Cosmopod

Luke and Donald join Alexander Gourevitch, author of From Slavery to Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the 19th Century, for a wide-ranging discussion about the republican conception of freedom and how republicanism was taken up by workers in the United States. They begin by discussing older conceptions of freedom and slavery and how those ideas evolved. They consider the Workingmen’s Parties and the Knights of Labor as examples of ‘labor republicans’ who saw wage labor as a form of slavery. They discuss Supreme Court rulings that embody the distinction between ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘labor republicanism,’ as well as different conceptions of ‘civic virtue.’ They conclude by exploring the potential for a universal struggle under the banner of freedom from domination and all forms of servitude. 

Jackson, Rudy and Steve sit down to talk about political education in the communist movement. They explore their personal experiences with education in both formal  and political settings, highlighting the contrasting dynamics. Delving  into the models of political education within a party, they emphasize  the significance of cultivating a shared language and vision. The trio  generously shares practical examples and tips for organizing engaging  and diverse reading and study groups, ensuring a captivating learning  experience that transcends demographics.

Splits and purges are no solution to the problem of disagreement in the socialist movement. Marisa Miale calls for unity in diversity in the context of the DSA. Read By: LC Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy joins Adela Cedillo, co-editor of Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964-1982, and author of several studies on the Mexican dirty war such as El Fuego y El Silencio, Historia de las Fuerzas de Liberación Nacional Mexicanas (1969-1974), for a conversation on this period of history. We discuss the mixed legacy of the Mexican revolution, the state of the left after the progressive presidency of Lazaro Cárdenas, the two periods in Mexican insurrectionism: before and after the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre and how the left responded to this event. We continue by discussing the origins of the Frente de Liberación Nacional (FLN), how its strategy evolved, and how it laid the base for the Zapatistas. We finish by briefly discussing how the Zapatistas are different from their predecessors and how the dirty war slowly evolved into the drug war.

Renzo Llorente engages with contemporary advocates of Democratic Socialism and argues that they ultimately fail to demarcate between liberal and socialist visions of democracy, resulting in capitulation to the liberal status quo.  Read By: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy and Djamil join Sam Parry, author of The Ugly Economics of the Beautiful Game for a discussion on how capitalism interacts with the sport most of the world knows as football. We talk about the many ways in which capitalism interacts with international football from a world-systems perspective including how the periphery ends up supplying talent to the economic core, the tendencies towards vertical integration, the stickiness of capital, the historic patterns of club ownership, and the recent irruption of oil-money clubs. We also briefly talk about the ways national teams, race and football interact.

Daniel Tutt looks to the philosophy of Georg Lukács and his critique of bourgeois irrationalism to explicate the role of intellectuals and worldviews in the class struggle. Read By: Allen Lanterman Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Combining the insights of previous scholarship with information gathered from Bureau of Investigation (BOI, predecessor of the FBI) surveillance documents, Ian Szabo presents a new angle on the history of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), illustrating the organizations’ particular synthesis of Black radical politics and Marxism, as well as revealing the racial fantasy through which contemporaneous mainstream U.S. media and the state understood its methods and goals. Read by: Luke Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Luke and Donald join Robert Ovetz, author of We the Elites: Why the Constitution Serves the Few, for a discussion on the Constitution as a potent obstacle to political and social democracy in the United States. They begin with a discussion about the history and context of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the various anxieties the Framers held toward indigenous resistance, slave rebellions, and debtor revolts. They explore the document’s inner workings, including the various minoritarian checks scattered throughout. They comment on previous critiques of the Constitution and where those critiques have gone. They conclude by emphasizing why people concerned with any of the numerous problems of contemporary society should position the Constitution at the heart of their attack.

Charlie Frank gives an overview of the forms of social mobilization that developed as a response to the AIDS pandemic as well as what lessons the left can draw from this chapter of history.  Read by Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.