The East is a Podcast

***Jay and I did a very long livestream, and I'm posting the first half of it here on the free feed.  To listen to the entire episode, please consider joining the Patreon, watching the episode on YouTube,  OR donating to a Gaza fundraiser! If you donate $25 or more to a fundraiser, I'll gift you a free year-long subscription to the podcast. Just send me an email at eastisapodcast@gmail.com with a screenshot of your donation and I will send you back a gift link***

You asked for more (at least according to Sina you did) and we...

I successfully bullied Justin from the Anti-Empire Project into a Saturday morning livestream!!! We talk, in a roundabout way, about ZIoAmerican regime change wars and what the defeat at the hands of Iran means for the future of the US empire.

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast Youtube channel
https://youtu.be/9pqgROaVlWc

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

This week's episode of Delete Your Account is a special collaboration with The East is a Podcast.

Kumars, Navid Zarrinnal and Sina Rahmani review bad takes on Iran by left-liberal academics and journalists in the Iranian diaspora.

Navid is now on Twitter @navidwahraman and Sina is still @UrOrientalist. Find East is a Podcast on YouTube and more of Navid's coverage on Instagram.

Watch the video edition of every episode of the Delete Your Account free feed on Patreon at patreon.com/deleteyouraccount and on YouTube @kumarsontv.

Welcome to episode 266 of DYA...

***I did an episode of the  @penandmachete  Livestream with comrades Navid and Diego***

Join AISC livestream producer Sina Rahmani along with AISC members Navid Farnia and Diego Alcalá for a conversation on the latest developments in the global anti-imperialist struggle.

Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel
https://youtube.com/live/kTSftJUL87s?feature=share

Follow AISC 

X (@penandmachete) 
Instagram (@penandmachete)

Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

Donations to the producer of this show...

Masha and Sardana are the Sakha scholars and co-hosts of the podcast TYMSYY, a multilingual podcast on global Indigenous topics produced by Red Media.

Subscribe to their show on your podcast app!
https://feeds.libsyn.com/580460/rss

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

****This was supposed to be a bonus episode but since I haven't been posting I decided to unlock it. Apologies again for the long delay between episodes!!!***

Tehran-based Sara discusses some of her experiences during the war, the rage she feels for Iranians who advocated for bombing, and the different meaning of resistance.

You can follow Sara on Instagram
@Sarasg2026

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

**Sorry for the long absence from the podcast. I am getting more content in the can! Here is a live episode of Lara Sheehi's show, Psychic Militancy**

I thought it was time to bring Sina from behind the scenes, to the limelight. Can you believe this is his first solo appearance on Psychic Militancy? This episode's graphic is Sina's brainchild, which should already tell you everything you need to know and have to look forward to for this episode. All things Iran, anti-imperialism, and empire's decay on full sight. 

Sina Rahmani is a producer extraordinaire an...

Sina, Adnan, and Nora are back on the couch for another round of Tankie Group Therapy.

Please consider supporting Mohammed. He is trying to raise $1600 towards his laptop and tuition
https://chuffed.org/project/168100-mohammed-and-siblings-need-our-help

Lara Sheehi is helping a comrade to raise some money for a Palestinian family
https://www.instagram.com/p/DZidHejxHtH/

Patreon
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

**This episode ends abruptly when Sara's internet connection cut off suddenly! We picked up the conversation as best as we could the next day. Part 2 will be available to Patrons (soonish) and on YouTube**

Tehran-based Sara discusses some of her experiences during the war, the rage she feels for Iranians who advocated for bombing, and the different meaning of resistance.

You can follow Sara on Instagram
@Sarasg2026

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians is a documentary film produced by Jo Franklin-Trout about Palestinian views on the Israeli occupation, first aired on PBS in 1989

"Days of Rage takes an inside look at the Palestinian intifada, which began in late 1987. Filmed in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, this documentary reveals the horrors of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Aired on September 6, 1989, Days of Rage drew one of the largest viewing audiences in the history of PBS."

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX16FuQg-ek

***Thank you to everyone who signed up and helped make this episode free. I appreciate the support***

Mujamma Haraket returns to the show for an overview of the complex relationship between Iran and Hamas, and the Palestinian resistance.

Check out his article, "How the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Developed its Relationship with Iran and Hajj Ramadan"

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/HKHEfCAtpFk

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

**I was once again forcibly conscripted into another edition of Iran vs. Epstein Empire. This is about 60% of the episode. You can listen to the entire episode if you become an EIAP Patreon or watch the livestream edition here**

"Have the tables turned" is the 17th installment of this collaborative livestream series Iran vs. the Epstein Empire or the Axis of Resistance vs. the Axis of Epstein.

As ever, co-hosts of Resistance is Fertile Podcast, Benji and Indi, will be there, but Adnan will be asleep on his travels East (but return next week!), so tw...

**This conversation went longer than expected. I have posted the first 75 mins of the episode here, to listen to the rest of it sign up for EIAP Patreon or watch the fulll episode on YouTube*** 

Navid, Sina Rahmani, Adnan Husain, and Kumars discuss the prospect of renewed bombing by the US and Israel, how Iranians view the global impact of Iran's military and economic resilience, how support for the Axis of Resistance registers on the Iranian domestic political spectrum, whether good anti-imperialists should all convert to Islam, and much more.

Watch the video edition on T...

**I did another episode of Iran vs. Epstein Empire with the boys of Resistance is Fertile. This is the first half of the conversation. You can watch the full episode on YouTube (link below) or subscribe to the East is a Podcast on Patreon, where I post all my guest spots on other shows.***

*** Please consider supporting Ameer https://chuffed.org/project/176452-help-ameer-live ****

Watch the livestream edition
https://youtube.com/live/9oaRcv7l1Ek

"Iran Breaks the Siege" is the 16th installment of this collaborative livestream series Iran vs. the Epstein Empire o...

Journalist and Al Mayadeen Producer Ali Jezzinni (@Aly_jezzini) returns to the show to discuss the much hyped "defeat" of Lebanon's Party of God and how the emergence of First Person View drone warfare represents a watershed moment in the fight for liberation.

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast Youtube channel

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast 

**I did a long livestream with Jay from MAKC on making media in a time of fascism and genocide.  This is about 50% of the episode. You can listen to the entire episode by becoming a member of the EIAP Patreon or watch it for free on YouTube***

In this episode, East is a Podcast and Millennials Are Killing Capitalism will co-stream to discuss the world of podcasting. How we do our work, what our struggles are, what our gripes are, and perhaps, what is to be done?

Watch the livestream edition on the EIAP YouTube c...

**Note: In the first half of the episode, there is an abrupt break in the conversation where we briefly discussed this clip of Martyred IRGC General Hajizadeh. Sorry for the confusion!**

Arash Joblaghi returns to the show (after a very long hiatus!) to discuss some of the broader historical trends that the Ramadan War demonstrated about the future (and present) of military conflict. 

Check out his earlier episode of the podcast, "The Meaning of Missiles"

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel

Consider supporting the show

Tankie Group Therapy is back! Sina, Jay, Lara, Adnan, Mikey, and Nora join the episode for a long debrief, and joining us for the first time is longtime friend of the show, Ali Alizadeh!

Some of the campaigns mentioned in the episode

https://chuffed.org/project/168100-mohammed-and-siblings-need-our-help 

https://chuffed.org/project/174168-support-a-third-round-of-spocs-for-gaza

https://www.freefunder.com/campaign/support-yusof-azizi

Watch the livestream edition on our YouTube channel

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Aman Ullah Tariq from the EON podcast returns to the show to discuss the negotiations between US and Iran in Pakistan and the latter's role in mediating all the actors in this conflict and the wider region. 

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/GwYsbmOimys

Make sure to check out his earlier episode 
https://youtu.be/hYC1aqErss8

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Jared Ware from Millennials are Killing Capitalism and Tankie Group Therapy alum Mikey joined me to talk about the latest developments from the war. 

Watch the livestream edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel
https://youtube.com/live/bReHZ4POy90

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

**We managed to get Navid online for a conversation on the perception of Iranians on this war.  This episode is co-published with Kumars Salehi at Delete Ur Account**

This week's episode is another collaboration with The Colony Archive and The East is a Podcast. As Roqayah continues to document the resistance to Israel's attempted ethnic cleansing of south Lebanon, Kumars and friend of the show Sina Rahmani reconnected with Navid Zarrinnal in Tehran after two weeks. 

Navid updates us on the current mood in Iran as US-Israeli bombardment continues, sharing his experiences of the significance of...

