Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry unpack the ways in which the “No Kings” protests were anchored in mainstream, white and liberal feminist ideas. They ask why there was no popular interest in protesting genocide in Palestine and analyze the rampant American patriotism on display, the obsession with aesthetics as posters about royalty, crowns and the statue of liberty proliferated. The No Kings protests were mired in a nostalgia for a pre-Trump America thus operating under the delusion that previous American president were not invested in wars, imperials foreign policies and border regimes. The protests lacked any solid agendas to bringing about change and dismantling existing structures of violence.

Listen to previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry discuss the acute escalation in US-Israeli wars in Lebanon and Iran. The mainstream media barely reports on the shocking death toll and numbers of displaced in Lebanon. Not only is Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon expanding, the Gaza playbook seems to be in full effect with the targeting of civilian infrastructure, hospitals, women and children.

In Iran, the war comes at immense material cost for Iranians as the death toll rises. The hosts unpack the ways in which Iran is winning the cultural war through a proliferation of AI & Lego videos that humiliate, shame and heckle US and Israel on the cyber battlefront. These videos are changing the narrative and shifting public opinion by stoking the existing unpopularity of US and Israel on the world stage. However, the abundance of videos, deepfakes, memes and satirical movie trailers creates a fog around what is real and what is not.

The question remains: with legacy media being ideologically compromised and the social media flooded with fake videos, where do we turn to for news and information?

Subscribe now

—“Here are four ways Zohran Mamdani can end financial support in New York City for Israeli settlements, and he must act soon” by Nerdeen Kiswani: https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/here-are-four-ways-zohran-mamdani-can-end-financial-support-in-new-york-city-for-israeli-settlements-and-he-must-act-soon/

—Susan Abulhawa’s powerful response to Mayor Mamdani

Watch the podcast on YouTube

Watch here:

Madhuri, Suchitra and Bhakti unpack an apocalyptic week of events and how the media (did not) cover them in an analytical or critical way. Trumps’s State of the Union, BAFTA debacles, Andrew arrested amid more US cover up of Epstein files + Modi’s Islamophobic agenda bolstered with visit to Israel.

Subscribe now

Madhuri Sastry, Suchitra Vijayan and Bhakti Shringarpure dissect the coverage of big spectacles like Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl and the protests against Winter Olympics, both of which have been deemed resistant and political. Uprisings in Minneapolis continue. Is the US at a tipping point and if so, what are the limits of American revolt? Will the media rise to this unprecedented moment as the anger of a public begins to burst at the seams? The Epstein Files continue their assault on our psyches but the mainstream media refuses analysis. Meanwhile starvation in Cuba, Sudan, Palestine reaches distressing levels but the silence around it is deafening.

Watch here:

The hosts take a critical look at the algorithms ruling our lives on social media and beyond, with a warning to divest from celebrity content and culture that permeates the news cycle, politics, and more. Whereas the early Facebook and Instagram eras were known for curated and bespoke feeds that were personally made for you, social media has largely become a commercialized landscape with scarily targeted ads and influencers promoting the next big thing in makeup, skincare, clothing, and more.

These algorithms have an outsized influence on politics too, and the hosts discuss the ways social and political movements drove engagement on social media – from the Arab Spring in the early 2010s to the movement for Palestine now. Even as communities on the margins seek to take advantage of the more “democratized” social media platforms, the companies that are so invested in keeping you scrolling relentlessly push celebrity and influencer content, no matter how much or little you engage with them. The hosts outline the algorithmic, commercial, and celebrity culture logics coming together at this moment, where you might want to share and find news about Palestine, but will be recommended reel after reel of Bollywood stars instead.

We remain bystanders in an ongoing genocide, but are continuously fed celebrity content and forced to care about the intimate details of the lives of celebrities and influencers online. These algorithms are destructive, as they seek to distract and keep us complacent. The hosts call on our listeners to resist the algorithm and its seemingly all-encompassing control over our lives, so that we can reclaim power in the digital and physical information landscape.

Key Takeaways:

• Social media algorithms have evolved from bespoke curated feeds to commercialized targeting, with specific ads geared towards us based on seconds-long interactions with posts

• This algorithmic logic influences how news is circulated and consumed too – outlets like Buzzfeed that function primarily as news aggregators take advantage of celebrity culture to keep social media users engaged

• Celebrity culture has captured every sphere of our lives – going so far as to have celebrity endorsements and statements become key influences in election cycles

• The algorithm and social media companies benefit from the constant stream of intimate details of every celebrity scandal and personality that has destroyed our attention spans.

