Diving into the Wreckage: 2024 and the Long 20th Century, Part 1 w/ C Derick Varn
Added 2025-01-01 11:00:11 +0000 UTCStroky Sean and cancer-free Varn are reunited to dive back into the wreckage. This is part one of over three hours of conversation about just about everything under the sun (what happens when we take a several month break from these things) including political economy, current events, intra-Marxist rivalry and analysis. Mostly we bid adieu to the Long Twentieth Century. Turns out it expired for real this time not on 9/11/01 but 11/5/16.
We are in a new epoch and it's time to start acting like it!
To check out a couple more hours but on video (!) you can become a patron at www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Song: Gary Numan - This Wreckage
Comments
Wow the audio is rough in this one
Cole
2025-01-08 06:45:57 +0000 UTCThankful for Varn sharing his thoughts on tenant organizing, I think those of us still doing it (afaik, there’s been a consistent yty drop off in tenant activity since 2023) probably largely agree with what’s been shared here. There seems to be a lot of strategic questions to figure out in this moment, firstly in how we scale up beyond building-to-building campaigns. From what I’ve seen, I think this has contributed to the emerging tendency of party-building within TUs, irrespective of their associations (eg TUF, ATUN, or otherwise)
Baron
2025-01-05 07:25:52 +0000 UTCThe Alabama CP was local candidates in Alabama
Derick Varn
2025-01-05 04:38:02 +0000 UTCI think for right-wingers, the object in this example would obviously be Jews. But for an Arab Muslim whose family has been expelled/starved/killed by an actual Zionist occupation (Zionism being a real-life fascist settler colonial ideology), the object is the extensive political apparatus which maintains that Zionist occupation. I think many leftists who’ve inherited a European framework assume it’s the former by default because they’re on the lookout for anti-Semitic code words, and the Arab experience just isn’t the vantage point that they’re starting from.
Joseph
2025-01-04 18:56:50 +0000 UTCI don't have an answer - but I want to engage with this question and idea and see where it goes. What point are people trying to make when they talk about the influence of the Israeli lobby in government, etc? What is the object of their critique?
Gray
2025-01-03 19:07:24 +0000 UTCi spent hours trying to fix it and i let them know what the problem is so hopefully it will be better next time
The Antifada
2025-01-03 13:57:54 +0000 UTCDamn I’m Army and like 2 years from PSLF, I’m moving to China if this country don’t forgive my $70k 😭 I enlisted mostly to pay off loans and “became a leftist” through podcasting more Left stuff after Bernie’s runs.
DPtdryste SSC
2025-01-03 08:49:36 +0000 UTCThese eps are the primary reason I subscribe to The Antifada, always love them. The audio is real dodgy, any way to fix this?
Comrade Penelope
2025-01-02 23:29:55 +0000 UTCWith the Palestine issue I think the left is first and foremost focused on what many of us would view as Israel’s role in serving the interests of the US / imperial core, but secondarily we are also aware that the Israel lobby is incredibly powerful within congress, corporate leadership, academia administration, entertainment, etc. What’s weird is that if we even mention the latter we’ll (rightfully) get raised eyebrows from fellow leftists due to the fact that the left is generally pretty vigilant at identifying and rejecting the rhetoric of nationalism, nazism, and (actual) coded antisemitism. How can/should the left talk about this in a way that doesn’t sound like coded anti-semitism? I think when a lot of leftists hear vague phrasings like “zionist occupied government” some of them will flinch, but others won’t because it can be perceived differently. For the ones who don’t, can/should we categorize them as either secret right-wingers, or people who are, without a doubt, on the road to being right-wingers? At the level of individual perception and intention, I think it’s actually tricky to conclusively write them off as such. Guessing at what someone’s intentions are is difficult. Either way I think we’d agree that the left struggles with the vagueries of the issue.
Joseph
2025-01-02 19:08:25 +0000 UTCthe best conversations happen on outlets that almost make enough money to pay a producer😜
Austin Williams
2025-01-02 18:37:38 +0000 UTCWith love and respect, ya gotta wear headphones, or record separately in Audacity when recording conversations like this. Video call noise cancellation will fuck your shit up. Great convo as always, and happy to hear things are looking up for ya, Sean.
Alex Hennessey
2025-01-02 17:11:10 +0000 UTCI loved this conversation! Just a note about the audio: it was fading in and out when you were both talking nearly at the same time. Sounds like a noise cancelling setting. Some of what Varn was saying was lost.
Gray
2025-01-02 15:06:02 +0000 UTCI made a mistake in this I said that CPUSA never ran candidates, they did but they did so poorly it is rarely discussed. They ran candidates during third periodism from 1924 to 1936 and once in 1940 (It was William Z Foster and then Browder) but got less than 0.2% of the vote and then from 1968 to 1984 (But it was all but ones Gus Hall and never cleared more than .01% of vote).
Derick Varn
2025-01-01 22:29:00 +0000 UTCA++ boys
Taz
2025-01-01 20:14:30 +0000 UTCI fell asleep listening to this episode this morning and dreamt that my dad owned a big factory with really poor health and safety practices. Make of that what you will.
Nicolay Hristozov
2025-01-01 16:45:22 +0000 UTC