Sara Larijani is a PostDoc fellow in Political Geography at the University of Tehran. Her research is on British colonialism in Iran's oil frontiers.

Taha Zeinali (@tahazeinalih) is a doctoral researcher in development studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research focus is imperialist hybrid war, sanctions and sovereign development in Iran.

They are both co-founders of the Center for Resistance, Sovereignty and Development Studies at the University of Tehran.

Watch the video edition on The East Is a Podcast YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/PKc1RPqnca8

Consider supporting t...

**I did an episode with comrads Jay from MAKC and Kumars from Delete Ur Account last week and forgot to post it! The episode explores the concept "kayfabe" in governing American cultural and political life**

In this episode Sina Rahmani from The East is a Podcast & Kumars Salehi from Delete Your Account will join us to talk about the wrestling term "kayfabe" which is about maintaining the illusions that staged storylines and pre-determined matches are authentic, and that wrestlers are actually the characters they portray. We'll talk about this idea in relation to how the US Empire...

Friend of the show Bikrum Gill is joined by Helyeh Doutaghi to discuss the resistance of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the US-Zionist war of aggression. The discussion focuses on the strategic objectives pursued by Iran in its resistance, and what the larger stakes are for the region and the world-system as a whole. It considers how Iran's resistance represents a historic advance for forces of anti-imperialism. Finally, the episode explores the basis of the specific social, historical, and theological bases of Iranian sovereignty.

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel<...

***I recorded an episode with some friends earlier this week but forgot to upload it until today! Apologies for the lateness**

As the imperialist war rages on a group of us will gather to talks through the developments of the last few days to analyze and discuss.
Adnan Husain from the Adnan Husain Show:    / @adnanhusainshow  
Lara Sheehi from Psychic Militancy:    / @psychicmilitancy  
Sina Rahmani from East is a Podcast:    / @theeastisapodcast  

Watch the livestream edition on MAKC YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZh7WXn9ovY

***I did an episode with the lovely folks at Out of Left Field from the End of Sport podcast.  Nathan is one of my older friends and comrades, and their show has been going strong for several years  

In this emergency episode of the End of Sport's Out of Left Field, Nathan, Derek, and Priyansh talk to ⁠The East is a Podcast'⁠s Sina Rahmani about the current situation in Iran, exploring the historical context, the role of imperialism, and the resilience of the Iranian state against foreign interference. We discuss the implications of the ongoing conflict across...

***Help support Mohammed and his siblings. They are having a difficult time with their living expences and donations have completely dropped off***   

Tankie Group Therapy is back! Lara, Jay, Mikey, Adnan, Nora and Sina got together to discuss the ZioAmerican imperialist aggression on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Note: This episode was recorded a few hours before the announcement of the martyrdom of Imam Ali Khamenei 

Watch the livestream edition on the East is a Podcast YouTube edition
https://youtube.com/live/wKEJ2N2hGA0

Consider supporting the show
www...

**Note: This episode contains a lot of discussion of screenshares. Unfortunately, we didn't do the best job describing every graph for audio listeners, so watch the video edition if you are interested in seeing the graphs cited and the slides prepared by the guest.***

Filmmaker Dror Dayan returns to the show to provide us with an overview of the Zionist media machine in Occupied Palestine.

You can follow him on Twitter
https://x.com/DrorDayan

Watch the video edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/5fkp6...

***This conversation with Mujamma stretched slightly over two hours and covered a lot of terrain. Part 2 is now available to patrons, as will the video edition of the entire episode. If a few of you sign up for the Patreon, I will unlock it in a couple of weeks on the free feed.*** 

The first half of a two-part episode with academic and translator Mujamma Haraket about the historical trajectory of actors, social forces, and ideologies that propelled the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine (HAMAS) from its early history to today.

Support Mujamma's fantastic work o...

**Producer's note:  The folks at Popular Front asked me to moderate this discusssion of Gabriel Rockhill's latest book on the history of the Frankfurt School. Make sure to check out Popular Front!**

---

We're thrilled to host author and philosopher Gabriel Rockhill on his book tour in Toronto. One of the key intellectuals of our movement today, his latest work explores ideas that are essential to understanding the challenges and necessities in building a socialist movement—especially for those of us living in the West.

Starting with a talk from the auth...

