The Pen is My Machete:
An Anti-imperialist Podcast

This podcast will feature AISC members Diego Alcala and Malek Abisaab in conversation with Rabab Abdulhadi about the enduring significance of the ongoing Nakba- the genocidal Zionist-imperialist colonization of Palestine- amid the unyielding resistance of the Palestinian people and the irreversible shift triggered by the Al-Aqsa Flood. This year’s commemoration takes place at a moment of US imperialist decline, even as the Zionist-imperialist war on Iran, Lebanon and the broader region persists. The discussion will also explore the relationship between Iran’s resistance and its role in materially decolonizing the region and the Palestinian national liberation struggle.

No More Bombs, Blockades, or "Backyards"Friday, May 8 | 3:00 PM EST AISC members Charisse Burden-Stelly and Tamanisha John will be joined by Kimberly Miller for a wide-ranging conversation centering the Caribbean as a primary site of analyzing, critiquing and ultimately overthrowing U.S. imperialism. From the use of extraordinary force to the imposition of genocidal sanctions to the discursive violence of declaring the Caribbean as its ‘backyard’, this region is the connection point of U.S. domination. 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, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Join us for another livestream AISC members Aby Sene and Navid Farnia will discuss the imperialist attacks on Mali and examine the role of France and the United States in sowing instability in the Sahel region. Follow AISC X (@penandmachete) Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. https://www.anti-imperialists.com/ Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

On this May Day livestream, AISC members Peter Hudson, Corinna Mullin and Jemima Pierre will be joined by Brahim Rouabah to discuss why imperialism is still the primary contradiction and has been for centuries. We will tackle the latest news in the war on West Asia and the capitalism v. white supremacy debates that raged on social media. The show will be hosted by Nina Farnia, with Corinna Mullin reporting live from New York City's May Day march.

On our regular Friday podcast livestream, AISC members Nina Farnia, Navid Farnia, and Diego H. Alcalá Laboy discussed the latest news and offered analysis about West Asia’s battle against empire. Follow AISC X (penandmachete) Instagram (penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. https://www.anti-imperialists.com/ Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

A live conversation featuring TRN Podcast host Nick Estes, Jeannette Graulau, and Aby Sène Co-published with Anti-Imperialists Scholars Collective. @penandmachete

On this episode, AISC member Navid Farnia speaks with guest and friend of the show, Professor Setareh Sadeqi (@Leelako). They discuss all things Iran and the United States, including the renewed negotiations between the two countries, the brutal Zionist-U.S. urban war against Iran in January, the possibility of U.S. military aggression, and Iran's preparedness. Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel (Coming soon!) 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, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

AISC members Tamanisha John, Jemima Pierre, and Diego Alcalá Laboy join Navid Farnia to talk about U.S. imperialism's current machinations in the Caribbean and the current state of regional resistance and solidarity. They discuss the U.S.'s ongoing colonial occupations of Haiti and Puerto Rico, along with the attacks on Cuba. Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Follow AISC X (@penandmachete) Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete https://www.anti-imperialists.com/ Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

In this interview conducted by Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective member Corinna Mullin, H.E. Yuri Gala López, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Cuba to the United Nations, reflects on the decades-long U.S. blockade and broader imperialist campaign of sabotage and ideological warfare directed at Cuba’s socialist project, including recent escalations targeting the island’s oil and energy supplies. The conversation also explores why Cuba continues to serve as a powerful example for the world of internationalism, sovereignty, and the possibility of organizing society around human need rather than profit. We encourage viewers to explore the latest special issue of The Pen Is My Machete, “Against U.S. Empire: From the Monroe Doctrine to Labor Imperialism,” which provides critical context on the long history and ongoing imperialist assault on Cuba and its impact on the Cuban state and people, while highlighting the island’s enduring resistance and internationalist role through original analysis, historical statements and documents, government reports, and other Follow AISC X : penandmachete) Instagram : penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. www.anti-imperialists.com/ Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

AISC members Diego Alcalá Laboy, Jemima Pierre, and Navid Farnia focus on the zionist-imperialist war against Iran and highlight how Iran is waging a strategic resistance campaign. They discuss how the situation reached this point, provide updates regarding battlefield developments, and examine the global implications of the war. Follow AISC X : penandmachete) Instagram : penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. www.anti-imperialists.com/ Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

