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The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
315 Episodes
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Instances of stochastic violence in the United States are at an all-time high and the political violence of our era mirrors the political topography, disaggregated and rudderless. The boys got together this week to talk about Charlie Kirk and the newer/dumber "Years of Lead." A Stark Look at the Recent History of Political Violence in America https://time.com/6998406/political-violence-united-states-recent-history/ Our Own Worst Enemies https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/polit...
Newer Dumber Years of Lead, Newer Dumber Cold War Heats Up, Israel Kills Kids in Doha This Time, Europe Can't be Inconvenienced by Sanctions on India and China, Poland Shoots Down Three Slow Moving Unarmed Decoy Drones... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
This week the boys do a close reading of an interview with Terence Renaud wherein he discusses his new book New Lefts: The Making of a Radical Tradition. We weigh in on the positive and negative legacies of the multiple revisions to "leftism." https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/qa-terence-renaud-new-left/ Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
Today we read the second half of an article titled Do We Need an Updated Theory of Fascism? Theorizing the nature and implications of the global far-right resurgence by Prof. Dr. Alex Demirović, which was published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. We liked this article for a few reasons, not the least of which was that it sparked good discussion... Do We Need an Updated Theory of Fascism? by Alex Demirović Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
We sat down with our patrons to read and discuss the 1973 Hal Draper Pamphlet, Anatomy of the Microsect. https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1973/xx/microsect.htm Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
This week, the animist caucus of the Regrettable Century (Kevin) teamed up with Dr. Mathias Nordvig, professor of Nordic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Sacred Flame Podcast, as well as Arnold from the Fight Like an Animal Podcast to talk about the intersection of animist spirituality and radical politics. To that end, the crew read and discussed William Morris' short essay titled Under an Elm Tree. Click Here for More Mathias Nordvig Click Here for Fight Lik...
Bounty on Maduro, Israeli Pedophile Protected by Trump... Again, Palestinian Dead are 83% Civilians, Zelensky in the Whitehouse... Again, Ukraine's Failing Drone Industry, The Inexorable Russian Lava Flow Pushes On... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
Trump Wusses out on China Tariffs... Again, Leaks Expose Netanyahu's Hunger Plan, Israeli Spies Have Thoroughly Infiltrated Big Tech, The Alaska Summit, Ukraine's Infantry Crisis, Ukraine's Morale Crisis, Dobrapilia Breakthrough, The Collapse Speeds Up... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
This week the boys are joined by eternal co-host Jess to discuss the novelty of adults being adults. We discuss the self-infantilization of millennials and older zoomers, which is a reflection of the crisis of meaning and deep rot at the heart of liberal modernity. We believe this is the result of a purely self-oriented conception of liberty and the ideological victory of capital's redefinition of the very essence of what it means to be human. --------- Adulting in Middle Age https://jacobin....
Today we read an article titled Do We Need an Updated Theory of Fascism? Theorizing the nature and implications of the global far-right resurgence by Prof. Dr. Alex Demirović, which was published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. This is an excellent article that we think misses the mark in a few places and provides much fodder for discussion. Do We Need an Updated Theory of Fascism? by Alex Demirović Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
Marxist, as well as conservative and liberal bourgeois historians alike, have always had a fundamental misunderstanding about the Luddites. It turns out they weren't just reactionary peasants who feared technology and wanted to keep the world mired in an economy based on stacking sticks and mud. The Luddites weren’t resisting technology itself—they were fighting the economic systems that exploited them through it. This week, the boys dive into a conversation about Luddism's past, present, and...
This week Chris, Jason, and Ben read over the founding document of a now-defunct group to which Jason and Ben used to belong. While much has changed in the years since Jason wrote this document, the fundamental arguments remain the same. It is time for new working-class organizations that seek to build power from the ground up, abandoning any association with liberal NGOs, the democratic party, the microsect form, and internet-based culture war. ---- We've including the document that we're re...
Ultra-Orthodox Abandon Bibi, Israel Kills More Christians, Israel Kills a US Citizen, SBU Chief Merc'd in Broad Daylight, The West Slowly Begins to Abandon Ukraine, Zelensky's Authoritarianism, Pokrovsk in Peril, Russia's Methodical Advance is Unchecked... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
This week the gang tackles Chapter I of Laudato Si, but the late Pope Francis. You can follow along by grabbing the PDF from Verso or from the Vatican website. This Papal Encyclical calls for urgent action to address the global environmental crisis, critiques consumerism, blind developmentalism, inequality, and profit seeking. The document calls for global political solidarity to transition to a sustainable economy and for protection of the worlds most vulnerable populations. Se...
Deep State Don's Pedophile Coverup Extravaganza, More Tariff Idiocy, Israel's Relentless War Crimes Perpetration, Yermak's Power Grab in Kiev, Azerbaijan Mafia/NATO State, Russian Gains, Ukrainian Systemic Breakdown... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
Israel failed to assassinate Khamenei, US lifts some sanctions on Hungary/Russia, Russia controls 100% Luhansk, US cuts off military aid to Ukraine, Azov civil war, the collapse continues... Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
This week Chris and Jason signed on to give an update on the status of the spectacular nature of American Capitalism. Trump's useless strikes on Iran and false declaration of victory prompted us to revisit Guy Debord's concept of the spectacle in relation to contemporary American politics. Revenge of the Spectacle: This Time It's Personal http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/revenge-of-the-spectacle-this-time-its-personal The Game of War. Guy Debord and the Society of ...
US Attacks Iran... Did It Work?, Iran Tosses out the IAEA, NATO Potemkin Summit, The Inexorable Russian Lava Flow Pushes On, Ukraine Keeps Collapsing... How to Pronounce Schadenfreude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_DjiLLDfo Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
Real romantic anti-capitalism hours are back, and this week the boys brought in Mir and Daniel to read Laudato Si by the late Pope Francis, as published by Verso Books (you can read it on the Vatican website or in book form, but we got the free ebook from Verso). This Papal Encyclical calls for urgent action to address the global environmental crisis, critiques consumerism, blind developmentalism, inequality, and profit seeking. The document calls for global political solidarity to tran...
This is it folks, the second half of Chapter 7 and the grand finale of the reading series. Go to the Patreon to hear the whole episode. Join the Discord to help us determine what's next… And Read Along Here: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show
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It seems to me there is a tension in this episode between wanting to define classes based on their relationship to production and wanting to define classes based on which "side" you think they will be on. The later is an obstacle to doing the former.
Well, I see that the time honored tradition of finding the most pedantic nerd imaginable that can hold the banner high to embaress swedes throughout the world is still honoured.
This is an extremely podcast for every human to listen to.