The Regrettable Century: Recent Episodes
Chris, Kevin, Jason, and Jess
The old forms of the left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that talks about the need to organize a dialectical pessimism and develop a Marxist salvage project capable of putting up a good fight as the world burns around us. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we've cultivated one and would like to share it with you.
This week, two old veterans of about two and a half decades in the fight against half a dozen imperialist wars read and discussed an article about why there is not anti-war movement. Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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Iran War Strategic Summary, Iran and Oman Hormuz Agreement, The US is Out of Missiles, China Missile Practice on US Ship Models, Ukraine Bombs Restaurant, Ukraine 40 Day Drone War Failure, Ukraine Counteroffensive Failure, Ukraine Out of Air Defense Missiles...
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This week we continue our series on republicanism by returning to an episode we did on the complicated legacy of the American Revolution. This older episode now has a 40 minute preface where we discuss the episode and how much things have changed since the original, enjoy!
Like the bourgeois project as a whole, the historical consequences of the American Revolution have had mixed results. Simultaneously spurring on the cause of human freedom and stifling it, the American Revolution was pregnant with a creative and destructive spirit. As the American Empire appears to be in decline, we ask whether or not things could have gone, or could still go, in another direction.
Check out Matthew and Jason's Podcast About the History of the Soviet Union:
https://regrettablecentury.podbean.com/e/introducing-the-unbreakable-union-podcast-the-contemporary-importance-of-soviet-history/
War and Revolution: Rethinking the 20th Century
https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/domenico-losurdo-war-and-revolution-rethinking-the-twentieth-century.pdf
Historical Revisionism and Delegitimation of the Revolutionary and Anticolonial Tradition—A Review of War and Revolution
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21598282.2016.1172752
Liberals and Reactionaries
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2011/10/liberals-and-reactionaries.html
From Karl Marx to the Fourth of July
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/07/inde-j03.html
THE MYTH OF THE “CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION”
https://socialistworker.org/2011/12/14/myth-of-the-conservative-revolution
Communist and Neo-Babouvist readings of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution
https://www.academia.edu/38110441/_Communist_and_Neo_Babouvist_readings_of_the_Enlightenment_and_the_French_Revolution_in_E_Vallance_ed_Remembering_Early_Modern_Revolutions_London_Routledge_2018
JD Vance Admits Epstein Was Mossad and Israel Derailed Negotiations, Pentagon Budget Crisis, US Weapons Shortage, Failure and Firings in Ukraine...
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This week the boys all got together to do a bonus episode about the current state of the republic. We are clearly ailing as a society and we are clearly in trouble as a country. Will the decline of the empire lead to the fall of the republic?
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This week we sat down with our comrade Brad, a union organizer and CPUSA member, to discuss an article he wrote about two conflicting visions of radical change at the heart of the unfinished American Revolution and its implications for the contemporary workers' movement.
Abolition Democracy or Reconstruction Democracy?
Working-Class Leadership and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution
https://newjubileenotes.substack.com/p/abolition-democracy-or-reconstruction
Israel Tried to Assassinate Iran's Negotiators, The Abysmal State of US Oil Reserves, The War is Back the Strait is Closed, Ukraine on the Brink, Russian Advance Slowed but Ukrainian Losses Surge... Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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We continue our month long series on American Communism by doing a close read and discussion of two articles about the Communist Party of the United States of America's role as the cutting edge of liberatory politics in the mid 20th century.
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The first version of this episode was only an hour long for some reason. We've re-uploaded the full episode which is a half hour longer.
For America's 250th birthday, the boys got together to discuss the legacy of the American Revolution. There are two major poles of thought on the American left, with wildly differing interpretations of the American Revolution. They both make some good points, we discuss those here.
The Social and Intellectual Legacy of the American Revolution
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/social-and-intellectual-legacy-american-revolution
Ken Burns Makes the Case for the Greatness of 1776
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/ken-burns-american-revolution-history
Class Struggle Was a Crucial Part of the American Revolution
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/american-revolution-britain-class-struggle
Radical historian challenges traditional Marxist view of ‘so-called’ American Revolution
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/radical-historian-challenges-traditional-marxist-view-of-so-called-american-revolution/
The Conquest of Power, Chapter 2: The American Revolution
https://www.marxists.org/archive/weisbord/conquest2.htm
Last week's British race riots were largely organized by a rising movement of affiliated neo-Nazi organizations called Active Clubs. It should surprise no one that they have direct links to Ukraine.
This week we do a close read of an article from the Azov Lobby Blog and discuss the outsized impact of Ukraine's Azov movement on global neo-Nazism.
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This week we invited Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn to talk about their new book, The People are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism.From the publisher:
In The People Are Not One, Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn dismantle the central illusion of contemporary left politics: that “the people” can serve as a coherent subject of emancipation. Against both right and left populisms, they argue that this fantasy of unity obscures real class antagonisms and traps socialism in a dead-end politics of moral appeal and electoral maneuver.
Through a sustained critique of left-populism, post-Marxist theory, and Democratic Party–oriented socialism, Tutt and Varn show how the collapse of mass politics, alongside debates over the professional-managerial class and the atomization of working-class life, has produced a strategic impasse on the left.
*What follows is not a lament but a provocation: a call to abandon populist shortcuts and rebuild socialist strategy on the terrain of class struggle as it actually exists—uneven, divided, and politically unformed. The People Are Not One is a manifesto for a post-populist left willing to confront fragmentation head-on and begin the long work of reconstructing class power.
https://www.revolpress.com/people-not-one*
https://danieltutt.com/
https://www.patreon.com/cw/varnvlog
Trump Threatens Iran and Backs Down Again, US Intel Upgrades Israel's Espionage Threat Level, Israel's Plans For Radical Militarization and Autarky, Sy Hersh Says Trump Wanted to Use Nukes on Iran, Ukraine's Long Range Strikes Aren't Going to Win the War... Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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Welcome back to Boundless and Bottomless Seas. In this episode, we finally cross the finish line of Alexander Dugin’s infamous text, The Fourth Political Theory.While Dugin frames himself as the ultimate adversary to Western postmodernism, a close, line-by-line reading reveals a wild, contradictory smoothie of ideas. We put it all in the blender: Soviet Marxism, radical traditionalism, Carl Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction, a heavy dose of Martin Heidegger, and a few tablespoons of pure Infowars-level internet mysticism.
We dive deep into the messy world of his conflicting translations and the obscure concepts found in his appendices:
Political Post-Anthropology: How the shift from a "political subject" to mere "political identification" has reduced modern politics to passive fandom and LARPing.
The Metaphysics of Chaos vs. Logos: Dugin's bizarre, quasi-Gnostic argument that "Logos" has expired and that humanity's only savior is an embrace of "pre-ontological chaos."
The Cult Bullshit Filter: We analyze why his philosophy reads less like a coherent geopolitical strategy and more like an intellectual trap designed to turn 1990s English majors into reactionaries.
We wrap up our thoughts on Dugin and preview what’s next on our summer reading list as we shift gears toward American conservative fusionism, movement conservatism, and eating our vegetables with Russell Kirk and Leo Strauss.
Dugin, Alexander (2012). The Fourth Political Theory. Translated by Sleboda, Mark; Millerman, Michael. Arktos Media.
Check out Varn Vlog
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This week Arnold from Fight Like an Animal joins us to talk about his new book Fight Like an Animal: Revolutionary Biology in Defense of Life.
From the Publisher's Site:
The stories we tell matter, especially when we aren't aware we're telling them, or how they shape our behavior. In Fight Like an Animal, Arnold Schroder argues that all modern conceptions of politics, from anarchism to fascism, exhibit a shared confusion. All are based on some form of the nature-nurture binary: the idea that human behavior is either biologically or socially-determined, and that the more it is biological, the less it is social. This idea is not simply wrong, but logically incoherent. We can only adapt to so many different kinds of society through a highly-structured biology, which we should seek to understand if we wish to find new ways of living.
Based on decades of immersion in the environmental movement, Fight Like an Animal describes how largely-forgotten debates about human nature still have concrete impacts on political projects today. When we escape the confusion they cause, we can direct our attention to something that should be obvious: individual differences in political personality. Political personality is the core orientation to the world from which specific political behaviors and perceptions emerge. We must ask how different kinds of people shape societies in different ways, and how people are shaped, in turn, by the societies they create. Neither of these questions make sense in isolation: they are endlessly entangled.
Using this integrative framework, Schroder offers simple, readily-accessible tools for conceiving of social change processes and crafting strategic initiatives, whether for a book club or a global revolution. Applying insights gained everywhere from oil refinery blockades to baboon stress hormone profiles, Fight Like an Animal is an earnest argument that, no matter how mired in darkness and confusion, the world can make sense.
https://www.againsttheinternet.com/
https://severedbranchespress.com/
Trump Backs Down From Renewed War With Iran, NATO Rejects Mandatory Ukraine Tax, Israel Wants Holocaust Denier to Rule Iran, Latvian Government Collapses, US Does Israel's Fighting, Ukraine's Losses Higher Than Russia In 2026 So Far, Territorial Gain Discrepancies...
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Finally, the long-awaited end of 'Disaster Nationalism' by Richard Seymour. The gang dives into the final chapters of this amazing book.https://www.versobooks.com/products/3147-disaster-nationalism?srsltid=AfmBOopteajdHFhvPPMqXAdXY-mHaQbhDVu5iClxBvNpDm57Jdetk0kHJoin the Regrettable Century Patreon
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As socialists, what should we think about conspiracy theories? Should the myriad secret diabolical acts perpetrated by the elites lead us to be more open minded toward the ravings of the open-minded so-called "lunatic fringe," Or does it even matter whether the theories are true?
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle
https://files.libcom.org/files/Comments%20on%20the%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle.pdf
Conspiracy Theory Is Dead
https://jacobin.com/2023/05/conspiracy-theory-is-dead
Conspiracies: Left vs Right
https://theramparts.substack.com/p/conspiracies-the-left-vs-right
Understanding and Addressing the Rise of Conspiracy Theories in the 21st Century
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.70050?af=R
What do socialists say about conspiracy theories?
https://socialistalternative.info/2024/08/16/what-do-socialists-say-about-conspiracy-theories/
Conspiracy-Theory Socialism
https://fee.org/articles/conspiracy-theory-socialism/
How the Left Lost Its Mind
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/liberal-fever-swamps/530736/
Why Is Conspiratorial Thinking More Popular on the Right?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-justice-pacifists/202110/why-is-conspiratorial-thinking-more-popular-the-right
What Conspiracy Theories on the Left and Right Have in Common
https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-conspiracy-theories-on-the-left-and-right-have-in-common/
How the Left Fools Themselves Into Thinking the Right Are Conspiracy Theorists
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/07/23/how_the_left_fools_themselves_into_thinking_the_right_are_conspiracy_theorists.html
F-35s With no Radar, US Pulling Troops From Europe, Chinese Solar Exports Soar, Iran Is a Massive Strategic Defeat For the US, Israel's Government Is Crumbling, Vehicle and Territory Losses In Ukraine... Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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This week's bonus episode is the second and last part of our close read close read of a 2021 article from Current Affairs titled What Is Fascism—And Why the Definition Matters by Abel Sterling. We found some merit in this article and decided it would form the basis of a good discussion.
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This week, the boys got together to finish the discussion about what appears to be a massive shift in the way the global system is ordered. Will it be better? Likely not. Will it present opportunities for rupture? Hopefully.
Why Is There No Antiwar Movement in the US?
https://jacobin.com/2026/03/iran-us-antiwar-movement-trump
Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster
https://archive.ph/gEEBj
The decline of the West and the rise of ‘the Rest’ will lead to a new world order
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2025-09/decline-west-and-rise-rest-will-lead-new-world-order
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Jason and Varn are back and discussing Dugin again. As the discussion of the book inches closer to conclusion, this discussion moves into Dugin's ideas about Fascism, Liberalism, and Communism and the need to transcend these ideologies in the 21st century before moving into the Heideggerian foundations of Dugin's thought. Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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Check Out Varn Vlog
This week, the boys got together to talk about what appears to be a massive shift in the way the global system is ordered. Will it be better? Likely not. Will it present opportunities for rupture? Hopefully.
Why Is There No Antiwar Movement in the US?
https://jacobin.com/2026/03/iran-us-antiwar-movement-trump
Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster
https://archive.ph/gEEBj
The decline of the West and the rise of ‘the Rest’ will lead to a new world order
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2025-09/decline-west-and-rise-rest-will-lead-new-world-order
This Is the Way a World Order Ends
https://archive.ph/9bEI6
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This week's bonus episode is a close read of an article from Current Affairs titled What Is Fascism—And Why the Definition Matters by Abel Sterling. We found some merit in this article and decided it would form the basis of a good discussion. Stay tuned for part two.
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In part VI the boys discuss theories of "decadence" as viewed by the Aufheben collective.
We focus on their early contributions to Marxist theory, critique of the state, and their eventual decline.
Note: Within days of recording this, the Iran war broke out, but this was recorded a few days before that started.
Key Topics Discussed:
The Roots of Aufheben: How the collective emerged within the landscape of radical Marxist theory.
Critique of Luxemburgism: Why Aufheben rejected theories of automatic economic collapse in favor of a more nuanced understanding of class struggle.
The Decay of Theory: Analyzing the shifts in the collective’s perspective that signaled a move away from their original radical foundations.
Theoretical Implications: How these debates on the "highest stage" of capitalism and the "rentier state" remain relevant in today's shifting global landscape.
https://www.patreon.com/c/varnvlog/posts
Trump's Big Nothingburger Speech, US Testing Weapons on Iranian Children, Gulf Arabs Want US Bases Out, India Importing Iranian Oil, US Casualty Coverup, Iranian Missiles are 80% Successful, Hezbollah is Taking a Huge Toll on Israel, Ukraine Desertion and Manpower Crisis...
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This week, we read an article by inveterate shitlib, defender of liberal imperialism, and misunderstander of history, Jonathan Rauch. Rauch has changed his mind about Trump being a fascist, and we are here to tell him he shouldn't have...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/
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This week, the Regrettable Christian Caucus tackles Chapter III of Laudato Si' by 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 the protection of the world's most vulnerable populations.
Read Along Here:
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
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The Stumbling Bumbling War Crimes Clown Show, US to Lift Sanctions on Iranian and Russian Oil, Global Energy Output Severely Reduced For Years, Plans For Forever War, Earthquake Faction, Ukraine Joins the Axis of Genocide, and Yes, They are Still Losing...
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This week Chris and Jason read and discuss two articles about the rearrangement of the global order. Multipolarity is here; will it be better or worse for peace, stability, profits, or the project for human liberation? Join the Regrettable Century Patreon
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Colored Revolutions: A New Form of Regime Change, Made in the USA https://www.globalresearch.ca/colored-revolutions-a-new-form-of-regime-change-made-in-the-usa/27061
Can the West Still Engineer a ‘Color Revolution’? We’re About to Find Out https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/color-revolution-lukyanov/
Why a Decade of Protests Didn’t Lead to Revolution https://jacobin.com/2024/01/vincent-bevins-interview-mass-protests-2010s-arab-spring-euromaidan
New report unveils how CIA schemes color revolutions around the world https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202305/1290090.shtml
Nepal's color revolution: US funding under scrutiny amid country's political upheaval https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/09/17/755176/nepal-color-revolution-us-funding-under-scrutiny-amid-political-upheaval
How Color Revolution Was Born—and Died—in Serbiahttps://www.compactmag.com/article/how-color-revolution-was-born-and-died-in-serbia/
Protests in Kazakhstan: A Color Revolution or a Working-Class Uprising? https://internationalviewpoint.org/Protests-in-Kazakhstan-A-Color-Revolution-or-a-Working-Class-Uprising
Inside the Syrian Revolution and what the Left must do https://internationalviewpoint.org/Inside-the-Syrian-Revolution-and-what-the-Left-must-do
The Epstein Alliance is at War With Iran... and its Not Going Well, Zelensky Threatens to Invade Hungary, Russian Casualty Figures are Inflated, Ukraine is Losing the War... Still
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This week, the boys got together and discussed the perpetual battle between the digital Stalinists and the digital Third Campists. To what extent have those demonized as tankies been right or wrong? To what extent do any of these archaic political designations matter?
New Tankies and Digital Neo-Stalinism: How the Conservative Left is Incubated
https://europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article73701
Don’t Be a Tankie: How the Left Should Respond to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/01/ukraine-russia-leftists-tankie/
What Is a Tankie-and Why You Don’t Want to Be One
https://medium.com/@ksutherland2727.ks/what-is-a-tankie-and-why-you-dont-want-to-be-one-0fb84611233a
Everything you ever wanted to know about tankies, but were afraid to ask
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/various-authors-always-against-the-tanks#toc2
Why are ‘anti-imperialists’ defending dictators?
https://www.972mag.com/tankies-left-authoritarians-imperialism/
The ‘Anti-Imperialism’ of Idiots
https://itsgoingdown.org/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/
JFK Files Reveal CIA Role in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising
https://www.joewrote.com/p/jfk-files-reveal-the-cia-role-in
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Keep up with Burkina Faso, Trump is Killing Cuba, Iran is a Formidable Opponent, Iranian Dead Protester Psyop, Pedophile Country Provides Security for Epstein, Spook Dictators on the Rise in Ukraine, The Ukrainian Counteroffensive that Wasn't...
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Finally, the long awaited return of 'Disaster Nationalism' by Richard Seymour. The gang dives into chapters three and four. Catch up with us by joining the Discord.From the publisher:
Liberal civilization is in crisis - now is a time of monsters.
While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic right-wing leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, defeating these people will not stem the tide behind them. They are the embodiment of profound forces that are rarely understood. With meticulous analysis and compelling storytelling, Richard Seymour delves into the ideologies fueling the contemporary right and distorting modern politics into something abhorrent and nihilistic. The battle against disaster nationalism is not just political; it is a struggle for our collective soul and the future of civilization.
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This week, we returned to a discussion about a not very well-known article from an obscure Trotskyist journal written over a decade ago...
It generated a little bit of a buzz, but was mostly ignored. We think that was a mistake, and we are going to tell you all about why you should care about the decisions of the 10th Party Congress of the Russian Communist Party.
You won't want to miss this episode.
The Article in Question:
The Red Jacobins: Thermidor and the Russian Revolution in 1921
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The Greenland Nothingburger, Regime Change in Iran Wouldn't be Quick or Easy, Epstein Was Mossad, Epstein in Ukraine, Ukraine's Internal and Military Collapse...
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The boys are back and are nearing the end of the book. Chapters 11 and 12 are where Dugin's animating principle of "Dasein" comes into conflict with his understanding of global geopolitics and the project of "Fourth Political Praxis."
Work Cited: Dugin, Alexander (2012). The Fourth Political Theory. Translated by Sleboda, Mark; Millerman, Michael. Arktos Media.
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This is a repost of an episode from 2003, but with an added leadoff that we recorded recently.
This episode discusses a topic that bears constant revisiting: our pessimism (because of intellect) and our optimism (because of will). No, it's not just a doomer affectation that we can use to sound as cool as we look; it's a critical method of engaging with the bleak reality that faces us.
The only way out is through, but getting through is possible.
Revolutionary Pessimism: The Worst is Yet to Come
https://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/12/covid-peter-fleming-revolutionary-pessimism-capitalism/
Pessimism of the Will
https://viewpointmag.com/2020/05/28/pessimism-of-the-will/
CRITICAL PESSIMISM AND THE LIMITS OF TRADITIONAL MARXISM
https://www.jstor.org/stable/657342
For A Refresher:
The Proper Amount of Bumming People Out: Pessimisms and Optimisms of Intellect and Willhttps://regrettablecentury.podbean.com/e/the-proper-amount-of-bumming-people-out-pessimisms-and-optimisms-of-intellect-and-will/ Scattered Thoughts on Melancholia and the Organization of Pessimismhttps://regrettablecentury.podbean.com/e/scattered-thoughts-on-melancholia-and-the-organization-of-pessimism/ Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the Willhttps://regrettablecentury.podbean.com/e/pessimism-of-the-intellect-pessimism-of-the-will/https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/889740-pessimism-of-the-intellect-pessimism-of-the-will Music- Англия - Сказочный мир
This week, we get together to talk through a sort of brief overview of the era of the Pink Tide in Latin America and try to draw out some of the lessons and implications for the future of Socialism for the 21st Century...
What Happened to the Pink Tide?
https://jacobin.com/2016/07/pink-tide-latin-america-chavez-morales-capitalism-socialism/
The Rise and Fall of the Latin American Left
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-ebb-and-flow-of-latin-americas-pink-tide/
What Is Socialism for the Twenty-First Century?
https://monthlyreview.org/2016/10/01/what-is-socialism-for-the-twenty-first-century/
21st Century Socialism: What It Will Become and Why?
https://ibw21.org/commentary/21st-century-socialism-what-it-will-become-and-why/
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Here it is comrades, the long-awaited fourth patron Q&A. We answer questions about America's humiliation, Chinese communism, AI in schools, and our favorite revolutionary books and/or pamphlets.
This is only half the questions we received this time, the second half will be posted in Patron Q&A V next week...
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The Iran Regime Change that Wasn't, Canada and China are Pals Now, Greenland Idiocy, Ukraine's Mass Desertion Crisis, Ukraine's Corruption Crisis, Ukraine's Fiscal Crisis, Ukraine's Fortification Crisis, Ukraine's Losing the War Crisis...
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Once again, the boys are back... again. We return to our long-neglected "Decadence Theory" project with Varn Vlog. This week, the boys try to get back in the swing of things with a reorientation episode.
Varn Vlog
https://www.patreon.com/c/varnvlog/posts
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This week, we finally finish off the a close reading of The Concept of Left by Leszek Kolakowski.
Kolakowski was a dissident Polish Marxist who later turned against the project altogether. However, before he did, he wrote much that is worth reading.
The Concept of the Left- Leszek Kolakowski
https://danieltutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/concept_of-_the_left_kolakowskileszek.pdf
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The Venezuelan Regime Change that Wasn't, Oil Companies don't Want Venezuelan Oil, Machado Sidelined by Trump, Israeli False Flags, Israel Persecutes Christians, AIPAC Goes Underground, The CIA's Role in the Ukraine War, Ukraine War Summary 2025...
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This week, the Regrettable Christian Caucus finishes Chapter II of Laudato Si' by 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 the protection of the world's most vulnerable populations.
Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here).
Support the show
Visit the Regrettable Century Merch Shop
Well, here is a release that is back on our old schedule, but we won't be on this schedule for long. In fact, this is our last geopolitics episode of the year. We will resume in the New Year on a bi-weekly schedule.
Trump's Acts of Piracy, Genocide in Darfur, Officer Exodus from the IDF, Europe Hopes to Prolong Ukraine War, More Russian Gains and Ukrainian Losses...
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The boys are back, well... some of the boys. Picking up after a year long hiatus, Jason and Varn are ready to get down to finishing off Dugin.
Dugin, Alexander (2012). The Fourth Political Theory. Translated by Sleboda, Mark; Millerman, Michael. Arktos Media.
Varn Vlog https://varnvlog.buzzsprout.com/
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This is a Patreon episode we liked so much that we unlocked it for everyone to hear. We hope you enjoy it.
This week, Jason and Ben sat down to acknowledge and resolve all the contradictions that have manifested in our discussions on this podcast. Actually, we don't resolve anything, but we do acknowledge some things. Our listeners will know that we often disagree with the broader left, each other, and our earlier selves. While we don't manage to piece together a solid line for the podcast, we do manage to talk a lot about those contradictions.
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This week we sat down with Matthew from the Unbreakable Union podcast and talked about the changing state of the world, what it's been like to be on the left throughout the years, the situation in France, and why maybe our pessimism makes a little bit more sense than it might first seem.
https://unbreakableunion.buzzsprout.com/
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This week, Jason and Ben continued their conversation with Stephan Hammel of The Measures Taken Podcast about his new book Toward a Materialist Conception of Music History.
From the publisher:
"This book argues for the relevance, appropriateness, and usefulness of historical materialism to the musicological project. It interrogates the history of encounters between Marxism and music studies — both within and without the Soviet sphere — before staging the missed encounter between classical musicology and Second International Marxism. It concludes with a framework for understanding style history in terms of changes in the forces and relations of musical production."
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2684-toward-a-materialist-conception-of-music-history
https://www.themeasurestaken.org/
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Trump Wants to Talk to Maduro, Israel is Still Murdering Children, Zelensky Has Lost Touch With Reality, Ukraine Is Losing and Being Forced Into an Unfavorable Peace Deal...
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This week, Jason and Ben got together with friend and comrade Stephan Hammel of The Measures Taken Podcast to talk about his new book Toward a Materialist Conception of Music History.
From the publisher:
"This book argues for the relevance, appropriateness, and usefulness of historical materialism to the musicological project. It interrogates the history of encounters between Marxism and music studies — both within and without the Soviet sphere — before staging the missed encounter between classical musicology and Second International Marxism. It concludes with a framework for understanding style history in terms of changes in the forces and relations of musical production."
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2684-toward-a-materialist-conception-of-music-history
https://www.themeasurestaken.org/
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It's once again time for 'Disaster Nationalism' by Richard Seymour. The gang dives into chapters one and two, which means there is still time to become part of the group. If you would like to join in, go to the Discord!
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Another year of podcasting is in the books. Listen to our post-game wrap of the year's events, the podcast, and our lives.
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This week we did a close reading of a RAND corporation policy proposal paper called Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options. It has been argued that this document is the root of America's disastrous foreign policy regarding Russia, which has plunged Ukraine and the Middle East into misery and death.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf
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Trump's Fake Drug War Against Venezuela, Trump's Dumbass Diplomacy Nets Big L vs China, Trump's Protection Racket Only Works on US Allies, Genocide in Darfur Has UAE and Israeli Fingerprints, Kiev Won't Last till Spring?, The Ukrainian Nazi Cult of the Christchurch Shooter, Zelensky Threatens Journalists, The Collapse Speeds Up...
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This week, we began (and had to cut short) a close reading of The Concept of Left by Leszek Kolakowski. Kolakowski was a dissident Polish Marxist who later turned against the project altogether. However, before he did, he wrote much that is worth reading.
The Concept of the Left- Leszek Kolakowski
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This week, Jason and Ben sat down to acknowledge and resolve all the contradictions that have manifested in our discussions on this podcast. Actually, we don't resolve anything, but we do acknowledge some things. Our listeners will know that we often disagree with the broader left, each other, and our earlier selves. While we don't manage to piece together a solid line for the podcast, we do manage to talk a lot about those contradictions.
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This week, the Regrettable Christian Caucus begins Chapter II of Laudato Si, by 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 the protection of the world's most vulnerable populations.
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Samantha Powers' UN/Israel Collusion, Anduril/Palantir Intel Risks to US Military, Right Wing Imperialist Proxy Wins Nobel Prize, Cease Fire in Gaza?, Angela Merkel Shifts Blame Onto Poland and Baltics, Poland's Imperial Ambitions, Zelensky's Wunderwaffen Scams, Ukraine's Energy Industry Crippled...
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It's time for a new patron reading group, and we've chosen 'Disaster Nationalism' by Richard Seymour. The gang gets started with the introduction, which means there is still time to become part of the group. If so, go to the Discord to join in.
From the publisher:
Liberal civilisation is in crisis - now is a time of monsters.
While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic right-wing leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, defeating these people will not stem the tide behind them. They are the embodiment of profound forces that are rarely understood. With meticulous analysis and compelling storytelling, Richard Seymour delves into the ideologies fueling the contemporary right and distorting modern politics into something abhorrent and nihilistic. The battle against disaster nationalism is not just political; it is a struggle for our collective soul and the future of civilization.
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This week the boys finish 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/
Listen to Part I:https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/17815226-a-cascading-series-of-new-lefts-part-i-of-ii
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This week, we read and discussed an article about a phenomenon that apparently some people are, or were, concerned about: the problem of fascist infiltration of the anti-war movement. We discuss the problems inherent in gatekeeping social movements and the lack of left-wing organizations of any size. We also chime in on the overblown concerns about "Red-Brownism."
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The US is Behind On Drone Warfare, Satano-Nazi Terror in the USA, The Global Turn Against the Genocidal Apartheid State, The AFD's Gains in Former SPD Bastion, Reform UK is Britain's Most Popular Party, The Neo-Nazi Who Knew Too Much, Zelensky Is Losing Touch With Reality, Ukraine's Slow Collapse Continues...
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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/political-violence-our-own-worst-enemies-robert-pape
A Brutal Decade: Dissecting the Causes of Violence in the 1970s https://brilliantio.com/why-were-the-1970s-so-violent/
‘Days of Rage’ and the Forgotten Radicalism of the 70s https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/days-of-rage-and-the-forgotten-radicalism-of-the-70s/
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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...
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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/
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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
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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
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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 Like an Animal Podcast
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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...
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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...
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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.com/2024/01/adulting-middle-age-millennials-boomersAre millennials really an ‘infantilised generation’ - and if so, why? https://theweek.com/107508/are-millennials-infantilised-generationArrested Development https://newint.org/features/2018/01/01/arrested-development
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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
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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 future.
The Luddites Were Right
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-were-right
What the Luddites Really Fought Against https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/
Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of AI https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/10/02/rethinking-the-luddites-in-the-age-of-a-i/
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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 reading below as a PDF.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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 the Spectacle.
https://www.threemonkeysonline.com/the-game-of-war-guy-debord-and-the-society-of-the-spectacle/
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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
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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 transition to a sustainable economy and for protection of the worlds most vulnerable populations.
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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
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Poland No Confidence in Tusk, Saudis Support For Syria, Israel Attacks Syria, More Genocide in Gaza, Russia vs Ukraine/Al Qaeda in Africa, Walkin' in the Spiderwebs, Terrorism?, Ukraine Body Swap Debacle, Russia's Inexorable Advance Continues...
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In the final episode of our Czechoslovak Socialism series, we dive into the final attempt to reform the Czechoslovak system. As with the Prague Spring, the official ML/liberal narrative about are the same, that this was an attempt to overthrow socialism and establish a capitalist democracy. Just like the Prague Spring, it seems clear that the intentions of its participants were the opposite. The vast majority of Czechoslovaks who participated in the movements that brought down the republic were attempting to reform the socialist system, not destroy it.
Krapfl, James. Revolution with a Human Face Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992. Cornell University Press, 2017.
Scott Brown. “Prelude to a Divorce? The Prague Spring as Dress Rehearsal for Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce.’” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 10 (2008): 1783–1804.
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The dudes are back, although Sean couldn't join for this episode. Jason and Varn talk about some of the logic here, the limits of trying to pin down conservatism right now, and why politics is so frustrating. No, we didn't speak much about Dugin... but we are doing this to remind everyone that we will.
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The gang takes on the first half of Chapter 7 of Bauer's analysis of the concept of the nation...
Follow Along Here:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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The boys and Varn Vlog are back again, for the long-awaited return to our series talking about "Decadence Theory." This week, the boys respond to a response to the ICC's pamphlet on decadence theory. The article we read and discussed was published by Aufheben and is titled The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory.
Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory? Part Varn Vlog
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We recently went on the For a New Republic podcast to talk about Trump, fascism, and rebuilding the workers' movement in the United States. For a New Republic is the official podcast of Éirígí For A New Republic, an Irish socialist republican party that seeks the reunification of Ireland and the establishment of a workers' republic.
Éirígí For A New RepublicFor a New Republic Podcast
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Hungary vs Ukraine, Iran Nuke Proposal, Why Trump Declared Victory Over the Houthis, Chinese Jets Better than Euro's?, Istanbul Clown Show, Ukraine's Lost War of Attrition Continues...
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This week we return to an always prescient question: What happened to the future?
What Lies Ahead?
https://jacobin.com/2023/01/slavoj-zizek-time-future-history-catastrophe-emancipation
Mark Fisher’s Specters of Scarcity
https://jacobin.com/2025/01/mark-fisher-neoliberalism-acid-communism
‘Culture has lost the ability to grasp the present’
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/mark-fisher-ghosts-retromania/
How the pandemic messed with our perception of time
https://www.vox.com/science/23823507/pandemic-memory-time-perception-lockdown
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Habemus Papam, Al Qaeda 🤝France, Trump Owned by Xi, Trump Owned by Houthis, Trump Owned by Bibi, Pakistan vs India, China 🤝 Russia, Ukraine's Very Bleak Strategic Assessment...
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Trump/Zelensky Meeting, Minerals Deal, US Arms Sales to Ukraine, Superhornet Down!, North Korean Troops in Kursk, Russian Gains in April
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The boys got together to take a look at the first 100 days of Trump's presidency. We talk about inept bumbling, cruelty, misery, war, and how it's still not fascism.
Jacobin: This Is America by Daniel Bessner
The Nation: The New McCarthyism Was Started by Liberals by Jeet Heer
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Trump Talks Truce, Iran Nuclear Deal, What's the Point of the EU?, Don't Bluff China, Sumy Missile Strike, Russia Rolls On
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A couple of weeks ago, Jason gave a talk to the New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies about the history of American Socialism. Here is the audio of that talk...
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The boys (featuring the return of Mir) return to the slaughter-bench to finish discussing Terry Pinkard's article "The Spirit of History."
The Spirit of History by Terry Pinkard
https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-history-nobody-gave-a-deeper-answer-than-hegel
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Kursk Losses Breakdown, China China China, Israel Executes UN Worker and Paramedics, Ansar Allah Reaps Reaper Drones, Renewed Russian Offensive?
And so on...
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The gang tackles Chapter 06 of Bauer's analysis of the concept of the nation.
The Transformation of the Principle of Nationality (pg. 355)
National Autonomy and the Principle of Nationality
The Roots of Capitalist Expansionism
The Working Class and Capitalist Expansionism
Imperialism and the Principle of Nationality
Socialism and the Principle of Nationality
Read along with us:https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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Here's a bonus episode for you on what is normally an off week.
Listen now to hear Jason and Chris give an introduction to the introduction of the Unbreakable Union podcast, then listen to the introduction.
Unbreakable Union Podcast
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Rare Earths Deal, War Footing in the Pacific, Coalition of the... Willing?, Ceasefire Breaches, Le Pen Convicted, Trump is Pissed off at Putin, NYT Says Ukrainians are Stupid Losers, Russian Offensive Isn't Stalling After All...
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This week Chris talks to Jason and Matthew about their new podcast: Unbreakable Union. This ambitious project will span six seasons with roughly one decade being covered per season.
Check out our episode then listen to the podcast below or on your preferred podcatcher. It should be showing up everywhere in the next few days.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462690
Also, come join our Patreon and get access to our discord!
Click below:
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Signalgate, Yemen, Ceasefire Failures, Russian Advances, and Ukrainian Flailing.
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Ok, finally we get around to answering questions about religion and parenting... also some other stuff. Just go listen.
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The boys (featuring the return of Mir) kick back on the slaughter-bench to discuss Hegel's philosophy of history by discussing Terry Pinkard's article "The Spirit of History."
The Spirit of History by Terry Pinkard
https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-history-nobody-gave-a-deeper-answer-than-hegel
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Regrettable Geopolitics - 03/23/2025 (Israel Turns the Genocide Machine Back On, Yemen/Iran, Kursk, Other Ukraine Things, and Cease-Fire Talks)
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Finally, the long-awaited second Q&A episode. We talk USSR, religion, parenting, and all sort of other stuff... but some of it will have to wait until Q&A #3, which will be soon. Enjoy!
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This week Chris and Jason read and discussed a paper Chris wrote for a strategic studies project about neo-Nazi terror networks and their links to far-right militias in Ukraine.
The influx of foreign fighters to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion of 2022 has outpaced US intel and law enforcement agencies' ability to monitor potential radicals going to and coming from Ukraine. Far-right extremists have been drawn to the conflict in Ukraine since 2014 due to affiliated organizations that belong to a web of loosely related violent neo-fascist organizations. Several affiliated extremists have been apprehended planning terror attacks and other acts of violence.
Amos, Howard, and Harriet Salem. 2014. “Ukraine Clashes: Dozens Dead after Odessa Building Fire.” The Guardian. May 2, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/ukraine-dead-odessa-building-fire.
“Atomwaffen Division (AWD)/ National Socialist Order (NSO) | ADL.” 2020. Www.adl.org. April 29, 2020. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/atomwaffen-division-awd-national-socialist-order-nso.
Belew, Kathleen. 2018. Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Department of Homeland Security: US Customs and Border Protection. 2022. “Intelligence Note: United States Citizens Joining the Fight for Ukraine.”
Department of Justice: Office of Public Affairs. 2023. “Office of Public Affairs | Proud Boys Leader Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison for Seditious Conspiracy and Other Charges Related to U.S. Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice.” Www.justice.gov. September 5, 2023. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/proud-boys-leader-sentenced-22-years-prison-seditious-conspiracy-and-other-charges-related.
Goldman, Adam. 2020. “Man Suspected of Planning Attack on Missouri Hospital Is Killed, Officials Say.” The New York Times, March 25, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/us/politics/coronavirus-fbi-shooting.html.
“James Mason.” 2019. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2019. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/james-mason.
Johnston, David Cay. 2002. “William Pierce, 69, Neo-Nazi Leader, Dies.” The New York Times, July 24, 2002, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/us/william-pierce-69-neo-nazi-leader-dies.html.
Kacper, Rekawek. 2022. Foreign Fighters in Ukraine: The Brown–Red Cocktail. New York: Routledge.
Kheel, Rebecca. 2018. “Congress Bans Arms to Ukraine Militia Linked to Neo-Nazis.” The Hill. March 27, 2018. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militia-linked-to-neo-nazis/.
Kriner, Matthew, and Jon Lewis. 2021. “Pride & Prejudice: The Violent Evolution of the Proud Boys.” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. July 9, 2021. https://ctc.westpoint.edu/pride-prejudice-the-violent-evolution-of-the-proud-boys/.
Loisy, Par Florian, and Gwenael Bourdon et Jean-Michel Décugis Le 8 février 2022 à 06h15. 2022. “Enquête Sur Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier, Le Sulfureux Chef Présumé des Zouaves Paris.” Leparisien.fr. February 8, 2022. https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/ultra-droite-qui-est-marc-de-cacqueray-valmenier-chef-presume-des-zouaves-paris-08-02-2022-TBCYP3EIPBA67GY2R7BR3ICAOE.php.
Makuch, Ben. 2023. “Wanted for Murder, an Army Vet Escaped to Ukraine — and Fought the Russians.” The Intercept. July 19, 2023. https://theintercept.com/2023/07/19/ukraine-war-american-foreign-fighter/.
Maron
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Another lightly edited casual conversation about geopolitics. We do a whirlwind summary of the stuff that has happened since last week and land back on the subject of Ukraine for most of the program.
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The boys and Varn Vlog are back again, talking about "Decadence Theory" and how it differs from "crisis theory" and "breakdown theory." We discuss Samir Amin's third-worldist (and not very Marxist) take on decadence theory.
Revolution or Decadence- Samir Amin
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
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Welcome to a new series that we are trying out for Patrons. This is a lightly edited casual conversation between Jason and Chris about Geopolitics. We aren't really preparing for these by doing a lot of research and we certainly aren't doing much editing. We are going to try to do these semi-regularly and hopefully we can figure out how to do video versions as well.
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This week we discussed the thought of one of 20th-century Marxism's socialist opponents, Tomáš Masaryk. Masaryk was reviled by Czech communists until they appropriated him and he was an opponent of capitalism until the champions of capitalism did the same. He was a social democrat with an ethical and Christian-humanist vision of socialism that inspired the Prague Spring but was later coopted by the opponents of the working class and human liberation.
A State without Suicidehttps://www.commonwealmagazine.org/state-without-suicide
Betts, R. R. “Masaryk’s Philosophy of History.” The Slavonic and East European Review 26, no. 66 (1947): 30–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203912.
Kohak, Erazim. “T. G. Masaryk’s Revision of Marxism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 25, no. 4 (1964): 519–42. https://doi.org/10.2307/2708184.
Kovác, Dusan. "World Revolution — Tomás Garrigue Masaryk and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" Human Affairs 1, no. 1 (1991): 22-29. https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-1991-010105
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, and Karel Čapek. Talks with T.G. Masaryk. Catbird Press, 1995.
Winters, Stanley B, Robert B Pynsent, and Harry Hanak. T.G. Masaryk (1850-1937).: Thinker and Critic. Palgrave Macmillan , 1989.
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So, you think you had some judgments? TOO BAD THEY ARE ALL REFUTED!
This week Jason and Andrew watched and discussed Guy Debord's follow up to his Society of the Spectacle film, which is essentially a clapback at his haters. As any good Regrettable discussion goes, the film was the anchor, but the topics ranged far and wide. Enjoy!
Refutation of All the Judgements, Pro or Con, Thus Far Rendered on the Film “The Society of the Spectacle" (1975)
https://www.ubu.com/film/debord_refutation.html
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This week we read and discussed an article by Richard Seymour that explores Marxism's relationship with materialism and idealism. Seymour argues that the Hegelian inheritance within Marxism forces it in the direction of an idealism which is essential for a successful revolutionary politics.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/81735357?pr=true&fbclid=IwAR2ftGQudDJQhykIW4rv_3F34xqP8RGHZdyZyb4JsGQgxzQ7qxvRNI9BP7k
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The gang tackles Chapter 5 of Bauer's analysis of the concept of the nation.
Read Along With Us:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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This week we delve into what is sort of a pre-history of the American Socialist movement. Though the populist movement undeniably kept its Jeffersonian character, it was the first (arguably only) significant challenge to the dominance of the two major capitalist parties in the US. Much of the energy and the spirit of American populism flowed into and colored the burgeoning American workers' movement.
From Populism to Socialism and Back
https://jacobin.com/2019/08/populism-socialism-daniel-de-leon-eugene-debs
American Populism, 1876-1896
https://digital.lib.niu.edu/illinois/gildedage/populism
Populist Party Platform July 4, 1892https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1876-1900/populist-party-platform-july-4-1892.php
Cantrell, Gregg, and D. Scott Barton. “Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics.” The Journal of Southern History 55, no. 4 (1989): 659–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2209044.
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The boys and Varn Vlog are back again, talking about "Decadence Theory" and how it differs from "crisis theory" and "breakdown theory." We discuss Samir Amin's Third-Worldist (and not very Marxist) take on decadence theory.
Revolution or Decadence- Samir Amin
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
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The gang tackles Chapter 4 of Bauer's analysis of the concept of the nation...
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This week we entered the archives and poured through the codices and scrolls containing the wisdom of past episodes to give you this curated trash can of Ideology. We highlighted some themes from the past six years of podcasting that we thought were worth underscoring and how our ideas may have changed...
Our Underlying Philosophy of Dialectical Pessimism
- S1/Ep5: Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the Will
- S1/Ep26: The Proper Amount of Bumming People Out
- S4/Ep7: Death of The Left
- S5/Ep21: Pessimism is an Optimism: Revisiting Pessimism
Making Sense of Our Past
- S1/Ep27: Children of the Counterrevolution
- S3/Ep12: The Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the Enlightenment
- S3/Ep22: The Unfulfilled Potential of the Republic
- S4/Ep3: The Tragedy of American Socialism
Rethinking What It Means To “Be” Revolutionary
- S1/Ep18: The Right to the City
- S2/Ep8: We Would Prefer Not To
- S5/Ep15: The Legacy of William Morris
- S6/Ep15: The Antifascism of Fools
A Willingness to Abandon Our Older Trajectory
- S4/Ep20: Labor Theory of Apocalypse
- S6/Ep5: One Plus One Is Three
- S6/Ep16: The Boys Figure Out Which Marxist Tendency is Correct
- S6/Ep19: To Front or Not to Front
The Major Obstacles/Challenges We Face
- S3/Ep5: Happiness Industry Socialism
- S3/Ep17: Everything Is Recuperated
- S5/Ep9: You're Not Making Liberals Socialist...
- S5/Ep19: The Dialectic of Degrowth
Our Deep Skepticism/Hostility Toward Techno-Solutions
- S1/Ep31: The Future Has Been Canceled
- S2/Ep2: Partially Automated Regular Communism
- S2/Ep5: Socialism Without Sacrifice...
