prominent intellectual movement (Afropessimism) that sees Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Drawing on works of philosophy, literature, film, and critical theory, he shows that the social construct of slavery, as seen through pervasive anti-Black subjugation and violence, is hardly a relic of the past but the very engine that po

[Intro: 10:27] Professor Alex Vitale, sociologist and author of ‘The End of Policing,’ joins me to discuss the Capitol siege on January 6th, the role the Capitol police played in the event, and the deeply political reasons the police were under-resourced, under-staffed, and completely overwhelmed in the face of the mob.  Prof. Vitale steps outside the narratives that have inevitably emerged in the wake of this event: 1) That the failure to secure the Capitol is due to a lack of police funding and training (meaning we need to beef up policing in a general sense, leading to more legislation to "combat domestic terror" by expanding the surveillance and police state in the US). 2) That the police were "letting" the rioters into the Capitol building and actively cooperating with them (which there are isolated examples of, no doubt, but not in a general sense). These narrow interpretations exclude the true complexities of the event. Prof. Vitale provides deeper context into the ongoing efforts to scale back an

[Intro: 10:47] Journalist, activist, and researcher of far right movements Spencer Sunshine returns to the podcast to discuss the MAGA siege on the Capitol on January 6th, what led up to it, and what to expect from the far right as we transition into Joe Biden’s presidency.  This discussion begins by addressing the years-long harassment Spencer has experienced by far right actors, such as being labeled the "leader of Antifa," and most recently as the "QAnon Shaman” (who famously participated in the Capital riot) — an accusation make by Lin Wood, Trump's attorney who worked on the Kraken election fraud lawsuit. “So how did I come to be the face—or, rather, the name behind somebody else’s face—of a right-wing campaign to deny crimes committed by other right-wingers? What unfolds is a decade-long tale of an ever-morphing conspiracy theory about me, originally forged in the crucible of neo-Nazi anti-Semitism and developed by a variety of small-time far-right figures before a Trumpist grifter injected it onto a

[Intro: 14:13 | AMA 1/15: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse] Joe Brewer — change strategist, complexity researcher, and cognitive scientist — returns to the podcast to update us on the regenerative land restoration work he and his family have been engaged in since we spoke early last year. This discussion includes themes elaborated on in his new book ‘The Design Pathway’ published on the Earth Regenerators website, as well as what it means to be "future indigenous" in our time of biospheric collapse, and the near and long-term goals of the Barichara Regeneration Fund.  Joe has a background in physics, math, philosophy, atmospheric science, complexity research, and cognitive linguistics. Awakened to the threat of human-induced climate disruption while pursuing a Ph.D. in atmospheric science, he switched fields and began to work with scholars in the behavioral and cognitive sciences with the hope of helping create large-scale behavior change at the level of global civilization. Joe and his family currently li

[Intro: 12:57] Duncan Tarr, prison abolitionist and researcher for Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest Across the US and Canada, joins me to discuss their recent report on the wave of strikes, rebellions, and general acts of civil disobedience — organized by detainees in prisons, jails and ICE detention centers — that have occurred since the coronavirus pandemic began early last year.  “At Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest we track all instances of prisoner protest across the US and Canada since 2010 that involve multiple prisoners. In early 2020 we were paying close attention to the outbreak of prisoner rebellions, escapes, riots, and resistance in other parts of the world in response to the coronavirus, most notably in Italy. As COVID breached the shores of the U.S. (where we live) we prepared ourselves as best we could to document what we anticipated would be a huge uptick in prisoner organizing and action. That wave did in fact crash, and we subsequently counted 119 instances of prisoner

[Intro: 11:02] David Lundgren, tribal attorney and author, joins me to discuss his new book ‘Massacre Rocks: A Campaign of Deception.’  Through years of research, Dave has uncovered "inconsistencies in historical accounts of emigrant massacres along the Oregon Trail that did not reflect official governmental records," most notably in the case of a massacre of white emigrants allegedly committed by a small band of Shoshonis, on the site now designated as Massacre Rocks State Park located just west of American Falls, Idaho. These inconsistencies have revealed, as in the case of this particular massacre, that many of these acts of mass murder along the Oregon Trail were committed by Mormon settlers in the region. With this reality in mind, Dave and I discuss how this mass propaganda campaign to distort the history of this region has manifested in the white settler culture in southern Idaho. “The book was completed just before the Pocatello School District voted to end the use of the “Indians” mascot at Pocat

[Intro: 12:32] Melissa Troutman and Joshua Pribanic, co-directors of the documentary ‘Invisible Hand,’ join me to discuss the Rights of Nature movement beautifully documented in their film. I ask them to define the philosophy and legal framework communities across the US (and the world) are implementing to battle against corporate-led environmental destruction in their localities. “Rights of Nature are the beginning of a new legal paradigm in western culture. The idea argues that nature holds inalienable rights, and that vital parts of Nature — a river or watershed or ecosystem — shall be granted personhood in the court of law and be provided with legal standing to defend itself.” (http://bit.ly/37BPMA3) Granting legal rights to natural entities and systems — in which we are inextricably connected to — is one of several tactics that can be employed to forge a path toward protecting the natural world from environmentally destructive corporate practices in communities across the world. Melissa A. Troutman

