This Wreckage

Latest Episodes:

UNLOCKED: History is a Weapon 15: On the Labor Question w/ Matt Christman Apr 10, 2024

Show notes

Enjoy this blast from the distant pass: January 2023!

Check out all the other Histories is a Weapon on our patreon

In light of the depressing denouement of 2022's railroad conflict, Sean and Matt sit down, in person at last, to discuss the deep history behind how American organized labor got so disorganized and why the labor movement hasn't moved in decades.

Why was it that, in the United States, workers institutions had trouble evolving past the infancy of narrow, sectoral, decentralized craft unionism towards broad-based, nationally-coordinated industrial unionism? How did capital, in the face of militant organizing, help choose the weaker of the two as their partner to bargain with? In what ways is worker self-organization in this country truly, as our enemies always say, anti-American? And importantly what is to be done now that private sector union density is so low, workers institutions so captured and the national labor relations regime has fallen apart?

STAY TUNED AFTER THE OUTRO MUSIC FOR A SPECIAL LAST MINUTE ADDENDUM

E244 (Pt. 2) - Veiled Threats w/ Arya Zahedi Apr 05, 2024

Show notes

Part 2 of our discussion with Middle East scholar Arya Zahedi of Insurgent Notes about the essay Class Struggle, Autonomy, and the State in Iran from Ill Will Editions. He talks about the uprisings in Iran, including the murder of Mahsa Amini, and his feelings about Iran's role in the proxy wars surrounding the siege of Gaza.

Full episode available at http://patreon.com/theantifada

Read the essay here: https://illwill.com/iran

E244 - Ayatollah Assahola w/ Arya Zahedi (Part 1) Apr 03, 2024

Show notes

Middle East scholar Arya Zahedi of Insurgent Notes discusses his new essay Class Struggle, Autonomy, and the State in Iran from Ill Will Editions. In part 1, he talks about what the left gets wrong about Iran and its political history through the 1979 revolution, hostage crisis, and counterrevolution.

For Part 2 of the episode, about the uprisings against the Islamic Republic and expanding conflict in the Middle East today, support the show at http://patreon.com/theantifada

Read the essay here: https://illwill.com/iran

Song: Planet Smashers - Ska of Iran

E243 - Fight the Narcissystem w/ Anslem Jappe Mar 27, 2024

Show notes

Anselm Jappe is a professor of philosophy, former member of the Krisis Group, and author of the newly-translate book THE SELF-DEVOURING SOCIETY: CAPITALISM, NARCISSISM, AND SELF-DESTRUCTION with Eric-John Russell. The book’s tagline is: “Everyone can feel that the world is getting angrier. The Self-Devouring Society provides an original and rigorous explanation of why.”

Buy the book from Common Notions: https://www.commonnotions.org/the-self-devouring-society

More work by Anselm at Brooklyn Rail and Libcom

Preorder Cured Quail Vol 3

Support the show at http://patreon.com/theantifada

Song - Courtney Love - Miss Narcissist

Party Girls Zine Club #1 - Inhabit Mar 22, 2024

Show notes

For the first ever edition of Party Girls Zine Club, Sam and Jamie discuss Inhabit: Instructions for Autonomy, a 2018 broadside (or little orange book, if you will) from Inhabit, which is not a mere media project, but "a collectively and anonymously written strategy emerging from a network of autonomous projects across North America." What do we make of Inhabit's steps to revolution? Why present speculative fiction in a programmatic context? What does this work of ultra-left thought get right, and where does it fall short? How many times have YOU gone to the antifa super-soldier gym this week?

Read along: Inhabit.global

E242 - Escaping the Hamster Wheel w/ Ignacio Choi Mar 20, 2024

Show notes

IfNotNow activist Ignacio Choi chats about the Pro-Palestine movement, which has, like Finkelstein and Rabbani, won the debate within the framework of international law and human rights. But how far does that get us, and where else could the movement go?

In the bonus we talk about Israel's leftwing defenders in Germany and the US. For the full episode subscribe at http://patreon.com/theantifada

If you're a in NYC, join us Saturday March 23 at 5pm at Woodbine for a meeting of the Independent Workers Club

Song: Taqbir - Aisha Qandisha

Diving Into the Wreckage: Nationalism, Liberalism and the State 4 w/ C Derick Varn Mar 13, 2024

Show notes

Sean and Varn return with part four of their series on nationalism and the nation state. This episode is about the vexing questions of class and nation that arose in the 20th century and are unresolved today. Why did both the reformist and revolutionary wings of the classical workers movement turn towards state developmentalism? How did really existing class develop to conflict with Marxist theories of working class emancipation? What mistakes from past movements are we still making today whether we know it or not? How did the millennial left really die and how might we move past it?

This is part one of an extended, three-hour discussion. To access the full episode, become a patron of the Antifada at www.patreon.com/theantifada. To see the video of this discussion and get a whole lot more incisive commentary sign up for www.patreon.com/varnvlog

Episode on Henryk Grossman with Ted Reese: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67780560

Endnotes - A History of Separation: https://libcom.org/article/history-separation-endnotes-4

E241 - March Sadness Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

NEWS EP! We discuss Aaron Bushnell, voting uncomitted and hopelessness, UAW and Starbucks union victories, the MTA wildcat strike and working-class demands for safety.

For the full discussion become a patron today at www.patreon.com/theantifada

Sign up or upgrade your membership at the discounted $10/month annual membership and DM your mailing address on Patreon for a free postage paid copy of the PM Press George Floyd Uprising book, with contributions by Andy and many past and future friends of the show!

Aaron Bushnell / Gaza:

-Crimethinc statement https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/26/this-is-what-our-ruling-class-has-decided-will-be-normal-on-aaron-bushnells-action-in-solidarity-with-gaza

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/burnt-offerings/?affid=x Veterans burning uniforms https://uk.news.yahoo.com/veterans-burn-uniforms-vigil-us-123204314.html

UAW / Starbucks:

-https://www.wbrc.com/2024/02/28/uaw-majority-workers-mercedes-plant-vance-signal-they-want-join-auto-workers-union/

-https://prospect.org/labor/2024-02-26-auto-workers-go-all-in/

-https://fordauthority.com/2024/02/uaw-announces-project-to-support-mexican-autoworkers/ -https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-workers-united-master-contract-bargaining

MTA strike: https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/02/29/conductor-slash-delays-work-stoppage/

Song: Crazy Spirit - Train

Ep 240: Our Social Hell w/ William Clare Roberts Feb 28, 2024

Show notes

Sean is joined by political theorist William Roberts to discuss his excellent 2017 book, Marx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital which excavates not just Marx's use of the structure of Dante's Inferno but the radical political theory that undergirds it. What is the relationship between the analysis in Capital and the debates within the workers movement of the time typified by the likes of Proudhon, Saint-Simon and Owens? What is the place of radical republicanism in Marx's theory? How has this tradition in the workers movement been buried by history and what might we do with it today?

For the full discussion become a patron today at www.patreon.com/theantifada

Son: Iggy and the Stooges - Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell

E238 - The Renegade Century w/ Mike Macnair Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

Sean and Andy are joined by Mike Macnair, member of the Provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, columnist at Weekly Worker and author of Revolutionary Strategy(2008) and many other works.

We discuss the legacy of Marxist political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of the party, the importance of patience and republicanism to the working class struggle and what might be salvaged from the thought of great historical Marxists including... the renegade Kautsky.

This is part I of an extended discussion on theory and history. To hear the paywalled fireworks, become a patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada

Song: Whirlwinds of Danger by Monsieur Jack

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