What if the Super Bowl was invaded by aliens?

THEATER OF DELIGHTS KICKSTARTER
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theaterofdelights/theater-of-delights-season-5

JAKE LIVE SHOW
https://dice.fm/event/rwr75-windbreaker-a-comedy-show-hosted-by-emily-panic-claire-okane-26th-feb-union-pool-new-york-tickets?lng=en-US

MERCH
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PATREON
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I Want To Believe

Everything from religion to industrial disasters to Mehdi Hasan's debating methods

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

Episode 278: The Freight Awakening

Writer and peace activist Frida Berrigan joins us to discuss the total nuclear destruction of the earth and also Christopher Nolan in this totally normal podcast that was recorded in order.

FRIDA BERRIGAN
https://inthesetimes.com/authors/frida-berrigan
https://inthesetimes.com/article/doomsday-clock-nuclear-abolition

HELP EAST PALESTINE
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/tcr_202302_water4ep

PAID PROTEST COMEDY DSA BENEFIT SHOW
https://dice.fm/event/loylb-paid-protest-comedy-show-and-dsa-fundraiser-2nd-mar-silo-comedy-community-events-new-york-city-tickets

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

Doomsday Smart Phone w/ Frida Berrigan

This week we talk Ukraine, the ruling class's fixation on Boxes, and the mass hysteria of Devil's Milkshakes issuing from East Palestine, Ohio

Check out Aaron's story here: https://spacelight.substack.com/p/this-machine

Tarence's article here: https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-devils-milkshake-ray

And our Patreon here: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 279: Vance Macabre

We talk Chicago, we talk class, we talk boobs.

ANDERS + ALEX DSA BENEFIT SHOW
https://dice.fm/event/loylb-paid-protest-comedy-show-and-dsa-fundraiser-2nd-mar-silo-comedy-community-events-new-york-city-tickets

JAKE STAND UP SHOW
https://dice.fm/event/rwr75-windbreaker-a-comedy-show-hosted-by-emily-panic-claire-okane-26th-feb-union-pool-new-york-tickets?lng=en-US

ALEX PODCAST KICKSTARTER
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theaterofdelights/theater-of-delights-season-5

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

Class Dealignment In The Minotaur's Maze

"Our progress has been part of the living history of America," President Jimmy Carter declared in a 1979 speech. "America is a nation of progress, of moving forward," Senator Chuck Grassley stated in 2022 on the Senate floor. "The story of America is a story of progress and resilience, of always moving forward, of never, ever giving up. It's a story unique among all nations," President Joe Biden announced in his 2023 State of the Union.

For decades - even centuries - policymakers, and media on their behalf, have employed some variation on the same rhetorical theme: the United States is a nation of progress, especially so-called "racial progress." Though our Great Experiment has been imperfect, we're told, it's constantly improving, steadily and automatically forging ahead toward its ideal state. Yes, we've been home to the violent oppression of untold sums of people, but look how far we’ve come!

There have objectively been political gains for all groups historically and currently denied basic rights in the U.S. This is obvious. But the trajectory is far from linear, raising the question: How far have "we" really come? Are people, especially Black, Latino, and Native people, less likely to suffer through poverty than any time before now? Are police and prisons any less violent? To what extent have U.S. law and policymaking really evolved?

On this episode, we dissect the liberal assertion that social, particularly racial, progress in the U.S. is inevitable, that there's this comforting "arc" of history bending towards justice. We examine how this idea came to be, who gets to define the metrics of "progress," and why it's dangerous to advance the tidy Vaseline-lens narrative that societal improvement is part of some preordained future.

Our guest is Dr. Julian M. Rucker.

Episode 178: The Palliative Pop-History of American "Racial Progress" Narratives

We explore Tucker Carlson's attempts to rewrite what happened on January 6th by focusing on footage of Jacob Chansley AKA the QAnon Shaman. We also delve into the changing story about what led to Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick's death. We then spend some time with a twitter account basically LARPing as Jack Smith, the special counselor who's the new great hope for Muellerites.
 
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com

Music by Nick Sena. Editing by Corey Klotz.

Episode 224: The Battle to Frame J6 (Trump Arrested Edition)

"Parents fighting schools to protect their kids are heroes, not book-banners," Fox News tells us. Are Privatized Public Libraries So Bad?" asks CityLab. "Huntsville Public Library could be privatized in aftermath of pride display dispute," reports Houston Public Media. 

