Oats for Breakfast

Oats interviews Freddie deBoer about his book, "The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice." In the book Freddie argues that, to the extent that educational outcomes are the result of inherent differences between individuals, a system that distributes rewards based on educational outcomes should be regarded as unfair. Find out how you can get a copy of "The Cul...

Oats for Breakfast chats with Yana Ludwig, a socialist running for office in one of the most conservative states in the US. Yana is a candidate in Wyoming's Democratic Party Senate primary, set to take place on August 18th. We chat about her platform, about how her campaign is trying to win over workers in the coal industry, and more! Yana's campaign website: https://www.yana4wyo.com/ Support the...

Oats chats with Dimitri Lascaris about his candidacy in the Green Party's leadership race. Dimitri tells us about how he became a socialist, the need to abolish billionaires, the impact that COVID-19 has had in long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario, his hopes for advancing a progressive agenda that can grow the Green Party, Canada's failed bid to win a UN Security Council seat, and a lot...

Oats for Breakfast chats about the recent wave of protests that were sparked by George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis. We get into a critical discussion about the potential impacts of the protests on the upcoming US election, the merits of defunding the police, whether racism explains patterns in policing, as well as about the way anti-racism is promoted.

Oats first hosted a discussion about COVID-19 on episode 40 (which was published on February 10, 2020), well before the pandemic attained global proportions. In this episode we go back to review what we thought about the disease back then and offer a reassessment. We also chat about China's relatively successful efforts in dealing with its outbreak and try to come to terms with why Canada and espe...

We return from our month long hiatus to chat about our experience of travelling back to Canada and (after developing some symptoms) our efforts to try to get tested for COVID-19. Everything worked out OK for us in the end, but our experience suggests that the response to the COVID-19 crisis is not being managed particularly well in Canada. Oats for Breakfast relies on listener support to sustain i...

Oats will be on hiatus during May. A couple of us need to travel back to Canada and managing the logistics of that are going to make it difficult to continue publishing podcast content. Since we won't be publishing content and therefore won't have our usual costs this month, Patreon billing was paused. We hope to see you all again in June!

We continue the discussion we were having last time about the way the COVID-19 crisis is playing out in the Global South. We chat about preachers who want to protray the virus as a form of divine punishment, the rise of domestic abuse, as well as the economic depravation and hunger resulting from the crisis. Oats for Breakfast relies on listener support to sustain itself. You can support us by bec...

In this episode we chat a bit about the experience we've had with the COVID-19 crisis while being in the Global South before getting into a broader discussion of the social and political developments that are taking place in our surroundings. We take up the issues of policing, the strife of daily wage earners, minority scapegoating, and more. The outlook for much of the Global South is not good bu...

Oats chats with Dru Oja Jay and Sam Hersh about the ongoing efforts to organize rent strikes across Canada. We talk about the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on renters, the desperation that's leading many to forgo paying rent, the kind of coalition-building that will be required if a rent strike movement is to win needed political victories, and more. Check out CancelRent.ca if you'd like to f...

In the second part of our collaborative discussion with Jamhoor.org, we chat about some of the protest movements currently active in India and Pakistan, including the anti-war Pashtun Tahafuz Movement and the Shaheen Bagh protests. We also talk about the repression in Kashmir, and about how inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict can help to undermine the class struggle in South Asia.

Oats for Breakfast, in collaboration with Jamhoor.org , hosts a discussion about South Asia. We chat about Hindutva and the closing off of space for dissent in India, some of the seemingly-parallel trends currently underway in Pakistan, the contradictions of minority nationalism, as well as a whole lot else. Oats relies on listener support to sustain itself. Support us by becoming a monthly patron...

Oats continues the dicussion about Jagmeet Singh's 'Love & Courage.' In this segment, while digging deeper into Singh's book, we try to take stock of his recent condemnation of the pro-Palestine movement, we compare him with Bernie Sanders, and chat about the challenges involved in pushing the NDP to the Left.

Oats hosts a critical discussion about Jagmeet Singh's book, 'Love & Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected.' (We're not trying to mean — we promise! We're just trying to understand why it is that the NDP remains committed to centrism, even while the electoral Left in the US and elsewhere is going through a resurgence.)

Oats chats with Vancouver-based writer, activist, and comedian Charlie Demers about indigenous sovereignty, pipeline resistance, and the contradictions of resource of development.

The second part of our discussion about the coronavirus outbreak. This time we chat about some of the conspiracy theories that are spreading about the virus as well as about the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment — and we try to think through what the best way for leftists to respond to conspiracy theories and xenophobia.

We sit down to chat about the coronavirus outbreak, its social and cultural implications, and we use the opportunity to highlight some aspects of the Chinese state — especially the capacity of the central state to retain legitimacy even when Chinese citizens lose trust in local and regional layers of the state. The personal account (of a woman from Wuhan) that we reference during the episode can b...

We continue our discussion about HBO's 'Watchmen.' This time we get into chatting reparations, particularist and universalist policy measures, as well as the tendency of liberal storytellers to seek individualist solutions to social problems.

Oats hosts a discussion on HBO's 'Watchmen,' a superhero drama series that deals with issues of race and racism in the present-day United States.

The last instalment in our series on Islam and Muslims. We chat about the Arab Gulf, terrorism, and whether Muslims would benefit from socialist universalism.

The second part of our series on Islam and Muslims. We continue chatting about and developing the themes we started discussing last week.

We kick off the new year with a three-part series on Islam and Muslims. Over the course of the series, Muslim contributors to Oats for Breakfast will take part in discussions about their relationship to Islam as well as about the developments that have flowed out of the Muslim world's experience with capitalist modernity.

We continue chatting with Michael Smith and Claire-Anne Lester. This time the discussion looks at the range of the political spectrum in South Africa, the student and labour movements, as well as the 2012 Marikana Massacre and what it tells us about the nature of the post-Apartheid state.

Oats chats with Michael Smith and Claire-Anne Lester about South Africa. Our discussion touches on Nelson Mandela's legacy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as how the South African left has approached questions about race, identity, and belonging.

Oats chats about Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman' as well as the book that the film is based on, Charles Brandt's 'I Heard You Paint Houses.' Our discussion explores the interface between the labour movement, the state, and organized crime in post-War American capitalism.