This episode, hosted by AISC member Bikrum Gill, addresses the recent US attack on Venezuela and the brazen kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. We are joined by journalist Camila Escalante, who begins the episode with important updates on the situation in Venezuela and shares key insights regarding the need to be vigilant against psychological warfare in this moment. This is followed by a roundtable discussion with AISC members Layla Brown, Jemima Pierre, Diego Alcala Laboy, and Tamanisha John. Here, we discuss the history of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, why the Bolivarian state poses such a distinct threat to US imperialism, and how the struggle in Venezuela links to broader anti-imperialist struggles in the region and globally. 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, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

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 First Lady Cilia Flires. We brought our guests back after the abduction to discuss the invasion, the abduction, and the future of the Bolivarian Revolution in the face of US imperialism. Both episodes are included here. 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, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

In this episode, Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective members Jeannette Graulau and Corinna Mullin are joined by Arto Artinian for a wide-ranging discussion on the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine, drawing on a recent AISC-convened roundtable and special issue edited by Jeannette Graulau on “Russia Today.” At a moment when Russophobia dominates mainstream discourse and critical scholarship is increasingly marginalized within Western academia, the conversation works to restore historical and political clarity. Situating the war within the longer arc of Western encirclement, sanctions warfare, and attempts to recolonize the post-Soviet space, the discussion challenges dominant narratives that frame Russia as an imperialist aggressor. Arto Artinian is a musician and political theorist whose work focuses on Marxism, imperialism, and Eastern European political thought. Raised in Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, he later pursued his studies in the United States. His current research includes Homo Datum, an examination of political subjectivity under contemporary capitalism, and June 1941: Soviet Ukraine, a historico-philosophical reconstruction challenging revisionist accounts of the Nazi invasion. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY) and a member of the editorial collectives of Marxism & Sciences and Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination. 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, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Hosted by AISC members Bikrum Gill and Corinna Mullin, this episode features Suzanne Adely, a movement lawyer, longtime Arab community organizer, and president of the National Lawyers Guild with decades of experience in international labor solidarity, and Sachin Peddada, Research Coordinator at Progressive International whose work maps military supply chains and the political economy of war. Together, they examine labor imperialism and labor Zionism through the intertwined struggles of Palestine and Venezuela. Situating the conversation in the wake of the November 28–29 Disarm Genocide Now days of action—when workers, unions, students, and communities mobilized to hold labor bureacrats accountable, uphold the Palestinian BDS picket line, and boycott Black Friday—the episode traces the historical role of U.S. labor institutions in sustaining Zionist settler colonialism and imperialist power, while recovering suppressed traditions of anti-imperialist and anti-racist labor internationalism from below. Moving from supply-chain disruption in solidarity with Palestine to the AFL-CIO’s role in undermining the Bolivarian socialist revolutionary project in Venezuela, the discussion shows how labor struggles against genocide and sanctions are part of a single global fight against capitalist-imperialist accumulation—and why building militant, internationalist working-class power is essential to confronting both. Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.

On Episode 5 of the AISC podcast, members Diego Alcalá, Bikrum Gill, and Navid Farnia discuss the U.S. continued buildup in the Caribbean, focusing particularly on the implications for Venezuela and Puerto Rico. They also explore the ongoing imperialist attacks against Lebanon, the West's failing military campaign against Russia, and the popular discourse on the relationship between the Zionist entity and the United States. Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.

On this episode of the AISC podcast, members Bikrum Gill and Navid Farnia address the US's ongoing military buildup in the Caribbean and the energy conflict between the US and China. They also provide more analysis of the Gaza "ceasefire" and comment on the flareup between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.

On this episode of the AISC podcast, members Charisse Burden-Stelly and Navid Farnia discuss the passing of the revolutionary Assata Shakur, the ceasefire in Gaza, the Nobel Peace Prize as a mechanism to ramp up imperialist pressure on Venezuela, and the US government's overture to universities in order to induce ideological alignment. Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.

On this episode of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective podcast, AISC members Alex Aviña, Bikrum Gill, and Jemima Pierre discuss and historicize the current imperialist occupation of Haiti. They consider the ramifications of the US-led occupation for the broader Caribbean region and specifically, for the US's military buildup and hybrid war against Venezuela. They also respond to the "peace plan" presented by the US imperialists and their regional collaborators to the Palestinian resistance (note: this episode was recorded before the ceasefire was reached on October 9). Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.

On this inaugural episode of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective podcast, AISC members Diego Alcalá and Bikrum Gill introduce the collective and highlight our Principles of Unity. Follow AISC on X (@penandmachete) and Instagram (@penandmachete). Visit anti-imperialists.com to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast.