Rev Left Radio

[Originally released Jan 2021] Twitch streamer CommieCon interviews Breht on a wide range of topics, including common arguments against socialism and how to refute them, Marx's conception of Species-Being and its relationship to alienation and human nature, Marxism v. Anarchism and what both have to offer, the evolution of human civilization through history, how violence is and is not conceived by liberals, and Nature's increasingly stern demand that we evolve or perish. Check out and support CommieCon on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/commiecon Follow CommieCon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecommiecon Outro Music: "Bury Me With It" by Modest Mouse Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Sept 2019] David Swanson of Radical Reflections invites Breht on his show to tackle myths, lies, slanders, and popular criticisms wielded against communism by its (often times lazy and unimpressive) opponents. Check out Radical Reflections here: http://www.radicalreflections.co.uk/ Follow them on Twitter @RadReflections Outro music by Jarren Benton ft. EARTHGANG - Anarchy Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Oct 2019] Alekx and Ethan from Proles of the Round Table podcast join Breht on this All Hallows Eve to deconstruct the myth and logic of the oft-stated claim that Communism is responsible for the deaths of 100 million human beings. On this Halloween, we urge our listeners to reject the anti-communist propaganda of our enemies, while also realizing that the real blood-drenched monsters, ghouls, goblins, and vampires of this world are not to be found within the pages of fairy tales, but rather at the highest echelons of capitalist class society: the very people who want nothing more than for you to fall, hook, line, and sinker, for their anti-communist lies in order to maintain their murderous grip on the ill-gotten seats atop our world's bloody and unjust hierarchies of wealth and power. Here are just some of the sources used for this episode: https://medium.com/@discomfiting/debunking-communism-killed-more-people-than-naziism-7a9880696f67 https://mronline.org/2011/06/26/revisiting-alleged-30-million-famine-deaths-during-chinas-great-leap/ https://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/ https://mronline.org/2017/10/18/mao-reconsidered/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/03/the-holodomor-and-the-film-bitter-harvest-are-fascist-lies/ https://www.newcoldwar.org/archive-of-writings-of-professor-mark-tauger-on-the-famine-scourges-of-the-early-years-of-the-soviet-union/ https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furr_yezhov_jls17.pdf Outro Music: 'Bury a Friend' by Billie Eilish Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Feb 2018] Debbie Bookchin is a widely-published journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Nation, and numerous other publications. She served as press secretary to Bernie Sanders when he served in the U.S. House and she recently co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin, called The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy (Verso Books 2015). Debbie joins Brett to discuss the life and work of her father, Murray Bookchin, as well as the Rojavan Revolution, the rise of fascism, Social Ecology, Marxism, Anarchism, her father's legacy, and much, much more! Find Debbie, and much of her work, on twitter: @Debbiebookcin Learn more about and support the legacy of Murray Bookchin here: MurrayBookchin.org Outro Music: "Opening Salvo" by Blue Scholars, find and support them here: http://bluescholars.com Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Mar 2018] J. Moufawad-Paul lives in Toronto and works as casualized contract faculty at York University where he received his PhD in philosophy. He blogs regularly at MLM Mayhem and is the author of The Communist Necessity, Continuity and Rupture, and Austerity Apparatus. Josh joins Brett to discuss Maoism, The Enlightenment, Post-Modernism, the science of Marxism, and much more! Find JMP on twitter @MLM_Mayhem But his books here: https://www.leftwingbooks.net/book/content/communist-necessity and here: http://www.zero-books.net/authors/joshua-r-moufawad-paul Outro Music: "Market Made Murder" by Sims ft. Toki Wright and Mike Mictlan , off the album "Lights Out Paris" Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Oct 2017] Zoe Samudzi is a black feminist writer whose work has appeared in a number of spaces including The New Inquiry, Warscapes, Truthout, ROAR Magazine, Teen Vogue,BGD, Bitch Media, and Verso, among others. She is also a member of the 2017/18 Public Imagination cohort of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) Fellows Program, and she is a member of the Black Aesthetic, an Oakland-based group and film series exploring the multitudes and diversities of black imagination and creativity. She is presently a Sociology