C-Realm Podcast

KMO welcomes Liz Reitzig of Raw Milk Freedom Riders back to the program to talk about the FDA's campaign against raw milk and against families who trust their own judgment more than they trust that of federal agencies in a state of regulatory capture by giant agribusiness corporations. KMO plays devil's advocate and mounts a strong challenge to his own libertarian ideals as they discuss the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. KMO brings in the voices of Joel Salitin, Sheriff Richard Mack, and Mike Daisy to put the raw milk question into a larger context. Music by Dan Bull.

KMO welcomes Nicole Foss (AKA Stoneleigh of the Automatic Earth blog) to the C-Realm to discuss the need for re-localization, something which central authorities will work to quash lest it interfere with the conveyance of wealth from the periphery to the center. Nicole explains what she means when she describes cash as "a pile of unmade choices" and why she cannot offer her uncomplicated support for political movements like the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street. She does voice her strong support for permaculture and for restoring soil fertility. Music by Andrew Woods.

KMO welcomes Mark Robinowitz of Oil Empire back to the C-Realm to discuss economics, protest, and the management of mainstream worlviews by the corporate media. Mark explains why he regards the presidential election as a form a theater and why he holds no enthusiasm for the candidacy of Ron Paul. Music by Kurt Liebezeit.

KMO talks with Bruce Damer and Galen Brandt about what it's like to have crossed the threshold into 2012 after so many years expectations built up listening to Terence McKenna novelty and concrescence. Other topics of discussion include upgrading our personal and societal operating systems, the complexity of our world made by nerds, and the reality of the situation on the ground in Pakistan and how it differs from the worldview propagated by the screaming media. Music by Mawwal.

KMO welcomes C-Realm Podcast regular, Eric Boyd, back to the program to talk about the protest movements of 2011, the need for, and roadblocks to, a debt jubilee, and whether there is any meaningful distinction to be drawn between extreme libertarianism and anarchism. They both stick their necks out and make predictions for 2012. Music by Garret Wayseer.

KMO welcomes Doug Lain back to the program to discuss his novella, Wave of Mutilation, a tale of bizarro fiction in the fourth-wall-shattering tradition of VALIS. The discussion, of course, turns to Occupy Wall Street, and Doug suggests that the prevailing anarchist mentality of the protest movement could learn something from Marxist Communism, even though Doug admits that he doesn't know enough about Marxism to call himself a Marxist. KMO concludes with readings from David Brin and David Graeber. Music by Tiny Machines.

What does 2012 hold in store? KMO put that question to Steve Keen, Nicole Foss and Thomas H. Greco. In the second half of the program, KMO shares recordings from this year's ASPO-USA conference and responds to questions from listeners. Music by Resist Not.

KMO welcomes KunstlerCast host, Duncan Crary, back to the C-Realm to talk about his four-year intellectual apprenticeship which has culiminated in his new book, The KunstlerCast: Conversations with James Howard Kunstler. Duncan extols the virtues of life in Troy, New York, which requires of him neither cell phone or automobile. The conversation turns to the Occupy movement, the Ecovillage Training Center, and, of course, podcasting. KMO concludes the podcast with praise for David Graeber's new book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Music by Deertick.

KMO welcomes filmmaker and novelist Timothy Scott Bennett back to the C-Realm to discuss vision quests and the search for a new story by which to orient the human relationship to our world. For 10,000 years, humans have lived the story that the world was made for our use, and this programming has brought us to the edge of ecological ruin. In the second half of the conversation Tim reads from his new novel, All of the Above, and Tim explains why he mixed concerns about peak oil and environmental degradation with aliens, UFOs, and other seemingly frivolous and fanciful elements. Monologist Martin Dockery describes how the police could brutalize protesters without having to live with the consequences of having their actions captured on video. Music by Kyrstyn Pixton.

This episode of the C-Realm Podcast features a conversation between KMO, Guy McPherson, Kurt Cobb, and Henry Warwick. Guy hopes for a crash of industrial civilization in the near term, Kurt warns that saying "collapse" in front of a general audience is like cursing around children, and Henry details his criticisms of ecological rhetoric; criticism that apply to the peak oil and climate changed crowds as well. Music by Tiny Machines.