**Note: As I explain in the introduction to this video, this is a very special episode that consists of two halves featuring three Palestinians in Gaza sharing their stories. It has become more than evident that our racist ruling class and their media warriors are simply refusing to allow anything that humanizes Palestinians in the slightest into the mainstream. It falls to us to help break the narrative blockade on Palestinians and their liberation struggle. I hope to do more of this content in the future, so if you know people in Gaza who want to make their own...

***Note: Navid's internet has been very unreliable for weeks now, so when I managed to get hold of him with a stable VPN, we decided to hurriedly record. In haste, both of us managed to mangle our respective recordings. I have been forced to resort to--please forgive me, cruel podcast gods---AI audio enhancer tools to see if it could be improved, which it mostly did but there are some funny spots on my side.***

Navid Zarrinal, host of the Colony Archive, and one of the oldest friends of The East is a Podcast, described what he witnessed...

Tankie Group Therapy is back after a long, long hiatus!  Lara Sheehi from Psychic Militancy hosts this special, extra-super-duper-sized edition featuring all your TGT faves: Justin Podur, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Alex Avina, Joe Emersberger, Sina Rahmani, Arama Rata, Jared Ware, Adnan Husain, Asa Winstanley, and more! 

Watch the livestream edition on The East is a Podcast YouTube channel

Consider supporting the show
www.patreon.com/east_podcast

***RIP Michael Parenti***

Michael Parenti speaks at the University of Colorado, Boulder: "US interventionism, the 3rd world, and the USSR" April 15, 1986

Source
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP8CzlFhc14

Check out the Anti-Imperialist Archive  for more great archival mixes


Join us for a live edition of Tankie Group Therapy Sunday @ 3:30
https://www.youtube.com/live/rX2hbS3eKqg

**Note: When stuff in Iran goes down, my natural inclination is to avoid doing content and stay above the fray, at least until the media hysteria dies down.  Not the best way to run a media project, I know, but I just have a hard time with all the breathless coverage--BREAKING!!!--and don't really want to feed it. Even then, I am still Iranian, and if people ask me to record during these times, my cultural programming compels me to accept the invitation.   

This episode of Peacemongers with Mehmet and Erik was recorded as I was travelling for...

I have been on the road and unable to do a proper episode on what's happening on Iran, so I decided to post this quick spot I did with The Freedom Side from BT News. You can watch the full episode on their YouTube channel

If you can't wait until I am able to record a full episode on Iran (I will try to do one tomorrow night or Saturday morning), my comrade Nick and I recently did an episode of our paywalled show, Pod Kapital, and we discussed a little bit about what has been happening b...

***I have been working with Lara Sheehi on her new show.  Make sure you subscribe to her video and audio feeds to listen to the rest of this episode****

Ghassan Abu Sittah: Clinic as site of resistance

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah to discuss the centrality of the clinic in the genocidal violence perpetrated by the Zionist settler state in Gaza, his concept of the biosphere of genocide, and importantly, the site of the clinic as central to resistance, refusal, and liberation. Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a Br...

[NOTE: This is the first portion of the latest episode of The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective podcast.  Lots of great content has already been released on both audio and video feeds and more to come, so please make sure you subscribe to both!] 

Hosted by AISC co-founder Nina Farnia, this episode features two distinguished guests and friends of AISC, Venezuela's former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Ron and University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi. We initially filmed a 2025 anti-imperialist roundup on December 30, 2025, but just a few days later the US invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolas Maduro and F...

Producer's note:  Apologies for the long absence from the show. As I explain in the first few minutes of this episode, I have been busy launching some new shows in addition to this special episode, currently only available on the YouTube channel.  More great content for the main feed and bonus feed coming soon!

Max Ajl returns to the show to reflect on some of the wider historical contexts that laid the groundwork for the calamity that was 2025. 

This was recorded 2 days before the flagrant kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro

Watch the video edi...

The Struggle Session is back for November on Sunday Nov 23rd at 3pmET! This monthly livestream panel program is not convening to make you feel better--the unvarnished analysis and fierce self-criticism may make you feel a bit worse! But, it will inform and, hopefully, spur you to taking action. As Marx said, the point isn't just to understand the world but to change it. This is an activist panel for a much needed Struggle Session: Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within our Lifetime; Sina Rahmani, host of East is a Podcast and impressario/producer of the online tankie left; Henry...