PhD student at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences where academic interests include biomedicalization theory, productions of race and gender, and transgender health. She is a recipient of the 2016-17 Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. Her dissertation "'I don't believe I should be treated like a second citizen by anybody': Narratives of agency and exclusion amongst male and transgender female sex workers in Cape Town, South Africa" engages hegemonic gender constructs in South Africa as they affect identity construction and health of transgender women and cisgender men in sex work. Zoe sits down with Brett to apply critical race theory to our current US society. Topics Include: The Anarchism of Blackness, Double Consciousness, Zoe's experiences growing up as a black girl in the Midwest, the failures of white liberalism and the democratic party, Trump, racist and sexist tropes in film, the White Gaze, and much more! Here is Zoe's website: http://www.zoesamudzi.com/ Outro: "African Son" (featuring Chindo Man, Songa, Wise Man, Mic Crenshaw. Recorded at Watengwa Studios, Kijenge, Tanzania as part of the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan 2015) Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Orignally released Aug 2020] In this fascinating episode Nick Estes, Historian, author of "Our History is the Future" and co-founder of The Red Nation, joins Breht to discuss the history and legacy of the American Indian Movement, including the history of indigenous resistance in America, the origins and ideology of AIM, the Siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, the FBI's COINTELPRO, the Reign of Terror, and SO much more. This is a collaborative project between Rev Left Radio and The Red Nation Podcast Outro Music: 'The Resistance' by Snotty Nose Rez Kids (ft. Drezus) Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Jan 2018] Kristen Ghodsee is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; known primarily for her ethnographic work on post-communist Bulgaria as well as being a contributor to the field of postsocialist gender studies. She is the author of many books, including her latest "Red Hangover:Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism. Kristen joins Brett to discuss the collapse of Soviet Communism and the human costs of the brutal transition to free market capitalism. Topics Include: Women under communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the human costs of capitalism in Eastern Europe, current wealth inequality in the former Soviet Bloc, false equivalencies between the Nazis and the Soviets and the ideological role it serves, the rise of fascism in the wake of communisms collapse, socialist feminism, fallacies inherent in capitalist arguments, the ravages of neoliberalism, the future of socialism, and much, much more! Outro Music: "Bent Life" by Aesop Rock (feat. C Rayz Walz) Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Originally released Nov 2017] Dr. Thoreau Redcrow is an American academic with a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis with a concentration in Global Conflict. Thoreau is a researcher who specializes in studying armed guerrilla movements, and who has over a decade of experience studying the life and legacy of Che Guevara. His prior investigations into Che's biography have taken him to Cuba to speak to those who knew and fought alongside Che, as well as to other arenas around the world which have been influenced by Che Guevara's armed struggle. Brett sits down with Dr. Redcrow to discuss the Argentine Marxist revolutionary; including an entire segment of the podcast dedicated to debunking many of the right-wing and anti-communist lies about him. Topics Include: Che's childhood, the political context out of which Che emerged, the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, debunking lies and slander about Che, The Bay of Pigs, Anti-Imperialism, "Guevarism", Marx, Lenin, and much, MUCH more! Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

[Orginally released Nov 2018] Historian David Parsons joins Breht to talk about the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh, American Imperial War Crimes, Historical Memory, and much more! David Parsons is an author, historian, and leftist podcast host of The Nostalgia Trap. Find The Nostalgia Trap here: https://nostalgiatrap.libsyn.com Support The Nostalgia Trap here: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap Find his book, Dangerous Grounds: Antiwar Coffeehouses and Military Dissent in the Vietnam Era here: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469632018/dangerous-grounds/ Follow him on twitter @davidlparsons and follow his podcast @NostalgiaTrap The Documentary used for most of the clips in the show is "Hearts and Minds" (1974) Outro Music: Backlash Blues by Nina Simone Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio