The great Aaron Thorpe — co-host of Trillbillies, host of A Time of Monsters, the poster formerly known as posadist_trapgd — joins us for an extremely fun episode as we riff about why aliens would be communists, the paranoid imagination of imperialism, the wonders of luxury surveillance, the spectacle of convenience, and the ways tech companies really do be manufacturing consent.

• Follow Aaron on twitter: twitter.com/thotteusstevens
• Listen to Trillbillies: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty
• Listen to A Time of Monsters: patreon.com/atompod 

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills  

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

54. Shooting for the Stars (ft. Aaron Thorpe)

And introducing WE POD ECONO: an Our Band Could Be Your Life miniseries! We are taking a journey through Michael Azerrad’s chronicle of the 1980’s American underground rock scene, continuing today with Chapter Five: Husker Du! We’re joined by culture critic Steven Hyden to set the Land Speed Record of podcasting and do the Dü.

Check out Steven’s books here: https://www.amazon.com/Steven-Hyden/e/B01H0F6IDU%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
And check out his writing on Uproxx: https://uproxx.com/author/steven-hyden/

Songs in order:
Hüsker Dü - Gilligan’s Island
Hüsker Dü - New Day Risingl (Live 1987)
Hüsker Dü - It’s Not Funny Anymore
Hüsker Dü - Chartered Trips
Hüsker Dü - Something I Learned Today
Hüsker Dü - I Apologize
Hüsker Dü - The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill
Hüsker Dü - Books About UFOs
Hüsker Dü - Flexible Flyer
Hüsker Dü - The Baby Song
Hüsker Dü - Crystal
Hüsker Dü - Standing In The Rain

And Introducing

#90 HÜSKER DÜ! (ft. Steven Hyden)

To conduct a post-mortem investigation on the Amazon warehouse union vote in Bessemer, Alabama, we’re joined by Alex N. Press—staff writer for Jacobin and one of our favorite labor reporters. As Alex wrote recently, “In the United States, every step of the unionization process is stacked against workers. It is a miracle that anyone ever unionizes.” We discuss the militancy of capital, the organizing conditions of labor today, and the battle for building worker power. The deck was stacked. We lost this fight. But the class war wages on.

Follow Alex: https://twitter.com/alexnpress
Read Alex: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/alex-press 

• Amazon Waged a Brutal Anti-Union Campaign. Unsurprisingly, They Won. | Jacobin | Alex N. Press: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/amazon-bessemer-union-drive-vote-nlrb
• Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers' Industrial Efficiency | Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/flynn/1917/sabotage.htm 
• How tech workers feel about China, AI and Big Tech’s tremendous power | Protocol | Emily Birnbaum, Issie Lapowsky: https://www.protocol.com/policy/tech-employee-survey/tech-employee-survey-2021 
• Amazon's New Algorithm Will Set Workers' Schedules According to Muscle Use | Motherboard | Ed Ongweso: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xeba/amazons-new-algorithm-will-set-workers-schedules-according-to-muscle-use  

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills  

TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ 

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

62. Amazon, Vanguard of Class War (ft. Alex N. Press)

Writer Richard Seymour on his article "The nationalist unconscious" for Red Pepper, and in a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen wonders who put the pomp in Pompeo.

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-nationalist-unconscious/

1196: Nationalist pathology / Richard Seymour

The Historical Quest for a Black Nation
Thanks to the New African Independence Movement of the 1970s, today’s Democratic politicians are discussing reparations for Black Americans, said Edward Onaci, a professor of history at Ursinus College. Onaci is author of the book, “Free the Land: The Republic of New Africa and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State.”
Move 9 are Free – Mumia is Next
Born in prison to Move organization members incarcerated in the death of a Philadelphia cop in 1978, Mike Africa Jr. has waited and worked for four decades to see his surviving family members in freedom. Now his mission is to free political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal “so that he can be with his family, the way that my father is with his family now.”
Maroons As Movement Role Models
The contemporary Black struggle should draw on the experience and example of maroons, the escaped slaves that formed communities of freedom beyond the reach of the slave masters, said Willie Jamaal Wright, a professor of Geography and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. Wright wrote a recent article on “The Morphology of Marronage.” Maroon communities “served as models of cooperative economics, of cooperative living,” and “a model of sacrifice” that is needed today, said Wright.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 20, 2020

Dimitri and Khalid discuss Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge’s bizarre foray into the world of UFO disclosure, his 2020 documentary “The Phenomenon”, the history of DiScLoSuRe-as-military-psyop, the Mellon family/SRI connections to DeLonge’s To The Stars Academy, the susness of Annie Jacobsen, the interdimensional/djinn theory of ETs, and “Project Blue Beam”.

