Casement's Leftovers

Ireland has been living through a housing crisis for what feels like forever, and we here at Casement's Leftovers think it's high time that someone got up off their arses and did something about it. But what? We are joined by writer David Hartery (@DinoCrisisActor) to discuss his excellent article 'Marxism and the Housing Crisis', written for Socialist Voice. David explains what Marx and Marxism has to say about housing, before walking us through the origins of the crisis in Ireland and pointing us towards potential solutions (spoiler: we need to build more houses). We of course take Irish policy-makers to task, but we also look inwards and consider also whether or not the housing crisis provides an opportunity for the Left. How should we think of housing within capitalism? What should our demands be? Just how nice are Eoin Ó Broin's glasses? Make sure to tell your friends about the pod, and drop us a line at @casementslftvrs on Twitter, @casementsleftovers on Instagram, or casementsleftovers@gmail.com. You can find David's article here: https://socialistvoice.ie/2021/04/marxism-and-the-housing-crisis/Support the show

This month Heather & Matt are too busy "working" to perform their vital role of reigning Helen & Glen in from being the cyclical haters they were born to be - that's right, we're throwing it back to the original line-up babyyy! Join Helen & Glen as they take on the online cottage industry of monetizing your trauma in order to be the best activist there ever was. We discuss how  identity is becoming the core of our politics, and how those identities are reified by the trauma attached to them, and analyse how this intersects with social-media-as-a-career-ladder to create a society in which "sharing your story" of the worst thing that ever happened to you is actually ... highly profitable. If you hate everyone and yourself, you'll love this episode! Join us! Support the show

In which Matt says “fuck the Metaverse, all my homies hate the Metaverse” but Heather shouts back “LET 👏 PEOPLE 👏 ENJOY 👏 THINGS 👏.”Join Heather, Glen and Matt for the second half of their discussion on the Metaverse. This time round, Matt attempts to make a few extremely insightful points into the true nature of desire and the impossibility of any liberation from its indestructible shackles, but Heather and Glen spend most of the hour making fun of him for watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.Were smart phones a mistake? Will the Metaverse be different? Would you fuck Slavoj Žižek? Let us know on Twitter, Instagram or at casementsleftovers@gmail.comOther bits:Matt’s article on social media and alienation: https://therockisdead.com/2021/12/02/my-friend-adam-the-lonely-metaplanet-social-media-in-the-age-of-alienation/Outro music is Law and Order (Fazari Remix).Support the show

Technology – what’s it all about, anyway? Join Heather, Glen & Matt as they examine the promises and possibilities of Web 3.0. Can NFTs provide a viable alternative for artists to get paid fairly for their work? Is the Metaverse truly a game-changer for tech, or simply another false dawn? And what the hell is up with Mark Zuckerberg’s hair? We get into all of these questions (and more) over the course of two cyber-soaked episodes. In this, the first part, we start with a now woefully out-of-date chat about the Will Smith Slap, before checking in on Facebook/Meta and Emperor Zuck, and then finishing up for now with Heather and Matt getting into it about the pros and cons of NFTs. Then, check back next week for Part 2 where we delve deeper into the philosophy of the Metaverse itself, asking such existential questions as “what is desire?”, “is liberation possible?” and “what if you got fired in the Metaverse by a 3D Barney Gumble?” Also, don't forget you can email us at casementsleftovers@gmail.com or reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram. Let us know your takes, both good and bad! We will actually read them! Support the show

Feeling alone? Sexually inadequate? Is your dating app fueled anxiety getting you down?  We're here to help. This week Casement's Leftovers is cringing over the "Sex Positive" identity industrial complex. We weigh in on whether being into p*ss play makes you a better comrade or if wearing latex to sex parties will get you radical points online.Glen discusses the marketplace of TikTok "non-straight" masc queer baiting, and reveals his appreciation of the stanislavski method on P*rnHub.Helen and Heather get into it about performative sexuality, and discuss how much of what we do in bed is something we do for our own enjoyment. Matt dispatches from Berlin, discussing the psychotic history of the German Green Party.***Don't forget you can email us at casementsleftovers@gmail.com, tell us if we forgot to mock your personal kink.Intro music by Lick The Tins - "Can't  Help Falling in Love"Outro music by Birdcloud - "Saving Myself for Jesus" Support the show

