Auxiliary Statements

This week our rotund podcast hosts kick back, watch a movie, and try to answer that question that has been haunting humanity since the early-1940s: was Robert McNamara cringe? The answer is yes. So strap in as the lads take a look at documentary-guy Errol Morris' 2003 classic "The Fog of War". The movie profiles McNamara as he goes from common Irishman to rare Irishman in his long career as war criminal and professional Numbers Guy. If only he had been born in a baseball town...he may have invented sabermetrics five decades early instead of using his gifts to kill as many people as possible. Makes you wonder about Szymborski..... Watching: "The Fog of War" by Errol Morris (2003).

This week Jack and Dan trade one big M Marxist for another, Milliband is out, Mattick is in. It’s quite a stark reversal, from a strategy of revolutionary reformism to one of spontaneous action by the workers and their primary organisational arm, the workers council. That’s right, Council Communism is on the docket for this weeks show and if we know one thing by now the lads always stand ready to be wooed by yet another camp of communists. Mattick’s critique of the reformist left is withering as he calls for not the revival of the old and moribund workers movement but an entirely new one. Is this an ultra-left podcast now? Reading: Paul Mattick, Council Communism (1939)

Be prepared to raise a glass and shed a tear this week as Jack and Dan part ways with their guiding light, their north star, Auxiliary Statements God Emperor, Ralph Miliband. That’s right, your dogged and persistent hosts have finally dusted off their worn and tattered copies of Marxism and Politics for one final time. This week, a discussion of Marxist strategy as the question is asked whether capitalism can be overthrown by reform within the bounds of constitutional legality or by resorting to revolutionary insurrection. We get from Miliband what we’ve come to expect, a lay of the land account provided in the form of a comprehensive historical overview of the various debates, as well as that rarest of things, an honest to god opinion from the patriarch as He tells us what He actually thinks! Reading: Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics Chapter. 6, Reform and Revolution (1977).

I think we all knew this was the logical conclusion of the last few episodes. The lads are at it again, with Jack well on his way to becoming a primitivist and Dan doing all he can to keep things on the level (no pun intended). In this episode your begrimed hosts discuss England's most radical moment - the occupation of St. George's Hill by Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers in 1649. However! Dan and Jack quickly realize they read two completely different texts! Jack read arch-revisionist Eduard Bernstein and Dan read proud Yorkshireman Christopher Hill. The outcome? A pretty good conversation tbh. NOTE: THIS PODCAST DOES NOT ENDORSE DIGGING. ALL DIGGING SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE NO-TILL AUTHORITIES Reading: "The Law of Freedom in a Platform", Gerrard Winstanley (1652). "Cromwell and Communism", Chapter IX - The “True” Levellers and Their Practical Communism, & Chapter X - The Communistic Utopia of Gerrard Winstanley, Eduard Bernstein, (1930). "The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution", Chapter 7 - Levellers and True Levellers, Christopher Hill, (1972).

Jack and Dan are at it again folks, labouring under the misapprehension that greater wisdom is attainable to their mediocre minds. The lads again embark on their quest to fathom the wisdom of the oracle, reading once more from Karl Marx’s master work; Capital. Will they again find the weight of the truths contained therein overwhelming or rise to meet its challenge. Here’s hoping we can chalk one up for our heroes this week otherwise its just gonna get embarrassing. Its all about exchange value this time. How will Marx transition us from the act of simple commodity exchange to the totemic system of global trade governed over by the all powerful money form! One would imagine it shan’t be too laborious a process. Reading: Capital Vol.1, Part 1. Commodities and Money, Chapter 1. Commodities, Section 3. The Form of Value or Exchange Value

Yeah if this Karl Marx guy was so great why didn't he ever write about chicken tractors?? Huh, nerd!? That's what I thought. This week the lads are dipping their malformed little toes into the pond of prepping for capitalist collapse. What would a collapse look like? What should I do to prepare? Do I buy more guns or less guns? Who am I and why am I here? All these questions and MORE will be answered in this week's episode when we talk to Andy and Elliot from the phenomenal Poor Prole's Almanac Podcast. Go give them a listen!!!! Nerd!!!! LISTEN TO POOR PROLE'S HERE: https://linktr.ee/PoorProles WATCH THE FULL LIVESTREAM INTERVIEW HERE: https://bit.ly/3fiTrqz

What do, Egyptian mummified cats, the battlefields of the Napoleonic wars, and millions of tons of South American bird poo have in common? The answer to this and some hopefully more useful and pertinent questions will be revealed on this weeks show as Jack and Dan continue their foray into the world of ecological theory. The lads read some John Bellamy Foster and learn all about how Karl Marx was, contrary to popular perception, a deeply ecologically minded thinker who was all too aware of the environmental destruction wrought by our old foe capitalism. Reading: Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift, Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology by John Bellamy Foster (1999) and The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx Chapter 33. Metabolic Rifts and the Ecological Crisis by Brett Clark, John Bellamy Foster, and Stefano B. Longo (2019).

This week Jack and Dan read some blooming Bookchin. An anarchist! And a shockingly prophetic one at that. The boys ask, is mankind a part of nature or does it stand apart from it? What constitutes an ecological system and in what ways are social systems analogous to ecological ones? What is going on in the syphilis addled brains of the British aristocracy? Also the lads are now firmly committed to the no dig revolution which one suspects is largely because it accords with their generally lazy disposition. Reading: The Ecology of Freedom, Chapter 1. Social Ecology by Murray Bookchin (1982)

That's right folks, your brave podcasters have officially made it to T W E N T Y episodes of this here show. And you know what that means: we're phoning it in for another clip show. What have the boys learned over the last ten episodes? Does any of it matter? Is Marxism a legitimate tool for understanding the current state of things? Was Tom Morello in an episode of Star Trek? We answer none of these questions except the last one in this absolute knock-down-drag-out BARNBURNER of an ep. Thanks to everyone who's been listening! Go SPIDERS!! Reading: the menu at our local ihop

I don't know dude...what if time had like.......a fourth dimension? Reading: Voice of the Fire (1995), by Alan Moore.