KMO welcomes anti-economist Professor Steve Keen to the C-Realm to detail the limitations of neoclassical economics as well as popular misconceptions promulgated by advocates of alternative economics. Professor Keen disposes of the "moral hazard" argument against the inevitable debt jubilee and provides some advice for weathering the looming economic tumult. Music by Fernando Tarango.

KMO travels to Washington DC for the annual ASPO conference and the NYC for Occupy This, a night of discussion on the topic of Occupy Wall Street. Featuring the voices of Dmitry Orlov, Aaron Wissner, Mark Robinowitz, and Dennis Meadows. Music by Tiny Machines.

KMO, Olga K, and Albert Bates take the C-Realm Podcast on the road. First Stop: the ASPO-USA conference in Washington DC. Podcasting from the home of C-Realm guest Gary Borjesson, KMO talks with Albert and Olga about the trip itinerary, and KMO plays conversations with James Howard Kunstler, David McFadzean, and Nikola Danaylov, AKA Socrates of the Singularity Weblog, on the topic of technology. Do accelerating returns in the advancement information technology yield corresponding improvements in human quality of life, or have we reached a point of diminishing marginal returns? Music by Kai Altair.

KMO turns the first half of this week's C-Realm Podcast over to rational UFO researcher, Larry Lowe, who weaves together clips from the movie Network, a clip from last week's episode, and historical information about Project Mockingbird to demonstrate how the CIA and corporate propagandists manage the opinions of the many for the benefit of the few. Later in the episode, Tim Bennett, creator of the film What a Way to Go: Life ant the End of Empire, talks about the difficult process of grappling with marginalized topics and fringe ideas. Both Tim and his partner Sally Erickson will be presenters at the upcoming Local Futures conference. Jay Smooth describes how the OWS movement is outing the corporate "ringers," and KMO concludes with a reading from a recent blog post by Matt Tiabbi about the most recent Corporate Media strategy to discredit the OWS movement. Music by Deep 1 and Rhiannon Giddens.

On the scene in NYC, KMO and Olga K roam the city collecting the authentic voices raised in protest and celebration. Americans have been stewing quietly in their dissatisfaction and resentment over being robbed, exploited, abused, lied to, and, worst of all, scape-goated by the 1% and their lackeys in government and the corporate media. The first half of the program consists of on-the-street interviews, and then Justin Ritchie, of the Extraenvironmentalist Podcast, joins the conversation via Skype to connect the macro and the micro in a focused discussion of what happened on the ground in NYC and what's happening around the globe and in cyber-space. Music by Sxip Shirey.

On the road in NYC and Upstate New York, KMO welcomes James Howard Kunstler back to the C-Realm to discus the Occupy Wall Street movement, tribes of hopeless and clueless youth like the Juggalos and Juggalettes, the techno-narcissism of Ray Kurzweil and the Singularitarians, and the damage caused by the metastasized and hypertrophied financial sector of the economy. Music by Fernando Tarango.

KMO welcomes permaculturalists Dave Jacke, author of Edible Forest Gardens, and Cliff Davis, co-director of Spiral Ridge Permaculture Gardens, back to the podcast to discuss permacultural consciousness and how it applies to ecovillages, marriages, as well as personal and societal transformation. Music by Tim's Myth.

KMO welcomes John Michael Greer back to the C-Realm to discuss maladaptive memes like the ones that drive speculative bubbles and predictions of the impending end of the world. Economists believe that abstractions, like money, can be manipulated in ways that can overcome the material limitations of the "real" world. John Michael says that to call this "magical thinking" is to do a serious disservice to operative mages and other practitioners of magical techniques. He suggests that we label the belief that we can derive something from nothing "economic thinking." Music by the Transpersonals.

KMO welcomes John Michael Greer back to the C-Realm Podcast to talk about millennialism and our human attraction to the idea of the impending end of the world, which is the topic of John Michael's newest book, Apocalypse Not: Everything You Know About 2012, Nostradamus and the Rapture Is Wrong. The wide-ranging conversation touches on UFOs, the Technological Singularity, the Mayan calendar, and the efforts of one formerly industrial town to re-invent itself and thrive in the emerging post-industrial economy. Music by Mattriks and the Book of Kin.

KMO welcomes Mark Robinowtiz of OilEmpire.us to the C-Realm to separate verifiable claims from wild science fiction-inspired fantasies concerning the events of September 11, 2001. Mark answers 9/11 skepticism from Gwynne Dyer, and guides the listeners through the treacherous tangle of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the nuttiest of which are held up by the establishment and mainstream media as being the scaffolding upon which suspicion of complicity in the attacks stands or collapses. In the second half of the program guest host Olga K interviews her friend Kevin Ryder, a New York City yoga instructor who responded to the attacks by flying to Pakistan and crossing over by bicycle into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to serve as volunteer peacemaker. Music by the Transpersonals.

In the second half of KMO's recent face to face interview with Charles Eisenstein, the conversation picks up where the previous episode left off. Charles describe the coming gift economy, and KMO channels John Michael Greer to challenge the notion of a rapid, practically miraculous, transformation of consciousness and society. Near the end, the conversation veers to more esoteric and potentially treacherous narratives.

KMO welcomes Charles Eisenstein back to the C-Realm Podcast to discus his new book, Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. Charles talks about interest and the economic imperatives that it fosters. If the value of money decreased over time rather than growing via interest, then it would be clear to everyone that the best thing one can do with one's money is to spend it quickly and close to home. In times of chaos and potential collapse, the best way to preserve wealth is to give your money away to those in need. Music by Inspired Flight.

KMO welcomes repeat guests Richard Heinberg and Dmitry Orlov back to the C-Realm Podcast to compare notes on the state of economic transition in which we find ourselves. In his new book, The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, Richard makes the case that we have reached a crucial inflection point in economic history after which human progress and well-being must be de-coupled from economic growth. Dmitry describes a near-term future in which the United States has been dismantled by its creditors, whom he describes as trans-national mafias. While there is no escape from what Richard calls the Black Hole of Debt, Dmitry insists that it's not too late to make adaptive lifestyle changes if we can avoid the temptation to tune out real experience in favor of the sorts of branded experience that we can access through our whiz-bang handheld devices. Music by Critter Jones.

KMO welcomes John Michael Greer back to the program to discuss his new book, The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered. JMG has re-thought economics, starting from its fundamental premises, giving it a basis in ecological reality rather than political fiction. He explains why there are no "free markets" and why there never have been. The discussion concludes with a brief discussion of UFO true believers and their counterparts in the psuedo-skeptical community of UFO debunkers. Music by Tonal Oak.

KMO welcomes 1491 author Charles Mann to the program to talk about the economic, political, sociological, and perhaps most important, biological homogenization that began when Admiral Cristóbal Colón established the first European outpost in what is now the Dominican Republic. This so-called Columbian Exchange initiated a bonanza in global trade which lead to the first global economic crisis. Is that cat out of the bag, or is there still something to be gained by trying to put the breaks on this global free-for-all.

Music by Woodland5.

KMO welcomes Afghanistan war veteran, Jacob George, to the program to talk about cycling for peace, war resistance from inside the military, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Military Sexual Trauma, and the misguided attempt to impose Western social norms and political structures on the tribal societies of Afghanistan.

Music by Madeline Ava.

KMO welcomes Albert K. Bates back to the program, and they sit down together for a chat with Richard Heinberg, author of Peak Everything. Albert admits that he's finding it hard to maintain his "soft lander" status in the face of mounting evidence, and Richard talks about the themes in his new book, Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis. Later KMO plays a clip of post-interview banter with yoga instructor and musician Danny Paradise.

Music by Glöd.

KMO welcomes Douglas Rushkoff back to the C-Realm to discuss the effect that corporations have on our lives, where corporations came from, and how they enjoy a playing field tilted in their favor by government regulation which insulates them from competition from more local and human-scaled alternatives. Douglas addresses these topics in his new book, Life, Inc. Later in the program, Douglas talks about how messages from Quetzalcoatl really aren't from Quetzalcoatl once they pass human lips and how the ayahuasca crowd really needs to get over 2012.