- S4/Ep4: No Ethical Technical Innovation Under Capitalism
Looking Ahead
- S4/Ep11: Marxism in Dialogue With Christianity
- S5/Ep12: The Dialectic of Apotheosis
- S5/Ep16: Bathing in the Warm Stream
- S6/Ep22: Real Grouchy Old Man Hours
Regrettable Reading List:
- The Red Jacobins: Thermidor & The Russian Revolution in 1921
- Party As Articulator
- The Tragedy of the Worker
- Revolution: An Intellectual History
- Left Wing Melancholia
- Excremental Happiness: From Neurotic Hedonism to Dialectical Pessimism
- Liquid Modernity
- The True and Only Heaven: Progress & Its Critics
- The Twittering Machine
- Hegel & The Hermetic Tradition
- A Primer on Utopian Philosophy: Marxism & Utopian Struggle
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This is an old episode of our friend Andrew's podcast that was recorded a few years ago. The podcast is now defunct, but we thought y'all deserved to hear it.
In this episode Jason and Andrew watched and discussed Guy Debord's 1974 film version of The Society of the Spectacle.
Enjoy and Happy New Year.
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the actual episode
We are joined again by our official France correspondent, Matthew. Matthew is a veteran of American Trot sectarian organizing and the labor movement who lives in France and is more intimately involved in the happenings than we are.
We discuss the failure of the New Popular Front, the ham-fisted triumph of Macron, and the death throes of the French political system.
French government of Michel Barnier toppled after losing no-confidence vote – as it happened
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/04/france-government-vote-no-confidence-barnier-lepen-europe-live
Macron ally François Bayrou appointed new French prime minister
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/13/macron-ally-francois-bayrou-appointed-new-french-prime-minister
How fall of government is proof that France's Fifth Republic 'no longer works'
https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/politique/071224/how-fall-government-proof-frances-fifth-republic-no-longer-works?utm_source=article_offert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TRANSAC&utm_content=&utm_term=&xtor=EPR-1013-%5Barticle-offert%5D&M_BT=9679632603774
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Soldiering on and finishing Chapter 3 of Bauer's excellent Marxist analysis of the nation.
Read along with us:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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This week, we read and discussed Eley and Blackbourn's indispensable discussion of the Sonderweg, or special path, of German history. It is often said that Germany's path to the Holocaust begins with the failure of the bourgeois revolution to take hold. This book posits a top-down Bonapartist "revolution" led by Otto von Bismarck which thoroughly bourgeoisified German society from the top to the bottom.
Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1984; Oxford Academic, 3 Oct. 2011)
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Kicking off Year VII, Chris and Ben are joined by Daniel Saunders to discuss Herbert McCabe's Class Struggle and Christian Love. The intention was also to cover pieces by Dennis Turner and Terry Eagleton but time got away from them, so Daniel will have to return again...
Herbert McCabe: The Class Struggle and Christian Love https://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/14/herbert-mccabe-class-struggle-capitalism-marxism-christianity/
More of Daniel:
Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism & Christianityhttps://www.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/14978167-ideology-fetishism-apophaticism-marxist-criticism-and-christianity-with-daniel-saunders
Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism and Christianity:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nbfr.12642
And Here:
https://daniel-saunders.com/Mentioned Materials:The Slant Manifestohttps://archive.org/details/SlantManifestoCatholicsAndTheLeft
The New Blackfriars Journal
https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/study/new-blackfriars-journal/
Science Impregnated With History: Marxism and Reason (With Chris Manno)https://www.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/4672121-science-impregnated-with-history-marxism-and-reason-with-chris-manno.mp3?download=trueSend us a text
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The long-awaited part two of our year six in review episode. We kick it off with a little geopolitical discussion but get around to discussing our personal lives and the podcast.
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We are back at it again talking decadence theory with Varn. This week, we dig into Samir Amin's piece from Monthly Review.
We discussed the following materials:
Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585
Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory?
https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2
Revolution or Decadence?
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
Check out Varn Vlog Here
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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As we wrap up another year of podcasting, we offer our expert opinions on everything that sucks about the world. Stay tuned for part II.
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The long march through the text continues as the gang tackles chapter three.
Read along here:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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This is part two of a discussion based on a paper Chris wrote about the concept of "German Socialism" from which groups like the NSDAP, the National Bolsheviks, Conservative Revolutionaries, and Black Front draw the basis for their ideologies.
Mosse, George Lachmann. The Crisis of German Ideology. 1964. Reprint, New York: Schocken, 1981.
King, John. “Writing and Rewriting the First World War: Ernst Jünger and the Crisis of the Conservative Imagination, 1914-25.” St. John’s College, 1999.
Kedar, Asaf. “National Socialism Before Nazism: Friedrich Naumann and Theodor Fritsch, 1890-1914,” PhD diss., (University of California, Berkeley, 2010).
Krebs, Gerhard. “Moeller van Den Bruck: Inventor of the ‘Third Reich.’” American Political Science Review 35, no. 6 (December 1941), 1088-1089.
Stachura, Peter D. Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (RLE Nazi Germany & Holocaust). Routledge, 2014.
Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair : A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology. 1961. Reprint, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1974.
Tourlamain, Guy. Völkisch” Writers and National Socialism : A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture in Germany, 1890-1960. Oxford Et Autres: Peter Lang, 2014.
Waite, Robert G L. Vanguard of Nazism : The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969.
Ward, James J. “Pipe Dreams or Revolutionary Politics? The Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists in the Weimar Republic.” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (July 1980): 513–32.
Woods, Roger. The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : New York: Macmillan Press ; St. Martin’s Press, 1996, 62.
Ley, Robert. 1920. “The Program of the NSDAP.” The 25 Points 1920: An Early Nazi Program, February. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/25points.asp.
Paetel, Karl O. The National Bolshevist Manifesto. 1933. Reprint, Coppell Tx: Red Flame Press, 2021.
Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Translated by Eden and Ceder Paul. 1932. Reprint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1940.
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The boys dive in to Dugin's thoughts on civilization, colonialism, and imperialism.
Don't worry, there are literally no digressions and the guys stay on point the whole time.
Check out the full episode here:
https://www.patreon.com/c/theregrettablecentury
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
Check out Antifada here:
https://www.patreon.com/theantifada
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First of all, if you are listening to a version with bad audio, don't worry, I reuploaded a version with good audio and you can probably just refresh your podcasting app to get the newer version.
This is a discussion based on a paper Chris wrote about the concept of "German Socialism" from which groups like the NSDAP, the National Bolsheviks, Conservative Revolutionaries, and Black Front draw the basis for their ideologies.
Mosse, George Lachmann. The Crisis of German Ideology. 1964. Reprint, New York: Schocken, 1981.
King, John. “Writing and Rewriting the First World War: Ernst Jünger and the Crisis of the Conservative Imagination, 1914-25.” St. John’s College, 1999.
Kedar, Asaf. “National Socialism Before Nazism: Friedrich Naumann and Theodor Fritsch, 1890-1914,” PhD diss., (University of California, Berkeley, 2010).
Krebs, Gerhard. “Moeller van Den Bruck: Inventor of the ‘Third Reich.’” American Political Science Review 35, no. 6 (December 1941), 1088-1089.
Stachura, Peter D. Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (RLE Nazi Germany & Holocaust). Routledge, 2014.
Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair : A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology. 1961. Reprint, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1974.
Tourlamain, Guy. Völkisch” Writers and National Socialism : A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture in Germany, 1890-1960. Oxford Et Autres: Peter Lang, 2014.
Waite, Robert G L. Vanguard of Nazism : The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969.
Ward, James J. “Pipe Dreams or Revolutionary Politics? The Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists in the Weimar Republic.” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (July 1980): 513–32.
Woods, Roger. The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : New York: Macmillan Press ; St. Martin’s Press, 1996, 62.
Ley, Robert. 1920. “The Program of the NSDAP.” The 25 Points 1920: An Early Nazi Program, February. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/25points.asp.
Paetel, Karl O. The National Bolshevist Manifesto. 1933. Reprint, Coppell Tx: Red Flame Press, 2021.
Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Translated by Eden and Ceder Paul. 1932. Reprint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1940.
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In what turns out to be an offshoot of our Czechoslovak socialism series, we dive in to the ill fated and short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. This also turns out to be incredibly relevant to anyone who is following along with our series on Otto Bauer and the national question.
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This week it's just the Regrettable brothers and we are talking about "leftism" and whether the category of "left" still holds any meaning.
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Wherein we cover the entirety of Chapter 2, dealing with the concept of the nation state.
A link to the PDF:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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Continuing what has become a series on Czechoslovak Socialism, we dive into the attempt to reform the Czechoslovak system. The official ML narrative and the liberal narrative about the Prague Spring are the same, they say that it was an attempt to re-establish bourgeois democracy. However, it seems clear that the intentions of its participants were the opposite. They appear to have been a genuine attempt to revitalize and push forward the communist project.
The Action Programme of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
https://www.marxists.org/subject/czech/1968/action-programme.htm
Stoneman, Anna J. “Socialism With a Human Face: The Leadership and Legacy of the Prague Spring.” The History Teacher49, no. 1 (2015): 103–25.
Prague Spring Archive at MIA (worth browsing for historical first impressions)
https://www.marxists.org/subject/czech/index.htm
The Prague Spring of 1968: a glimpse of socialism?
http://isj.org.uk/the-prague-spring/
Liehm, A. J. (1978). The Prague Spring and Eurocommunism. International Journal, 33(4), 804. doi:10.2307/40201691
Skilling, H. Gordon. "The Prague Spring Reassessed." Slavic Review 38, no. 4 (1979): 663-66. doi:10.2307/2496570.
Reform and Counter-reform in Bureaucratic Power
https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/reform.html
Music: Karel Kryl - Veličenstvo kat
(English Translation)
In a gloomy light of a gothic hall
the scared profiteers are gazing into their missals
and a horde of slayers is asking for blessing
After all the first of the knights is his majesty executioner
Aaah look the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner
Priest – the devil who served the mass
is wearing a stole made from a hangmans slope
Having a bottle of vitriol under the purple rochet
The smell of sulfur coming from the mortars
is crawling under the red hood of the first from all the knights
his Majesty Executioner
Aaah to the first of knights look it is his Majesty Executioner
On the national flag there is
an emblem with guillotine
And the barbed wire
smells by something decayed
In our region is a flock of raven nesting
the master hangman reigns these people
The king is kneeing infront of Satan
eagers to have the sceptre
And the rabble is hanging the wise council
at the plane tree
And the heretic crowd is exhilarated and rejoices
After all the first of knights is his Majesty Executioner
Aaah the first of knights is his Majesty Executioner
At a streetcorner a murderer is holding a lecture about moral
Infront of the prison's door the guardians are walking
From the military armour plate the black sign proclaims
that the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner
Aaah that the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner
Over the government palace
rises the flag with guillotine
The children love the ice cream cornets
The judges were upset about them
so they killed their ice cream man
A horrible state it was,
as you had to watch
the writing beeing forbidden
and the singing beeing forbidden
And they didn't have enough
they commanded the kids
to pra
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We are back at it again talking decadence theory with Varn. This week, we dig into Samir Amin's piece from Monthly Review.
We discussed the following materials:
Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585
Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory
https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2
Revolution or Decadence?
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
Check out Varn Vlog Here
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Come listen to the boys discuss Hegel's enduring importance to the contemporary world.
Hegel Is Still an Important Thinker for the Lefthttps://jacobin.com/2023/11/hegel-political-philosophy-world-revolutions-book-review Hegel in the Era of “Wokeness”https://jacobin.com/2023/12/hegel-wokeness-world-spirit-political-theory-history-philosophy-richard-bourke Reading Hegel on Bastille Dayhttps://jacobin.com/2016/07/hegel-bastille-day-burke-french-revolution The dialectic in the service of revolution (up to/until the Marx section…)https://links.org.au/dialectic-service-revolution
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We soldier on through this excellent but little known work on the national question. This week we FINALLY finish Chapter 1.
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The boys get together and talk about the triumphs and failures, the uses and misuses, and the love and hate for the concept of the Popular Front.
Communists, Coalitions, and the Class Strugglehttps://www.cpusa.org/article/communists-coalitions-and-the-class-struggle/
Haslam, Jonathan. “The Comintern and the Origins of the Popular Front 1934-1935.” The Historical Journal 22, no. 3 (1979): 673–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638659.
The Popular Front Didn’t Workhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/10/popular-front-communist-party-democrats
France’s Popular Front: Lessons from the 30shttps://www.counterfire.org/article/frances-popular-front-lessons-from-the-30s/
The Popular Front, Then and Nowhttps://www.rs21.org.uk/2024/06/29/the-popular-front-then-and-now-france-and-the-elections/
The United Fronthttp://isj.org.uk/the-united-front/
Uruguay’s Frente Amplio: From Revolution to Dilutionhttps://upsidedownworld.org/archives/uruguay/uruguays-frente-amplio-from-revolution-to-dilution/
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The boys dive in to chapter 6 of Dugin's Fourth Political theory. Don't worry, there are literally no digressions and the guys stay on point the whole time.
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
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https://www.patreon.com/theantifada
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We just can't stop talking about Czechoslovak Socialism. We decided to deal with the Slovak portion of the Czechoslovak lands, which we feel has been a little neglected in our previous discussions. Slovakia is important as an integral part of the movement of Czechoslovak socialism and as a case study of the problem of the national question. If you have been following along with our discussions of Otto Bauer's work on the national question, you might appreciate the context.
Hear the full episode:
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
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We accidentally released the wrong episode, this one should have come before the last!
This week we sat down with C. Derick Varn to talk about "decadence theory," "crisis theory" and "breakdown theory." This is a special episode, mostly because it wasn't supposed to come out until August, but Varn accidentally released it early so y'all get a bonus episode.
We discussed the following materials:
Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585
Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory?
https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2
Revolution or Decadence?
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
Check out Varn Vlog Here
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Send us a Text Message.
Support the Show.
Back at it again with the national question and continuing the long march through chapter one.
A link to the PDF:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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This is an impromptu episode recorded by Jason and Varn where they discuss their dissatisfaction with the general situation of American and world politics. It roughly fits in with the subject matter of our Dawn to Decadence series, so here ya go!
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This week we all sat down to talk about the uselessness of identifying with a political tendency in our current moment.
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This week we discussed an excellent study of migrant workers in the Soviet Union which focused on Uzbeks, Tajiks, Georgians, Azerbaijanis who came to Leningrad and Moscow in toward the end of Union's existence.
Sahadeo, Jeff. 2019. Voices From the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow.
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First off, please forgive the first few minutes of Chris' audio, we adjusted the levels during the podcast and fixed it. You won't have to bear with it all the way through.
We sat down to talk about SAVING DEMOCRACY FROM TRUMPIST FASCISM, or rather, how the left has fallen into the trap of letting the Democratic Party off the hook for its crimes against humanity and its constant kowtowing to the GOP.
Stanley Payne on anti-fascism without fascismhttps://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/antifascism-without-fascism Liberals’ Heated Fascism Rhetoric Sidesteps Self-Reflectionhttps://jacobin.com/2024/04/liberals-fascism-rhetoric-democrats-election Anti-fascism: formula for confusionhttps://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/historical_en/antifascism_confusion.htm Andy from Antifada on Antifahttps://communemag.com/anti-anti-antifa/ Is Trump a fascist? 8 experts weigh in.https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21521958/what-is-fascism-signs-donald-trump Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a 'major gift to the right'https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsky-antifa-major-gift-right-wing-anti-fascist-alt-left-a7906406.html
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This is an impromptu episode recorded by Jason and Varn where they discuss their dissatisfaction with the general situation of world politics.
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
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This week we are joined by our official France correspondent, Matthew. We discuss the unique threat of the post-fascist menace and what the results and prospects are for the shaky leftist coalition.
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Wake up babe, new Dugin Time just dropped. The boys are back and discussing Dugin's understanding of processes and, now that they're about halfway done with the book, begin to ask the question "What is the Fourth Political Theory?"
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
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https://www.patreon.com/theantifada
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This week we sat down with C. Derick Varn to talk about "decadence theory," "crisis theory," and "breakdown theory." This is a special episode, mostly because it wasn't supposed to come out until August, but Varn accidentally released it early so y'all get a bonus episode.
We discussed the following materials:
Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585
Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory?
https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2
Revolution or Decadence?
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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This week we sat down with members of the New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies to discuss their efforts to revitalize the socialist project and to build a basis for future socialist struggles.
NZFSS Website
https://www.socialistsocieties.org.nz/
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Back at it again with the national question and soldiering on through chapter 1...
A link to the PDF:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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We invited podcast alumnus, Jess, back to talk about how terrible everything is. We touch on Tiktok houses, literature, and the death of the future.
The End of The Future https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-politics-future-history-capitalism-progress
Why Is Our Culture So Obsessed With Individual Experience?
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/anna-kornbluh-immediacy-individualism-capitalism/Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle: Are We Defined by How We Appear
https://www.thecollector.com/guy-debord-society-of-the-spectacle/
The Anxiety of Influencers
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-house-the-anxiety-of-influencers/
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Jason, Varn, and Sean KB continue the forced march through the Aleksander Dugin's Fourth Political Theory.
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
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https://www.patreon.com/theantifada
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This week we are tying up some loose ends we left unexplored in our last regular episode on Fascism and Anarcho-Individualism. Enjoy this bonus content!
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This week we discussed one of the many currents of thought that led to the creation of Italian Fascism, Anarcho-Individualism. It seems counterintuitive that anarchism would have made any contribution to the creation of fascism, until you think about it.
Whitaker, Stephen B. The Anarchist-individualist Origins of Italian Fascism. Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers, 2002.
From Stirner to MussoliniReview: The Anarchist-Individualist Origins of Italian Fascism
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/william-gillis-from-stirner-to-mussolini.pdf
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This week Jason and Kevin discuss the Liberal Socialism; what it is, where it comes from, its impact on the development of the left, its prospects, and its limitations.
What Is Liberal Socialism?https://www.liberalcurrents.com/what-is-liberal-socialism/ The Idea of a Liberal Socialismhttps://www.socialeurope.eu/the-idea-of-a-liberal-socialism Liberal Socialism Nowhttps://aeon.co/essays/the-case-for-liberal-socialism-in-the-21st-century Toward A Liberal Socialism?https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/toward-a-liberal-socialism/ Socialists Don’t Want to Destroy Liberalism. We Want to Go Beyond It.https://jacobin.com/2020/10/socialism-liberalism-marx
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We are back at it again covering Otto Bauer's unique Marxist take on the national question.
This week we began to cover Chapter I.
A link to the PDF:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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Jason, Varn, and Sean are back and talking Fourth Political Theory once again.
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https://www.patreon.com/theantifada
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The Marxist/Christian dialogue continues!
This week Jason and Ben sat down with Daniel Saunders to discuss an article he wrote called Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism and Christianity:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nbfr.12642Daniel's paper "explores Christianity’s ambiguous relationship to capitalism by engaging Marx’s notion of the fetishism of commodities as a way of rethinking Marxism’s critique of religion from the standpoint of political economy. "
Other Daniel stuff can be found here:
https://daniel-saunders.com/
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This week we tried something new, we put out a call on our Patreon and Discord for questions and y'all responded with 10 pretty good questions. Questions about democracy, ethics, children, etc...
We answered them.
Enjoy!
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They said it wasn't possible for a Marxist to break down the national question in a sophisticated and nuanced way, but Otto Bauer has done it. This book from 1907, which no one on the Anglophone Left has ever read, is quite possibly the best book on the subject. We are here to read it and let you know.
This week we covered the introductory materials.
A link to the PDF:
https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer
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This week we are joined by Jon (thelitcritguy of HorrorVanguard fame) to discuss his new book A Primer on Utopian Philosophy: An Introduction to the Work of Ernst Bloch which was just released on Zero Books. We discuss nihilism, optimism, hope, and dialectical pessimism and the ever pertinent work of Ernst Bloch.
Check out Horror Vanguard Here
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Buy Jon's Book Here
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This week we sat down with our old comrade and actual Psychiatrist, Dr Byron, to talk about mental health, the left, and how TikTok is ruining everyones brains.
Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness (review for relevant book)https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/psychiatric-hegemony-marxist-theory-mental-illness/ What the Anti-Psychiatry Movement Got Wrong About Mental Illnesshttps://jacobin.com/2022/03/anti-psychiatry-movement-mental-illness-psychological-suffering Psychiatry Won’t Solve Our Mental Health Crisis — Only Politics Can Do Thathttps://jacobin.com/2023/12/psychiatry-history-trauma-politics-medicine-mental-health This Is Not the Way to Help Depressed Teenagers (NYT discussing the WISE Teens Study)https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/teenagers-mental-health-treatment.html The functions of the mental health system under capitalism https://joannamoncrieff.com/2022/03/28/the-functions-of-the-mental-health-system-under-capitalism/
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Jason and Varn are joined again by Sean KB of Antifida and continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin.
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
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https://rss.com/podcasts/the-antifada/
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This month we return to Richard Seymour's essay about the new forms of nationalism. At this point the essay is a few years old, so we were able to discuss how things have developed since it was written. We also did not know that a book by the same name by Seymour was coming out soon...
Prepared for the Worst: Disaster Nationalism
https://salvage.zone/prepared-for-the-worst-disaster-nationalism/
Disaster Nationalism: THE DOWNFALL OF LIBERAL CIVILIZATION
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761156/disaster-nationalism-by-richard-seymour/
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This week the boys got together to talk about political apostasy. From the old left, to the new left, to whatever the hell it is that we have now. We discuss the motivations and consequences of jumping ship.
The Ex-Communist’s Conscience
https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1950/ex-communist.htm
Turned Around: Why Leftists Go Right
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/why-leftists-go-right
From Memoirs of a Trotskyist by Irving Kristol
https://www.pbs.org/arguing/nyintellectuals_krystol_2.html
The Neoconservative Counterrevolution
https://jacobin.com/2015/04/neoconservatives-kristol-podhoretz-hartman-culture-war
How Ex-Communists Shaped American Conservatism
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/how-ex-communists-shaped-american-conservatism/426849/
Trotskycons
https://www.nationalreview.com/2003/06/trotskycons-stephen-schwartz/
The Neoconservative Journey
https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817945725_105.pdf
The Legacy of the Trotskyist Right
https://www.toqonline.com/archives/v6n2/SneigoskiTOQV6N2.pdf
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https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot
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This week Jason and Varn sat down to have a primer discussion about the different types of American Conservatism. Don't worry, we will be back later this month with more Dugin.
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Welcome to our seventh and FINAL reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. We had a lot of fun with this series and will be starting a new one soon. Head on over to the Discord if you would like to be involved.