• Political content is constantly suppressed in favor of ever more ridiculous and polarizing posts and scandals, as is demonstrated by the shadow-banning of accounts posting about Palestine in the ongoing genocide.

Keywords:

celebrity culture, celebrity algorithms, algorithmic logics, influencers, social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Palestine, reels, For You page, curation, Gaza, genocide

The hosts take a sharp, playful, and unflinching look at Bollywood’s obsession with sports films and the not-so-subtle nationalism embedded within them. From Lagaan to Chak De! India to 83, they explore why India’s sports biopic industry has exploded in the past 15 years, and how these films turn real-life athletic struggles into patriotic spectacles. What makes a sports movie so irresistible? Why does every underdog story end in a tear-jerking celebration of the nation? And how does Bollywood sanitize the harsh realities of caste, gender, and systemic neglect in Indian sports, replacing them with glossy, emotionally manipulative narratives?

The conversation moves from Lagaan’s colonial cricket fantasy to 83’s oddly racialized portrayal of the West Indies team. They examine how India’s sporting heroes — from Milkha Singh to Mary Kom — are repackaged for mass consumption, often stripping away the uncomfortable truths about their struggles. What does it mean when films like Dangal make a father the protagonist of his daughters’ success, or when Mary Kom erases the racism Northeastern athletes face? And why does every sports film, no matter how critical it starts out, inevitably circle back to a simplistic celebration of Indian exceptionalism?

This episode also interrogates the way Bollywood builds masculinity through sports films, the influence of the influencer economy on how we view discipline and success, and how these movies manufacture nostalgia for a version of India that never really existed.

Key Takeaways
—Sports films thrive on feel-good nationalism. No matter how much struggle is depicted, the final message is always about national pride, often at the expense of addressing real inequalities.

—Underdog stories individualize struggle rather than critiquing systems. Instead of exposing the larger caste, class, and gender barriers in Indian sports, these films narrow the conflict down to a single corrupt official or a personal redemption arc.

—Women’s sports are shown through a male lens. Whether it’s Chak De! India centering Shah Rukh Khan over the women’s hockey team or Dangal framing the Phogat sisters’ success as their father’s victory, the female athlete is rarely the true protagonist.

—Bollywood repackages the “good Muslim” trope. Whether it’s Chak De! India or Dangal, Muslim characters are carefully written to be hyper-loyal and non-threatening, reinforcing an idea of “acceptable” patriotism.

—The nation gets credit for individual sacrifice. Films celebrate the perseverance of Indian athletes, but the moment they succeed, their personal triumph is absorbed into a larger nationalist narrative.

—Bollywood’s nostalgia machine is relentless. If modern India can’t be romanticized, these films turn to past sporting glories — like 83 and Gold — to construct a sentimental vision of unity and victory.

Keywords
Bollywood, sports movies, nationalism in film, underdog narratives, caste in sports, cricket, Lagaan, 83, Chak De! India, Dangal, Mary Kom, masculinity in cinema, patriotic storytelling, Indian identity, Akshay Kumar, nostalgia politics, media and state propaganda.

A podcast by The Polis Project
www.thepolisproject.com

The hosts are joined by award-winning film critic and journalist Anna M.M. Vetticad for a conversation on the state of Indian cinema under Modi-era censorship. A veteran of over 30 years in journalism, Anna brings her incisive political analysis and deep knowledge of film culture to this episode — exposing how India’s cinematic landscape has become a battleground for ideology, identity, and power.

The episode opens by locating cinema as a contested space — one long understood by right-wing regimes as a site of influence. Cinema’s ability to shape narratives and rewrite memory has been crucial to the rise of fascist aesthetics in India. Anna unpacks this, walking us through the seismic shifts she’s witnessed as the Hindi film industry folds itself into a willing arm of propaganda — while regional cinemas like Tamil and Malayalam push back, albeit within their own deeply patriarchal structures.

