Diet Soap - a podcast

Ryan and Lavit discuss Mark Fisher's 2013 essay "Exiting the Vampire Castle" and Ryan Grimm's Intercept essay "The Elephant in the Zoom." How has it happened that the Vampire Castle Fisher described as a trap for the radical left has come to define the progressive bureaucracy? Why are the institutions ranging from the ACLU to the Audubon Society so woke as to be crippled by internal strife and crisis? Mark Fisher's Exiting the Vampire Castle Essayhttps://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/Ryan Grim's "Elephant in the Zoom"https://theintercept.com/2022/06/13/progressive-organizing-infighting-callout-culture/Support Us on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

 Doug and Jason discuss the early 70's Blaxploitation era, the conditions that led to its rise and demise, and its mid 80's return. Back on June 8th Jason released his video essay, "Same As it Ever Was: Black Power to Blaxploitation." Despite his jealousy and competitiveness Doug asked him on to discuss the found footage film he created. 

Ashley Frawley takes over this week's Diet Soap podcast to discuss Henryk Grossman, crisis theory, and the book "The End of Capitalism" with Ted Reese and the Swoletariat.

For this first episode of Social Justice Incorporated Ryan and Lavit talk to Freddie deBoer about his response to Daniel Bergner's New York Times Magazine article "Doctors Gave Her Antipsychotics. She Decided to Live With Her Voices." Freddie describes his own experiences with mental illness as he rejects Bergner's notion that psychosis is something that can be normalized and accepted rather than treated. 

Margaret Kimberley is the author of "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents," she is a regular contributor to the Black Agenda Report, and a returning guest. In this episode of Diet Soap she discusses the situation in the Ukraine in the context of US Imperialism. GCAS is our sponsorhttps://gcas.ie/Support Us on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

Bryan D. Palmer teaches in the Department of History at Queen's University, edits the journal Labour/Le Travail, and is the author of "James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-38." In this interview, he traces the history of American and international socialism by telling the story of James P. Cannon. 

Terry Pinkard is a professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of Hegel: A Biography, Hegel's Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason, and Hegel's Dialectic: The Explanation of Possibility. In this episode of Diet Soap Pinkard explains the significance of Hegel and addresses whether Hegel should be conceived of as a "worldly philosopher." Patrons will get access to Pinkard's explanation of where he disagrees with Zizek and why.

This week's Pop the Left was to be a conversation about Andrew Collier's 1980 essay, "Lacan, psychoanalysis and the left," but quickly devolved into a debate about what counts as the "means of production," the centrality of labor time under capitalism, and the meaning of Hegelianism for the left. 

In his essay for News and Letters entitled "Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine puts the future of humanity in doubt" Ron Kelch wrote, "On Feb. 24, in the dark of night, Russian president Vladimir Putin started a totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine from three sides after a months-long buildup of 190,000 troops." This interview starts by questioning Kelch's assertion that Putin was unprovoked, and continues from there.

Deep State Kuba from This is Revolution and Stefan Bertram-Lee give us an update on the war in Ukraine. What is happening tactically? What explains the conflict and level of Ukrainian resistance? What has NATO's role been and what will it continue to be? Will there be a negotiated resolution in the immediate future? Support GCAS (the Global Center for Advanced Studies) https://gcas.ie/