All the way back in 1977 John and Barbara Ehrenreich coined the term “the professional-managerial class” to refer to “salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labour may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.” The term reemerged in the 2010s with renewed vigour as a useful way of denoting a class of technocratic liberals who occupy an increasingly dominant role in culture and politics, indulging in performative social justice posturing with one hand while resolutely defending the status quo with the other. On this episode, the crew discuss the latest intervention into this particular discourse, Catherine Liu’s 2021 book Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional-Managerial Class. In an attempt to locate the PMC in Ireland, we dive deep into the perverse habits and proclivities of this group of people, skewer their tendency to scold and moralise, and debate whether or not we should even think of them as a separate class at all. Oh, and about two thirds of the way through, we also watch some porn. Don’t ask me why. Oh, and because we always forget, a quick request (note: not begging) to share the podcast with your friends and family if you think they’d like it. People always say that iTunes reviews help, so maybe do that as well? Otherwise you might just be a perverted PMC dog. Support the show

Following an unexplained absence almost as traumatic as that of the Galaxy Truffle, everyone’s favourite Irish republican podcast is back, and just in time for the holidays! As the out of control woke brigade continues its unprovoked and ruthless war on Christmas, the Casement's crew get in the festive spirit by looking back on a war possibly even more pointless and unjust: Iraq. More specifically, Helen ruins your favourite Christmas film by arguing that Love Actually (2003) is literally Iraq War propaganda. Elsewhere, Heather is repulsed by the film’s promotion of creepy male behaviour and Glen is repulsed by the film’s Britishness. Turn the Christmas lights on and the Nostalgia dial all the way up to Sickly Sweet, and join Helen, Glen, Heather and brand new permanent co-host Matt on a trip back to the early 2000s, when Hugh Grant literally did 9/11 and George Bush told us "There’s WMDs, Actually".Support the show

We know what you're thinking - why hasn't my favourite republican podcast done an episode about the KEY event in the communist calendar: The Eurovision Song Contest?! It's TOMORROW NIGHT and THEY HAVEN'T SPOKEN ON IT YET - WELL WORRY NO MORE!!! HERE IT IS!!!!!!We talk everything from Johnny Logan to Dana, the American influence to the growing stalinisation of the competition, Riverdance to the event's typically European centrist claim of being "unpolitical" (and thus being explicitly political). We answer the question on everyone's lips: how big an impact did Dustin the Turkey have on the Lisbon Treaty? And finally we shine a much needed spotlight on Eurovision's elusive Soviet cousin: Intervision. DUN DUN DUNEnjoy, don't cancel us x Support the show

There's a reason we chose Roger Casement as the symbol for this podcast: a queer figure in Irish revolutionary history (queer here meaning gay, a failure and truly disruptive) and a genuine anti-imperialist who saw through a persuasive ideological hegemony in order to understand the brutality and illegitimacy of colonialism and dedicated his life to fighting it, he represents an active, civic republicanism that offers the contemporary Left so much. It's about time we dedicated an episode to him, and so Helen and Glen are joined by Professor Gerry Kearns to discuss Casement's life and the lessons we can take from his actions and ideas. They examine his cruising and the intersectional spaces of encounter that this carved out for him, his ability to identify and articulate the problems of colonialism in an explicitly socialist, materialist way, the importance he placed on love and humanity and his haunting final speech before his execution. They debate the limits of cultural nationalism, specifically with a 1916 framework, and look at how nationalism can be expanded through a re-imagining of the nation, an impetus on what kind of nation you want to build, and a centring of love, loyalty, legitimacy and humanity.  As if this wasn't enough, they finally discuss contemporary colonialism and how unregulated late stage capitalism has led us into a world as confusing and inhospitable as the one Casement faced, and use Casement's many lessons to try to understand how to make our way into a future he would be proud of. Prof Gerry Kearns has written a piece on Casement which can be read here: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/11094/1/Kearns%2CNally%2CAn%20accumulated%20wrong.pdf*Note: around 19 minutes in Gerry mentions Thomas Davitt, but this should actually be corrected to Michael Davitt. Support the show

That's right, we're giving the people what they want: another Mark Fisher episode! We obviously couldn't do it without Matt Wrafter from @therockisdead, so here he joins Helen and Glen to review Mark Fisher's recent posthumously published book; Post-Capitalist Desire. The book is a transcript from Mark's final lecture series and it's a revisiting of both the failures and successes of past countercultures in order to try and build a movement for the future. It's a beautiful, optimistic text which holds so much for any Leftist. Matt, Helen and Glen chose certain moments or quotes that meant to a lot to them and discuss why and how we can use them out here in the real world. They attempt to answer some of the scary questions about coping with material desire as an anti-capitalist, and discuss everything from the power of building a collective consciousness and how we'll manage this in our fractured, digital, post-covid world to the real problems with identity politics (not just right wing talking points about them) and how to move past their limitations into a shiny new post-capitalist world. Buy Post-Capitalist Desire here: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/postcapitalist-desire-the-final-lectures/Support the show