Together, the hosts and Anna break down the difference between old and new censorship — no longer confined to the formal mechanisms of the CBFC, but a sprawling ecosystem of soft coercion, self-censorship, ideological appeasement, and weaponised “hurt sentiments.” Anna explains how even innocuous details — like a character eating chicken or bearing a Hindu name — are now seen as political provocations. The conversation draws from Anna’s landmark Article 14 investigation, revealing the growing climate of fear, complicity, and ideological capture among India’s most powerful cultural producers.

But the rot isn’t just institutional — it’s also representational. The group traces the casteist and communal undercurrents of blockbuster films like RRR and Kesari, the masculine saviour complex glorified in pan-India hits, and the soft erasure of minority identities in so-called secular classics like Veer-Zaara. Anna also sharply critiques the toxic misogyny embedded within South Indian industries, questioning how progressive a cinema can be when it remains tethered to structures of hero worship and patriarchal dominance.

Even amid this, there are flickers of resistance. Anna urges us to remember the stakes — and the power — of storytelling. Anna leaves us with a cautious optimism: that pushing too hard might spark a reckoning, that even in the face of repression, stories will find their way through.

Keywords

India, cinema, censorship, Modi, soft power, propaganda, Hindutva, self-censorship, Veer-Zaara, Kesari, RRR, Article 14, misogyny, South India, secularism, interfaith romance, fascist aesthetics, narrative, resistance.

Read some of Anna’s work here:

1. How A Modi-Era Ecosystem Of Official & Unofficial Censorship Is Transforming India’s Film Industries, Article 14, https://article-14.com/post/how-a-modi-era-ecosystem-of-official-unofficial-censorship-is-transforming-india-s-film-industries-679fdbcd6f914

2. Hindi cinema’s lone rangers: Dissent in a sea of propaganda films, The News Minute, https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/hindi-cinemas-lone-rangers-dissent-in-a-sea-of-propaganda-films

3. Trial by Cinema, Supreme Court Observer, https://www.scobserver.in/75-years-of-sc/trial-by-cinema-films/

4. A Wake-up Call for All Indian Film Industries, The Quint, https://www.thequint.com/opinion/hema-committee-report-wake-up-call-indian-film-industry-amma-malayalam-cinema

5. Stereotyped, exoticised, then erased: How Hindi cinema shaped North India's misconceptions about Christians, Economic Times, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/stereotyped-exoticised-then-erased-how-hindi-cinema-shaped-north-indias-misconceptions-about-christians/articleshow/120236783.cms?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAadcg7-7K9FQb5fafbJO9DSvRW1RgPRtzvEU2KVVRVnfK30IcJE4I4Epba6WdQ_aem_yy5_7QvkW-cRe_cCjPMblQ&from=mdr

Guest: Anna M.M. Vetticad

A podcast by The Polis Project

www.thepolisproject.com

The hosts are joined by journalist Tanvi Misra to peel back the bureaucratic spectacle of American border regimes. The conversation takes a deeper look at how legal status — once seen as a form of protection — is increasingly weaponised by the state to police dissent, particularly among immigrants and students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism. Green card holders and international students, once thought to be “safe” under the law, are now facing ideological screening, detention, and deportation — revealing how even legal status offers no true safeguard in a system built to punish and control.

Tanvi draws from years of investigative reporting to expose how visa systems, detention infrastructures, and digital surveillance are being leveraged not only to exclude and deport, but to criminalise entire identities. The episode interrogates the binary between legal and illegal status that is not only porous but deliberately engineered to collapse when politically expedient. Whether it’s AI-generated accusations, ICE raids in academic spaces, or the targeted revocation of green cards, what emerges is a state apparatus built on opacity, fear, and unchecked discretion.

Private prison corporations and county jails profit from detention quotas, with a direct correlation between the presence of detention facilities and anti-immigrant legislation. The hosts explore the staggering level of discretion granted to individual ICE agents and border officers — discretion that enables arbitrary and biased enforcement, from SEVIS account purges to on-the-spot visa revocations. The hosts and Tanvi explore how this ecosystem is maintained — through corporate profiteering, media complicity, and a public desensitised by a carousel of dehumanising images. At the heart of it is a chilling question: when even legal status is no protection, what remains of the social contract?

Tanvi Misra is a writer and journalist covering immigration, criminal justice, and urban policy. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and more. She was a 2022 Ira A. Lipman Fellow at Columbia University. She received the Pulitzer Center’s Global Reporting Grant in 2023.

