Revolutionary Left Radio

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jan 14, 2020 Prof. Todd McGowan, author of "Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Costs of Free Markets" and co-host of "Why Theory", returns to the show to talk with Breht about Marxism and Psychoanalysis, Freud, Lacan, Death Drive, Desire, the fundamental sense of Lack at the core of our psyches, and much more!  Check out Todd's book here: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/capitalism-and-desire/9780231178723 Check out Todd's podcast Why Theory here: https://player.fm/series/why-theory Outro music: 'Bowl of Oranges' by Bright Eyes Find more of this music here: https://saddle-creek.com/collections/bright-eyes ------------------- Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio    

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Feb 24, 2019 Chuka Ejeckam joins Breht to discuss and pay homage to the Black Panther Party leader and Marxist Revolutionary, Fred Hampton. Find and support Chuka and his work here: http://www.chukaejeckam.com/ Follow him on twitter @ChukaEjeckam Outro music by: Dead Prez - Food, Clothes, Shelter Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jul 25, 2019 On this episode of Red Menace Alyson and Breht discuss On Contradiction by Mao Full text here: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm Video version of this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNnqmbRhcBQ   Check out Bad Mouse’s complementary video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k46uaDvnoYE   Outro Music by K. Flay - The President Has A Sex Tape ------- Support Red Menace, and get up to three bonus episodes a month, here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace  

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jul 28, 2018 John from Working Class History joins Brett to discuss the Spanish Civil War! This is a long-anticipated episode on a deeply important and relevant historical event. We spent a LOT of time editing and producing this episode, so we hope you find it informative as well as genuinely moving.  Follow Working Class History on all the major social media sites! Here is the reading guide from WCH on the Spanish Civil War: https://libcom.org/library/spanish-civil-war-1936-39-reading-guide   Their Spanish Civil War merch store is here: https://working-class-history.myshopify.com/collections/spanish-civil-war   Their website is here: https://workingclasshistory.com   Their podcast is here: https://soundcloud.com/workingclasshistory   Outro Songs: Bitter Old Man and Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist; both songs by Ramshackle Glory! Go support their music here: https://ramshackleglory.bandcamp.com Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jun 21, 2020 Alex Aviña returns to RLR to discuss the Haitian Revolution! Alexander Aviña is an associate professor of Latin American history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. His book, "Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside" , was awarded the Maria Elena Martínez Book Prize in Mexican History for 2015 by the Conference on Latin American History. Outro music 'Africa Hot!'  by Dead Prez and DJ Green Lantern Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio  

  ORIGINALLY RELEASED Feb 3, 2022 In this episode, Alyson and Breht introduce, teach, and discuss the philosphy of two giants in western philosophy: Arthur Schopenhaur and Friedrich Nietzsche.  They discuss their respective philosophies, how they relate, how they differ, the subsequent thinkers and movements they inspired or influened, their relation to politics right, left and center, their connection to eastern philosophies and religions, and much more!  Support Red Menace: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Apr 4, 2020 Listen to the full Red Menace episode (from which this segment was extracted) here:  https://redmenace.libsyn.com/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts-of-1844-karl-marx Support Red Menace and get access to bonus monthly content on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace Outro music '9-5ers Anthem' by Aesop Rock   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Dec 9, 2019  Danny Haiphong, co-author of American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror,joins Breht for a long, in-depth conversation about the stories that America tells itself about itself, and why those stories are false. We cover so many topics and ideas that its impossible to summarize them all here, so check it out yourself! Check out Danny's work at the Black Agenda Report here: https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Danny%20Haiphong Follow Danny on Twitter @SpiritOfHo  Outro music: 'Craazy' by Rebel Diaz (feat. C-Rayz Walz) Check out and Support Rebel Diaz here: https://rebeldiaz.com/ Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio  

David from Anarchospirituality joins Breht to discuss Buddhism, Anarchism, Marxism, and more! After an introduction section, David gives a talk on Buddhism and Anarchism, and then he and Breht discuss the talk before launching into a wide-ranging discussion on anarchism v. marxism, Kropotkin, the Buddhist conception of Karma, individual and collective improvement and struggle, Darwinian evolution, differences between western and eastern approaches to spirituality, the question of revolutionary violence within Buddhism, and much more!     Learn more about Anarchospirituality and his work HERE   Check out Turn Leftist's interview HERE   Check out Breht's talk on Buddhism and Marxism HERE   Check out Red Menace's episode on Conquest of Bread HERE   Outro music: "LIFE" by Saba   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

In this second installment of our three-part series on Friedrich Engels' famous work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State", Alyson and Breht discuss chapters 4, 5, and 6 titled "The Greek Gens", "The Rise of the Athenian State", and "the Gens and the State in Rome" respectively. Together they summarize the chapters, and then launch into a discussion on the main themes and lessons from this section of the text! 00:15 Intro 1:08 Summary 33:50 Discussion   Check out Red Menace's first installment on this text here: https://redmenace.libsyn.com/the-origin-of-the-family   Support Rev Left, and get up to three bonus episodes a month, here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio  

Professors James Crossley and Robert J. Myles join Breht to discuss their fascinating work "Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict" put out by Zero Book.  Together, they discuss their application of historical materalism to the life of Jesus, the difficulty of studying and sourcing the ancient past, the gospels and what they offer (as well as how they differ from one another), the mode of production and major classes of Jesus' era, John the Baptist and his ideological influence on the Jesus Movement, Jewish Millenarianism, Jesus' crucifiction, the Jesus Movement after Jesus' execution (and purported resurrection), and much more!      Robert's website: https://www.robertjmyles.com/   James' website: https://censamm.org/about/people/crossley   Robert's Twitter: @robertjmyles   Robert's Substack: https://robertjmyles.substack.com/   James' work on John Ball and the English uprising of 1381: https://johnball1381.org/     Outro music: "All My Tears" by Ane Brun   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/R

Professor and author Kristen R. Ghodsee returns to Rev Left to discuss her newest book "Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life". Together, her and Breht discuss intentional communities, social experiments, what utopia even means in this context, scientific v. utopian socialism, criticisms of the nuclear family and the socialist alternative, the function of student debt in modern america, the relationship between religious and spiritual orientations and radial social experimentation, public education, evolutionary biology, and more!   Check out the book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Everyday-Utopia/Kristen-R-Ghodsee/9781982190217   Check out previous Rev Left episodes with Kristen here: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=ghodsee   Kristen's website: https://kristenghodsee.com/   The AK47 podcast created and hosted by Kristen: https://kristenghodsee.com/podcast   Outro music: "Kill in a Heartbeat" by Danger, Moth   Support

Professor and scholar Mohamed Abdou joins Breht to discuss his book "Islam and Anarchism: Relationships and Resonances". Together, they discuss core concepts within Islam, the importance of decolonization, anarchist political theory, the question of violence in revolutionary struggle, Mohamed's construction of Anarcha-Islam, contradictions between capitalism and Islamic teachings, and much more! Check out Mohamed's book here: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341927/islam-and-anarchism/   Find Mohamed's other work, learn more about him, and contact him here: https://www.mabdou.net/     Outro music: "Gather Round" by Brother Ali feat. Amir Sulaiman   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio    

Professor of Medieval history, practicing Sufi Muslim, and Chair of the Religious Studies department at Queens college, Adnan Husain, joins Breht to discuss the interesting intersections of Islam and Marxism!   Outro music: "Ramadan" by Brother Ali   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

This is part of a patreon exclusive episode. To listen to the full episode, and many more like it, join here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

UNLOCKED: Adnan Husain and Breht O'Shea from Guerrilla History discuss the current moral panic on the political right around issues of masculinity, dropping testosterone levels, and family formation. Together they discuss how the Right obscures the role of under-regulated corporations in poisoning us and the role capitalism plays in destabilizing human life in general, and instead blame scapegoats like life-saving vaccines, innocuous food stuffs like soy, feminism, LGBTQ people, and liberal elites (but never reactionary ones ofc). In addition, they try to think through what masculinity actually is, how it might express itself in healthy ways, what the left can offer young people in general, how reactionary notions of masculinity are rooted in profound fear and insecurity, and how misogynistic figures in the manosphere actually hamstring and poison the minds of young men trying to find a good partner and build a meaningful life. 

Matthew Furlong from our Dialectics Deep Dive series returns to the show to discuss Chairman Mao's text "On The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People".       Further Resources:    Mao Zedong - Five Essays on Philosophy (1957): https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/S15-Five-Essays-on-Philosophy-6th-Printing.pdf     Ai Siqi - "Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic Contradictions" (1957): https://massline.org/Philosophy/Dialectics/Antagonism-AiSiqi-1957.pdf     Jones Manoel - "Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution" (2020): https://www.blackagendareport.com/western-marxism-loves-purity-and-martyrdom-not-real-revolution     Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson: Geopolitical Economy Hour (2023 -) - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDAi0NdlN8hMl9DkPLikDDGccibhYHnDP     World Association for Political Economy: https://wapeweb.org/   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Mi'kmaw lea

Tai Lee joins Breht to discuss the recent split from AF3IRM, radical feminism, critique as a form of solidarity, the necessity of struggle within organizations, sexual harrassment and abuse in the labor movement, liberal opportunism, the targeting and intimidation of women who speak up, how to prevent abuse and harrassment within orgs, and more! Here is the letter that they discuss in the episode with a full breakdown of events: https://proletarianfeminist.medium.com/our-split-from-af3irm-shedding-light-on-our-issues-to-encourage-our-growth-towards-a-real-76cd1bcae395 Check out more of Tai's work: https://linktr.ee/chairmantailee Check out more of Esperanza's work here: https://proletarianfeminist.medium.com/ Contact the Interim Revolutionary Feminist Committee: InterimRevFemCommittee@proton.me

Aaron J. Leonard returns to the show to discuss his newest book, "Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression". Throughout the interview, we play many of the artists and songs mentioned in the book and conversation (time stamps below). Together, Aaron and Breht discuss the history, social upheavals, cultural shifts, and the political context in which the music from this era emerged and the reaction it created from the mainstream culture. Topics include: the beatniks, the cultural context of the 50's in America, the civil rights movement, the 1960's, the Kent State Massacre, the introduction of psychedlic drugs, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Revolution, the shift from the old left to the new left, and much more!       Music included:   10:30 - People Are Strange by The Doors   28:05 - Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young   48:40 - Mississippi Goddamn by Nina Simone   59:00 - Santo Domingo by Phil Ochs   74:50 - White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane   87:00 - Luang Prabang by Dave Von

In this unlocked patreon episode, Breht, Adnan, and Henry from Guerrilla History discuss their thoughts on the relationship between religion and Marxism, how Marxists today might think differently about religion compared to Marxists 100 years ago, religion and spirituality as a terrain of struggle for the Left, how to think about science vs. religion, the material basis of religion and what form the religious impulse might take under communism, demystification and meditation, and more. Get access to more bonus episodes like this one here: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory