The Regrettable Century
The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you. “The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” -- Antonio Gramsci
Episodes
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 m...
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
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, t...
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-base...
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...
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 protecti...
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...
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...
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-...
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
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. Th...
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
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...
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 p...
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.
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
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
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 Republic
For a New Republic Podcast
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...
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-ghost...
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