Keywords

Immigration, crackdown, pro-Palestine activism, ICE raids, visa revocation, green card holders, AI surveillance, border regimes, student repression, ideological screening, SEVIS purge, legal status myth, media complicity, GEO Group, CoreCivic, private detention, asylum criminalisation, First Amendment, Khalil case, Palestine solidarity, legal violence, academic freedom, information opacity, empathy fatigue

Links to Tanvi Misra’s articles

1. No Children Here, The Baffler, https://thebaffler.com/salvos/no-children-here-misra

2. The Pipeline Funneling US Deportees to Haitian Prison, The Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/deportation-haiti-prison-conditions/

3. The children of tech’s guest workers are pushing for immigration relief, The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/22585007/h1b-dependent-visa-age-out-documented-dreamers-immigration-reform

4. ‘I Became a Jailer’: The Origins of American Immigrant Detention, Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-20/the-origins-of-american-immigration-detention

5. Broader Crises, The Baffler, https://thebaffler.com/latest/broader-crises-misra

6. The Ugly Bipartisan Obsession with the “Right” Number of Immigrants, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/163891/immigrant-refugee-ceilings

7. Where Cities Help Detain Immigrants, Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-10/where-u-s-counties-are-detaining-immigrants

   
   Guest: Tanvi Mishra
   A podcast by The Polis Project
   www.thepolisproject.com

The hosts turn their lens on the insidious, galvanizing power of the opinion column. The hosts dissect how elite liberal media platforms like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal have weaponized their op-ed pages to manufacture consent, launder imperialist narratives, and maintain the myth of expert credibility.

The episode charts how op-ed writers and columnists such as Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman have not only shaped public perspectives on issues but have actively steered foreign policy — often disastrously — through deeply polemical and emotionally manipulative writing. The hosts spotlight how newspapers use these columns as smokescreens, publishing “respectable” pieces by establishment figures while relegating critical or anti-imperialist perspectives to the realm of “guest opinions,” stripped of journalistic weight.

They also dive into the complicity of non-white writers like Sadanand Dhume and Tunku Varadarajan, whose op-eds in economic and financial outlets weaponize histories of trauma to justify genocidal rhetoric, as in Dhume’s piece asking why Palestinians can’t just be “relocated” like Indians and Pakistanis were during the Partition. The hosts ask: why are these men handed megaphones and deemed a “credible” voice?

From Hillary Clinton’s recent smug opinion on the Signal leaks to the op-ed that told poor Americans to skip breakfast, the episode lays bare the contempt these media giants have for the public they pretend to inform. The trio also revisit the coverage of Afghanistan, the Iraq War build-up, Gaza today, and the selective use of the word “genocide”. The episode ends on a sobering note: the war is not just “over there.” State repression, censorship, and violence against protesters in the US are proof — the war has come home.

Key Takeaways

• Op-eds can sway readers on big issues, manufacture consent, frame acceptable narratives, and create the illusion of balance while entrenching imperialist, elitist agendas.

• Liberal media launders its image by selectively platforming marginalised voices in the opinion section — never the news desk — framing truth as just “another perspective.”

• Figures like Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof have consistently failed upward, steering disastrous foreign policy while being proven wrong repeatedly — and are still being treated as experts.

• Opinion columns from non-white writers can be used to give genocidal narratives a multicultural gloss, legitimizing apartheid and war crimes.

Keywords

Opinion, journalism, New York Times, liberal hypocrisy, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, Maureen Dowd, Sadanand Dhume, Tunku Varadarajan, op-eds and war, Palestine, Gaza genocide, American imperialism, gaslighting, Hillary Clinton, Wall Street Journal, expertise, censorship, NYT guest opinion, disinformation in media.

A podcast by The Polis Project www.thepolisproject.com

The podcast hosts invite writer, editor, and translator Yousef Aljamal for a moving and intimate conversation that honours the life, work, and enduring legacy of the late Refaat Alareer — Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and beloved mentor assassinated by Israel in December 2023. Yousef was Refaat’s student, collaborator, and close friend. Yousef assembled and edited the book If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose by Refaat Alareer which was published early this year. He speaks with clarity, wit, and tenderness about the man whose imagination helped birth an army of writers out of besieged Gaza, including the powerful collection Gaza Writes Back

Together, the hosts and Yousef reflect on Refaat’s literary and political ethos — his belief that storytelling is resistance, that fiction outlives fact, and that freedom begins in the imagination. They unpack how Refaat fused humour with rage, literature with politics, the classroom with the battlefield. The conversation also considers the role of US universities, the complicity of elite institutions, and the radical hope fuelling a generation of students who refuse silence in the face of genocide.

