Notes from the great impasse.... the boys are back to take you for a wild ride from supply chains, to the Great Resignation, to culture wars, to cryptocurrency, to NFTs to terminal crisis. Why is nothing working and why does everything feel bad? It's the decadence of capitalism as a functioning social system and Sean and Matt explain why. Be sure to listen to the end as Matt, like a similarly bearded guy before him, reaches into the misty depths of theology to try to analogize the impersonal dom...
Nov 19, 2021•11 min
Jamie is joined by pal-of-the-show Aaron Thorpe ( @paradoomer ) to discuss Lizzie Borden's 1983 feminist sci-fi film "Born In Flames." Ten years after a "war of liberation" that established a social democratic government in the United States, things are still not great for women, especially queer, black, working class women! In a story that remains relevant to this day, the film follows the radical organizers of the Women's Army as they fight for true equality. Outro song - &...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Greetings, Antifada super soldiers! This week, we're cross-posting an episode of Jamie's new show Everybody Loves Communism, wherein she and co-host Jorge do the reading so you don't have to. In this edition, Jamie and Jorge begin their mini-series on the Paris Commune as a prelude to chapter 3 of Lenin's "State and Revolution," because you need to know about it to understand that chapter. It's also just an important event in the history of class struggle; Marx called it "the dawn...
Nov 10, 2021•59 min
As "Striketober" becomes "Strikevember," Sean and Jamie discuss the ongoing wave of strikes and labor actions, and what they might mean for class struggle in the US. Outro song: Strike Anywhere - You're Fired
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Happy Halloweekend! Jamie and Leslie are back with a seasonally appropriate discussion of two takes on the same tale from two towering directors: "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979), written and directed by Werner Herzog. Which film contains the more convincing worldview? Which Dracula is incel, and which is volcel? Does Mina come off cooler than she should because she's played by Winona Ryder? All will be revea...
Oct 29, 2021•41 sec
After the GSA convention (Gothic Socialists of America) the Antifidada crew spends a night at a hotel made famous by the book The Palmer Hotel, a collection of spooky short stories set over a century at a downtown hotel. $20. Venmo: Rick-Paulas, PayPal: RickPaulas@gmail, CashApp: $RickPaulas. Include address. Please help pay for our ptsd therapy by becoming a patron NYC listeners come to Jamie's Halloween cover bands show 10/31!: https://bit.ly/3besiBW...
Oct 27, 2021•47 min
In the second part of our first episode of Armed Love, Peter Coyote discusses his interest in Zen, how it came to be so influential to the beatniks and hippies, and his background with indigenous solidarity, particularly the campaign to free Leonard Peltier . Coyote recommends Peter Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse regarding Peltier, and The New Buddhism by David Brazier and How the Swans came to the Lake by Rick Fields about Zen Buddhism. The full episode is available free at Patreon....
Oct 24, 2021•4 min
We begin our new series on the revolutionary counterculture of the sixties by interviewing Peter Coyote , founding member of the Diggers -- an anarchist group from San Francisco whose free stores, tie-died shirts, free concerts, and activist street theater opened the gates of the Haight to tens of thousands of dropouts and helped define the sixties aesthetic. But by '67, the Diggers were already trying to escape the hippie movement by forming a network of revolutionary communes. Joining Andy for...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Jamie and Sean are joined by superproducer Paul Channelstrip ( @aufhebenkultur ) (Antifada twitch channel, Everybody Loves Communism, many more) for a laid back episode about the zoo, a high profile bird murder, and the tendency of the rate of treats to fall over time. Why is the supply chain having a normal one and what does it mean for the current phase of capitalism? You can watch this trio shoot the shit from 3pm-5pm ET every Wednesday and Friday at Twitch.tv/TheAntifada ! Check out Paul's m...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 17 min
The madlads from TrashFuture are back! Sean is joined by Riley (@raaleh) and Nate (@inthesedeserts) to discuss the very public meltdown of, well, you know, the entire British civilization. As it turns out, things in the UK are even more bleak than they appear from across the pond: supply chains breaking down, petrol stations empty, services being cut, etc. But even more dire, and darkly funny, is the reaction of the British ruling class' which absolutely refuses to rule. Put on your schadenfreud...
