An ambitious young man is lured into a world of drug use, his life soon in a shambles. A family is forced to kick their drug-addicted son out of their home. A woman resists rehab, then embraces it, finding it the most affirming experience of her life. These plot lines exemplify the melodrama of countless films and television dramas depicting addiction.

Since the 1930s, Hollywood has cultivated a hyperbolic characterization of people struggling with substance use. In film after film, show after show, people with drug and alcohol use disorders are burdensome, reckless, meandering zombies whose only hope for recovery are punitive measures: deprivation of necessities like housing and cars, dangerous rehab facilities, or the threat of jail.

In reality, these cold-turkey, abstinence-only, “tough love” measures aren’t particularly helpful—and in fact are often counterproductive. Instead, studies repeatedly show the effectiveness of harm-reduction approaches, like treating opioid addiction with medication. But maintenance and mitigation don’t make for the same compelling drama as downward spirals and a brutal rock-bottom followed by a cathartic climactic redemption —an issue that has long affected policy and public perception of drugs and substance use.

On this very special virtual live episode, we examine the history of onscreen depictions of addiction, dissect the dehumanizing tropes embedded within each of them, and discuss how they relate to drug policy in the United States.

Our guest is writer Zach Siegel.

Ep 140 - Kicking the Hollywood Habit: Addiction Morality Tales in Film and TV [Virtual Live Show]

This week we discuss Tarence's dialectical history of the opioid epidemic in The Baffler. Long story short: the police bear just as much responsibility as Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. 

Read the full piece here: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/united-in-rage-ray

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

Episode 207: Animal Pharma

Matt goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Topics: Afghanistan, Systems adapting to ecological shock, Creation of classes, post-class consciousness

Grill Stream

184 - Speak, Memory. Listen, Fat. 08.17.21

Matt goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Topics: pleasure seeking, death, against the black pill, development of civilizations, homeostasis and end of cycles of capitalism, development of working class, Bolsheviks and the fate of the revolution, The Two Pimps

187 - And I Looked as He Ordered the FourthMeal... 09.02.21

This episode we down some energy drink and dive into the legacy of Michael Savage, and the footnote of Rockstar Energy Drink, his son Russell Weiner. Featuring our special guest from Chapo Trap House, Felix Biederman. The lads were having so much fun that the audio get's a little bit crispy here and there, but it just goes to show you how spicy the show and the subject is this time around. Don't forget to check out Sean and Yogi's Twitter/Instagram for more info about their live shows in Seattle and Portland, and feel free to support us on our Patreon.

Episode 249: Russ Weiner, Michael Savage, & Rockstar Energy feat. Felix Biederman

Matt goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Topics: Vaccine Mandate, Separating political action from political identity

189 - Vaxx Police 09.10.21

In June 2020, founders of the ride-request app Lyft announced that they had launched “allyship dialogues“ and were committed to fighting “systemic racism” which they said is “deeply rooted in our society.” The same month, an Uber marketing campaign proudly recommended to “racists” that they should “delete Uber,” as they were unwelcome customers. At the same time, the food delivery service app DoorDash announced a series of initiatives to “support Black-owned restaurants.”

Everywhere we turned, as popular uprisings against police violence and white supremacy filled the streets, Silicon Valley gig app companies that rely on and profit from the labor of predominantly Black and brown workers, insisted they too were committed to fighting racial injustice.

But something curious was unfolding at the same time these multi-billion dollar companies paid lip service and made token donations to bail funds and civil rights groups: they were simultaneously pumping tens of millions more on pushing support for Proposition 22 –– a ballot initiative in California — that would exempt app-based transportation and delivery companies from a state law that required them to classify drivers as employees, permitting those companies to not provide essential benefits like healthcare, paid time off, and unemployment insurance.

With 78% of ride-hail app drivers in San Francisco being people of color and 55% of Uber drivers in California identifying as such, the law would overwhelmingly impact nonwhite, disproportionately immigrant communities.

Knowing this, and compelled by the broader corporate efforts to exploit the George Floyd uprisings as a branding opportunity, companies like DoorDash, Uber, Lyft and other app-based employers rushed to present the diminishment of worker protections not as manifestly anti-Black and anti-brown anti-labor laws, but actually empowering to drivers of colors.

Spending millions on advertising, a patchwork of large donations to community groups planting op-eds in Black and Hispanic press, and focus-grouped language about employee “freedom,” “independence,” “being your own boss,” “flexibility” and general rise-and-grind framing, Super PACs alongside Bay Area and LA-based marketing firms aggressively targeted minority communities to back Prop 22, despite all independent analysis and labor organizations insisting it would be bad for workers of color.

On this Season 5 Premiere of Citations Needed, we detail how this plan played out –– and ultimately won, how corporations buy off organizations and adapt nonprofit speak to harm communities of color, and how the idea of “third worker categories” –– like the ones pushed by Uber and Lyft are suspiciously similar to Jim Crow-era efforts to strip black and immigrant workers of the rights white workers were winning under the then-New Deal.

Our guest is Veena Dubal, Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

143 - How Silicon Valley Uses Hollow "Anti-Racist" Posturing to Sell Its Exploitative Business Model

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
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Felix Biederman (twitter.com/byyourlogic) ropes down to the Recording Embassy for a sprawling look at real reasons behind Hillary’s 9/11, the attack itself, and the investigations and obfuscations coming out of every part of the federal government.

Episode 184: Hillary Did 9/11 (Part II) [teaser]

Matt goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse

Topics: Gamers, Optimism vs. Nihilism, Consumer politics, neoliberal hegemony

192 - Is Overwatch Still a Thing? 09.23.21

“The eviction moratorium is killing small landlords” CNBC cautions. "Some small landlords struggle under eviction moratoriums,” declares The Washington Post. “Economic Pressures Are Rising On Mom And Pop Rental Owners,” laments NPR. ”[Landlords] can’t hold on much longer,” cries an LA Times headline.

Throughout the course of the pandemic, we’ve seen a spate of media coverage highlighting the plight of the small or so-called “mom-and-pop landlord” struggling to make ends meet. The story usually goes something like this: A modest, down-on-their-luck owner of two or three properties — say, a elderly grandmother or hardworking medical professional — hopes to keep them long enough to hand them down to their kids, but fears financial ruin in the face of radical tenant-protection laws.

But this doesn’t reflect the reality of rental housing ownership in the United States. Over the last couple decades, corporate entities, from Wall Street firms to an opaque network of LLCs, have increasingly seized ownership of the rental housing stock, intensifying the asymmetry of landlord-tenant power relations and rendering housing ever more precarious for renters. In the meantime, the character of the “mom-and-pop landlord” has been evoked nonstop — much like that of the romantic “small business owner” — in order to sanitize the image of property ownership and gin up opposition to legislation that would protect tenants from eviction moratoria to rent control.

On this episode, we explore the overrepresentation of the “mom-and-pop landlord” in media, contrasting it with the actual makeup of rental housing ownership. We’ll also examine how the media-burnished image of the beleaguered, barely-scraping-by landlord puts a human face on policies that further enrich a property-owning class while justifying the forceful removal of renters from their homes.

Our guest is Alexander Ferrer of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE).

Ep 145: How Real Estate-Curated 'Mom & Pop Landlord' Sob Stories Are Used to Gut Tenant Protections

Matt goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse

Topics: Chill out, Q&A, Congressional democrat shenanigans, Book club requests