Episode 1258
Toward degrowth / Giorgos Kallis + Susan Paulson
Nov 10 2020
I, when you look at the, the different versions of this narrative, whether it's in say, uh, uh, the, the books of, uh, James Lindsay, um, who's antiwar warrior or all, all the films of people who were kind of involved, uh, in the Tea Party movement, you'll see that there are, there, there are some, uh, historical facts, uh, involved there about really the, the, the unraveling of, um, sort of post-war American order, the, the sort of, uh, the new deal order that was, you know, sort of hastened by, uh, uh, uh, by Reaganism and the kind of cultural norms that emerge from that.
So I think that these different, um, conservative and reactionary intellectuals are, [00:21:00] um, responding. To really a, a, a crisis of a certain, uh, um, uh, arrangement of American national life. But I think that the, um, uh, the blaming of it on, um, sort of cultural deviance like the Frankfurt School or, or on work professors, it, it, um, means that they kind of can distract people from sort of more structural or more economic factors.
intellectual historian A.J.A. Woods, author of, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West (Verso Books) discusses their book on the day it is published. A.J.A.’s writings on conspiracy theories and reactionary politics have been translated into four languages and appeared in Open Democracy, Patterns of Prejudice, and Marx & Philosophy Review of Books.
"Rotten History" from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview.
After all that, we receive an update from Loyola University Chicago SEIU 73 Faculty Forward co-chair Paige Warren about next steps bargaining for a fair contract... read more
Deborah Goodman
Apr 15
Labor Struggle in Higher Ed: An Update from Loyola University Chicago SEIU 73 Faculty Forward Union
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Oct 29 2020
Posted by Matthew Boedy
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
I avoid advertisements as much as possible. I’ve avoided them like the plague, which has been good practice for the plague. I’ve missed all the commercials my friends are in because of that avoidance. When I listen to podcasts I scrub past pitches for absolutely anything. But Hulu makes you sit through the ads. I mute them, but sometimes I’m not quick enough. Thus, many’s the time I’ve heard, “At so-and-so, we believe—” Every company pulls this crap at some point, no matter how non-sensical it is. “At White Claw, we believe –” there is no “at.” You’re a beverage. And you don’t believe in anything but making money. “At Clear Blue, we believe –” What do mean, “at Clear Blue?” You’re a stick women pee on to see if they’re pregnant! You’re not a place. There’s no brick-and-mortar house of pee sticks. And what can you possibly believe? “At pee stick we believe in the pH level of urine.” You believe in selling pee sticks. You don’t have any other beliefs, because you aren’t human, regardless of what the Supreme Court has said in the past. You are an agreement to peddle pee-activated color-changing material housed in plastic for the profit of your owners and part-owners. You are a legal construction designed to be a financial instrument. That’s all you’ll ever be. Give up your stupid dreams of being a real boy, Pinocchio, it’s not going to happen.
I’ve gone off before about advertising. Commercial advertising. How it’s a waste of education dollars. Because that’s what it is, bad, poisonous education. A commercial is a 15 to 60 second lesson on acquisitiveness and shallow values. It’s school for consumers, and most of it is either outright lies, id-tapping fantasies, or dramas meant to communicate insecurity. Sometimes I’ll catch a radio ad out of the corner of my ear, and something they say, some made-up statistic, reassures me about the future, then suddenly I’ll realize what’s happened, what I’ve bought into, and out of shame at being such a gullible sucker I want to stab myself in the brain.
The amount of money spent on advertising is hard to get a grip on. There are figures that represent ad purchases, but the limits of an... read more