Oct 06, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Jamie and Andy are joined by Natasha Lennard ( @NatashaLennard ), contributing writer at The Intercept and author of " Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life ," to commemorate Occupy Wall Street's ten-year anniversary. What are people erasing when they remember Occupy solely as something that "changed the conversation" around wealth inequality? How did the occupiers demonstrate anarchist politics in action? And what lessons can we carry into the future as we fight not mer...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Sean is joined by special guest Adam H Johnson (@adamjohnsonnyc), writer and host of the excellent Citations Needed podcast, to discuss the political economy of mass media, how consent is manufactured and the myriad ways in which the capitalist press is complicit even in a declining US empire. Then, with some extra time, Sean gives a briefing of several recent strikes and what they might mean for organized labor going forward. Links: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 9 min
The crew discuss some of the cultural changes that happened in New York City and the country following the attacks of September 11th through the lens of the biggest band of that era, The Strokes. Sign up as a member at Patreon.com/theAntifada to unlock this episode and all of our fine bonus content!
Sep 17, 2021•4 min
We share our stories of 9/11 (some more harrowing than others) and commemorate some of the lesser known actions of the NYPD and FDNY with one of the anonymous members of Research and Destroy NYC Check out our bonus episode on the Strokes and NYC after 9/11 by becoming a patron at http://patreon.com/theantifada Download Research and Destroy's free zine New York's Worst Responders free: https://researchdestroy.com/new-yorks-worst-responders-nypd-and-9-11.pdf Music: Bruce Springsteen - Into the Fir...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Meme Militant Meg and Andy read the essay Memes Without End by Adrian Wohlleben, in which he argues that elements of recent uprisings like the Yellow Vests of France, turnstile hopping of Chile, the umbrella-wielding frontliners of Hong Kong were memes that help them spread in a way that traditional social movements cannot. Can we meme revolution into reality? Or is it impossible to force a meme? We discuss Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore, Darwin, and more! For the full episode, all our other b...
Sep 10, 2021•4 min
The late Noel Ignatiev's comrades Zhana Kurti (from Hard Crackers ) and Dave Ranney and Kingsley Clarke from the Sojourner Truth Organization discuss the release of Acceptable Men , a memoir of Noel's time in the '70s as militant worker in the larger US Steel Mill in Gary Indiana. Buy Acceptable Men from Charles H. Kerr Books or AK Press And follow Kerr Books on Twitter Please SUPPORT THE SHOW at PATREON.COM/THEANTIFADA Show notes: Dave Ranney's Living and Dying on the Factory Floor review: http...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Matt and Sean have returned to talk about the disastrous defeat of the United States in Afghanistan: How did this happen and how does it implicate the American Imperial project? Why was the War on Terror? How is Biden's withdrawal linked to broader strategic interests (Cold War with China)? Whither American capitalist hegemony in the 21st century? And how will the citizens of this cursed country reconcile themselves to imperial decline? (Not well.) Become at patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada...
Sep 01, 2021•9 min
Jamie is joined by Geo Maher to discuss his new book, " A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete ." They discuss the origins of mass incarceration, the debate around "non-reformist" reforms, and alternative models of community safety. Also, the million dollar question: how do abolitionist politics fit into the over-arching project of building communism? W/ bonus questions on the communes of Venezuela and the Zbellion! Buy the book: https://www.versobo...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr 8 min
In this very special bonus, Michael Heinrich addresses his detractors and fleshes out the political implications of his reading of Marx's mature work: Is Michael's reading of Marx as having a monetary theory of value a concession to neoliberalism? What was Marx trying to get at with the Tendency of the Law of the Rate of Profit to Fall? What remains of Marx's crisis theory if we admit he gave up on TRoPF? Is the empirical work of 'Marxist Economics' worth a damn? And, of course, what does all th...
Aug 20, 2021•6 min
Sean and Jamie are excited to be joined by Michael Heinrich, German scholar and author of a series of books popularizing and clarifying Marx's value theory and contextualizing the life and times of old Karl. We discuss the core of Marx's project, what distinguished him from the economists of his day, and what political orientations might follow from a precise understanding of his critique of political economy. Importantly, Michael has a powerful critique of vulgar Marxism and the orthodoxies of ...
Aug 18, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Sean, Jamie and Andy are joined by Anton Jaeger (@antonjagermm), Marxist researcher of populism, to discuss the history, present and future of populism whether in the left or right mold. Several years ago it seemed as though left populism - exemplified by practitioners such as Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders - had a decent shot at upending the Washington Consensus on austerity, markets and foreign policy. With the failure and retreat of these candidates and others, what is left of this project?...
Aug 11, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Julian Feeld sticks around to smoke a hash joint and discuss the work of the New School alumni graphic designer who began the Deep State Map Project, his contact with aliens for Ashtar, the Q-esque manifesto it inspired, and our opinions on the "lab leak" hypothesis For the full episode ppplleeeeaaasssseee support the show at http://patreon.com/theantifada Show notes: Dylan Louis Monroe: Deep State Mapping Project Interview: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/04/a-fascinating-interview-wit...
Aug 06, 2021•3 min
We're joined by QAnon Anonymous host Julian Feeld from Paris, giving us an update on all things QAnon, including Ron Watkins' pivot to UFOs, the right and left of the Yellow Vest movement's resistance to Macron's neoliberalism and vaccine passports, if there's any hope in a revolutionary left QAnon movement, and tips on staying sane in the eye of the storm. Check out QAnon Anyonymous on Patreon and Twitch Video of fascists getting wrecked at vaccine passport demo in Toulouse For a bonus episode ...
Aug 04, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Jamie is joined by Marvin Gonzalez ( @Sulliedsubjects ), a member of DSA's International Committee Secretariat, to discuss his recent trip to Venezuela as part of DSA's delegation to the Congreso Bicentenario de los Pueblos del Mundo, as well as his experience touring las comunas, a Soviet-like organ of dual power. Outro song: Lloviznando Cantos - Arriba a la Izquierda For more, check out the DSA delegation's report back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL2RHFnzpG0 Check out The Partisan, a publ...
Jul 28, 2021•1 hr 17 min
As promised, here is a continuation of the discussion with Tony Norfield about capitalist imperialism and finance: is China's Belt and Road Initiative an imperialist endeavor? Despite having billionaires and huge corporations, is China even capitalist? What would a new Cold War between America and China look like? Become a patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada for access to this bonus content and more, plus our Discord server and first in line to call in on our twitch.tv/theantifada...
Jul 23, 2021•8 min
Sean speaks with Tony Norfield (@StubbornFacts) who worked for decades in international banking and has seen first hand the way capital exploits the world, about the intersection of finance and empire. His book, 2016's The City, is more than just an update Lenin and Hilferding's work on imperialism, it provides a crucial Marxist analysis and critique of the capitalist world system, interest-bearing capital, international institutions, and more. In this interview we discuss the long duree of Brex...
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Aaron J Leonard gives us a preview of his next book on folk music, revolutionary politics, and state repression in the '60s. We discuss Dylan going electric, his relationship with the old and new left, the black panthers' obsession with Highway 61 Revisited, and how much revolutionaries should worry about COINTELPRO today For the full episode please support the show at Patreon.com/TheAntifada...
Jul 16, 2021•6 min
Historian of the radical left and state repression Aaron J. Leonard discusses his book Folk Singers and the Bureau , a chronicle of the relationship between American musicians, the Communist Party, and the FBI. We also talk about state repression today, human evolution, and Eric Adams' history of backing the blue. For the bonus episode on Dylan, the Panthers, and the '60s please support the show at Patreon.com/TheAntifada Check out Aaron's twitter or his website Songs: Pete Seeger - Song for Bri...
Jul 14, 2021•1 hr 10 min
In this belated celebration of gay liberation Andy talks to writer and cartoonist for the New Yorker, Baffler, The Toast, the Nib, etc, and a real life gay communist, John Leavitt about the Lavender Scare--a moral panic and homophobic purge of the State Department after World War II that paralleled and informed the Red Scare. We also discuss purges of homosexuals from Leninist organizations, and whether it is better today that government buildings fly the rainbow flag. After that some audio riot...
Jul 09, 2021•11 min
Jamie (@jamie_elizabeth) and Leslie (@leslieleeiii) discuss two scary, sexy — and above all, seventies — lesbian vampire movies with the help of Tanya Turner (@auntiebernice) of the Trillbilly Workers Party: Vampyres (1974) and The Vampire Lovers (1970). Subscribe to The Antifada's (or Struggle Session's) premium feed to access the rest of this frighteningly fun series! Patreon.com/TheAntifada Outro music: Secret Shame - Calm
Jul 08, 2021•56 min