The title of the episode cites Susan Abulhawa's introduction to the book If I Must Die where she writes that Refaat's death reminded her of Berta Cáceres of Honduras, "another indigenous leader who, like Refaat, was murdered because the light of her being shone too brightly...When she died, the rallying cry of the thousands who loved and followed her was, “Berta no murió, se multiplicó!”

Links to buy the books

If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose by Refaat Alareer edited by Yousef Aljamal https://orbooks.com/catalog/if-i-must-die/

Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine edited by Refaat Alareer https://justworldbooks.com/books-by-title/gaza-writes-back/

Keywords
Refaat Alareer, If I Must Die, poetry literature, poetry storytelling, resistance, genocide, student activism, Gaza, settler colonialism, humour, legacy, education, poetry, writing as survival, social media, imagination, liberation, radical pedagogy, narrative power, campus repression, academic freedom.

Guest: Yousef Aljamal

A podcast by The Polis Project
www.thepolisproject.com

The hosts take on the alarming escalation of state repression against pro-Palestinian student protesters in the U.S. The episode unpacks how legal frameworks, university complicity, and media narratives have converged to criminalize dissent on campus. From ICE raids to administrative gag orders, they break down how universities have transformed into enforcement arms of the state, silencing student activists under the guise of “safety” and “neutrality.”

They examine the weaponization of outdated laws like the McCarran Act, the use of AI-generated accusations to justify dismissals, and the absurd contradictions of free speech protections in the U.S.—where hate speech against Palestinians is permissible, but calls for divestment are met with police crackdowns. The episode also takes aim at the media’s role in this repression. While liberal outlets have covered the protests, their language is riddled with caveats, implying that student activists are extremists or Hamas sympathizers.

What does it mean when institutions built to foster debate become sites of surveillance, punishment, and exile? How do we make sense of universities that prioritize financial ties to weapons manufacturers over the safety of their own students? And why does the state fear student movements so much? The hosts argue that history has already answered that question: because student protests always win.

Key Takeaways

• Universities have become state enforcement tools. Instead of protecting students, elite institutions are inviting police and ICE onto campuses, facilitating arrests, and even revoking degrees.

• Laws from the McCarthy era are being revived to justify deportations. The McCarran Act—once used to target communists—is now being wielded against pro-Palestinian students, criminalizing their activism.

• The media subtly discredits student protests. Liberal outlets report on campus crackdowns but hedge their support with language that casts doubt on protesters’ legitimacy, subtly aligning with state repression.

• Free speech protections are selectively applied. Hate speech against Palestinians is tolerated as “political discourse,” but calls for divestment from arms manufacturers are met with police violence.

Keywords

Student protests, campus repression, Palestine solidarity, McCarran Act, ICE raids, Columbia University, academic freedom, free speech hypocrisy, divestment, surveillance state, media complicity, legacy media, Zionist lobbying, university funding, policing dissent, historical student movements.

A podcast by The Polis Project www.thepolisproject.com

This episode takes a sharp, witty, and incisive look at the identity crisis of Indian American women in the public eye. From Kamala Harris to Mindy Kaling to Usha Vance, the hosts ask: why is the dominant representation of the Indian American woman so adjacent to whiteness? Why does she either perform hyper-assimilation or lean into fetishised exoticism? In an era where South Asian identity is being flattened into elite, upper-caste, and Hindu-coded narratives, how do we reclaim a more expansive, authentic brown identity?

The hosts dissect Mindy Kaling’s on-screen self-erasure, Usha Vance’s conservative alliances, and the broader South Asian diaspora’s complicity in white supremacy. They examine how caste privilege shapes diasporic politics, how food and media representation have been co-opted, and why so many Indian Americans seek proximity to power instead of solidarity with marginalised communities.

