Have scientists finally discovered the Sasquatch in eastern Kentucky? Tune in to find out, and to hear us talk about Biden's new infrastructure plan as well as gentrification in Austin, Texas

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 192: Amerigo Vespucci's Guide to Social Distancing

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
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The inimitable Michael S. Judge joins us to talk through Adam Curtis’ new docu-essay-series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. You can watch the new series on YouTube starting with Part 1 here: youtube.com/watch?v=MHFrhIAj0ME&ab_channel=AdamCurtisDocumentary

You can read the New Yorker profile here: newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/adam-curtis-explains-it-all

Check out Michael's podcast, Death Is Around the Corner: patreon.com/deathcorner

Episode 150: And Then Something Strange Happened (teaser)

"Yemen war: Joe Biden ends support for operations in foreign policy reset," reports the BBC. "Trump: US will be out of Afghanistan by Christmas 2020," cheered Military Times. "Trump Orders Withdrawal of U.S. Troops From Northern Syria," the New York Times told us.

For decades, the United States has very often appeared to have "ended" wars that do not, in fact, end at all. Open-ended jargon like "residual counter terror forces," "Vietnamization," "military advisors," along with deliberately ambiguous timetables, process criticisms––all are used to confuse the average media consumer. America's politicians know the American public broadly dislikes war and empire––and thus wants to see it restrained––but these same politicians don't really want to end wars so they have a frequent PR problem: How do you make it look like you’re ending a war or occupation without really doing so?

To solve this conundrum, American political leaders have perfected the art of fake-ending a war. Which is to say, announcing a war is going to end, typically around election time, only to––once the headlines make a big splash––backtrack, obfuscate, claim the "situation on the ground has changed" or the military involvement will only be in a "limited" or "defensive" capacity, shuffle troops around or find other thin pretexts to continue the war or occupation.

In this episode, we discuss the United States' history of fake-ending wars, who these pronouncements are meant to please, why troops levels are often impossible to know, and why so many of our so-called "wars" are not really wars at all, but military occupations that are never really meant to end.

Our guest is Shireen Al-Adeimi, assistant professor at Michigan State University.

Episode 133: The Art of Fake-Ending Wars

We jam our finger down on the ENTER key and EXPERIENCE the new Maxwell Family Website — www.realghislaine.com

Episode 151: #GmaxFax

This one's mostly about the Just Transition. Is it Just enough for you yet???

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 194: The Just Enough Transition

Check out the first episode of Season 2 of Blowback.

The new season of Blowback is on Stitcher Premium, and you can get a month free if you go to stitcher.com/premium, select a monthly plan and use the promo code: BLOWBACK. Once you sign up you can listen on your browser, or you can download the Stitcher app on your phone

Blowback Season 2 Episode 1 - "The Jupiter Menace"

This week we talk about a new form of psychiatric therapy: coal gasification and sequestration. We also talk about Chuck Schumer's newfound progressivism, and the conviction of Derek Chauvin.

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 195: Clean Coal Therapy

We get Blowback’s Noah Kulwin (twitter.com/nkulw) on the line to talk about the past and present of the Cuban exile lobby.


Blowback Season 2: stitcher.com/show/blowback

Episode 157: Havana Nights

Will and Matt talk to journalist Vincent Bevins about his new book “The Jakarta Method,” detailing the U.S.’s involvement in the mass killings of leftists in Indonesia in the 60’s, and how it set the stage for American-backed violent anti-communist action throughout the cold war.

Buy The Jakarta Method: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/vincent-bevins/the-jakarta-method/9781541742406/ 
Follow Vincent on twitter: https://twitter.com/Vinncent 

Outro is Shark Move's "Evil War" off the excellent Indonesian 70's psych-rock comp "Those Shocking Shaking Days": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71ZCZElkWKM&list=PL5075D7AE3D47F1BA&index=4

Chapo Trap House

Bonus: The Jakarta Method feat. Vincent Bevins

"Elon Musk sent a thank-you note to Tesla's workers returning to work," Business Insider squeals. Walmart teams up with UPS to air an ad "thanking essential workers." "Jeff Bezos Just Posted an Open Letter to Amazon Employees About the Coronavirus. Every Smart Business Leader Needs to Read It," insists an article in Inc.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate leaders, politicians and celebrities have been quick to paint "essential workers," and those often described as "frontline" workers, as heroes — laborers conscripted, presumably against their will, into a wartime-like scenario of heroism and sacrifice as our country battles the ongoing coronavirus scourge.

The sentiment behind this rhetoric is understandable, especially from everyday people simply trying to express their deep appreciation for the underpaid labor doing the work to feed, house, care for and treat everyone else. But when deployed by powerful politicians and CEOs, the "essential workers as heroes" discourse serves a more sinister purpose: to curb efforts to unionize, preemptively justify mass death of a largely black and brown workforce, protect corporate profits and ultimately discipline labor that for a brief moment in spring of last year, had unprecedented leverage to extract concessions from capital.

As Wall Street booms and America’s billionaires see an increase of $1.1 trillion in wealth since March 2020 — a 40% increase — while the average worker suffers from unemployment, depression, drug abuse and a loss of healthcare, it’s become increasingly clear that “essential” never meant essential to helping society at large or essential to human care or essential to keeping the bottom from falling out, but essential to keeping the top one percent of the one percent’s wealth and power intact and as it turned out to be the case, massively expanded.

Indeed, 2020 saw the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in decades, a transfer largely made possible by the essential worker as hero narrative, with little discussion or debate. In March 2020 everyone agreed in this wartime framing that was going to send off millions of poor people to their deaths for a vague, undecided greater good of the quote-unquote "economy," when really it was for the seamless maintenance of Wall Street profits.

On this episode, we explore the origins of the concept of "essential work" and those deemed "essential workers"; how it's been used in the past to discipline labor during wartime; how hero narratives provide an empty, head-patting verbal tip in lieu of worker protection and higher pay; and why so few in our media ask the more urgent question of all: whether or not low wage retail, food, farming, and healthcare workers ever wanted to be heroes in the first place.

Our guest in Ronald Jackson, a worker and organizer with Warehouse Workers For Justice.

Episode 131: The "Essential Worker" Racket - How 'COVID Hero' Discourse Is Used To Discipline Labor

We’re joined by authors and educators Aaron Leonard and Connor Gallagher, coauthors of Heavy Radicals, A Threat of the First Magnitude, and the Folksinger and the Bureau. We take a closer examination on the assassination of Fred Hampton, operational differences between the FBI & the police, and what we can learn from it.

Music by Kyle Dixon

A Threat of the First Magnitude: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564701/a-threat-of-the-first-magnitude-by-aaron-leonard/