Special thanks to our comrade Connor at Autumn Brigade for our new intro music. Check his music out here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
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As recovering Third Campists ourselves, we sit down to discuss the lingering problems that the third camp of Trotskyism has always had and how they are much dumber in their contemporary incarnation.
Resignation from the Fourth International - Natalia Sedova Trotsky
https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm
Against Campism, for International Working-Class Solidarity https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/winter-2020/against-campism-for-international-working-class-solidarity/
The Third Camp, Socialism From Below, and the First Principle of Revolutionary Socialism https://newpol.org/issue_post/third-camp-socialism-below-and-first-principle-revolutionary-socialism/
Libya’s revolution, U.S. intervention, and the left https://isreview.org/issue/77/libyas-revolution-us-intervention-and-left/index.html
Ukraine and fetishising the anti-NATO call https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2022-05-04/ukraine-and-fetishising-anti-nato-call Like our theme song?
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This is a Patreon episode that we recorded in April of 2022. We decided to post this on our main feed at the request of several of our patrons who said more people should hear it.
Continuing in the spirit of our discussion about the synthesis of socialism from above and below, we decided to dive a bit deeper into a topic that we have referenced many times in passing. The liberal narrative about the revolution is that it was a coup carried out by the Soviet Union against the will of the Czechoslovak people, but a cursory glance at how the revolution unfolded reveals a much different tale.
Czechoslovakia 1948- By Joseph Grim Feinberg in Jacobin Magazine
The Czechoslovak Revolution- By Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart in Foreign Affairs Magazine
Duchacek, Ivo. “The February Coup in Czechoslovakia.” World Politics2, no. 4 (1950): 511–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2008933.
Myant, Martin. Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia: 1945 - 1948. Soviet and East European Studies 33. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981.
Music: Hej, slnko vychodí - (Hey, the sun is out) composed by Bartolomej Urbanec and sung in Slovak.
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Jason and Varn continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin.
This is a 30m preview of a 3 hour long episode
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This episode of InForm:Podcast is a re-release and cross-post of an older interview done with From78 (of Lost Horizons fame). It was originally posted several lifetimes ago, in 2020, but has been re-released by InForm so we decided to promote it here.
Go check out the full episode: https://www.surplusjouissance.com/inform-podcast/
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Not really, but we do talk about the history of Zionism as a settler colonial project.
Pappe, Ilan. “The Framing of the Question of Palestine by the Early Palestinian Press: Zionist Settler-Colonialism and the Newspaper Filastin, 1912-1922.” The Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies : a Multidisciplinary Journal 14, no. 1 (2015): 59–81. https://doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2015.0104.
Zionism: False Messiah (1998) by Lance Selfahttps://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/selfa/1998/xx/zionism.htm
Zionism from the standpoint of Its Victims (1979) By Edward Said https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Edward-Said-Excerpt.pdf
Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims Author(s): Ella Shohat https://palestinecollective.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/sephardim-in-israel_-zionism-from-the-standpoint-of-its-jewish-victims.pdf
The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/the-long-history-of-zionist-proposals-to-ethnically-cleanse-the-gaza-strip Like our intro music? Of course you do!
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Varn and Jason discuss this new collaborative project "Boundless and Bottomless Seas" and discuss why talking about Dugin and his Fourth Political Theory is worth doing. This is episode was recorded before the first episode of the series and is meant to be a sort of primer and introduction to the project.
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This week we've got a podcast that we recorded with Subjective Conditions a few months ago. This podcast deals with Walter Benjamin as a vibe and, in true Regrettable Century fashion, the discussion is guided by the World Spirit.
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https://www.patreon.com/subjectiveconditions/posts
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https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot
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Sean KB from the Antifada joins Jason and Varn for a new series that examines the work of right wing thinkers. This week they are discussing the first chapter of Alexander Dugin's, 'The Fourth Political Theory' to break down and understand why people from all over the political spectrum are influenced by this seminal work of post-fascist thought.
This is a 30m preview of a 2.5 hour long episode
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This preview is from our sixth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss different conceptions of freedom, liberation, and the liberation of time. This was supposed to be the final episode, but it looks like we will have to do one more...
Special thanks to our comrade Connor at Autumn Brigade for our new intro music. Check his music out here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
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This week we continue our series reading from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.
Hilton, Rodney. Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. A&C Black, 1985.
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Head on over to our Patreon to hear us discuss the Napoleon movie with our comrade Matthew.
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Welcome to part two of our YEAR 5 in review episode. We make one big announcement and then talk about all the really cool stuff that happened this year and all the really cool stuff that is on the horizon.
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Welcome to our YEAR 5 in review episode. We make one big announcement and then talk about all the really cool stuff that happened this year and all the really cool stuff that is on the horizon.
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Welcome to our fifth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss different conceptions of freedom, liberation, and the liberation of time.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
Music: The Strike-Shots Heard the World
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This week we continue our discussion of Napoleon Bonaparte with our comrade Matthew. We start out tying up some loose ends and then discuss the upcoming Ridley Scott movie and the many variations of Bonapartism.
Music: Marche du Sacre de Napoléon
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This week we had our long time comrade and resident France expert, Matthew, back on the show to talk about the mixed legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte. Was Napoleon a force for progress or the death of the revolution?
The answer is yes.
Revolutionary Figures: Napoleon Bonapartehttps://blogs.kent.ac.uk/ageofrevolution/revolutionary-figures/napoleon-bonaparte/# Napoleon: Hegelian Herohttps://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/napoleon-hegelian-hero/ Hegel and Napoleon: On Heroes and the Sublime in Historyhttps://minervawisdom.com/2020/04/13/hegel-and-napoleon-on-heroes-and-the-sublime-in-history/ Music: Chant du départ, the anthem of the first French Empire.
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A little bonus episode for you this week. Here is the audio of a lecture that Kevin gave at the Cascadian Midsummer festival this summer about William Morris.
Check out Cascadian Midsummer here: https://www.cmfest.org/
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This week we continue our series reading from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.
Hilton, Rodney. Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. A&C Black, 1985.
Check out Varn Vlog:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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This week we discussed a book about the collapse of the Soviet Union and guess what, it wasn't the result of the United States' efforts to defeat the Evil Empire. It's much dumbe rand worse than that.
Serhii Plokhy. 2015. The Last Empire : The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York: Basic Books, A Member Of The Perseus Books Group.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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The original dudes are back, with an original dudes topic revisiting our pessimism (because of intellect) and our optimism (because of will). No it's not just a doomer affectation that we can use to sound as cool as we look, its a critical method of engaging with the bleak reality that faces us.
The only way out is through but getting through is possible.
Revolutionary Pessimism: The Worst is Yet to Comehttps://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/12/covid-peter-fleming-revolutionary-pessimism-capitalism/ Pessimism of the Willhttps://viewpointmag.com/2020/05/28/pessimism-of-the-will/ CRITICAL PESSIMISM AND THE LIMITS OF TRADITIONAL MARXISMhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/657342
For A Refresher:The Proper Amount of Bumming People Out: Pessimisms and Optimisms of Intellect and Willhttps://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/1410229-the-proper-amount-of-bumming-people-out-pessimisms-and-optimisms-of-intellect-and-will Scattered Thoughts on Melancholia and the Organization of Pessimismhttps://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/1320682-scattered-thoughts-on-melancholia-and-the-organization-of-pessimism Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the Willhttps://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/889740-pessimism-of-the-intellect-pessimism-of-the-will Music- Англия - Сказочный мир
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This week we start a new series where we read from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.
Hilton, Rodney. Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. A&C Black, 1985.
Check out Varn Vlog:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Welcome to our fourth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss the revolutionary intellectual.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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We think degrowth is going to be necessary, but we also think the debate about degrowth has been all wrong. We read the newest issue of Monthly Review and had a discussion about the politics of degrowth.
Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/planned-degrowth/
Nine Theses on Ecosocialist Degrowth
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/nine-theses-on-ecosocialist-degrowth/
(Here’s the whole issue)
https://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-075-03-2023-07/Music: Bad Religion- Watch it Die
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Back with another book that Chris read in grad school, this time we are dealing with the problem of repopulating the Soviet Union after the Second World War.
Please forgive the intermittent audio problems with Jason's track, we are still trying to figure out how to record in the same room and actually make it sound good.
Mie Nakachi. Replacing the Dead : The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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This week the Law Boyz are back with a special guest, Kevin. We discuss the concept of the lumpenproletariat and their historical role as foot soldiers of reaction. Then we all argue about the police.
Peter Stallybrass (1990) Marx and Heterogeneity: Thinking the Lumpenproletariat, Representations, No. 31, Special Issue: The Margins of Identity in Nineteenth-Century England, pp. 69-95
Nicholas Thoburn (2002) Difference in Marx: the lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnamable, Economy and Society, 31:3, 434-460
Robert L. Bussard (1987) The ‘dangerous class’ of Marx and Engels: The rise of the idea of the Lumpenproletariat, History of European Ideas, 8:6, 675-692
Music: Johnny Cash- This Side of the Law
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I know we said we were done with our Czechoslovak Socialism series, but like George Lucas we just couldn't leave well enough alone and have made a prequel. It turns out there is an interesting pre-history to Czechoslovak Socialist Republic that is worth discussing.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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No Royal Road is back with part four of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's
"Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
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Our third reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss Concepts, Symbols, and Realms of Memory.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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Kevin recently gave a talk about William Morris' transition from romantic anti-capitalism to Marxism and is thus well suited to school us on the subject. We decided to record it and share it with all of you.
William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary - Cascadian Midsummer 2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAXjblFVhxI&t=928s
How I Became a Socialist (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1894/hibs/hibs.htm
Under an Elm-Tree, Or, Thoughts in the Country-Side (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1889/commonweal/07-elm-tree.htm
Facing the Worst of It (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1887/commonweal/02-facing-worst.htm
William Morris (E.P. Thompson)https://www.marxists.org/archive/thompson-ep/1959/william-morris.htm
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This week we return to an old favorite topic of ours, the warm stream, romantic, or gothic in Marxism. This time we are joined by an accredited expert in all things gothic, Jon from the Horror Vanguard.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437
https://twitter.com/TheLitCritGuy
Bloch, Ernst, Neville Plaice, and Stephen Plaice. The Principle of Hope. Vol. 1. MIT Press, 1995.
Music: Sisters of Mercy- She's a Monster
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Ukrainian Nationalism and Third Worldism in the Cold War
This week we read and discussed Congo on the Dnipro: Third Worldism and the Nationalization of Soviet Internationalism in Ukraine by Thom Lloyd. The author discusses attempts by Ukrainian nationalists to appropriate the language of third world liberation struggles, but with a twist (spoiler alert, its a racist one).
Loyd, Thom. "Congo on the Dnipro: Third Worldism and the Nationalization of Soviet Internationalism in Ukraine." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 22, no. 4 (2021): 787-811. doi:10.1353/kri.2021.0053.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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The Patsocs are coming, the Patsocs are coming!
There has been much fruitless discourse and claims of rising fascism among the keyboard proletarians of Twitter about the problem of Social Patriotism. We got the original gang back together to talk about what the appropriate level for freaking out about it on the internet is.
There is no contradiction between patriotism and socialismhttps://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/there-no-contradiction-between-patriotism-and-socialism
The Case for a Left Patriotismhttps://www.thebellows.org/the-case-for-a-left-patriotism/
In Defense of U.S. Proletarian Patriotismhttps://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/in-defense-of-us-proletarian-patriotism-a-comradely-response-to-danny-haiphongs-marxist-polemic-on-patriotic-socialism-by-kayla-popuchet
Democratic Socialism Must Be Internationalist
https://jacobin.com/2021/04/john-judis-the-socialist-awakening-review-socialist-left-internationalism-nationalism
British Communism’s Patriotic Disease
https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/british-communisms-patriotic-disease
Is There a Place for Patriotism on the Left?
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/patriotism-left-nationalism/
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Welcome to our second reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss BODIES.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
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No Royal Road is back with part four of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's
"Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Just like the Prague Spring, it seems clear that the intentions of its participants were the opposite. The vast majority of Czechoslovaks who participated in the movements that brought down the republic were attempting to reform the socialist system, not destroy it.
Krapfl, James. Revolution with a Human Face Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992. Cornell University Press, 2017.
Scott Brown. “Prelude to a Divorce? The Prague Spring as Dress Rehearsal for Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce.’” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 10 (2008): 1783–1804.
Krishan Kumar (1992). The Revolutions of 1989: Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy. Theory and Society, 21(3), 309–356.
Paal Sigurd Hilde (1999). Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia. Europe-Asia Studies, 51(4), 647–665.
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This week we discuss a couple of articles by Roland Boer about Lunacharsky, Lenin, and the project of godbuilding. This is our final episode with Mir before he goes off to Austria and Germany to learn all the sneakiest Jesuit tricks.
Boer, Roland . “God in the World: Lenin, Hegel, and the God-Builders.” Heythrop Journal, 2015.
Boer, Roland. “Religion and Socialism: A. V. Lunacharsky and the God-Builders.” Political Theology 15, no. 2 (March 2014): 188–209.
Music: Current 93- Thunder Perfect Mind I
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Back again with another one, this time we are throwing one out to the middle aged men in the audience by talking about World War Two.
Edele, Mark. Stalinism at War : The Soviet Union in World War II. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
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We are joined by Matthew and Julia for a continuation of our discussion about the French pension reforms. Matthew is our old comrade and friend from the days of Trot hyperactivism and Julia is an actually existing French person. Together they provide us their impressions of the struggle against Macron's pension reforms.
Music: Komintern Sect- Rêves de liberté
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Welcome to the first of our reading group episodes on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss TRAINS.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London; New York: Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
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No Royal Road is back with part three of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's "Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
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We are back with more books Chris read in grad school. This one is written by Rachel Applebaum (no relation to Anne) and discusses the Soviet Friendship programs, their successes, and failures.
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This week we discuss why the left allows the liberals to set the tone for its politics.
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We are back with another book that Chris read in grad school. This one is an interesting read about the impact of material culture on the lives of late Soviet citizens called "The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia" by Alexy Golulbev.
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We are once again joined by our old friend and comrade Matthew, who is currently residing in Paris. Matthew gives us the rundown of the French pension reforms and we talk about the prospects for the labor and socialist movements.
Music- Edith Piaf- Ça Ira (Sans-culotte version)
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
aristocrats to the lamp post!
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
the aristocrats, we'll hang them!
If we don't hang them
We'll break them
If we don't break them
We'll burn them
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
aristocrats to the lamp-post
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
the aristocrats, we'll hang them!
We shall have no more nobles nor priests
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
Equality will reign everywhere
The Austrian slave shall follow him
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
And their infernal clique
Shall go to hell
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
aristocrats to the lamp-post
Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine
the aristocrats, we'll hang them!
And when we'll have hung them all
We'll stick a shovel up their arse.
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We are finally back with part four of our discussion of Rodrigo Nunes' new book on Verso. This week we actually finish the book.
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No Royal Road is back!
Varn joins Chris and Jason to discuss the second part of Evegny Morozov's "Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
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The boys are back and we are finally finishing this masterwork of left sociology by heavyweight Polish intellectual and dissident Marxist, Zygmunt Bauman.
From the publisher's note:
"Modernity was supposed to be the period in human history when the fears that pervaded social life in the past could be left behind and human beings could at last take control of their lives and tame the uncontrolled forces of the social and natural worlds. And yet, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, we live again in a time of fear. Whether its the fear of natural disasters, the fear of environmental catastrophes or the fear of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, we live today in a state of constant anxiety about the dangers that could strike unannounced and at any moment. Fear is the name we give to our uncertainty in the face of the dangers that characterize our liquid modern age, to our ignorance of what the threat is and our incapacity to determine what can and can't be done to counter it."
We cover the introduction and first two chapters in this episode.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Fear. Cambridge U.A.: Polity Press.
Music: Dimitri Shostakovich- Waltz No. 2
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We return to the concept of the republic, this time with our comrade Brad who is a member of the CPUSA, a union activist, and first class republic respecter. Brad is here to make a pitch for the continuation of a revolutionary tradition that is steeped in revolutionary republicanism.
Pettit, Philip. 2012. On the People’s Terms : A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bill of Rights Socialism and the Future of the Republic
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This week we're discussing A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev which is a not very good book that advances a thesis that doesn't need to exist. Enjoy!
Zubok, V M. 2009. A Failed Empire : The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University Of North Carolina Press.
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No Royal Road is back!
Varn joins Chris and Jason to discuss Evegny Morozov's "Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason." This is the first of what will probably be a multi part series.
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https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Steven from Supreme Leap Forward is back and this time he's bringing his thoughts on natural law. For this weeks episode we read from Olúfémi Táíwò's Legal Naturalism and an article by Anna Lukina to prepare for this discussion.
Olúfémi Táíwò. 2015. Legal Naturalism : A Marxist Theory of Law. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
https://legalform.blog/2020/07/30/kelsen-on-marx-engels-and-natural-law-anna-lukina/?fbclid=IwAR3qomVFwcvNttJqNJJKDhJcyrRPLbF4kGnBpplao3C-BsS3EfjZp01Ajcw
Music: Tupac- Fuck the Law
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Happy New Year and welcome to a new series where Chris talks about books he read in grad school. This week we are reading and discussing Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan by Artemy Kalinovsky.
Kalinovsky, Artemy M. 2018. Laboratory of Socialist Development : Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
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We got together with our old friend and comrade from the Trot sect days to talk about why it is that the nominally socialist left is so obsessed with liberal culture war discourse.
Music: Embrace- Money
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Happy December, I just finished my semester and finally got around to mastering this episode that we recorded a couple months ago. We are revisiting this masterwork of left sociology by heavyweight Polish intellectual and dissident Marxist, Zygmunt Bauman who is a harsh critic of late capitalist modernity.
From the publisher's note:
"Modernity was supposed to be the period in human history when the fears that pervaded social life in the past could be left behind and human beings could at last take control of their lives and tame the uncontrolled forces of the social and natural worlds. And yet, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, we live again in a time of fear. Whether its the fear of natural disasters, the fear of environmental catastrophes or the fear of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, we live today in a state of constant anxiety about the dangers that could strike unannounced and at any moment. Fear is the name we give to our uncertainty in the face of the dangers that characterize our liquid modern age, to our ignorance of what the threat is and our incapacity to determine what can and can't be done to counter it."
We cover the introduction and first two chapters in this episode.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Fear. Cambridge U.A.: Polity Press.
Music: Dimitri Shostakovich- Waltz No. 2
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We are back with part three of our discussion of Rodrigo Nunes' new book on Verso. This week we talk about chapters three and four.
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We just turned four!
Looks like we have successfully fooled you into listening to us for another year. In honor of exiting the anal stage and entering our phallic stage of childhood psychosexual development as a podcast, we decided to do an episode about it.
Please enjoy the very last episode of year three. Year five will be worse for humanity and likely better for our podcast. See you in season five!
Music: Modern Life is War- Night Shift at the Potato Factory
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This week we continued our discussion of The Tragedy of the Worker by the Salvage Collective and discussed the implications of looming climate collapse. Once again we ask: what kind of world do you want to build in the post-apocalyptic wasteland?
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3727-the-tragedy-of-the-worker
Music: Bad Religion- Modern Man
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This week we read The Tragedy of the Worker by the Salvage Collective and discussed the implications of looming climate collapse. Once again we ask: what kind of world do you want to build in the post-apocalyptic wasteland?
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3727-the-tragedy-of-the-worker
Music: The Broadways- We'll Have a Party
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The Lost Horizons gang is back together.
We welcome Comrade Adam back to the Lost Horizons network and discuss a couple of articles about Hegel, Foucault, and MADNESS.
The Good the Mad and the Ugly: Part I
The Good the Mad and the Ugly: Part II
https://www.patreon.com/subjectiveconditions
Music: Madness- One Step Beyond
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Happy October! Its what they call spooky season so it is only fitting that we dive into a book about Fear. This is a work of left sociology by heavyweight Polish intellectual and dissident Marxist, Zygmunt Bauman who is a harsh critic of late capitalist modernity.
From the publisher's note:
"Modernity was supposed to be the period in human history when the fears that pervaded social life in the past could be left behind and human beings could at last take control of their lives and tame the uncontrolled forces of the social and natural worlds. And yet, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, we live again in a time of fear. Whether its the fear of natural disasters, the fear of environmental catastrophes or the fear of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, we live today in a state of constant anxiety about the dangers that could strike unannounced and at any moment. Fear is the name we give to our uncertainty in the face of the dangers that characterize our liquid modern age, to our ignorance of what the threat is and our incapacity to determine what can and can't be done to counter it."
We cover the introduction and first two chapters in this episode.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Fear. Cambridge U.A.: Polity Press.
Music: New Model Army- 225
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Jason is out of the rehab facility and convalescing with our sister, so we decided to do a little test recording to see how it felt to be podcasting again after a coma and traumatic brain injury. We decided it went pretty alright and will be back soon with some episodes.
This isn't a real episode, but we have part two of our reading group coming soon and Jason and I will be recording part three of our Czechoslovak socialism series this month as well.
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Welcome to the fifth and final part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben, for a set of chapters dealing with the Taiping Revolution, Chinese Christian Marxism, and Christianity in the DPRK.
We are missing Jason on this podcast, but hopefully, he will be back in a month or two. Until then we will wrap up this series without him.
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: Han Lei, Qi Jianbo, and Fan Xiaobin- The Vast Heaven and Earth
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Book Clubs are back, back in a temporarily diminished capacity, but back. This week we read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Rodrigo Nunes' new book on Verso. This book rhymes with concepts we have been discussing on the podcast for quite some time, so we were excited to dive in.
Nunes, Rodrigo. Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organisation. Verso, 2021.
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Welcome to the fourth part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben, for a set of chapters dealing with Althusser's Christianity, Farnham Maynard, and the God-building Project of Anatoly Lunacharsky.
We are missing Jason on this podcast, but hopefully, he will be back in a month or two. Until then we will wrap up this series without him.
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: Choir of the Brethren at Valaam Monastary- Agni Parthene
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Welcome to the third part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben, for the third set of chapters dealing with the contradictory legacy of Martin Luther and Marx's secular eschaton.
This episode was recorded before Jason's accident, but I have just now gotten around to mixing and uploading it. It has been a crazy month, but we are hoping to get back in the swing of things soon. Jason won't be able to podcast again until probably September at the earliest, but we are going to try to get some stuff together in his absence. Enjoy!
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: Norfolk Chamber Consort - J.S. Bach, Cantata 106: II. Gottes Zeit ist die allerbester Zeit
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It's been about a month since we posted anything, here is why.
Don't worry, we will be back soon!
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Welcome to the second part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben, for the second set of chapters dealing with the contradictory legacies of St, Paul, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: John Brown's Body- Paul Robeson
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Continuing what has become a series on Czechoslovak Socialism, we discuss the attempt to reform the ČSSR in 1968.
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This week we are joined by Comrade Adam, a Lost Horizons alumnus of Red Library fame, to discuss what sort of dialogue can be had between Marxism and Buddhism. We decided to branch out, and cover a non-Christian faith in this continuation of our series on Marxism and religion. We hope to continue touching on other faiths and their interaction and overlap with the emancipatory project.
Dharmic Marxism- A blog that posts about Marxism and Buddhism
https://dharmicmarxism.wordpress.com/
Subjective Conditions Podcast
https://sites.libsyn.com/subjectiveconditions?fbclid=IwAR3KGWIeoFCwqPy8A0Cmbhher7JsWW9iAfGYqEmwajic8yVd_BeNweLYp28
Music- YOB- In Our Blood
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Welcome to the first part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben for the first two chapters, which mostly deal with Karl Kautsky's writings about early Christianity and how it informs the communist tradition.
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: Ktož jsú boží bojovníci written by Jan Čapek z Klatov in 15th Century as a battle anthem for the Hussite rebels.
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In this episode, we discuss another Chris Wickham article about feudalism. This is a stand-alone episode, but it is in spiritual continuity with our previous series discussing Chris Wickham's The Other Transition. We will be back soon with another series on a similar topic.
Reuter, Timothy, and Chris Wickham. “The ‘Feudal Revolution.’” Past & Present, no. 155 (1997): 177–208. http://www.jstor.org/stable/651130.
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Continuing in the spirit of our discussions about the relationship between "Socialism From Below" and "Socialism From Above," we've decided to dive in a bit deeper into a topic we've referenced many times in passing...
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Once again, we continue our unending project of reuniting the cold and the warm streams of Marxism. This time we are joined by our comrade Ben to talk about the need for a dialogue between Marxism and Christianity.
We once again ask what Christians can learn from the liberatory message of Marxism and what Marxists may be able to take away from the liberatory message of Christianity.
Marxists and Christians: The Fate of the Dialogue The Urgency of Marxist-Christian Dialogue by Herbert Aptheker; Marxism and Radical Religion: Essays toward a Revolutionary Humanity by Thomas Dean; John C. Raines; Church in a Marxist Society by Jan Milic Lochman Review by: Charles C. West The Journal of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 304-317
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Wherein a group of us get together to read and discuss the latest issue of Jacobin magazine, its analysis of the current political situation, and what to do about it... and the extent to which it actually does those things.
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Here is about an hour's worth of bonus content recorded before our last episode of No Royal Road. We were just riffing about neoliberalism, left delusions, anti-imperialism, paleo-cons, liberals, conservatism, inflation, Volcker Shock, internet tankies, and a bunch of other things we thought might be worth recording. So, we hit record.
Enjoy.
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
Music: Tragedy- Conflicting Ideas
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The American left's response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is as depressing as its prospects. We at the Regrettable Century are against invasions and World War 3 and think you should be too. We talk about what orientation if any, it would be useful for Marxists to take in response to the unfolding tragedy in Eastern Europe.
The Ugly, Embarrassing Spectacle of ‘Milling’ Around Onlinehttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/03/russia-ukraine-invasion-twitter/624168/
Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukrainehttps://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine
Armed Nationalists in Ukraine Pose a Threat Not Just to Russiahttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/ukraine-nationalism-russia-invasion.html
Music:
Україна і Росія - Ukraine and Russia by The State Choir of the Ukrainian SSR "Dumka" (Державна капела УРСР «Думка»)Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Some Real Nerd Hours covering the emergence of a conscious German "National Bolshevism" during the Weimar Era between the World Wars...
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Welcome to the fourth and final episode of our discussion on Chris Wickham's essay The Other Transition, about the transition from the classical to the feudal mode production. This is the last in this particular reading series, but not the last for this collaboration. We will be back soon with another series on a similar topic.
Chris Wickham, THE OTHER TRANSITION: FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO FEUDALISM, Past & Present, Volume 103, Issue 1, May 1984, Pages 3–36
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This week the guys discuss the rotting whale carcass that is the American left. Gone are the days of mass organizations, the workers movement, and even the microsect. We discuss atomization, idealism, and our prospects moving forward.
Remapping the American Left: A History of Radical Discontinuity (pp 22-32)https://depts.washington.edu/moves/pdf/Gregory_Remapping_the_American_Left_LABOR_May2020.pdf
The U.S. left at a strategic impasse
https://www.tempestmag.org/2022/01/the-u-s-left-at-a-strategic-impasse/
Bismarck, Browder, and Biden: Joe’s Hegemony Versus Ours
https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/10/bismarck-browder-biden-joes-hegemony-versus-ours/
Music: Tha Crossroads- Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
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This week Jason continues to teach us about the history of American socialism. We pick up with the collapse of the old left, discuss the birth of the New Left, the New Communist Movement, and end with the End of History and the turn inward.
Dennis, Peggy. The Autobiography of an American Communist: A Personal View of a Political Life, 1925-1975. Lawrence Hill Books, 1977.
Bernstein, Walter. Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist. Da Capo Press, 1996.
Isserman, Maurice. If I Had A Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left. Basic Books, 1987.
Unger, Irwin. The Movement: A History of the New Left, 1959-1972. Dodd, Mead, 1974.
Leonard, Aaron J & Gallagher, Conor A. A Threat of the First Magnitude: FBI Counterintelligence & Infiltration From the Communist Party to the Revolutionary Union, 1962-1974. Repeater, 2018.
Leonard, Aaron J & Gallagher, Conor A. Heavy Radicals - The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party, 1968-1980. Zero Books, 2015.
Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. Verso, 2018.
Dixon, Aaron. My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain. Haymarket, 2012.
Sheppard, Barry. The Party: A Political Memoir (The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988). Haymarket, 2006.
Camejo, Peter. North Star: A Memoir. Haymarket, 2010.
Music: Fortunate Son- Circle Jerks
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From the second installment of the Regrettable Book Club's reading of Antonio Labriola's Socialism and Philosophy covering the introduction by Paul Piccone.
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Welcome to the third episode of a new collaborative series with Varn Vlog and the Regrettable Century, where we will be talking about history, historiography, social technologies, relations of production, modes of production, and most importantly, transitions.
In this episode, we continue talking about the other transition, the transition to the feudal mode of production.
Chris Wickham, THE OTHER TRANSITION: FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO FEUDALISM, Past & Present, Volume 103, Issue 1, May 1984, Pages 3–36
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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Last year, Neil Gorman and Regrettable Chris hung out during the Christmas break to talk about how bad higher education had gotten during the pandemic. This clip however, is a little preview of the other stuff they talked about.
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This week we further explore our critique of technology under capitalism. Chris was absent from the recording due to grad school reasons, so Jess led the charge on this one. We ultimately determine that technology is bad and the Luddites were right.
The Rise of the Machineshttps://jacobinmag.com/2013/04/the-rise-of-the-machines
The Ideology Behind Technologyhttps://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3333-the-ideology-behind-technology
The Case Against Naive Technocapitalist Optimismhttps://consilienceproject.org/the-case-against-naive-technocapitalist-optimism/
Marx on Technologyhttps://andymerrifield.org/2019/09/29/marx-on-technology/
HYPER-REALITYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs&t=291s
Music: Bathsheba- At the End of Everything
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This week Jason teaches us about the history of American socialism. We start with the beginnings of the movement in the late 19th century and ends just after the Second World War.
Cannon, James P. The History of American Trotskyism, 1928-1938 : Report of a participant. New York: Pathfinder, 2002.
Drucker, Peter. Max Shachtman and His Left : A Socialist's Odyssey Through the "American century. Amherst: Prometheus, 2001.
Foner, Philip S. The Great Labor Uprising of 1877. New York: Pathfinder, 2002.Ginger, Ray. The Bending Cross : A biography of Eugene Victor Debs. Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2007.
Gornick, Vivian. The Romance of American Communism. London Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2020.
Johanningsmeier, Edward P. Forging American Communism : The Life of William Z. Foster. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Kelley, Robin D. Hammer and hoe : Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Kipnis, Ira. The American Socialist Movement, 1897-1912. Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2004.
Naison, Mark D. Communists in Harlem During the Depression. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Weinstein, James. The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912-1925. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1984.
Music: Talking Union- Pete Seeger
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Welcome to the second episode of a new collaborative series with Varn Vlog and the Regrettable Century, where we will be talking about history, historiography, social technologies, relations of production, modes of production, and most importantly, transitions.
On this episode we continue talking about the other transition, the transition to the feudal mode of production.
Chris Wickham, THE OTHER TRANSITION: FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO FEUDALISM, Past & Present, Volume 103, Issue 1, May 1984, Pages 3–36
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
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This is the first episode in a series on the book Psychoanalytic Politics by Sherry Turkle. We teamed up with Neil, our Lost Horizons alumnus of From 78 fame, to talk about this book he likes and thought we might too. Neil is really into psychoanalysis and we are really into politics, we figured this would be a good book to bridge our interests and have a discussion.
Check out InForm here:
https://inform.transistor.fm/
Turkle, Sherry. Psychoanalytic politics : Jacques Lacan and Freud's French revolution. London New York: Free Association Books Guilford Press, 1992.
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This week we have the whole gang together to celebrate the 100th episode of The Regrettable Century. We discuss the highlights of the previous year, how dumb we were as children, and how violent punk shows used to be. Listen as we make our political predictions for the upcoming year and actually figure out how to do Marxist virtue ethics.
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From the first installment of the Regrettable Book Club's reading of Antonio Labriola's Socialism and Philosophy covering the introduction by Paul Piccone.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Welcome to a new collaborative series with Varn Vlog and the Regrettable Century, where we will be talking about history, historiography, social technologies, relations of production, modes of production, and most importantly, transitions.
We start off by talking about the other transition, the transition to the feudal mode of production.
Chris Wickham, THE OTHER TRANSITION: FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO FEUDALISM, Past & Present, Volume 103, Issue 1, May 1984, Pages 3–36
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week Chris joins Jason on another one of his side projects, A Fine Old Conflict, which he does with our friend and comrade, Matthew. The guys talk about their shared background of punk rock/pop-culture and whether or not the new Refused album was any good.
If you enjoy this discussion, please check out A Fine Old Conflict.
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Join the boys as they send Red Library off to the Gray Havens with this final episode in our Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition series.
In this weeks episode we dive into Magee's explanation of Hegel's The Science of Logic as the Kabbalistic Tree, The Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit as alchemical formulae, and the Philosophy of Objective and Absolute Spirit as the rose in the cross of the present.
Magee, Glenn A. Hegel and the hermetic tradition. Ithaca, N.Y. Bristol: Cornell University Press University Presses Marketing distributor, 2008.
Suite II in g minor- Robert Fludd
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This week we would like to introduce to you to The Measures Taken. The Measures Taken is a podcast about the intellectual history of the key debates that occurred in Marxism and it also happens to be one of Jason's side projects. All of the contributors to the podcast come from different corners of the American left and believe that they have all been miseducated. This podcast is an attempt at self education and an encouragement for others to do the same.
https://www.themeasurestaken.org/
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Christopher Lasch is a figure that draws strong reactions from people all over the political spectrum. Lasch's later work spoke of a growing chasm between liberal managerial elites and the traditional working class (endearing him to some conservatives), but his older work falls solidly within the tradition of homegrown American socialist politics. Our friend and comrade, C. Derick Varn, is currently co-authoring a book on Christopher Lasch, and he stopped by to tell us why Lasch is worth reading.
Books by Christopher Lasch
Music- Incendiary- Zeitgeist
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Christopher Lasch is a figure that draws strong reactions from people all over the political spectrum. Lasch's later work spoke of a growing chasm between liberal managerial elites and the traditional working class (endearing him to some conservatives), but his older work falls solidly within the tradition of homegrown American socialist politics. Our friend and comrade, C. Derick Varn, is currently co-authoring a book on Christopher Lasch, and he stopped by to tell us why Lasch is worth reading.
Books by Christopher Lasch
Music- Wailin Storms- Rope
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We teamed up with Adam from Red Library, and our comrade Mir from Sweden, in a farewell reading series on Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Alexander Magee. Magee forges a path tread by few in arguing that Hegel was decisively influenced by western esotericism.
In this weeks episode we dive into Magee's explanation of Hegel's Mythology of Reason and the Phenomenology of the Spirit as a Hermetic initiation rite.
Magee, Glenn A. Hegel and the hermetic tradition. Ithaca, N.Y. Bristol: Cornell University Press University Presses Marketing distributor, 2008.
The Keeper of the Grail · John Williams
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This week we discuss an article by Ben Davis in Salvage Journal titled The Anarchist in the Network which discusses the pitfalls of organizing in the age of the internet. The extreme atomization of our society has been exacerbated by our social media addictions and our methods of organization against capitalism have suffered as a result. While calls for protests may go viral and enormous crowds may turn out, they lack to coherence needed to bring sustained pressure to bear. There really is no substitute for the patience, discipline, and efficacy that comes from the self organization of the working class.
https://salvage.zone/articles/the-anarchist-in-the-network/
Music- Billy Bragg- There Is Power in the Union
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From the Regrettable Book Club's investigation of the Appendices in Monsieur Dupont's Nihilist Communism .
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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This week we sat down with Lost Horizons comrade and Red Library Alumnus, Adam to talk about mental illness as a social problem, but we ended up talking about a lot more. We cover the less than stellar performance of SSRIs, Hezychasm, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, communism, exercise, and therapy. Ultimately we concluded that there is no liberation from mental illness without the abolition of capitalism.
Turn Illness Into a Weaponhttps://www.indybay.org/uploads/2013/11/14/turn_illness_into_a_weapon.pdf?fbclid=IwAR32rI-UNxlnfI5-jJDnld9HpLgsu16sdhfjtsEmTsCsa2KTCghV75hoJw8 Depression as a Social Diseasehttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-is-he-thinking/201802/depression-social-disease?fbclid=IwAR3JZ1zvC1N9Z1kD6fhoPUpxOJRnJNfGsPdAE86gLvYBhKH6VVRNHjdi5xs
Capitalism Hits Home: An Interview with Harriet Fraadhttps://publicseminar.org/essays/capitalism-hits-home-an-interview-with-harriet-fraad/?fbclid=IwAR3Uoiwv3f6ehypnjTtBYNrk8kR6xbBsDHIOVCrS5mwrEpA7YR3k22mSKw8 Music: The Broadways- 15 Minutes
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This week we continue our series on republicanism and Marxism by discussing the complicated legacy of the American Revolution. Like the bourgeois project as a whole, the historical consequences of the American Revolution have had mixed results. Simultaneously spurring on the cause of human freedom and stifling it, the American Revolution was pregnant with a creative and destructive spirit. As the American Empire appears to be in decline, we ask whether or not things cold have gone, or could still go, in another direction.
Check out Matthew and Jason's Podcast: A Fine Old Conflict
https://afineoldconflict.buzzsprout.com/
War and Revolution: Rethinking the 20th Centuryhttps://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/domenico-losurdo-war-and-revolution-rethinking-the-twentieth-century.pdf
Historical Revisionism and Delegitimation of the Revolutionary and Anticolonial Tradition—A Review of War and Revolutionhttps://sci-hub.se/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21598282.2016.1172752
Liberals and Reactionarieshttp://www.leninology.co.uk/2011/10/liberals-and-reactionaries.html
From Karl Marx to the Fourth of Julyhttps://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/07/inde-j03.html
THE MYTH OF THE “CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION”https://socialistworker.org/2011/12/14/myth-of-the-conservative-revolution
Communist and Neo-Babouvist readings of the Enlightenment and the French Revolutionhttps://www.academia.edu/38110441/_Communist_and_Neo_Babouvist_readings_of_the_Enlightenment_and_the_French_Revolution_in_E_Vallance_ed_Remembering_Early_Modern_Revolutions_London_Routledge_2018
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We teamed up with Adam from Red Library in a farewell reading series on Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Alexander Magee. Magee forges a path tread by few in arguing that Hegel was decisively influenced by western esotericism. In this weeks episode we trace the roots of Hermetic tradition from a syncretic cult that blended Greek and Egyptian ideas of magic and spirituality, through figures like Paracelsus, Agrippa, Bruno, Baader, and Böhme. Magee argues that, in order to understand Hegel, we have to view him as a Hermetic thinker. Hopefully this book well help us understand Hegel a little bit better.
Magee, Glenn A. Hegel and the hermetic tradition. Ithaca, N.Y. Bristol: Cornell University Press University Presses Marketing distributor, 2008.
Music: The Mystical Body Of Christ In Chorazaim (The Great In The Small) · Current 93
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From the inaugural episode of our recurring Regrettable Book Club. Our first selection is Monsieur Dupont's Nihilist Communism with which we both agree and also disagree.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
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It doesn't take much to convince someone that the capitalist system has exhausted its progressive potential and is in a state of decline. There are a number of theories that the prolonged state of crisis of the capitalist system is evidence that capitalism has peaked and is on its way out.
While we agree that capitalism has entered a state of decadence, does that necessarily mean that it will collapse completely, and if so will anything good come from it?
The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory
http://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2#:~:text=In%20our%20view%20this%20theory,critique%20the%20theory%20of%20decadence.&text=Essentially%20the%20theory%20suggests%20that,has%20now%20entered%20its%20decline.
Revolution or Decadence (Sami Amin)
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/
A Framework for the Concept of Decadence of Capitalism (shortest reading)
https://www.leftcom.org/en/forum/2013-02-17/a-framework-for-the-concept-of-decadence-of-capitalism
ICC Decadence Theory Readings
https://en.internationalism.org/tag/28/287/decadence-theory-and-historical-materialism?fbclid=IwAR1bS0PVOixz8j9Lbtfkq7AELvhjOjmMG5COy8sryHHdrAItTcsFi6lbB2M Music: Refused- Protest Song 68
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We sat down with our old friend, comrade, and fellow veteran of Trotskist hyperactivsm to discuss the concept of the Republic and whether or not is still useful to Marxist organizing/theorizing. The era of the bourgeois republic has been a simultaneous process of creation and destruction, of liberation and enslavement. As the final epoch of human civilization reaches its nadir, do we still have any use for the republic?
The Constitution & The Class Struggle
https://socialistcall.com/2018/11/27/the-constitution-and-the-class-struggle/
Looking at Chris Maisano’s “The Constitution and the Class Struggle”
https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/12/02/lenin-and-the-class-point-of-view-looking-at-chris-maisanos-the-constitution-and-the-class-struggle/
Fight The Constitution, Demand a New Republic!
https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/03/fight-the-constitution-demand-a-new-republic/
Bill of Rights socialism and the future of the republic
https://www.cpusa.org/article/bill-of-rights-socialism-and-the-future-of-the-republic/
Abolish The States
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/abolish-the-states/
Abolish The Senate
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/abolish-the-senate/
Music: Paul Robeson- John Brown's Body
A Fine Old Conflict Podcast
https://afineoldconflict.buzzsprout.com/
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This week we discuss the final chapters of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the conclusion of our three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Richard. The twittering machine. London: The Indigo Press, 2019. Print.
Music: Earth Crisis- Destroy the Machines
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It is clear that our activism has been largely fruitless for the past few decades but what should we be doing instead?
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we discuss chapters two and three of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the second of a three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Richard. The twittering machine. London: The Indigo Press, 2019. Print.
Music: Indecision- Higher Side of Low
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This week we discuss the introduction and first chapter of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the first of a three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Richard. The twittering machine. London: The Indigo Press, 2019. Print.
Music: Snapcase- Break the Static
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This week Chris is temporarily replaced by a special guest that long time listeners will remember from the early days of the pod, Jenny.
The gang talks about the loneliness of social distancing, the long term effects of pandemic based hyper-alienation, and what the political prospects moving forward look like.
Society of the Spectacle (sections 28, 172, 221)
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
The pandemic has unleashed the age of individualism
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-pandemic-has-unleashed-the-age-of-individualism-11608132621601.html
22 percent of millennials say they have “no friends”
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/1/20750047/millennials-poll-loneliness?fbclid=IwAR1Z7EBeAAXgcUTw5mUA_eOGIQDk_0dM5GUweA6OOv4Fe1B5gbN8qtpCCnc
Pandemic shaming: is it helping us keep our distance?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/04/pandemic-shaming-is-it-helping-us-keep-our-distance?fbclid=IwAR3FsljvgtF4TqI2DbwJvZFBISsKk-7anRcP0YO-f0F8xLsgh2bqEOnRGOU
Isolation, Stress, and Poverty: Capitalism and Our Declining Mental Health
https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/11/23/isolation-stress-and-poverty-capitalism-and-our-declining-mental-health/
Music: Joy Divison- Isolation
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Half the podcast crew and a couple of the extended family get together to steal a bit joy from the future by thinking aloud as to how a small handful of our myriad problems might begin to be addressed.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in more discussions like this one.
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Last year during the unrest after George Floyd's murder, we read an article about recuperation and talked about the concept within the context of then unfolding paroxysms of rage against police brutality.
Does every movement for social change eventually get recuperated? Yes. Is it still worth engaging in social movements? Also yes.
The Recuperation of Authentic Outrage
https://libcom.org/library/recuperation-authentic-outrage
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We are now living in the most watched society in history. Our every move is tracked, our conversations monitored, our purchases logged, every link we click is logged, but its okay because its not the government doing it right?
You Are Now Remotely Controlled -- Shoshana Zuboff
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html?fbclid=IwAR0N6cbEaABSR2Yb7lEfLRjtWopZQu-bizbl2k7XaJFQOFfwcnV3riBJ7MI
Willing servants -- Richard Seymour
https://newhumanist.org.uk/5516/willing-servants?fbclid=IwAR3G7zXvBob940xv1ayY1ryPrAfU5Xf5ZU53J2I_bWCwLQ6V8IeUfW_YpEc
Communicative Capitalism and Class Struggle -- Jodi Dean
https://spheres-journal.org/contribution/communicative-capitalism-and-class-struggle/
When the social industry bans the people we hate -- Richard Seymour
https://www.patreon.com/posts/27523240?fbclid=IwAR3M5UICw48xJPlsTWW2at96G0LCjSd8lZ1BQUQ_XGqFfFZ-dIb893Twvas
Your Phone is Listening and it's Not Paranoia
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia?fbclid=IwAR1UWg7TOU8ocwC1PXYqpBOuVXC9teau250pEynsUPlhyfKGFXwPtXrXb9o Music- Bauhaus- The Spy in the Cab
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Like most other political terms, the word "neoliberal" has been used so much to describe so many disparate things that it has ceased to have meaning. Well, unfortunately neoliberalism is real and it is an economic idea and political project that completely dominates every aspect of modern capitalist society and even our resistance to it.
So, listen up and learn what we just learned about how much everything sucks.
Varn talks with Mirowski on Symptomatic Rednesshttps://www.mixcloud.com/symptomatic-redness/ep-1-phillip-mirowski-on-neoliberalism/
Harvey on Neoliberalism As a Political Projecthttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/david-harvey-neoliberalism-capitalism-labor-crisis-resistance/
Interview with Mirowskihttps://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/fixing-old-markets-with-new-markets-the-origins-and-practice-of-neoliberalism.html
Mirowski on Neoliberalismhttps://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/02/neoliberalism-movement-dare-not-speak-name/
The Uses and Abuses of “Neoliberalism”https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/uses-and-abuses-neoliberalism-debate
Michael Roberts on Neoliberalismhttps://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/neoliberalism-not-so-bad/
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/neoliberalism-works-for-the-world/ Music: MelonadeM- Garfield Gameboy'd Credits
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Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the question of the party form. Join us as we solve the party problem.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
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Its been said elsewhere that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. Well, that may be true, but it doesn't take much imagining to conceive of the end of the world. We are currently living though the end of the world. Who would have thought it would be so boring?
Join us as we lament our collective willingness to go gentle into that good night.
Imagining the End of Capitalism With Kim Stanley Robinsonhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/kim-stanley-robinson-ministry-future-science-fiction
IMAGINING THE ENDhttps://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/05/imagining-the-end
In Defence of Metabolic Rift Theoryhttps://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3691-in-defence-of-metabolic-rift-theory#:~:text=One%20Marxist%20line%20of%20inquiry,%2C%20Morristown%2C%20Ohio%2C%201974
Music- Napalm Death: The Brink of Extinction
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
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This week we are joined once again by Adam from Red Library for the final episode in our series.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
Music- Gregorian Chant for the Dead - Dies irae (Sequentia) -Alessio Randon
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the question of the party form. Join us as we solve the party problem.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
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This week we team up with our pal Jess to talk about the mixed legacy of the enlightenment and we ultimately determine that the enlightenment was good and also it was bad.
Smith, C. (1996) Hegel Marx and the Enlightenment: An Interim Report
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/interim.htm
Sherratt, Y. (2000) ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER’S CONCEPT OF “ENLIGHTENMENT.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 8(3), 521–544.
Nielsen, K. (1988) Marx and the enlightenment. Critical Review, 2(4), 59–75.
Hook, S. (1968) The Enlightenment and Marxism. Journal of the History of Ideas,Music: The Broadways- 15 Minutes
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This week we are joined once again by Adam and Don from Red Library.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
MUSIC: Jesus Christ- Woody Guthrie
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
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This is the second, but only peripherally related, part of our discussion with C. Derick Varn and PH from Radical Thoughts. In this episode we talk about the abysmal state of the left, the bankruptcy of liberalism, and how the hell we can possibly move forward.
The Washington Riot Was a Defeat for the Far Right, Not a Triumph
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitol-building-riot-business-trump?fbclid=IwAR0G-TkRfpMVUZdLE86-Qky0SWUyBxtGuv7Up_J0lYZkMHBCrtxOVWq2f_A
We Should Be Very Worried About Joe Biden’s “Domestic Terrorism” Bill
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/joe-biden-domestic-terrorism-bill-capitol-building?fbclid=IwAR0tDTAFXEstET0cdDGAS4Di-p49jVbUBsaGRa-H1dADcGBjkIWPHu2JQAs
The US Capitol riot risks supercharging a new age of political repression
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/14/biden-protest-surveillance-repression?fbclid=IwAR3XSFD5SZJlzZxZKOSiN_p--xko9nLGA1T4D4WtJlkFk5D47GVobcLF588
US police three times as likely to use force against leftwing protesters, data finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right?fbclid=IwAR2XgiT5WX36LYdW6moSApGcevbhz5ddHpNmiZx8ffC38-eVLUmYzPzwAF8
/
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This week we are joined by C. Derick Varn, PH from Radical Thoughts Podcast, and Steven from Supreme Leap Forward to discuss how the Capitol Riot wasn't a coup, or a terrorist attack, and admonish the "left" for supporting the expansion of the security state.
The Washington Riot Was a Defeat for the Far Right, Not a Triumph
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitol-building-riot-business-trump?fbclid=IwAR0G-TkRfpMVUZdLE86-Qky0SWUyBxtGuv7Up_J0lYZkMHBCrtxOVWq2f_A
We Should Be Very Worried About Joe Biden’s “Domestic Terrorism” Bill
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/joe-biden-domestic-terrorism-bill-capitol-building?fbclid=IwAR0tDTAFXEstET0cdDGAS4Di-p49jVbUBsaGRa-H1dADcGBjkIWPHu2JQAs
The US Capitol riot risks supercharging a new age of political repression
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/14/biden-protest-surveillance-repression?fbclid=IwAR3XSFD5SZJlzZxZKOSiN_p--xko9nLGA1T4D4WtJlkFk5D47GVobcLF588
US police three times as likely to use force against leftwing protesters, data finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right?fbclid=IwAR2XgiT5WX36LYdW6moSApGcevbhz5ddHpNmiZx8ffC38-eVLUmYzPzwAF8
/
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There are many on the left who seem to be incapable of letting a momentary upturn in struggle, or a softening of policy by the ruling class, pass without declaring the end of Capitalist realism.
The common ruin of the contending classes is all we have to look forward to unless we can find a way to assert our agency. Until we realize our world historic mission, capitalist realism and its devastating consequences are here to stay.
On the Current Conjuncture
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4954-on-the-current-conjuncture?fbclid=IwAR0ZSlfzCQnDc43oIjNEKOtnmgsa0i_9_M-D8JXiJybodVBPd5sPSwlGzL4
Capitalist Catastrophism
https://roarmag.org/magazine/capitalist-catastrophism/?fbclid=IwAR1ui303CjXt0fvl19Z9iRZH-oOshL4NEUlJU1do-7Fzpb04nxHdYLJWMNE
Coronavirus Is the End of the End of History
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/03/coronavirus-is-the-end-of-the-end-of-history?fbclid=IwAR2iCYlYdPJHfdrXVH9nzGpBld7YU_w8hedK0FPWfEv2OLmpX1bfwSUdJ-Q
Music: Good Riddance- After the Nightmare
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Marxism needs a better system of ethics. We think that virtue ethics are compatible with the project of human emancipation, so does our friend C. Derick Varn.
After Virtue: A Study in Moral TheoryMacIntyre, Alasdair C. After virtue : a study in moral theory. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Print.
Marxism and Ethicshttps://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2008/isj2-120/blackledge.html
Philippa Foot, major founder of contemporary virtue ethics, “Natural Goodness”https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philippa-foot/#NatuGood
Marx’s Ethic of Freedomhttps://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the question of the party form. Join us as we solve the party problem.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Marxism needs a better system of ethics. We think that virtue ethics are compatible with the project of human emancipation, so does our friend C. Derick Varn.
After Virtue: A Study in Moral TheoryMacIntyre, Alasdair C. After virtue : a study in moral theory. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Print.
Marxism and Ethicshttps://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2008/isj2-120/blackledge.html
Philippa Foot, major founder of contemporary virtue ethics, “Natural Goodness”https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philippa-foot/#NatuGood
Marx’s Ethic of Freedomhttps://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Everyone knows what the happiness industry is, that vapid misapplication of eastern spiritual practice, adapted to help stave off deaths by despair or convince you that alienated depression is the fault of your brain chemistry and not the crushing weight of capitalism.
As the contemporary left is little more than liberalism turned up to 11, it should surprise no one to learn that there is a "socialist" version of this as well.
We sat down to talk about how it is dumb and bad.
How to pronounce schadenfreude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_DjiLLDfo
Left-Wing Hypomania
https://thebaffler.com/latest/left-wing-hypomania-chaudhary
Is socialism winning?
https://www.tempestmag.org/2020/12/is-socialism-winning/
National Political Committee newsletter — 85,000 members stronghttps://www.dsausa.org/news/npc-newsletter-nov2020/
There Was Actually a Lot of Good News for the Left on Election Day
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/downballot-socialist-elected-election-day-dsa Music: Cro Mags- Face the Facts
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Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the fine distinctions between genres of Tankie.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
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This week we continue our discussion about what psychoanalysis can offer to Marxism. Both Adam and Alex are Marxists who study psychoanalysis and find it to be useful to their Marxism, but do not consider themselves Freduo-Marxist or Lacanian-Marxists. Is it necessary to create a new type of Marxism every time we incorporate a new lens to help us understand Marxism? Is it possible for us to have a myriad of influences and inspirations while maintaining a Marxist framework to understand and act upon The world?
Join us while we discuss the messy dialectic of Marxism and Psychoanalysis.
Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Revolutionary Marxism
https://studylib.net/doc/8039634/lacanian-psychoanalysis-and-revolutionary-marxism?fbclid=IwAR2nemqbBANbjSBbujrUj13lEfRXiNwLNxOheqF-2lcAHIg8qnt3oj2dnlA
Lacan, Psychoanalysis and the Left
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1980/no2-007/collier.html?fbclid=IwAR3vxo07JAlZNdWf9gaGYNzPhEvwoGW--urPkFNAGU6Wo_X3yg3HmVcQwYA
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj Žižek’s Psychoanalytic Marxism https://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/59?fbclid=IwAR3J552MAOY2YZPfGvV06iwa3dfvfltc0-gDloNqFUZHzyCaWFZrYrrpXyoThe Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we are joined by Alex and Adam from Red Library to talk about what psychoanalysis can offer to Marxism. Both Adam and Alex are Marxists who study psychoanalysis and find it to be useful to their Marxism, but do not consider themselves Freduo-Marxist or Lacanian-Marxists. Is it necessary to create a new type of Marxism every time we incorporate a new lens to help us understand Marxism? Is it possible for us to have a myriad of influences and inspirations while maintaining a Marxist framework to understand and act upon The world?
Join us while we discuss the messy dialectic of Marxism and Psychoanalysis.
Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Revolutionary Marxism
https://studylib.net/doc/8039634/lacanian-psychoanalysis-and-revolutionary-marxism?fbclid=IwAR2nemqbBANbjSBbujrUj13lEfRXiNwLNxOheqF-2lcAHIg8qnt3oj2dnlA
Lacan, Psychoanalysis and the Left
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1980/no2-007/collier.html?fbclid=IwAR3vxo07JAlZNdWf9gaGYNzPhEvwoGW--urPkFNAGU6Wo_X3yg3HmVcQwYA
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj Žižek’s Psychoanalytic Marxism https://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/59?fbclid=IwAR3J552MAOY2YZPfGvV06iwa3dfvfltc0-gDloNqFUZHzyCaWFZrYrrpXyoThe Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we are joined by Adam, Don, and Alex from the Red Library.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
In our fifth installment we deal with the Heavenly City of Fordism and the Machine Age.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
MUSIC: Micah No 5- Apologetix
The Lost Horizons Network
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The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
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We read Richard Seymour's Article from Salvage Quarterly about Disaster Nationalism and talked about it. Tune in to hear about the Chad Nationalism’ of ‘sexy’, ‘dangerous’, gym-hitting boys, zaddy fascism, and listen while we parse rightisms and talk about how Trump and the GOP (still) aren't fascists.
https://salvage.zone/articles/prepared-for-the-worst-disaster-nationalism/
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We are dumb babies who don't understand Hegel. Sam, who recently joined our network as a part of the Red Library's The Red Desert series is not. He sat down with us and helped us understand some key Hegelian concepts that he posits need to be understood in order to continue the radicalization of Marxism.
Mladan Dolar on The Phenomenologyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6sG1nw0m_w
Lecture on the Zizek chapter below.https://youtu.be/gk0A12NYKS8
1. The Hegel Variations by Frederic Jameson - The chapters "Idealism", "Oppositions" and "Spirit as Collectivity"
2. Less Than Nothing by Slavoj Žižek - The chapter "Marx as a Reader of Hegel, Hegel as a Reader of Marx"
3. The Restlessness of the Negative by Jean-Luc Nancy - The chapter "Restlessness"
4. Reason and Revolution by Herbert Marcuse - The chapters "Hegel's First system" and "Introduction: From Philosophy to Social Theory"
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/reason/reason-and-revolution.pdf
5. Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution **by Rebecca Comay - The Introduction "French Revolution, German Misère"
6. Gramsci's Hegelian Marxism by Paul Piccone**
7. Hegel and Freud by Alenka Zupančič
8. The Dash by Rebecca Comay & Frank Ruda - The Introduction "Hegel to the Letter"In forwarded email.Music: Cursed- Hegel's Bastards
The Lost Horizons Network
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The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Hey everyone, we turned two!
You guys keep listening to us for some reason and we are happy about it. For our birthday party we sat down to talk about highlights, lowlights, and what we hope to do in the future.
Please enjoy the very last episode of year two before we kick off what we hope will be an exciting and fruitful year three!
Music: Modern Life is War- Night Shift at the Potato Factory
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We recorded an episode, about something else, but in the process we talked about the election for 45 minutes. Here it is!
Keep in mind this episode was recorded as results were coming in on the day after the election.
Music: Bad Religion- Fuck Armageddon
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Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
For our second Patron roundtable the crew had a well rounded discussion that included making fun of dumb conspiracies, talking about the myriad of actual conspiracies, and finally what makes conspiratorial logic so appealing to the right and left alike .
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
Materials used in discussion:
Jameson, Fredric. The geopolitical aesthetic : cinema and space in the world system. Bloomington London: Indiana University Press BFI Pub, 1992. Print.
https://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/ideas/cognitivemap.html
Good Conspiracy Documentary Series
https://www.fox.com/the-x-files/
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Steven from The Supreme Leap Forward is back to talk about why the Supreme Court is a regressive, reactionary, and profoundly undemocratic institution that needs to be abolished.
Waiting for SCOTUShttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/waiting-for-scotus?fbclid=IwAR1fZ-KItsd9Yfp9d5qGr-8Hr8QTZnkf6e1LCWCaaGIvXHW0JmMJfyULNJo
Amy Coney Barrett Worked on Bush v. Gorehttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/amy-coney-barrett-bush-gore-election-trump?fbclid=IwAR1xku0mvqk2RbgGEm3enLD6O7hkrP_Gl4Mj8fA7rYf6lCkXthUvuWB506c
The Future of the Supreme Court in the Liberal Imaginationhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/supreme-court-trump-kavanaugh-liberalism?fbclid=IwAR18XUaifhwGcQVU72w9znE581wzvzx4Gz6ExUI5-HHFDORi81sFmhOoKC0
The Scandal of Democracy: Seven Theseshttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/supreme-court-senate-electoral-college-undemocratic?fbclid=IwAR1fZ-KItsd9Yfp9d5qGr-8Hr8QTZnkf6e1LCWCaaGIvXHW0JmMJfyULNJo
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we are joined once again by Adam and Don from Red Library.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
In our fourth installment we deal with the populists, socialists, and anarchists during the golden age of the American left.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
MUSIC: Spacecataz
The Lost Horizons Network
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The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
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For all of our claims to be historical materialists, there is nothing that the left loves more than a great leader to guide us to victory. If we are to make history, but not in circumstances of our own choosing, what role do we actually have to play as individuals? What role does the extraordinary person play in making history?
“History is made in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each in turn has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant — the historical event.”
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840)
http://history.furman.edu/benson/fywbio/carlyle_great_man.htm
On the Role of the Individual in History
https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/xx/individual.html
Karl Marx and his conception of history
https://mronline.org/2018/05/11/karl-marx-and-his-conception-of-history/
The individual and the Marxist view of history
https://www.marxist.com/the-individual-and-the-marxist-view-of-history.htm
Music- Armageddon Blues by Power Trip
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No.
Woke Capitalism Is Not Your Friendhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-racial-justiceWhere Are the Woke Capitalists Now?
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/01/where-are-all-woke-capitalists-now
Woke Capitalists Can Save America
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/05/how-the-woke-capitalists-can-save-america/#13af4c0671ed
The Rise of Woke Capital
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america-activism.html
Why Corporations Can No Longer Avoid Politics
https://time.com/5735415/woke-culture-political-companies/
Woke America Is Pre-Revolutionary Russia
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/woke-america-pre-revolutionary-russia/
Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will Be Free
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/until-black-women-are-free-none-of-us-will-be-free
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
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This week we have unlocked the second half of our discussion with Phd Candidate Chris Manno. We discussed the differences between objective, subjective, and instrumental reason and how philosophers have moved through these three in stages culminating in the mercenary use of instrumental reason for the justification of the status quo. Modern philosophy has focused on the latter forms of reason to the point of rejecting any objective understanding on the world, a situation that is tailor made for exploitation of people and the planet under capitalism.
Horkheimer, Max. Eclipse of reason. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2013. Print.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional man : studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. Print.
Music: The Flying Dutchman Overture- Richard Wagner
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
We read an article about recuperation and talked about the concept within the context of the contemporary social unrest that is currently gripping the United States.
Does every movement for social change eventually get recuperated? Yes. Is it still worth engaging in social movements? Also yes.
To hear the full episode, join our Patreon for $2 a month.
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This week we are joined once again by Adam and Don from Red Library, we even had a brief appearance by Kevin.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
In our third installment we deal with the Robber Barons, corporate personhood, and the birth of American Imperialism.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
MUSIC: Satyricon- Mother North
The Lost Horizons Network
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The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
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This week we are joined by Swedish podcaster, activist, social worker, and Christian communist, Mir Bal to talk about Christianity and Marxism. We continue with our unending project of reuniting the cold and the warm streams of Marxism, by talking about the draw of Christians to the liberatory message of Marxism and what Marxists may be able to take away for the liberatory message of radical Christianity.
Horn. Western European liberation theology : the first wave (1924-1959. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Catholic Case for Communism- Dean Detloff
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism
Catholicism and Marx an Introduction- Chase Padusniak
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jappersandjanglers/2017/06/catholicism-marx-introduction/
Marxism and Liberation Theology- Michael Lowy
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Va-4lh8qfXtv-YEDt2VuAGABdPEhBYs7/view?fbclid=IwAR2TMM9Q3FZQpWuyPBGGMvPBP0CgHmQ-LJqRvT8mIXtcEnVG5YLB8zgrqpo
MUSIC: Pete Seeger- God Bless the Grass
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
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Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear part two of our conversation with Chris!
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we are joined once again by Adam from Red Library, but also by fellow Red Librarian Don, who was kind enough to edit the podcast.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pecuniary enchantment that he calls Mammonism.
In our second installment we deal with with a real who's who list of Mammon worshiping malefactors as well as Puritan covenant theology, Mormonism, and slavery.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
MUSIC: Satyricon- Mother North
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
We had philosophy Phd Candidate Chris Manno join us for a discussion on Marxism and Reason. We discussed the differences between objective, subjective, and instrumental reason and how philosophers have moved through these three in stages culminating in the mercenary use of instrumental reason for the justification of the status quo. Modern philosophy has focused on the latter forms of reason to the point of rejecting any objective understanding on the world, a situation that is tailor made for exploitation of people and the planet under capitalism.
Horkheimer, Max. Eclipse of reason. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2013. Print.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional man : studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. Print.
Music: Wolves In the Throne Room- Born From the Serpent's Eye
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
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From78 Podcast
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we are joined by Adam from the Red Library podcast, who was nice enough to record and edit the episode for us.
We start our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes, much like Max Weber, that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world, but unlike Weber, he believes that Capitalism then became a religion itself.
He argues that capitalism is full of religious thinking that grew up in the fields and factories of England, was transported to America by the Puritans, and perfected by evangelicals.
We think this topic is right up our alley and have had a blast reading and talking about it.
McCarraher, Eugene. The enchantments of Mammon : how capitalism became the religion of modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Print.
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Lacanian psychoanalysis has left an indelible mark on the left, with prominent philosophers like Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou keeping a Marxist Lacanianism relevant... and we don't really know anything about it.
As the only non Lacanian podcast on the Lost Horizons network, we had to look to our network comrade Neil to get a little bit of an understanding.
Turin Theory of the Subject of the School
http://www.amp-nls.org/page/gb/60/the-turin-theory-of-the-subject-of-the-school
Music: ROME- We who fell in love with the sea
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
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Last week, we read and discussed The End of Policing by Alex Vitale in order to get a better grasp on the history of the police, over-policing, the failure of technocratic reforms, and some of the ideas for the uses of funds after police defunding (be it partial or wholesale).
Whether or not the revolt against the police will produce lasting systematic reform reform remains to be seen, but we have to admit that the conversation about how to fix the problem of policing has begun on favorable footing.
Vitale, Alex S. The end of policing. London Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
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While we were reading about Covid 19 in Salvage last week, an uprising against police brutality began in Minneapolis. We didn't (don't) know what to make of it yet, but it sure did take over a discussion that was supposed to be about pestilence and the left's role in troll vigilantism.
Listen to our uninformed and incomplete takes from day one of the unrest.
We have a much more complete and thought out take coming for you in a few days.
We Are All Unclean- Salvage Editorial Collective
https://salvage.zone/articles/we-are-all-unclean-dispatch-two-from-a-changing-world/
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
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We are joined by veteran of the podcast wars, C. Derick Varn, for his third appearance on the show, to talk a little about historical Bonapartism and a little more about contemporary Bonapartism. We talked about the contemporary left's perceived need to seek out a Bonapartist savior and drift further and further from the utopian horizons we once sought.
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ Music: Cro Mags- Hard TimesPop the Left- With Douglas Lain and C. Derick Varnhttps://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/dietsoap/episodes/2019-11-25T07_11_58-08_00
The Emancipation Networkhttp://emancipation.network/
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
**Marxism had always contained within it a multiplicity of variations and is possessed, in equal parts, of the potential to be used for illumination and obfuscation. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than the early responses of Marxists to fascism.
