Invent The Future

Dan from Work Stoppage and Red Game Table tells us about the chilling history of the US and its intelligence apparatuses' collaboration with the Nazis, including how the CIA took Nazi human experimentation research and ran with it, leading to programs such as MKULTRA.

Music:

Sources:

Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War by Christopher Simpson

Eilex, Taylor, and Ethan look back on the year, going through the major events of each month and going on some longer digressions about COVID-19 vaccine backlash, critical race theory, the hope of labor struggle, and how easy it was to assassinate world leaders a hundred years ago.

Outro music: "Auld Lang Syne," Alexandrov Ensemble

In this episode originally intended to be recorded and released before Halloween, we go over the social/political trends undergirding 90 years of US horror cinema decade by decade. Eilex shares a few frightening Latin American folktales and their ideological basis in colonization, and Jeremy talks about No One Gets Out Alive (2021) and the messages behind it.

James Bell, “US Horror Film and the Capitalist Crisis (1974–1985)”, ep 1 of Prolekult

Mark Steven, Splatter Capital

Susan Sontag, “The Imagination of Disaster”, Commentary Magazine

This is a non-standard ITF episode because we had Jeremy back but we didn't have anything prepared, so we did an off-the-cuff roundup of the state of things, including blowing off steam about COVID, reading some absurd financial press opinions on China, and brainstorming timely bumper stickers. This one's all over the place, but we'll be back to providing thoughtful and researched content next time!

Any opinions shared by ITF members on this episode do not represent the views of ITF or its members.

Outro music: "Motherless Child," Romare

ITF's first in-person episode! 

As a result, Eilex, Taylor, and Ethan have a wide-ranging and somewhat freeform discussion about happiness, what it means, how it's measured, and why capitalist ideology wants to quantify it.

Outro: "It Was A Good Day", Ice Cube

We interview conservationist Jules Jackson about the field of conservation, its relationship with corporations and its use in global capital, the narratives involved in eco-tourism, and how solving environmental problems is framed as an individual responsibility.

[EDITOR'S NOTES:

You can reach Jules at [email protected] for comments or further questions!

Outro: "4 Degrees," ANOHNI

Suggested reading:

Brockington & Duffy, ed. Capitalism and Conservation.

Examples of bad things:

Savanah and Alekx cover a bit of the history of racism within the US medical field. A LOT is covered here, from medical training to prejudice in doctors to the concept of IQ and much more. This gets graphic at points, so please use caution. 

Related/Suggested Reading:

Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology - Robert V. Guthrie

In this free-ranging and discursive discussion, Alekx, Eilex, and Ethan talk about Western films (cowboy movies, not the whole capitalist cultural category) and how they portray Mexico and Mexicans, how the films launder settler Manifest Destiny and settler-colonialism, how gender is depicted and reified through the films, and US perceptions of citizenry, property, and morality are all mixed in with the ideas they contain. It goes all over the place. Yee haw.

Suggested reading/viewing:

Black, Liza. Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941-1960.