Music by Patrick Ross

KMO welcomes Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, to the program to examine the corporate media-fabricated bubble of hyper-propaganda that Americans perceive as the real world, the "Stockholm syndrome of the soul" by which we identify with the ideologies of our captors and align ourselves against our own interests, and what this snow globe of a society looks like from the outside.

Music by Neon Brown

KMO welcomes Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Upside of Down, back to the program to discus the potential, connectedness, and resilience of adaptive systems like ecosystems and economies. Is restoring the growth trajectory of the global economy a viable means of securing long term prosperity? What impact is technology having on employment, and is full employment a workable or even desirable goal? Later, Tad reads from his forthcoming book, Carbon Shift: How the Twin Crises of Oil Depletion and Climate Change Will Define the Future

Music by Jeff Andrews.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/395767.html

KMO welcomes energy infrastructure analyst Jeff Vail to the program to talk about how growth-oriented hierarchies start to come unglued when they run up against the energy and resource limitations that prohibit continued growth. Listen in to hear how this idea relates to Professor Laurence J. Peter's famous principle.

Music by Float.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/390169.html

KMO welcomes Daniel Pinchbeck and Dmitry Orlov to the program to discuss their visions of the challenges and opportunities that present themselves in this liminal moment in human history. Might our economic system be on the verge of collapse? Would that necessarily be a bad thing? How might we reinvent ourselves and our society as we search for a new guiding communal myth? Later, KMO talks with Corey Call about the upcoming Coalessence Festival in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/375721.html

KMO welcomes Dennis M. Bushnell, chief scientist of the NASA Langley Research Center, to discuss climate change and ways of combating it that don't produce Big Brother on steroids. Mr. Bushnell also discusses the existential risks that could arise from the "simultaneous IT, bio, nano, quantum, energetics, double exponential tech revolution."

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/358068.html

In this 100th episode of the C-Realm Podcast, KMO welcomes SF author Charles Stross to the program to discuss the convergence of massively multi-player online games, live action role-playing games, and the emerging infrastructure of the surveillance society. After that he considers listener feedback on the topic of whether human intelligence is somehow privileged or more important than that of other forms of life.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/353095.html

KMO gets an ayahuasca retreat update from Matt W. of the Temple of the Way of Light. After that Dennis McKenna manifests in the C-Realm to solve the riddle of consciousness and shine the light of his awareness on such topics as environmental degradation, the evolution of machine intelligence, and, of course, Amazonian ayahuasca shamanism.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/352051.html

Dmitry Orlov and Albert K. Bates explore visions of a
post-collapse America, and later KMO talks food, consciousness, and
the forces of darkness with Neil Kramer of the Cleaver.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/337437.html

In this installment, KMO speaks with Colin Tudge and David Blume about the possible applications of high technology, genetic engineering, robotics and artificial intelligence in farming.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/335289.html

http://www.permaculture.com

In this episode KMO talks with Gyrus about this crunch time in human history. Later we hear from author Colin Tudge on how to feed a global population of 9 billion and feed them well for the long haul.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/335090.html

In this episode, KMO concludes his conversation with James H. Kunstler, author of the Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. Later, we hear from Kathy McMahon, founder of PeakOilBlues.com about the range of psychological reactions which commonly manifest themselves in people who come to appreciate the implications of peak oil.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/331946.html

KMO welcomes author Dmitry Orlov back to the program for a discussion of keeping people fed in times of turmoil and for a reading from Orlov’s soon-to-be-published book, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. After that, James H. Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, drops by to talk about the fate of surburbia in the post-petroleum era.

Show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/331057.html

In this episode, KMO reads more listener email than regular listeners would probably expect to hear. He then takes a short quote from Vernor Vinge and spins it out for half the show talking with Professor Cornelia Butler Flora about the difference between "standard of living" and "quality of life."

Extended show notes: http://kmo.livejournal.com/315538.html

This "best of" show draws from the most memorable interviews of the first 49 episodes of the C-Realm Podcast. Featured guests include: Douglas Rushkoff, Jeremy Narby, Catherine Austin Fitts, Dmitry Orlov, and Thomas Homer Dixon.

Start here for an excellent introduction to the major (non-psychedelic) themes of the show.