In our third installment of our series on the history of fascism, we dive into some more Marxist theories of fascism; specifically the German and Austrian Social Democratic Theories, Trotsky and Thalheimer, and then wrap up with a bit of Horkheimer.
Our primary source of info for this episode is this wonderful book:**https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1233-marxists-in-the-face-of-fascism
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
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This week we sat down with Patrick of the Radical Thoughts Podcast to talk about Walter Benjamin and his ideas of myth and rationality, capitalism as religion, and a number of other disconnected things that were just fun to talk about.
Please check out Radical Thoughts as they read through the entire Zero Books Radical Thinkers series and subscribe to their patreon for bonus episodes.
https://www.patreon.com/radicalthoughts/posts
Capitalism and Religion-https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/capitalism-as-religion-benjamin-1921/
Benjamin, Walter, et al. Selected writings. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1996.
Benjamin, Walter, and Rolf Tiedemann. The arcades project. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1999. Print.
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
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Red Library Podcast:
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From78 Podcast
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
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This week we have something special for you guys, our very first Lost Horizons Network collective podcast release, Here We Are Together, Still...After All.
Join Chris and Jason from The Regrettable Century, Adam from Red Library, and Neil from the From78 Podcast as we talk about what it means to be dialectically pessimistic.
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
On Easter Monday, April 24 1916, 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army mustered in Dublin and declared the formation of the Irish Republic. Marxist and Irish Republican, James Conolly, led the Irish Citizen's Army in hopes that the Easter Rising would touch off a revolution in Ireland that would lead to the establishment of a Workers' Republic, the death of the British Empire, and the beginning of a socialist world revolution.
Over a century later, Ireland is still ruled in the north by what remains of the British Empire, The Republic of Ireland is Bankers' Republic, and hopes for the world revolution are a nostalgic memory... for now.
Manifesto of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (Connolly):https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1896/xx/isrp.htm
Connolly and the Paris Communehttps://jacobinmag.com/2016/04/james-connolly-paris-commune-easter-rising-tactics?fbclid=IwAR2NFon_XDCsFniTFdsVD1qM_u3m23fbJ88qKzokacYaSqghGlaPIAevu40
Socialism Made Easy (Connolly) -- the only long-ish one:https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2017-07-26/james-connollys-socialism-made-easy-1909-11-political-action-labor
Easter Rising Proclamation (original text):https://www.onthisday.com/photos/easter-proclamation-of-1916
Socialism and Nationalism (Connolly):|https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/01/socnat.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/xx/scirenat.htm
Socialism and Religion (Connolly):https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1901/evangel/socrel.htm
Socialism in Ireland (Connolly):https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1908/03/socinire.htm
Direct Action in Belfast (Connolly):https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1911/09/diract.htm
The Hope of Ireland (Connolly):
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This week, Jenny, Chris, and Jason read and discussed Jodi Dean's essay: The Four Theses on the Comrade.
A comrade is much more than an identity that one adopts. It is an ethos, an ideal for the collective reorganization of the world. We talk about how this is a concept that the left has abandoned and needs to find again.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the full episode.
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The old world is dying and a new one is being created before our eyes. Thus far, the left has had little if any input into this process. If we don't insert ourselves into the conversation with great haste, a much worse version of our current hellscape will be the outcome. What kind of project will be necessary to salvage the useful pieces of detritus needed to build a better world? To that end, we sat down with our good friend Michael to talk about how to build a better post-apocalyptic world.
The Mask of the Red Death: Dispatch One from a Changing World- Salvage Editorial Board
https://salvage.zone/articles/the-mask-of-the-red-death-dispatch-one-from-a-changing-world/
The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene- Salvage Editorial Board
https://salvage.zone/editorials/the-tragedy-of-the-worker-towards-the-proletarocene/
Under coronavirus, pro market ideologies are overturned around the world, But its too little, too late. - Jeff Sparrow
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/26/under-coronavirus-pro-market-ideologies-are-overturned-around-the-world-but-its-too-little-too-late?fbclid=IwAR0i6X8SfuLdlHyc119RYYlEqMUsT8XCBnK9ZsnFWJkjIagNCqC4D3YrYWM
The world after coronavirus- Yuval Noah Hararihttps://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75?fbclid=IwAR2f2bCCh3iBuc61PT_Nt4zLbthYaPQuodJsg0ee6Qwoocln65faxeK0cpY
A Greater Depression? Nouriel Roubini
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/coronavirus-greater-great-depression-by-nouriel-roubini-2020-03?fbclid=IwAR2f6pVYUmXeacbcOx3TTobG_0vZodG0MVoJ2VrxVqtZPBcshLSQdapm3Vw
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(PART II)
The birth pangs of the bourgeois epoch included a multi faceted opposition in the form of romanticism. This reaction lauded humanity's lost connection to the natural world, to spirituality, and to a forgotten sense of communal life. While it is easy to point out the romantic strain in rightist political ideologies, we often overlook the one that has existed in Marxism since the beginning.
Löwy, Michael, and Robert Sayre. Romanticism against the tide of modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
The Word, the Devil, and the Flesh- JD Bernal
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bernal/works/1920s/soul/
Music: Alyans- Na ZareCosmonaut Magazinehttps://cosmonaut.blog/
Cosmopod Podcast
https://cosmopod.libsyn.com/
Radical Thoughts Podcast
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/patricks-podcast
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Jenny, Chris, and Jason sat down with our friend, rank and file union organizer, and CPUSA member Brad to talk about electoralism and what the hell to do next.
Please head over to our Patreon and subscribe for the insanely low fee of $2 a month to hear the rest.
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
The birth pangs of the bourgeois epoch included a multi faceted opposition in the form of romanticism. This reaction lauded humanity's lost connection to the natural world, to spirituality, and to a forgotten sense of communal life. While it is easy to point out the romantic strain in rightist political ideologies, we often overlook the one that has existed in Marxism since the beginning.
Löwy, Michael, and Robert Sayre. Romanticism against the tide of modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
The Word, the Devil, and the Flesh- JD Bernal
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bernal/works/1920s/soul/
Music: ROME- The Accidents of GestureCosmonaut Magazinehttps://cosmonaut.blog/
Cosmopod Podcast
https://cosmopod.libsyn.com/
Radical Thoughts Podcast
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/patricks-podcast
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Our good friend and regular contributor to the show, Steven, brings his legal expertise and knowledge of early soviet law history to this weeks episode. We discuss the Evgeny Pashukanis, Pytor Stuchka, and their contributions to legal theory in the days just after the revolution. There was a debate among legal theorists of the time about whether it is possible to construct a socialist legal system and how the law should be used in a socialist society. Ultimately, Pashukanis would wind up on the losing side of the Socialism in One Country debate and would die for it.
Intro to Pashukanis
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v4hto1qm5seti8o/Beirne%20%2B%20Sharlet_%20Introduction%20to%20Pashukanis%20%281979%29.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR1AhfJGWw_YlZTFc6upxEp1g0eckeoXIISoJcatXx0RLub3rHholnE-LNk
The Passionate Legal Debates of the Early Years of...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/58i5wg5uohkz43z/The%20Passionate%20Legal%20Debates%20of%20the%20Early%20Years%20of%20the%20Russian%20Revolution.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR05HcbLIu75Un3jH5t1KL8fJJCgMTKSd_Q2Ig5BpxkPmTJOvpAend6OpN8
The trajectory of Yevgeniy Pashukanis and the struggle for power in Soviet law
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j6lbz606491nn60/The_trajectory_of_Yevgeniy_Pashukanis_an.docx.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR1XD0XBMopt0ifkxOUV_iBVVN_1XLrq6TJk1BYyeiz7qcOW2kw3Ra7uaTE
Principles of Soviet Criminal Law
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pxedstwf8pum00f/Principles%20of%20Soviet%20Criminal%20Law%2C%20Berman%2C%20Harold%20J%2056YaleLJ803.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR1QWhZuohuU2cmfsLJzfArICrrZgeirgnVqEwdO7iFSgcZ_nDQeTHZeBkk
Looking Back And Forward At The Turn of the Century
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ldjvuuchv4krvha/15AustlJLSocy101.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR0vVUJaaPTGVRdwPXFLTNavu8UgH0XrG1QV7_vxg60Pq2WfJunQ6K_9HTE **Dont forget to check out our podcast network comrades:
From 78**https://twitter.com/From78podcast
Red Library
https://twitter.com/RedLibraryPod
And coming soon, our network website...
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
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We had an episode planned where we were going to talk about the Bolsheviks and Early Soviet Law, but our main law dude (Steven from Supreme Leap Forward) got deathly ill and bailed on us. So, we are unlocked one of our Patreon episodes. Please forgive us, but trust that we have some good stuff coming up.
Sometimes doing something (anything!) is much worse than doing nothing; we really need to figure out when that is. We read and thought and talked about an article that admonishes us to think and talk and read before acting. We have to stand against a politics of catharsis, a politics that does nothing but makes us feel like we are making a difference.
But... then what do we do?
I Would Prefer Not To: Žižek’s Bartleby Politics
https://medium.com/@mdowns1611/i-would-prefer-not-to-%C5%BEi%C5%BEeks-bartleby-politics-12bd8d9de66a
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This week we continue our discussion of Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia by Darko Suvin with our podcast network comrade, Adam from Red Library.
Please Check out and subscribe to Red Library and From 78 and be on the lookout for more updates concerning the Lost Horizons Network.
Red Library: A Political Education Podcast for Today's Left
From 78 Podcast
Suvin, Darko. Splendour, misery, and possibilities : an X-ray of socialist Yugoslavia. Leiden Boston: Brill, 2016.
A UTOPIA IN THE BALKANS -- CATHERINE SAMARY
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II114/articles/catherine-samary-a-utopian-in-the-balkans
Splendours, Miseries, and Potentialities of Socialist Yugoslavia- The Berlin Thesis
https://www.corsoitalia7.it/2017/03/splendours-miseries-and-potentialities-of-socialist-yugoslavia-the-berlin-theses1/
The Life and Death of Yugoslav Socialism -- James Robertson
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/yugoslav-socialism-tito-self-management-serbia-balkans
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Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
We read and discussed Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia by Darko Suvin with Adam from Red Library. This incredibly dense book was a wealth of theoretical and historical knowledge about one of our favorite subjects, Yugoslavia. The SFRY defies neat categorization and the more we learn about it the more questions we have about the process of transition to communism, workers' self management, radical democracy, markets, and state socialism. It is the perfect meditative subject for a podcast that continually implores Marxists to stop being so certain of everything.
Red Library: A Political Education Podcast for Today's Left
From 78 Podcast
Suvin, Darko. Splendour, misery, and possibilities : an X-ray of socialist Yugoslavia. Leiden Boston: Brill, 2016.
A UTOPIA IN THE BALKANS -- CATHERINE SAMARY
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II114/articles/catherine-samary-a-utopian-in-the-balkans
Splendours, Miseries, and Potentialities of Socialist Yugoslavia- The Berlin Thesis
https://www.corsoitalia7.it/2017/03/splendours-miseries-and-potentialities-of-socialist-yugoslavia-the-berlin-theses1/
The Life and Death of Yugoslav Socialism -- James Robertson
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/yugoslav-socialism-tito-self-management-serbia-balkans
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In this episode we revisit the topic of Fully Automated Luxury Communism with our friend Annaliese. While we are already on the record opposing the viability and desirability of a socialism without sacrifice, we decided to make a few more critiques we didn't think of making last time, but we also talk a bit about what kinds of futures we would like to see, the nature of work and leisure time, and how much it would suck to have robots do everything.
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Head over to Patreon and sign up for $2 a month to hear the second part of the discussion.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
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The British left was epically owned last month in one of the crappiest election results in several generations. While the reaction to this defeat has been largely one of despair and feelings of rudderlessness, we make the case that this is just one in a long line of defeats we will inevitably suffer. Unless we gird ourselves for defeat with a dialectical pessimism, there's no way we will last long enough to make a real difference.
Head over to Patreon and sign up for $2 a month to hear the second part of the discussion.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
This Is Why We Hate You: December Editorial
https://salvage.zone/articles/this-is-why-we-hate-you-december-editorial/?fbclid=IwAR0Asf5cKmEYUPcpZE59vzZeKToaC-N7dSDyCdt4X_oiH78AXX24E0ntgYk
No False Consolations
https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/13/no-false-consolations/?fbclid=IwAR3tuTEtTBK4husLxkYnPz3-vmHY-sCbH0MQGi-EijWxYnbWNq_9lAXPWwg
The Last Gasp of Labourism
https://left-flank.org/2019/12/13/anti-politics-the-last-gasp-of-british-labourism/?fbclid=IwAR3bHVCrKBS4-F5Tn3ctP_EBW2PUMEpdczUrNJ_cwHCYg-n8Owa1ckpT3uQ
Class War Corbynism https://newsocialist.org.uk/class-war-corbynism/?fbclid=IwAR2h7UpFSSEXdywDypP2GSkI6y7aGnM8rCXWl3O-1lQwSx__6uz8aBGKxpw
Corbyn’s Defeat and the Democratic Socialists of America
https://newpol.org/corbyns-defeat-and-the-democratic-socialists-of-america/?fbclid=IwAR3QaQI_ORrdrLB37PyS4RNu1SELKDkI4ZkiWHkWBluUUdriWhRig0DNwuw
What the U.S. Left Can Learn From the Labour Party’s Epic Loss
http://inthesetimes.com/article/22220/labour-party-jeremy-corbyn-boris-johnson-uk-brexit-bernie-sanders-left?fbclid=IwAR1w5wzfIZEMiLDXoiI8NPqXQTs3rVPaCFBcWiJd-IiSEvBbucEaoMMyR6k
What the U.K. Election Does (and Doesn’t) Teach Democrats
https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/13/no-false-consolations/?fbclid=IwAR116Li6Pft50XlzAt4oy5No3DT6E43BJdFfb_C6eoF1nuAOtyssFFQUyOU
Music:
Oi Polloi- (Expletive Deleted) Everybody Who Voted Tory
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Wherein we continue our discussion with Derick. Head on over tour our Patreon and sign up for $2 a month to check it out.
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The boys--all the good ones--sat down with C. Derick Varn of Pop the Left and the Symptomatic Redness (which can be found on the Zero Books podcast feed) to talk about Socialism in One Country and/or Socialist Internationalism.
We tackled the topic that has plagued the workers' movement from the early days of the Socialist International and wrapped it up quite nicely. We have answered the national question and can now proceed forward to proletarian victory.
Please check out Part II of our discussion on our Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
Socialism in One Country: A Reassessment -- Erik Van Ree
'SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY' -- Jean Paul Sartre (NLR)
Cuba, Che Guevara, and the Problem of “Socialism in One Country” -- Ron Augustin
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/cuba-che-guevara-and-the-problem-of-socialism-in-one-country/
Yugoslav Self-Management: Capitalism Under the Red Banner -- Juraj Katalenac
http://insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/
Socialism in One Country & The Cuban Revolution -- Celia Hart
http://links.org.au/node/26
Trotsky and the Debate on Socialism in One Country -- Monty Johnstone (NLR)
The Revolution Betrayed Appendix: “Socialism in One Country” -- Leon Trotsky, 1936
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch12.htm
Socialism in One Country versus Permanent Revolution -- Stalin, 1925
http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1924-2/industrialization-debate/industrialization-debate-texts/socialism-in-one-country-versus-permanent-revolution/
On Permanent Revolution -- Bukharin, 1924
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1924/permanent-revolution/index.htm
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Apparently, fully automated luxury communism is more than just a meme. We read some articles about it and decided to have a discussion about its merits and shortfalls. Is a post labor society something that is possible or desirable? Is technology really shifting the base of society in a direction that makes fully automated luxury communism more likely? How do we define the concept of luxury and is it really something we'd like perpetuate? Do we as a civilization, species, or planet even have time for something like this to come to fruition before we face total annihilation?
Fully automated luxury communism: a utopian critique
https://libcom.org/blog/fully-automated-luxury-communism-utopian-critique-14062015
Fully Automated Luxury Communism — A Review
https://medium.com/swlh/fully-automated-luxury-communism-a-review-a127d94dcb9a
Is a Post-Work, Post-Scarcity Future Possible?
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2602/fully-automated-luxury-communism-by-aaron-bastani-22004
FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM: A MANIFESTO BY AARON BASTANI
https://societyandspace.org/2019/09/03/fully-automated-luxury-communism-a-manifesto-by-aaron-bastani/
James Bridle on why technology is creating a new dark age
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17564174/james-bridle-new-dark-age-book-computational-thinking-interview
Aaron Bastani’s ‘luxury communism’ is a false future
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/fully-automated-luxury-communism-review
Review: Fully Automated Luxury Communism
http moo s://www.rs21.org.uk/2019/06/09/review-fully-automated-luxury-communism/
Artificial Stupidity
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/artificial-stupidity/
Inventing The Future
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/on-algorithmic-communism/
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Sometimes doing something is much worse than doing nothing; we need to figure out when that is. We read and thought and talked about an article that admonishes us to think and talk and read before acting. We have to stand against a politics of catharsis, a politics that does nothing but makes us feel like we are making a difference.
Check out the full episode on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
**Marxism had always contained within it a multiplicity of variations and is possessed, in equal parts, the potential to be used for illumination and obfuscation. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than the early responses of Marxists to fascism.
In our second installment of our series on the history of fascism, we dive into some Marxist theories of fascism.
Our primary source of info for this episode is this wonderful book:**https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1233-marxists-in-the-face-of-fascism
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
It is the first birthday of the Regrettable Century!
We spent the better part of an hour reflecting on our proud moments, regrets, things we changed our minds about (or didn't), and where we would like to go in the future. We've got some heavy material coming up, so enjoy this comparatively light fare.
Music: Every Day is Halloween- Ministry
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The movement for proletarian self emancipation is at a low ebb, but in a testament to how stupid and bad the world is, Democrats, Republicans, and European post-fascists have ramped up their rhetorical attacks on the pale ghost of the specter of communism.
Anti-communism has always been the stand-in ideology for racist authoritarianism and it serves the same purpose now in a world without a global movement to scare the bourgeoisie. Liberals, attempting to stem a nascent socialist movement, would condemn fascism and communism equally, hoping to stamp out a nascent workers' movement.
We sat down to talk about how dumb that is.
Losurdo vs. The Category of Totalitarianismhttp://awm.or.kr/bbs/data/document/1/Losurdo___Critique_of_Totalitarianism_(2004).pdf
On the false equivalence of fascism and communismhttps://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/bulgaria-fascism-nazism-anticommunism-historical-memory?fbclid=IwAR3KlX0_S-giXERD9s2CvrOk-cV0KkKmhXckAjgxSgT0orSlFOrXWH7U7iA
Anticommunism in a world without communismhttps://www.patreon.com/posts/anticommunism-in-28790447 The New Anti-Communism: Rereading the Twentieth Century
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2811-enzo-traverso-the-new-anti-communism-rereading-the-twentieth-century?fbclid=IwAR2_nrgCygrq0vxJj79ufs4iPJ6ZC8bWSGL83faav1BSKVdP26Jb2eZXhJw
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Steven from The Supreme Leap Forward is back to talk about the KKKriminal INjustice CIStem of the United $nakes of AmeriKKKa. We discuss the courts, restorative justice, twitter pileons/call out culture, and a little about Soviet jurisprudence.
Steven's essay mentioned in the episode:
Understanding Crime Under Capitalism: A Critique of American Criminal Justice and Introduction to Marxist Jurisprudence- Steven Gilmore
The Works of Evegny Pshukanis:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/index.htm
The other episode we did with Steven
http://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/989392-lawyerization-and-its-discontents-a-discussion-on-marxist-jurisprudence-with-steven-from-supreme-leap-forward-part-i
Kevin and Steven's Marxist Law Podcast featuring Chris
Supreme Leap Forward Episode 12 - Game Of Owns and Feudal Law
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The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations, both in the realm of cultural and -- apparently -- technological production. Culture has crawled to a halt, its progress replaced by advances in methods of distribution. Technology is bogged down in a cycle of adding additional cameras to the iphone.
Has capitalism outlived its progressive potential?
(The TLDR is yes)
Mark Fisher: The Slow Cancellation Of The Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCgkLICTskQ&t=304s
David Graeber: Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit
We are not living in a technological golden age.https://youtu.be/tvG3dT79TeY
Music: Маяк - Выше Звезд
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Check out some Real Nerd Hours when Chris and Jason have a discussion about a not very well known article from an obscure Trotskyist journal written around a decade ago...
It generated a little bit of a buzz, but was mostly ignored. We think that was a mistake and we are going to tell you all about why you should care about the decisions of the 10th party congress.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/red-jacobins-and-29448338?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=postshare
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"Perhaps the feeling most characteristic of our current moment is a mixture of boredom and compulsion. Even though we recognise that they are boring, we nevertheless feel compelled to do yet another Facebook quiz, to read yet another Buzzfeed list, to click on some celebrity gossip about someone we don’t even remotely care about. We endlessly move among the boring, but our nervous systems are so overstimulated that we never have the luxury of feeling bored. No one is bored, everything is boring."
For this episode we read a couple of articles by Mark Fisher and the Institute for Precarious Consciousness discussing some of the mechanisms that capitalism exploits to dampen our abilities to organize against it. While the production of this episode really is us just feeding more content into a machine that devours our time and creativity, we are kinda hoping this is an example of the capitalists selling us some rope.
Mark Fisher: No one is bored, Everything is boringhttps://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/no-one-is-bored-everything-is-boring/
Institute for Precarious Consciousness: We Are All Very Anxioushttp://intercommunalworkshop.org/we-are-all-anxious/
Jodi Dean: Communicative Capitalism and Class Strugglehttp://spheres-journal.org/communicative-capitalism-and-class-struggle/ Music: Savages- Shut Up
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This week we dive in to the second part of our two part collaboration with Adam from Red Library, who hosts s a great podcast that analyzes and discusses important works of Marxist theory and history. We are big fans, go check them out.
This week we continued our discussion on Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism by Russell Jacoby, so if you haven't listened to the first part, do that now.
In Dialectic of Defeat, Jacoby examines the losers of the Marxist tradition and argues that there is something to be learned from them, even in their defeat. He exhorts us to read the heretics, doubt the orthodoxies, and truly understand all of the rich and varied currents of Marxism, even if they ultimately failed to create a successful revolution.
After all, all of our gods failed us in the end.
