Upstream

Renzo Llorente, associate professor of philosophy and author on Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, brings scholarly perspective to Cuba’s long struggle. He maps decades of counterrevolutionary tactics from sabotage and invasions to economic warfare. Short, sharp takes explore political prisoners, one-party choices, press limits, and how sustained attacks have hardened Cuba’s resolve.

Jason Hickel, professor of international political economy and ecological economics and author on global inequality and degrowth. He links Palestinian liberation to the global fight against imperialism and capitalism. He discusses Palestine’s geopolitical role in West Asia, Israel as a U.S. proxy around the world, and how these dynamics tie into U.S. hegemony and the Second Cold War with China.

Helen Yaffe, a professor of Latin American political economy and author on Cuba and Che Guevara, discusses Che’s role in building socialism in post-revolution Cuba. The conversation covers Cuba’s semi-colonial economy, nationalisations amid US sabotage, Che’s industrial and financial roles, his focus on both production and socialist consciousness, mass education campaigns, and the foundations of Cuba’s biotech and state-led planning.

Hussein Assaf, Beirut-based journalist with Vocal Politics who reports on Lebanon and West Asia, provides on-the-ground analysis of Israeli strikes, displacement, and infrastructure damage. He discusses Hezbollah’s social role in the south, Lebanon’s sectarian political system, U.S. influence on appointments, and the information and psychological warfare shaping regional narratives.

Bikrum Gill, a political science and international political economy scholar and author, unpacks imperialism, sovereignty, and colonial capitalism. He explains why Iranian sovereignty threatens U.S. regional power. He connects US actions against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, brings China into the picture, and examines regional alignments and forms of resistance.

David McNally, radical socialist scholar and author of Slavery and Capitalism, offers a concise tour of Atlantic slavery as a capitalist, industrial-scale system. He contrasts modes of production, reframes plantations as nodes of commodity accumulation, and discusses race-making, class conflict, and mass resistance by bonded laborers.

Manolo De Los Santos, founder of the People’s Forum and researcher at Tricontinental, walks through Cuba’s revolutionaries and key moments. Short scenes cover the Moncada attack, exile and the Granma return, guerrilla survival in the Sierra Maestra, the Santa Clara offensive, early land reform and social programs, political education campaigns, U.S. hostility, Guantánamo tensions, and Cuba’s internationalist support for other movements.

Kristen Ghodsee, a professor of Russian and East European studies and author who researches political economy and gender. She discusses how capitalism co-opts love’s core parts. Short, sharp takes on attention becoming a commodity. Conversation on affection turned transactional. Notes how reciprocity and friendship are distorted by market forces.

Gabriel Rockhill, philosopher and activist teaching at Villanova and director of the Critical Theory Workshop, unpacks his investigation into how imperial forces shaped Western Marxism. He sketches intellectual warfare, the political economy of knowledge production, and cases from the Frankfurt School to Chomsky. The conversation closes by contrasting compatible anticommunist currents with a people’s intellectual like Michael Parenti.

Elina Xenophontos, an international law and economic globalization specialist, explains how decades of sanctions have reshaped Iran. She traces the sanctions from 1979 through JCPOA to 'maximum pressure.' Short, sharp discussions cover legal mechanisms, economic collapses, political factionalism, and how external pressure ties into domestic unrest.