For access to full-length premium episodes and the SJ Discord, subscribe to the Al-Wara’ Frequency at patreon.com/subliminaljihad.

#24 - ENEMA OF THE STEADY STATE: Tom DeLonge and UFO "Disclosure"

Historian Marcia Chatelain on the economic and social dynamics of fast food corporations and Black American life, and her book "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" from Liveright. 

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631493942

1283: McDonald's in Black America / Marcia Chatelain

We’re joined by co-host of TrashFuture – and friend of TMK from the start – Riley Quinn as we examine the brain of the Thought Leader. Forged in the fires of the financial crash, driven mad by Internet induced techno-optimism, brains smoothly polished by the infinite growth of a zero interest rate world – the modern day Thought Leader is the charlatan in the court of tech capital. They spend their days promoting Big Ideas Books that contain remarkably little thinking, while asserting all the solutions to complex societal problems. But that’s okay because they aren’t really meant to be read by anybody anyways. Unless, of course, you’re Riley.

Follow Riley (https://twitter.com/raaleh) and listen to TrashFuture (https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/). Of course you’re already doing both, right?

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills 

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

36. Theory of the Thought Leader (ft. Riley Quinn)

{The first 15 minutes or so of this episode is a little glitchy, but it gets better} We could have done a full episode about the GameStop affair, but there’s already so many good (and bad) explainers and analysis of that, so let’s talk about the real winners in an economy where the line just keeps going up forever: index funds and passive investment. We talk through the operations of indexation, one of the most important – and hugely overlooked – trends in the modern financial system, and discuss what John C. Coates calls the Problem of Twelve: “The likelihood that in the near future roughly twelve individuals will have practical power over the majority of U.S. public companies.” This meeting of the board of global corporate capitalism is called to order.

Some stuff we reference:
• The Future of Corporate Governance: The Problem of Twelve by John C. Coates https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247337
• Investment Firms Are the Big Winners of the GameStop Stock Revolution So Far by Edward Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gepx/investment-firms-are-the-big-winners-of-the-gamestop-stock-revolution-so-far 

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills 

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

40. The Boardroom of Global Capitalism

Cold open: excerpt from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6021&v=ZypJn0PgAHA

Have you ever considered that the most important human right is property rights? Are your thoughts preoccupied with kissing the feet of capitalists? Do you dream of abolishing society and clearing the way for the market god to deliver us into salvation? If so, you might just be the one of the all time greatest failsons of our age: David Friedman – whose life is consumed by trying to live up to the legacy of his father, Milton. In a blockbuster reading series, we liquefied our brains with David Friedman’s handbook for anarcho-capitalism. In this episode we lay out the philosophical foundations for why it’s actually good for everybody to act like children who don’t want to share their toys. I’m sorry in advance.

The book we discuss:
The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism by David Friedman http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills 

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

42. The Machinery of Stupidity

From Lubbock Texas, after the black-out cold storm, scientist Katherine Hayhoe talks record billion dollar climate disasters.  Her PBS YouTube series is “Global Weirding”.  From Bergen Norway, lead scientist Christoph Heinze warns about three OTHER crisis developing unseen below the seas.  His new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy is ominously titled: “The quiet crossing of ocean tipping points”.

Billion Dollar Black Out Climate Disasters

A podcast about technology and political economy /// Agitprop against innovation and capital /// Hosted by Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr., Produced by Jereme Brown /// Hello friends and enemies

Listen anywhere that fine podcasts are distributed. Subscribe at patreon.com/thismachinekills to get premium episodes every week.

42. The Machinery of Stupidity

This Machine Kills

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