[Intro: 10:02 | Outro: 39:18] Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, discusses President Trump and his legal team's ongoing attempt to perform an "electoral coup" since the presidential election last month. She describes, in detail, the legal challenges Trump's team have made in the last several weeks, as well as the likelihood of their success in undermining the result of the election in states across the United States. After that, we discuss the recent assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist, on November 27th. As she writes in a recent article in TruthOut:  “Although the Israeli government has not claimed credit for the illegal killing, there is little doubt of its culpability. Trump implicitly praised the assassination, retweeting a comment by Israeli journalist and intelligence expert Yossi Melman that the killing was a “major psychological and professional blow” to Iran. This was an “implicit app

[Intro: 8:17] Jared Yates Sexton, political commentator and author of 'American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People,' returns to the podcast to discuss the state of the Trump Administration and “Trumpism” post-election, with former Vice President Joe Biden winning the presidential election last month, and Trump still refusing to concede. What does politics look like and feel like in our post-modern era? Jared and I begin this discussion with that thought, that question, in mind. In the United States, we are about a month out since millions of citizens cast their votes in the presidential election, a contest between incumbent President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden, having now decisively won in both the popular vote and Electoral College, presently awaits to be inaugurated President in January. While this may be objectively true, President Trump has refused to concede and admit defeat, instead doubling down and reinforcing claims that the electoral process

In this interview, I speak with Amy Lou, a registered nurse currently working in the ICU at the local hospital in Twin Falls, Idaho. Amy has been attending to patients suffering from COVID-19 for several months. She describes the impact this pandemic is having on healthcare workers' ability to provide an adequate level of care as infection rates in Idaho continue to spike, with insights into the heavy emotional/psychological toll imposed isolation has on patients and their loved ones as they battle the dire symptoms of the virus. A segment of this interview was featured in episode #277 of Last Born In The Wilderness “On The Frontline: COVID Crisis In Southern Idaho w/ Registered Nurses Of The Magic Valley.” Listen to the episode: https://bit.ly/LBWnurses WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTH

In this interview, I speak with Sami Ruggles, a registered nurse working in the COVID Unit at the local hospital here in Twin Falls, Idaho. Sami describes the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on healthcare workers' ability to provide adequate care for patients suffering from the virus, as well as the role comorbidities in the general population has played in the severity of the public health crisis in this area.  A segment of this interview was featured in episode #277 of Last Born In The Wilderness “On The Frontline: COVID Crisis In Southern Idaho w/ Registered Nurses Of The Magic Valley.” Listen to the episode: https://bit.ly/LBWnurses WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

In this interview, I speak with Jennifer Gardner, a registered nurse living and working in Twin Falls, Idaho. Jennifer Gardner has a background in obstetrical nursing, and currently works in Perianesthesia in Southern Idaho. She has just completed her Master’s degree as a Family Nurse practitioner. I’ve known Jennifer for several years now, and asked her if she would be willing to discuss the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on healthcare workers in this area, including their ability to perform their jobs under current conditions. Idaho, like so many other states in the nation, is currently experiencing a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases as we enter into the winter months, outpacing the initial surge of cases earlier this year. A segment of this interview was featured in episode #277 of Last Born In The Wilderness “On The Frontline: COVID Crisis In Southern Idaho w/ Registered Nurses Of The Magic Valley.” Listen to the episode: https://bit.ly/LBWnurses WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com

[J. Gardner: 11:24 | S. Ruggles: 31:18 | A. Lou: 50:34] In this episode, I speak with Jennifer Gardner, Sami Ruggles, and Amy Lou — registered nurses working locally in Southern Idaho. This episode is a compilation of segments of each of those interviews, with the full interviews to be released alongside this episode as well. Over the past few weeks, I conducted these interviews to provide a more direct, personal, and on-the-ground perspective of how the dramatic surge of novel coronavirus hospitalizations is impacting local healthcare workers and the medical system at large. Idaho, like so many other states in the United States, is currently experiencing a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases as we enter into the winter months, dramatically outpacing the initial surge of cases earlier this year. What is happening here in Twin Falls County is reflective of what's happening in rural areas all over the United States. Jennifer Gardner has a background in obstetrical nursing, and currently works in perianesthesia

[Intro: 10:54] In this episode, I speak with Cultural Somatics practitioner and teacher Tada Hozumi. This discussion, in many ways, builds upon my previous interview with animist counselor Dare Sohei, a colleague of Tada's, in exploring and articulating the Cultural Somatic framework that encapsulates their approach in addressing systemic oppression, colonized bodies, dance, ancestral trauma, and call-out culture. To further define Tada's work and the Cultural Somatics framework, they state on their website that: 1. Cultures are in fact bodies, or rather ‘cultural somas’, that emerge from networks of relationships. Cultural somas are intangible in nature yet can function similarly to our own body that has a delicate nervous system. This fractal relationship between individual and cultural somas shows us that all somas, large and small, are meant to be in co-healing with each other. 2. The above-mentioned cultural somas are also fields in which all intangible ‘beings’, ones our elder cultures referred to as