Subscriber episode unlocked!!!

Our friend Tim Faust stops by for extra special dive into the perverts in health insurance and private equity, and the revolutionary potential of Medicare For All.

UNLOCKED: Episode 14: Sicko Mode

We dare to ask: Was truth the final casualty of the Falklands War? We actually don’t ask that but we investigate Andrew, Bill Barr, and the two guards who’ve been arrested in connection with Epstein’s death.

Episode 27: Sticky Wicket

We take a detailed look at the career of Elizabeth Warren, granddaughter of a white man who murdered an unarmed Native American in 1906

Episode 37: Sounds About White

Liz and Brace chat with Guardian journalist Jason Wilson about his explosive new piece exposing the identity of the leader of far-right extremist group The Base, get weird with some conspiricizing and talk about the strange history of the HoneyPot

twitter.com/jason_a_w

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/23/revealed-the-true-identity-of-the-leader-of-americas-neo-nazi-terror-group

Episode 39: Based And Fedpilled

Brace and Liz enter Phase II of corona-reality, react to Donald’s COVID presser and talk through what it means to step up, resist selfishness and embrace love

War Nerd EP on Italian Quarantine: https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-34822138

Anne Boyer: https://mirabilary.substack.com/p/this-virus

Episode 52: Love in the Time Of Corona

Adam is sick this week so we're unlocking last week's B-side for the masses. In the first half of this 2.5 hour behemoth of an episode, Adam and Ben discuss Matt Taibbi's cancellation. On the second half, they're joined by Matt Christman of the Chapo Trap Houses, who advises everyone to log off.

Log off, everyone.

UNLOCKED: Canceling the Future w/ Matt Christman

A short overview of the system of offshore money that allows the rich and powerful to skirt laws and pick and choose the jurisdictions that apply to them. Learn how to set up a shell corporation, hide your assets, and buy a passport as well as a few facts about a notable Hollywood actor.

The main source for this episode was the book "Moneyland" by Oliver Bolloughs:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39979237-moneyland

The paper Steve mentions is here:
https://publications.iass-potsdam.de/rest/items/item_3259914_4/component/file_3259926/content

Episode 188: Offshore Money

The gang is joined by Christian Parenti, who talks about the birth of actually-existing capitalism narrated in his latest book, Radical Hamilton. We open by discussing a series of new cancellations and why this moralistic approach to politics lets institutions and the powerful off the hook. Next, we're joined by Christian who makes a spirited case for revisiting the Developmentalist model of Hamilton's "American School." 

*** Become a patron to hear the remainder of this interview: http://www.patreon.com/deadpundits *** 

Find out more about this book here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3186-radical-hamilton

Hamilton and the Invention of Actually-Existing Capitalism w/ Christian Parenti

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

Grill Stream

77 - Let Slip the Dogs Out 9.13.20

In this episode, we talk about the possibility of a Trump Coup, election integrity, and the Supreme Court.

HANGING CHADS

"Elon Musk sent a thank-you note to Tesla's workers returning to work," Business Insider squeals. Walmart teams up with UPS to air an ad "thanking essential workers." "Jeff Bezos Just Posted an Open Letter to Amazon Employees About the Coronavirus. Every Smart Business Leader Needs to Read It," insists an article in Inc.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate leaders, politicians and celebrities have been quick to paint "essential workers," and those often described as "frontline" workers, as heroes — laborers conscripted, presumably against their will, into a wartime-like scenario of heroism and sacrifice as our country battles the ongoing coronavirus scourge.

The sentiment behind this rhetoric is understandable, especially from everyday people simply trying to express their deep appreciation for the underpaid labor doing the work to feed, house, care for and treat everyone else. But when deployed by powerful politicians and CEOs, the "essential workers as heroes" discourse serves a more sinister purpose: to curb efforts to unionize, preemptively justify mass death of a largely black and brown workforce, protect corporate profits and ultimately discipline labor that for a brief moment in spring of last year, had unprecedented leverage to extract concessions from capital.

As Wall Street booms and America’s billionaires see an increase of $1.1 trillion in wealth since March 2020 — a 40% increase — while the average worker suffers from unemployment, depression, drug abuse and a loss of healthcare, it’s become increasingly clear that “essential” never meant essential to helping society at large or essential to human care or essential to keeping the bottom from falling out, but essential to keeping the top one percent of the one percent’s wealth and power intact and as it turned out to be the case, massively expanded.

Indeed, 2020 saw the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in decades, a transfer largely made possible by the essential worker as hero narrative, with little discussion or debate. In March 2020 everyone agreed in this wartime framing that was going to send off millions of poor people to their deaths for a vague, undecided greater good of the quote-unquote "economy," when really it was for the seamless maintenance of Wall Street profits.

On this episode, we explore the origins of the concept of "essential work" and those deemed "essential workers"; how it's been used in the past to discipline labor during wartime; how hero narratives provide an empty, head-patting verbal tip in lieu of worker protection and higher pay; and why so few in our media ask the more urgent question of all: whether or not low wage retail, food, farming, and healthcare workers ever wanted to be heroes in the first place.

Our guest in Ronald Jackson, a worker and organizer with Warehouse Workers For Justice.

Episode 131: The "Essential Worker" Racket - How 'COVID Hero' Discourse Is Used To Discipline Labor

TrueAnon is a podcast about your enemies made by your friends. Join unlicensed private investigators Liz Franczak, Brace Belden, and Yung Chomsky for a show that will drive you insane. Every other episode is a Patreon exclusive: patreon.com/TrueAnonPod