For decades, public libraries have been under attack. Repeatedly, influential rightwing and centrist individuals, corporations, and governments––from Phyllis Schlafly to Ron DeSantis––have coordinated campaigns to weaken one of the most beloved and least means-tested public institutions in the country. They seek to, at best, restrict the materials, functions, and decision-making power of public libraries, and at worst, destroy public libraries completely, tossing aside the people who depend on them for education, employment, and often survival.

What is it about public libraries that inspires such contempt? What's responsible for the chasm between the US population's perceptions of public libraries––which are overwhelmingly positive––and policymaking that seeks to ruin those libraries? And who suffers when one of the few true public goods left in the US is targeted and seized by reactionary forces?

On this episode, we examine the decades-long right-wing assault on US public libraries, the history of book bans and defunding, attendant efforts to privatize public libraries, and how these intersect with the labor struggles of librarians nationwide.

Our guest is president-elect of the American Library Association, Emily Drabinski.

Episode 179: From Budget Cuts to Book Bans — The Decades-Long Assault on Public Libraries

This week we're discussing John Brown, as seen through the eyes of the late novelist, Russell Banks, in his novel Cloudsplitter. DISCLAIMER: Please be aware that Russell Banks's novel is a work of fiction, and is not meant to be read as a literal interpretation of history--and thus neither is our episode.

To help us work through it, we've enlisted the help of writer John Lingan, whose great book on Creedence Clearwater Revival is out now: https://www.amazon.com/Song-Everyone-Creedence-Clearwater-Revival/dp/0306846713

And please support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 288: Crazy White Boy University (w/ special guest John Lingan)

In this live streamed News Brief from 4/26/23, we discuss the recent firing of Tucker Carlson and the meta-discourse around whether or not "the left" should see any utility in petty, racist demagogues.

News Brief Live: Tucker Carlson's Transparent 'Contrarian Left' Co-Option Strategy

"Charting a different course in the Vietnam War to fewer deaths and a better end," muses a book review in the Washington Post. "The Vietnam War was begun in good faith, by decent people," a Ken Burns PBS documentary tells us. "The Iraq War Reconsidered," reads a headline from The Atlantic.

Often, especially when an anniversary of a U.S. invasion or withdrawal rolls around, we're told that the devastation wrought by the US war machine was complicated, flawed, but ultimately necessary if not beneficial. Sure, the United States has killed millions, destabilized power structures, wrecked communities and economies, lied about the reasons for doing it all, and drawn the ire of people throughout the world. But, in hindsight, many in U.S. media insists, a horrible act of war from a world superpower wasn't an unequivocal, deliberate, and needless crime against humanity, but somewhere between a misunderstood righteous cause and a bumbling, good faith mistake motivated by humanitarian concerns.

An ideological system of reassurance therefore emerges. Once wars are broadly viewed as either wrong or a "failure" in the popular imagination — as in the case of Vietnam and Iraq — a cottage industry of punditry and pseudo-history emerges in the subsequent years designed to soothe the egos of elites and muddy the waters of both memory and reality for casual media consumers.

Put another way: we all see a dead body on the floor, no one can doubt this. No one can reasonably argue the destruction of Vietnam and Iraq didn't happen. So, this cottage industry springs into action, on behalf of those that caused the death, working to get the guilty party a charge of third degree manslaughter rather than murder. It was an accident, they were mistaken, they had bad intelligence, they were driven by concerns for freedom and human rights.

After all, those who destroyed Vietnam remained in power well into the 2000s. And those who destroyed Iraq currently run our major publications, universities, nonprofits, and think tanks. They still even run the country itself. So the incentive to make sure they all plead guilty to third degree manslaughter rather than first degree murder is tremendous, otherwise, we’re just a country led by war criminals — and this simply cannot be. We need absolution. We must remain, when all is said and done, innocent.

On this week's episode, we’ll explore the war revisionism industry, breaking down five ways in which media seek to sanitize and justify even the most notoriously unpopular and horrific U.S.-led and backed wars — namely Vietnam and Iraq — as unpleasant, imperfect, mistaken, but ultimately incidental byproducts of a noble and righteous empire that, above all, meant well.

Our guest is The Intercept's Jon Schwarz.

Episode 181: US Media's 5 Most Popular Revisionist Tropes About the Iraq and Vietnam Wars

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Episode 178: The Palliative Pop-History of American "Racial Progress" Narratives

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