worth a listen

A "mercenary Army of the poor"? Right-wing think tanks, as well as some on the left, have sought to disprove that framework. Professor Jodi Dean joins the show to critique the most recent study which portrays the rank-and-file military as a Warrior Aristocracy.


SUPPORT this podcast by making a tax-deductible donation the The Empire Files at https://www.patreon.com/empirefiles

The Class Composition of the US Military: A Socialist View w/ Prof. Jodi Dean

This week on the Global Research News Hour we mark both the 19th month of Israel’s continued assaults on Gaza since October 7th, and we also mark the 77th anniversary of the NAKBA, the displacement and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians which started the Arab-Israeli War. We will first hear from Louay Alghoul, a Winnipeg lawyer with over a hundred relatives killed over the past year and a half and he will inform us regarding the situation as he encountered the fleeing and dying from his trips to Egypt in recent months. Later on we hear from radio station CFCR in Saskatoon regarding their guest Deirdre Nunan an orthopedic surgeon who talks about what she encountered through her practice of medicine in this unending Middle East war.

Death by Impunity: Perspectives on NAKBA 1948 and NAKBA 2023-?

“Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won,” states The New York Times' Ezra Klein Show. “Democratic strategist issues ‘hard truth’ to party members after losing election,” CNN tells viewers. “This Is Why Kamala Harris Really Lost,” writes Eric Levitz for Vox.

Since the 2024 presidential election, elite Democrats and the pundits in their orbits have taken to newspapers, podcasts, and cable channels to attempt to explain why Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won. Chief among the explanations is this one: Democrats became controlled and overtaken by the "Wokes," becoming overly concerned with pronouns and political correctness, too soft on immigration and crime, while the electorate drifted to the right and that, to win the future, Democrats have to––alas, and with the putative heavy heart––go right with them.

Instead of contending with how the Democratic Party has abandoned a working class composed of all races and gender identities, chased big money and been overtaken by venal PR flacks and lawyers, Democratic party officials, big donor funded “pollsters,” “strategists,” and elite media have done what they’ve always done whenever there's an alleged “soul searching” in the Democratic party: scapegoated vulnerable people, insisted on a fixed, intrinsically conservative voting base and repackaging what is simply a newer version of corporate-friendly status quo liberalism.

On this episode, part one of a two-part series we’re calling "The Empire Strikes First,” we examine how party elites sought, before the election was even called on the night of November 5, 2024: to control the narrative and maintain their status and power within the party, blaming everyone but themselves, relying on tortured data and transparently self-serving conclusions which permit them to continue their longstanding process of justifying elite-serving, center-right policy, feigning Deep Concern for the preferences of Joe Six Pack, all while making sure their “consultant” gravy train chugs along unabated.

Our guest is UC-Berkeley professor Jake Grumbach.

The Empire Strikes First Part I: Party Elites Who Lost to Trump (Twice) Blame Everyone But Themselves

Episodes of Devil's Chess Club--and all American Exception podcast episodes--are available first on Patreon [ https://www.patreon.com/americanexception ].

Journalist Peter Byrne [ https://www.peterbyrne.info/ ] joins us to discuss Military AI Watch [ https://www.projectcensored.org/military-ai-watch/ ].  Hosted by Project Censored, Military AI Watch “exposes the hidden forces behind the AI arms race, the corporations cashing in, and the dire consequences for global security and democracy. Based on two years of extensive research, Byrne’s reporting sheds light on what powerful interests don’t want you to know.”

Special thanks to:
• Dana Chavarria, production
• Casey Moore, graphics
• Michelle Boley, animated intro
• Mock Orange, music

AI and the Deep State – Peter Byrne (DCC89)

Episodes of Devil's Chess Club--and all American Exception podcast episodes--are available first on Patreon [ https://www.patreon.com/americanexception ].

Charles Derber joins us to discuss his new book, 'Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy' [ https://www.routledge.com/Bonfire-American-Sociocide-Broken-Relations-and-the-Quest-for-Democracy/Derber/p/book/9781032793634 ]. Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. He has written 26 books on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, and social change.

Special thanks to:
• Dana Chavarria, production
• Casey Moore, graphics
• Michelle Boley, animated intro
• Mock Orange, music

Image: People rally in Los Angeles, US. [Ringo Chiu/AFP]

USA: A Sociocidal Bonfire? – Charles Derber (DCC91)

On today’s broadcast we will air excerpts from  a webinar held on June 10 and focusing on the theme of how   both NATO and the G7 are vehicles for the imperialist powers to dominate the globe and make the planet a great deal  more dangerous. It was organized by the Canada-Wide  Peace and Justice Network and featured three key voices: Owen Schalk, Tamara Lorincz and Barbara Waldern.

Imperialists Using NATO and G7 to Maintain Global Domination. Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network Presentation.

Writer Roy Scranton explains why he sees death when he looks to civilization's future - from national political systems unable to address the looming, global threat of climate change, to our failure on an individual level to move behind ethnic and national arrangements as a globalized earth grows more chaotic - and how we have a choice between the death of our current way of life, or the death of our species itself.

Roy is author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization from City Lights.

Extinction level eventuality: Why civilization must die before it's too late

Historian Anna-Lisa cox traces the westward journey of America's Black pioneers - as a first Great Migration of African American farming settlements spread across the Midwest, free Black families experienced new levels of self-determination and prosperity in frontier communities, as well as a White backlash against their advancements.

Anna-Lisa is author of "The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality" from PublicAffairs: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/anna-lisa-cox/the-bone-and-sinew-of-the-land/9781610398107/

When Black farms blossomed on the American frontier.

Conservation biologist Chris D. Thomas finds new forms of life born into this warming world - as (some) species adapt to the new conditions created by climate change, humans must adapt the way we view and interact with nature to reflect a new understanding of time, change and stewardship of the natural world.

Chris is the author of "Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction" from PublicAffairs: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/chris-d-thomas/inheritors-of-the-earth/9781610397285/

On death, change and new forms of life at the end of wilderness.

Historian Walter Scheidel traces the long twin histories of economic inequality and violence throughout human history - as a cycle of rising wealth disparity and brutal, leveling shocks have followed us since the dawn of agrarian civilization - and explains why peaceful solutions to today's inequality won't be found in the past, but must be built in the future.

Walter is the author of "The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century" from Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10921.html

A very long, mostly uninterrupted, human history of inequality.

Journalist Daniel Trilling explains why Europe's refugee crisis is really a global border crisis - exposing the failures of the state to aid the stateless in a warming, violent world, shifting political power from the failing liberal center to the surging far right, and devaluing freedom and human lives to prop up a crumbling order.

Daniel is author of "Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe" from Verso.

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2862-the-lights-in-the-distance

On human movement in an age of shrinking states and expanding borders.

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.

The Empire Strikes First Part I: Party Elites Who Lost to Trump (Twice) Blame Everyone But Themselves

Citations Needed Podcast