This episode also asks: is there a way forward? They explore figures like Padma Lakshmi, who has maintained an unabashedly brown identity despite liberal constraints, and critique the rise of regressive South Asian comedy that recycles tired stereotypes for Western approval. From Indian Matchmaking’s caste erasure to Zarna Garg’s traditional parenting jokes, the hosts unpack why certain narratives thrive while others are erased.

Key Takeaways

• Whether through Usha Vance’s conservative alignment or Mindy Kaling’s relentless need to “prove” her Americanness, Indian American women in the public eye often seek whiteness as a marker of success.

• The upper-caste dominance of South Asian migration shapes political and social attitudes, reinforcing Hindu supremacy and white supremacist alliances.

• Figures like Kamala Harris and Priyanka Chopra signal progress but rarely challenge systemic structures. Is a “brown face in a high place” enough?

• Zarna Garg, Lily Singh, and other South Asian comedians rely on outdated tropes of strict immigrant parents and curry-scented jokes, reinforcing stereotypes instead of dismantling them.

• Instead of flattening identity for laughs or assimilation, Indian American women need to embrace a more complex, radical, & self-determined identity.

References

"The Coconut Empire: How Mindy Kaling Has Created a Prototype of the Indian-American Woman Who Aspires to Whiteness" by Bhakti Shringarpure https://www.thepolisproject.com/read/mindy-kaling-coconut-indian-american/

Keywords

Indian American, caste privilege, whiteness, South Asian diaspora, Mindy Kaling, Kamala Harris, Usha Vance, Priyanka Chopra, Padma Lakshmi, model minority myth, Bollywood, Indian Matchmaking, Zarna Garg, comedy stereotypes, brown identity, liberal politics, white supremacy, Hindu nationalism, feminism, intersectionality.

A podcast by The Polis Project www.thepolisproject.com

The podcast takes on the media’s failure to accurately depict incarceration, tracing how language, imagery, and selective storytelling reinforce carceral logic. From Gaza to Guantanamo, they examine how imprisonment narratives are shaped by what is shown — and, more crucially, what is omitted. The hosts dissect how terms like prisoner, detainee, and hostage are selectively deployed to justify systemic violence, and how the very framing of incarceration distorts public perception.

The discussion moves beyond conventional notions of imprisonment, arguing that entire societies — Palestinians in Gaza, Kashmiris under curfew, and detainees in refugee camps — are subjected to incarceration beyond prison walls. They also expose how mass incarceration in the U.S. extends beyond bars, as formerly incarcerated individuals face lifelong stigma, exclusion, and economic precarity. From the use of prison labor in wildfire response to the privatization of detention centers, the episode unpacks the profit motives fueling the carceral state.

Key Takeaways

• The media manipulates language to justify detention, torture, and oppression. Palestinians are “prisoners,” implying guilt, while Israelis are “hostages,” evoking sympathy. The same linguistic distortion extends to Guantanamo and U.S. prisons.

• In the U.S., former prisoners face a de facto life sentence: denied jobs, benefits, and opportunities for reintegration. Incarceration follows them forever, reinforcing systemic exclusion.

• From occupied Gaza to curfews in Kashmir, entire populations live under carceral control. The refugee camp, detention center, and military checkpoint function as open-air prisons.

• Digital surveillance, AI policing, and biometric tracking have made imprisonment more insidious. Even everyday tech—Apple tags, facial recognition—normalizes constant monitoring.

• Private prisons, immigrant detention centers, and forced prison labor generate billions. Wildfire responders, agricultural workers, and factory laborers in the U.S. prison system work for pennies while corporations profit.

• Modern aid relies on detention: refugees are confined to camps, subjected to surveillance, and denied agency. Entire generations are born into stateless limbo, dependent on state-sanctioned control.

• Tech billionaires like Sam Altman advocate for a future where people give up rights for AI-driven governance, accelerating the normalization of digital captivity.

Keywords

Incarceration, prison-industrial complex, Gaza, Guantanamo, Kashmir, surveillance capitalism, refugee camps, private prisons, carceral state, forced prison labor, Guantanamo Bay, digital surveillance, AI policing, language bias, Palestine, open-air prison, dehumanization, media complicity, policing, apartheid, humanitarian detention.

A Podcast by The Polis Project https://www.thepolisproject.com/

The hosts dissect the persistent failures of media coverage on migration, exposing how mainstream outlets reinforce state narratives rather than challenging them. From the selective sympathy extended to Ukrainian refugees to the criminalization of Black and Brown migrants, the hosts examine how race, class, and geopolitical interests shape reporting. They trace the media’s historical complicity in dehumanizing migrants and explore the political incentives behind the language of “legal” and “illegal” migration.

This episode unpacks the realities of forced deportations, ICE raids, and the bipartisan commitment to border enforcement, revealing how liberal and conservative media alike obscure the violence of immigration policies. What does it mean when the media celebrates the same border policies under Biden that are then condemned under Trump? Why do countries that welcome Ukrainian refugees reject brown and Black asylum seekers? And how does the language of “national security” mask racialized violence at the border? This episode examines how the media serves as a megaphone for state power rather than a force for accountability.

Key Takeaways

• Migration reporting is deeply racialized. Ukrainian refugees were framed as “deserving” and “civilized,” while Black and Brown migrants are criminalized or reduced to statistics.

• The bipartisan myth of humane immigration policies. While Trump’s ICE raids were met with media outrage, Biden’s administration has quietly overseen mass deportations—without the same level of scrutiny.

• Journalists insist on an allegiance to paperwork, documentation and to legal frameworks when it comes to migration but reject those same ideas when it comes to something like Palestine.

• The fetishization of migrant culture coexists with anti-migrant policies. The West embraces “authentic” migrant food and literature but enacts violent border enforcement against the people who create them.

• Migration is an economic and colonial issue, not just a legal one. The US and Europe continue to destabilize nations through war, climate destruction, and economic policies, then criminalize those displaced by these conditions.

• Journalists are complicit. The media amplifies state narratives on “illegal immigration” while failing to investigate the broader systemic causes of displacement.

Keywords

Migration, deportation, ICE raids, sanctuary cities, media complicity, refugee crisis, asylum seekers, Biden immigration policy, Trump, Guantanamo, Haitian migrants, Venezuelan refugees, Palestinian displacement, media literacy, national security narratives, climate migration, colonial borders.

A podcast by The Polis Project www.thepolisproject.com

The podcast looks at how India’s cultural landscape has become deeply intertwined with right-wing ideology. From Bollywood’s hyper-masculine action heroes to the aggressive iconography of Hindu gods, from the spectacle of nationalist weddings to the militarization of everyday imagery, the episode unpacks how aesthetics shape political obedience. The hosts trace how authoritarian regimes have historically used visual culture — sculpted bodies, rigid pageantry, and hyper-masculinity — to manufacture patriotic obedience. In India, these elements have been absorbed into entertainment, fashion, and religion, reinforcing a Hindutva-dominated visual order.

Bollywood has played a major role in this shift, moving from chaotic ensemble films to hyper-stylized nationalism. Hindu gods, once diverse, have been transformed into warrior-like, Aryanized figures, while traditions like “karva chauth” and luxury weddings have been aestheticized as nationalist performances. Even Narendra Modi has mastered the fascist aesthetic, from his 56-inch chest mythology to his media-choreographed religious spectacles. The episode also asks: where is counterculture? As Bollywood, media, and fashion fall in line with this authoritarian visual order, the space for resistance shrinks. The takeaway? When culture normalizes uniformity, politics follows.

Key Takeaways:

• A fascist aesthetic thrives on uniformity, hyper-masculinity, and the glorification of violence. These visual markers have become deeply embedded in Indian pop culture.

• Bollywood’s transformation from chaotic, diverse narratives to hyper-nationalist action spectacles reflects a broader ideological shift.

• Hindu iconography has been rewritten to align with muscular nationalism, transforming once-diverse religious imagery into rigid, militarized depictions.

• Cultural rituals like “karva chauth” and wedding spectacles have been aestheticized and flattened into a single, dominant narrative of Indianness that aligns with Hindutva ideology.

• Modi has mastered the performance of muscular nationalism, crafting an image of strength and control that is as much about aesthetics as it is about politics.

Keywords:

Fascism, aesthetics, muscularity, nationalism, Bollywood, Hindutva, propaganda, Karva Chauth, Modi cult, wedding industrial complex, Instagram, nationalism, consumerism, uniformity, authoritarianism, obedience, spectacle, erasure.

A podcast by The Polis Project
www.thepolisproject.com