Either that, or we failed them.
Jacoby, Russell. Dialectic of defeat : contours of western Marxism. Cambridge, U.K. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
Music:
Current 93/Nurse With Wound- Ballad of the Pale Girl
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Red Library is a great podcast that analyzes and discusses important works of Marxist (and other leftist) literature, and we are big fans. So, we are happy to announce that this week we teamed up with them to read and talk about Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism by Russell Jacoby. The discussion ran long, so it has been broken into two parts. This is part one.
In Dialectic of Defeat, Jacoby examines the losers of the Marxist tradition and argues that there is something to be learned from them, even in their defeat. He exhorts us to read the heretics, doubt the orthodoxies, and truly understand all of the rich and varied currents of Marxism, even if they ultimately failed to create a successful revolution.
After all, all of our gods failed us in the end.
Either that, or we failed them.
Jacoby, Russell. Dialectic of defeat : contours of western Marxism. Cambridge, U.K. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
Music:
Modern Life Is War- Farmer's Holiday Association
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We decided that a good companion to our episode about Melancholia and Organized Pessimism would be a rare recording with all of us (except Kevin) in the same room, talking about a pretty cool movie that we saw over a decade ago.
Sign up on our, very reasonably priced, Patreon to access our-- small but ever growing number of-- bonus episodes.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
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When we were kids: history ended, the Christian right launched an all out assault on the gains of the 1960s/70s, the liberals launched an all out assault on the gains of the New Deal/labor movement, and the left launched an all out assault on each others shopping choices. It sucked.
The world was recreated in the dumbest and worst possible ways and we are going to let you listen to us talk about how it warped all of our brains.
Coming of Age at the End of Historyhttps://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/coming-of-age-at-the-end-of-history-2/ Neoliberalism Is A Political Projecthttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/david-harvey-neoliberalism-capitalism-labor-crisis-resistance/ From Revolution to Evolution: The Changing Nature of the Christian Right (1994)http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.857.5145&rep=rep1&type=pdf What Pat Robertson Teaches Ushttps://jacobinmag.com/2018/03/pat-robertson-cbn-evangelical-christian-sanders The Reagan Counterrevolution Crushes The American Dreamhttps://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/9/8/1328063/-The-Reagan-Counter-Revolution-Crushes-the-American-Dream How The Christian Right Ended Up Transforming American Politicshttps://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/brief-history-of-the-christian-right The Sexual Counterrevolutionhttps://prospect.org/article/sexual-counterrevolution
Music: Propagandhi- "Stick The Fucking Flag Up Your Goddam Ass, You Sonofabitch"
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We received a really thoughtful and challenging question/comment from one of our Patrons and we decided to give it the attention it deserves, in the form of a full episode.
We discuss "pessimism of the intellect/optimism of the will," mourning, melancholy, the church-like euphoria of the mass meeting, and how much it is necessary to bum people out.
If you have a question or concern you'd like us to address, send it to our email address regrettablecentury@gmail.com or message us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Patreon.
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We read a bunch of stuff about Walter Benjamin and Enzo Traverso and tried to have a conversation about it.
We've only managed to reinforce the idea that "The organization of pessimism" is the only slogan that can save us from death.
Traverso, Enzo. Left-wing melancholia : Marxism, history, and memory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Print.
Against Revolutionary Pessimism and Optimism: Revolutionary Realism by J. Moufawad Paul
http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2016/10/against-revolutionary-pessimism-and.html
An Invisible Underground River: On Left-Wing Melancholia- Michael Lowy
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3289-an-invisible-underground-river-on-left-wing-melancholia
How to kill a zombie: strategizing the end of neoliberalism- Mark Fisher
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-to-kill-zombie-strategizing-end-of-neoliberalism/
Walter Benjamin’s Gothic Marxism and The Organization of Pessimism: Michael Lowy
https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/walter-benjamin-and-surrealism
Victor Serge: Indispensable Critic of Leftist Illusion- Mitchel Abidor
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/02/28/victor-serge-indispensable-critic-of-leftist-illusion/
Four Reasons the European Left Lost- Wolfgang Streeck
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/european-parliament-elections-results-left?fbclid=IwAR0IIEH5W8SrlH9EfJ31XDLDFjvTZ2lp-ucok0GtxtpDsWzsrSMHQ_oB9DM
The Organization of Pessimism: Profane Illumination & Anthropological Materialism in Walter Benjamin
https://www.academia.edu/33848834/The_Organization_of_Pessimism_Profane_Illumination_and_Anthropological_Materialism_in_Walter_Benjamin
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We sat down with C. Derick Varn and solved all the problems that are currently ailing the left. We reconciled the divergent currents of Marxism and wove together the materialist and idealist dichotomy with resounding success, but then lost an hour and a half of audio and were forced to restart the recording; what resulted was a meandering, but entertaining, discussion about just about everything... and religion.
Varn's Podcast "Symptomatic Redness"
http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/tag/symptomatic-redness/
and his poetry.
http://www.unlikelystories.org/unlikely-books/apocalyptics
Music:
Des Geyers Schwarzer Haufen- Bauernkreig (German Peasant Revolt Anthem)
Further Reading:
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. Marxism and Christianity. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
Religion for radicals: An interview with Terry Eagleton
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-according-to-terry
Roland Boer on Marxism and Religion
http://isj.org.uk/the-full-story-on-marxism-and-religion/
Lenin: The Attitude of the Workers Party To Religion
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm
Boer, R. (2014). Religion and Socialism. Political Theology, 15(2), 188–209.Fitzpatrick, F. (1967). A. V. Lunacharsky: Recent Soviet Interpretations and Republications.Soviet Studies. Vol. 18. No. 3. pp 267-289
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After our Socialism From Below episode, Jason and Chris thought they could have used more time to talk about the 4th Comintern congress and the question of "Workers' Governments."
What resulted is an impromptu discussion that we posted on our Patreon.
Head on over and sign up for $2.
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From Babeuf and Blanqui to Bakunin; from Karl Marx and Kautsky to Kropotkin, an ideological battle rages over the true nature of socialism!
But why though?
This week we discuss whether or not there really are only "Two Souls of Socialism" and if idea of "socialism from below" is a useful analytical framework around which to organize our politics. Hal Draper’s “Two Souls of Socialism”https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/
Marxism, Anarchism, & the Genealogy of “Socialism From Below”https://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/02-marxism-anarchism-the-genealogy-of-socialism-from-below Building Socialism From Below- Ben Tarnoffhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/12/nicos-poulantzas-socialism-from-below-democratic-power Socialism From Below: A Delusion?
-Mike McNairhttps://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1071/socialism-from-below-a-delusion/
Music: Back in the USSR by Crisis
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This is part one of a series in which we will chart the history of fascism and attempt to dissect and discuss it in greater detail than we have previously been able to. Our goal is to analyze some of the scholarship done by mainstream and Marxist scholars alike, in order to better understand the phenomenon.
In Part one we synthesize a list of the ideological characteristics of Classical Fascism from similar lists that are employed by fascism scholars, in an attempt to understand what gave historic fascism the unique appeal that it had and attempt to construct a working definition that we can use to define our terms for the rest of the series.
If this ends up going well, the series will trace the history of fascism from its roots in the societal ferment of the 19th century to the modern day post-fascist movements.
Payne, Stanley G. A history of fascism, 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Print
Sternhell, Zeev, Mario Sznajder, and Maia Ashéri. The birth of fascist ideology : from cultural rebellion to political revolution. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994. Print.
Paxton, Robert O. The anatomy of fascism. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print.
Griffin, Roger. The nature of fascism. London New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
The Gang Gets Underwhelmed by Zizek v. Peterson.
It wasn't the "Debate of the Century" we wanted, but it's the one that we deserved.
Music: Kerber- Ratne Igre
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We are currently witnessing what appears to be the death of the micro sect form of political organization, a bastard form of the Leninist party that has all but dominated the minuscule and embattled American radical left for the past half century. The political landscape has changed in a way that has rendered these groups obsolete, removing the sectarian left's monopoly on socialist politics in the US, but what will replace it?
Dare we be hopeful for a bright new era?
LOL
The New Communist Movement: An Obituaryhttps://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/mrl-obit.htm?fbclid=IwAR21HRylPBOW_OuyET7G4gIdgQnTHI_Qfy430OQnF9f_vScuQG3zIunN_q4
Hal Draper’s the Anatomy of the Microsecthttps://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1973/xx/microsect.htm
Hal Draper’s the Alternative to the Microsecthttps://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1971/alt/alt.htm
Warning about microsect organizing from David McNally in 2009http://davidmcnally.org/p=1077&fbclid=IwAR1giyezHhZfnQPDzKvu2YvJoBp31_JWtnSXDBqypJ_saOd8GIlZeih7mt0
Socialism In One Organizationhttps://failedharvest.com/blog/socialism1org
John Riddell on the SWP
Part Onehttps://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/the-u-s-swp-attempts-an-outward-turn-1977-83/
Part Twohttps://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/causes-of-a-socialist-collapse-the-u-s-swp-1976-83/
The Sect Systemhttps://libcom.org/library/sect-systemSong: Bill Bailey (The Ultimate Sectarian)
Joe Glazer and Bill Friedman
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As a concept, as a slogan, as an expression of intent The Right to The City **contains within it an opportunity for this generation to conceive of new methods of class struggle, of new models of class organization, and of the return of class power. It’s but one of many opportunities we have right now to advance a constructive, utopian, and revolutionary vision of the future. It’s about demystifying social relations where they are presently abstracted. It’s about no longer viewing political activity as either pressuring politicians or becoming them. It’s about identifying what are presently hidden means of exerting our power as class to confront the class enemy, not just at work, but everywhere.
Henri Lefebvre and the Right to the City**http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell/jua_rtc.pdf
Neoliberalism is a Political Project -- Harveyhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/david-harvey-neoliberalism-capitalism-labor-crisis-resistance/
The Right to the City -- Harveyhttps://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city
PDF of Henri Lefebevre's Urban Revolutionhttps://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Henri-Lefebvre-The-Urban-Revolution.pdf
Writings on Cities -- Lefebvrehttps://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Henri-Lefebvre-Writings-on-Cities.pdf
Critique of Urban Geography -- Debordhttps://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/presitu/geography.html
Why Psychogeography?https://www.sayitwithpavingstones.org/news/2018/8/14/derive-0-why-psychogeography
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This week Chris and Jason sit down with Donald Parkinson-- the managing editor of Cosmonaut Magazine-- to discuss post apocalyptic eco-war communism, rekindling the Utopian imagination, the need for a post-tradition socialist movement, The DSA, The Marxist Center, Mike McNair, and some of the reasons Donald thinks we shouldn't be so pessimistic.
Cosmonaut Magazine
https://cosmonaut.blog/
Outro Music: Eduard Artemyev- Lullaby
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This week the gang talks about the radical liberatory programs of the Bolsheviks, the failure of these programs, the conservative reaction of Stalin, and the renewed blossoming of these ideas in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. We ultimately conclude the Warsaw Pact countries leave much to be desired in the way of workers' democracy, but also provide us with an example of what is possible when a society's resources are devoted to liberation instead of hoarded by the bourgeoisie.
The USSR’s Founding Motherhttps://cosmonaut.blog/2018/10/08/the-ussrs-founding-mother/
Liberation in the early days of the USSRhttps://isreview.org/issue/86/legacy-october
Bad Romancehttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/women-better-sex-under-socialism-review
Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialismhttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism.amp.htmlGhodsee, Kristen R. Why women have better sex under socialism : and other arguments for economic independence. New York: Nation Books, 2018.
Music: Ina Martell- Ich war allein
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Kevin and Chris sat down with our old friend Steven; an attorney, Marxist and host of the defunct(ish?) Supreme Leap Forward Podcast to discuss Marxist criminology, prison, cops, and Soviet jurisprudence. We ultimately conclude that cops suck, prisons suck, the law is dumb, and the concept of the lumpenproletariat is something that we need to keep arguing about.
Hal Draper essay mentioned in the episode:
The concept of the Lumpenproletariat in Marx and Engels- Hal Draper
Kevin and Steven's Marxist Law Podcast featuring Chris
Supreme Leap Forward Episode 12 - Game Of Owns and Feudal Law
Steven's essay mentioned in the episode:
Understanding Crime Under Capitalism: A Critique of American Criminal Justice and Introduction to Marxist Jurisprudence- Steven Gilmore
The Works of Evegny Pshukanis:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/index.htm
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week Jenny makes the case that there are "good" and bad types of identity politics and we discuss the redeemable and irredeemable aspects of them. Ultimately, we come to conclusions that are sure to get us canceled by workerists and idpol-libs alike.
Which... doesn't matter because will have all been boiled alive by rising oceans of acidic seawater long before we ever figure any of this out.
Combahee River Collective Statement :
http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html
Asad Haider: 'Eight Theses on Identity'
http://salvage.zone/
Haider, Asad. Mistaken identity : race and class in the age of Trump. London Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2018.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
In part two of our discussion we finally get around to talking about horror movies, Jenny talks about Caliban and the Witch a lot more, and Chris brings that conversation back to fascism... again.
The outro music is Lords of the New Church- Open Your Eyes
Towards A Gothic Marxism I – On Monstershttps://thelitcritguy.com/2018/02/05/towards-a-gothic-marxism-i-on-monsters/
Towards A Gothic Marxism Part Two: Monsters For Socialismhttps://thelitcritguy.com/2018/02/05/towards-a-gothic-marxism-part-two-monsters-for-socialism/
A Thousand Lost Worlds: Notes on Gothic Marxism by Adam Turlhttp://www.redwedgemagazine.com/evicted-art-blog/a-thousand-lost-worlds-notes-on-gothic-marxism
Socialists Must Reclaim Halloweenhttps://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/halloween-socialism-china-mieville
Michael Lowy on Benjamin’s Gothic Marxismhttps://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/walter-benjamin-and-surrealism
The Horror of the Real: Zizek as Modern Gothichttp://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/356/356
Adam Tooze on Surrealism and Gothic Marxismhttps://blindfieldjournal.com/2016/12/01/of-surrealism-marxism/McNally, David. Monsters of the Market : Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2012.
Cohen, Margaret. Profane Illumination : Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993
Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch. New York London: Autonomedia Pluto, distributor, 2004.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
In this episode we talk about Marxist romanticism and the gothic strain in Marxism, or "gothic Marxism." We attempt to salvage the detritus of bourgeois society and the broken dreams of generations of the defeated to piece together a vision of world worth fighting for. Marx often used Gothic imagery in his writings and held a strong romantic streak that we think has been ignored by "vulgar" Marxists who cling to the mechanistic Protestantism and scientism of the enlightenment.
This is only part one of a two part episode and we promise you we talk about horror movies eventually, just keep your shorts on.
The intro is a paraphrasing of Adam Turl from a piece he wrote for Red Wedge Magazine, linked below:
The outro music is Bauhaus- The Passion of Lovers
Towards A Gothic Marxism I – On Monstershttps://thelitcritguy.com/2018/02/05/towards-a-gothic-marxism-i-on-monsters/
Towards A Gothic Marxism Part Two: Monsters For Socialismhttps://thelitcritguy.com/2018/02/05/towards-a-gothic-marxism-part-two-monsters-for-socialism/
A Thousand Lost Worlds: Notes on Gothic Marxism by Adam Turlhttp://www.redwedgemagazine.com/evicted-art-blog/a-thousand-lost-worlds-notes-on-gothic-marxism
Socialists Must Reclaim Halloweenhttps://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/halloween-socialism-china-mieville
Michael Lowy on Benjamin’s Gothic Marxismhttps://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/walter-benjamin-and-surrealism
The Horror of the Real: Zizek as Modern Gothichttp://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/356/356
Adam Tooze on Surrealism and Gothic Marxismhttps://blindfieldjournal.com/2016/12/01/of-surrealism-marxism/McNally, David. Monsters of the Market : Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2012.
Cohen, Margaret. Profane Illumination : Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993
Siegel, Paul N. The Meek and the Militant : Religion and Power Across the World. Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2005.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we dive deep into eco-terrorism / green anarchy / primitivism, and discuss why we think the Unambomber had some good points while also disagreeing with him, a lot.
Anti-Civ folks would tell you that the problems that plague humanity begin with the industrial revolution and that we need to go back to hunter/gatherer societies.
We at The Regrettable Century, however, enjoy the fact that we survived past childbirth and can wear corrective lenses to read books safely inside of our warm homes this winter. We bet you can figure out what we think the real problem is.
Also, we talk about eco-fascism.
A short list of resources we mined for this episode:
Children of Tedhttp://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/the-unabomber-ted-kaczynski-new-generation-of-acolytes.html
The Unabomber's Manifesto as originally published by WaPo:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm?noredirect=on
Interview with John Zerzan on NPRhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/oregonpublicbroadcasting/anarchy-and-civilization
“No Way Out?” By John Zerzan https://www.johnzerzan.net/articles/no-way-out.html
“The Problem of Civilization” from Deep Green Resistance, Derrick Jensen’s group, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2011/05/05/deep-green-resistance-strategy-save-planet
20 min ELF propaganda video:https://youtu.be/MO2pA5We34A
Watch full length documentary “If a Tree Falls: a Story of the Earth Liberation Front”https://youtu.be/UmZkNNJqr1I
“Whatever Happened to Ecoterrorism?”https://psmag.com/environment/whatever-happened-to-eco-terrorism
Review/summary of “Ecological Rift,” by John Bellamy Fosterhttp://links.org.au/node/2293
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
We pick up where we left off last week; discussing Russian Nazbols, American Third Positionism, and the re-emphasizing the need to speak with clarity about this topic of dire importance.
Listen to Part II of a II part series, in which we think out loud about the history and politics of fascist anti-capitalism.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
**A short list of some of the material referenced for the show:
Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945****. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Lee, Martin A. The Beast Reawakens****. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1997.
Coogan, Kevin. Dreamer of the Day : Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International*. Brooklyn, N.Y: Autonomedia, 1999.*
A scholarly article about The National Question and the Communists in Weimar Germany.**https://libcom.org/files/NATIONAL%20BOLSHEVISM%20IN%20WEIMAR%20GERMANY.pdf
The (Now Defunct) Traditionalist Workers Party:https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/traditionalist-worker-party
An undercover expose of the Traditionalist Workers Party:https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/leaked-a-year-inside-the-failed-neo-nazi-traditionalist-worker-party/
Article about a alt-righters adopting “anti-capitalism”https://www.thenation.com/article/the-racist-right-looks-left/Music:
Holocaust by Crisis off of No Town Hall
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Yes there is an anti-capitalist right and leftists need to stop being so confused when rightists are opposed to, or critical of, capitalism.
Listen to Part I of a II part series, in which we think out loud about the history and politics of the Strasserites, Nazbols, European New Right, and Third Positionists.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
**A short list of some of the material referenced for the show:
Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945****. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Lee, Martin A. The Beast Reawakens****. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1997.
Coogan, Kevin. Dreamer of the Day : Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International*. Brooklyn, N.Y: Autonomedia, 1999.*
The National Question and the Communists in Weimar Germany.**
https://libcom.org/files/NATIONAL%20BOLSHEVISM%20IN%20WEIMAR%20GERMANY.pdf
The (Now Defunct) Traditionalist Workers Party:https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/traditionalist-worker-party
An undercover expose of the Traditionalist Workers Party:https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/leaked-a-year-inside-the-failed-neo-nazi-traditionalist-worker-party/
Article about a alt-righters adopting “anti-capitalism”
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-racist-right-looks-left/
Music:
Auf, auf zum Kampf by Commandantes off of Lieder Für Die Arbeiterklasse
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Behold, our original intro episode! Jason and Chris talk about their motivations for creating the podcast and dive into Mark Fisher's book "Capitalist Realism."
Fisher argues that after 1989 capitalism was able to present itself as the only option and warped our reality to fit that claim. We talk about how he was right.
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In the years since Guy Debord wrote "The Society of the Spectacle" we have witnessed the utter triumph of said spectacle and have been thoroughly crushed under the jackboot of its mediocrity. We think that some of the ideas of the Situationists are even more relevant now than they were in 68 and are worth having a conservation about, so we did.
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A Short List of Some of the Readings For this Episode:
Society of the Spectacle (full text)https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm Revenge of the Spectacle http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/revenge-of-the-spectacle-this-time-its-personal Bringing Fuel to The Flames: Anselme Jappe's Guy Debordhttp://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/bringing-fuel Notes on the Spectacle of Oppositionhttps://www.sayitwithpavingstones.org/news/2018/6/29/some-notes-on-the-spectacle-of-opposition Why Psychogeography?https://www.sayitwithpavingstones.org/news/2018/8/14/derive-0-why-psychogeography Background on 1968https://jacobinmag.com/2018/05/how-beautiful-it-was/
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In our first ever FEATURE episode, we talk about the Marxist art, its mission, the idea of the Popular Avant Garde, and why transgression is important.
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This week we discuss our orientation as Revolutionary Pessimists. We believe that humanity is worth saving, but were not so sure that is going to work out. A clear headed, sober, pessimistic orientation is necessary to continue to organize as socialists. We must be ready to salvage the burnt out husk of our planet and build an egalitarian future in the irradiated post apocalyptic deserts. A strategy for ruination is necessary.
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Salvage Quarterly
http://salvage.zone/in-print/salvage-perspectives-1-amid-this-stony-rubbish/
For a Marxism Without Guarantees
http://www.agpolpsy.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Hall-For-a-Marxism-Without-Guarantees.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2zkfhtBHg_j1-YBQ3eCpPUXCnKeg0FxeEq5Y3KWN4Fqdf5lVCGwhEBsqs
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This week we discuss ourselves a little bit before diving into the topic of base building. What is base building? Is it a new strategy? Is it just aping Maoist and Narodnik tactics in a decidedly un-Bolshevik fashion? It isn't, but if it was why would that be bad?
In this episode, we talk about why building is becoming popular among the membership of the DSA and whether it is a viable strategy for working class power
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Part Two of our series examining fascism. The post fascist matrix has vomited forth a dizzying array of political formations; we recorded ourselves thinking out loud about them.
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Part one of our series examining all of the fascisms (This is a re-upload with some sound issues resolved)
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We discuss Mark Fisher's pertinent and controversial essay "Exiting the Vampire's Castle. What did Fisher get wrong, what did he get right? Will the left shake its toxic call out culture in time to save humanity from impending catastrophe?
Exiting the Vampire Castle
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
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