Hosts Josh and Jamie and special guest Michael Chau discuss the blurring of fantasy & reality and image & identity in our media obsessed culture with a double feature of Martin Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY (1982) and Satoshi Kon's PERFECT BLUE (1997). Next week's bonus episode is a patron-exclusive bonus episode on BLOOD SIMPLE (1984) and SUDDEN FURY (1975), you can get access to that episode (and all past + future bonus episodes) by subscribing to our $5 tier on patreon: www.patreon.com/sleazoidspodcast

Intro // 00:00-09:08
KING OF COMEDY // 09:08-1:26:10
PERFECT BLUE // 1:26:10-2:25:08
Outro // 2:25:08-2:28:18

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209 - THE KING OF COMEDY (1982) + PERFECT BLUE (1997) ft. Michael Chau

Historian Daniel Immerwahr on his Guardian article "‘A deranged pyroscape’: how fires across the world have grown weirder" and in a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen bites the handbook that feeds.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/03/a-deranged-pyroscape-how-fires-across-the-world-have-grown-weirder

Fire and the modern world / Daniel Immerwahr

Writer Os Keyes on their Real Life article "Condition Critical," and in a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen flags your non-Jewish privilege.

https://reallifemag.com/condition-critical/

Medical AI and automating mental healthcare / Os Keyes

Immigration lawyer Daniel Melo on his article "The Capitalist Imperative Driving Cruel and Bipartisan US Migration Policies" for Black Agenda Report.

https://blackagendareport.com/capitalist-imperative-driving-cruel-and-bipartisan-us-migration-policies

Capital's migration policy / Daniel Melo

Writer Mary Jane Gibson on her article "Inside California's Cannabis Crisis" for Rolling Stone. 

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/california-weed-cannabis-crisis-emerald-triangle-1302545/

On cannabis corporatization / Mary Jane Gibson

Support Pushback: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate

The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate speak live with ex-UN weapons inspector and military expert Scott Ritter about the Russia-Ukraine war. Ritter provides a detailed analysis of the battlefield that stands in stark contrast to the rose-colored perspective of most Western analysts, and offers his perspective on the political follies that drove the conflict.

Guest: Scott Ritter. Former UN Weapons Inspector and Marine Corps Intelligence Officer.

The battle for Ukraine, with ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter

Censorship is supposed to happen in other places, not in the US. – But big tech, in alliance with the state, is silencing Black and other left voices in media. The war in Ukraine is bringing this process into high relief and making a mockery of claims of freedom of expression. Jacqueline Luqman, co-host of the Sputnik program, By Any Means Necessary, explains. Joe Biden traveled to Europe and seemed to advocate for regime change against Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson goes through the confirmation process upon being nominated as a Supreme Court justice.

Black Agenda Radio - April 1, 2022

Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson is the first black woman nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Her confirmation hearings provided many opportunities for political performance. But what is the true significance of her nomination to black people? Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation, discusses.

Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Political Spectacle

To support independent media, receive bonus content and to help make this show possible, please join us at: https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow

Rapper and campaigner Lowkey (https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline) talks about the Israel Lobby's campaign to get Spotify to remove him from their platform. Sign the petition telling Spotify not to cave here (https://www.change.org/p/spotify-do-not-buckle-to-pressure-from-the-israel-lobby-to-deplatform-lowkey?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=0ccb39d0-b020-11ec-b015-6f843b977d7f). 

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip hop artist, academic and political campaigner. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS university and is an advisor to the website Declassified  which investigates the activities of the Ministry of Defence and British Intelligence Services.  He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album Soundtrack To The Struggle 2 featured Noam Chomsky, Frankie Boyle and Ken Loach and has been streamed millions of times. He produces and hosts his own weekly podcast for Mintpress and has interviewed US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Roger Waters, Naom Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Ahed Tamimi, Ken Loach and Stella Moris (wife of Julian Assange).

Lowkey has become the target of a coordinated smear campaign to demonize, defame and deplatform him. Earlier this month, organised groups forced the University of Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Society to postpone his lecture and were able to stop his appearance at the National Union of Students in Liverpool. 

Now, a campaign by lobby group "We Believe in Israel" is demanding that his content be removed from music streaming service Spotify. This is unacceptable censorship.

The campaign against Lowkey is designed to silence Palestinians and their supporters. Anti-Palestinian censorship is now reaching into the artistic realm.

Israel Lobby Pressures Spotify To Remove Pro-Palestinian Rapper Lowkey

The chief of the UK Army, Patrick Sanders, told his troops to prepare for World War III with Russia. Benjamin Norton discusses how Western imperialists are threatening nuclear apocalypse to try to save their declining empires.

VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MKO1v65OSt0

British army chief tells troops prepare for World War III with Russia

We live in a time of short-term imperatives and long-term consequences for our actions, with just a few years left to avert climate catastrophe, but a planet transformed for millennia if we fail.

Author Roman Krznaric’s work reflects on these vast timescales and on our place within them. How can we navigate the tension between the need for immediate action and the long view of all human life? How can we, borrowing a phrase from Horace, ‘seize the day’ – not just as individuals, but collectively? What does it mean to be a good ancestor to all those who come after?

In a conversation spanning the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, the poetry of Cicero and the Japanese ‘Future Design Movement’, Aaron Bastani talks to Roman about the conclusions of his book The Good Ancestor.

On cannabis corporatization / Mary Jane Gibson

This Is Hell!