Michael and Us

PATREON EXCLUSIVE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/48621488

Much has changed in the Labour Party since the devastating electoral defeat it experienced in December 2019. A year into Keir Starmer's leadership, Luke talks to Labour MP Jon Trickett about the legacy of the election, Starmer's triangulation on the corporation tax, and the need for the Labour Party to advance a bold, activist agenda in the pandemic era.

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/48447924

Let's travel to yesterday's tomorrow... today! We discuss a range of 20th century kitsch that envisions the capitalist utopia of the 21st century, including Jean-Marc Côté's "En L’An 2000" artworks, as well as two short films that Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will know well: the General Motors propaganda film DESIGN FOR DREAMING (1956) and the Seattle World's Fair adventure CENTURY 21 CALLING (1962). All these artefacts imagine a world in which technology has freed us from work... but social relations remain unchanged. PLUS: the defeat of a higher minimum wage, and the looming spectre of Space Jam 2.

We finally watch one of our most requested movies: the political parable ELECTION (1999), which presents a vision of American politics circa 1999 as represented by three student candidates and one faculty power-broken in a high school election. PLUS: Neera Tanden, the Golden Globes, and what happens to culture when the zeitgeist is taken away?

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive episodes: https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

We plunge once again into the filmography of Alexandra Pelosi, who in addition to being Nancy's daughter is a prolific maker of not-very-good political documentaries. In RIGHT AMERICA, FEELING WRONGED (2009), she follows the John McCain campaign in its final, desperate weeks, interviewing dozens of ill-mannered Republicans who feel left out of the Obama wave. The result is her bleakest and angriest film - though still not exactly what one might call "good." PLUS: Pete Buttigieg's memoir, revisionist celebrity documentaries, and is there a Republican Party exodus?

Tune into the first Michael and Us livestream. On Friday, February 27 at 6pm, Michael and Us Nation will watch 1995's BATMAN FOREVER together, as a family. Details at https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

PATREON EXCLUSIVE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/47869131

For this month's Superdelegate pick, we watched Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece The Conformist (1970), about a secret police officer in fascist Italy assigned to assassinate a left-wing intellectual who was once his university professor. We discuss what it means to be a fascist, and the lure of seeking normalcy even within an evil system. PLUS: 50 Shades of Grey, old movies, and what, exactly, is "the canon"?

PATREON EXCLUSIVE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/interview-smoke-47833534

Joe Biden issued an executive order recommitting the United States to the Paris climate agreement and rescinding the construction permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, moves that have been heralded throughout the media as the beginning of a new era for climate policy in the United States. But what are the real prospects for the transformative policies actually needed to combat climate change in the years ahead? What will Biden’s much-touted green jobs initiative do in practice? And how has the fossil fuel industry responded to Biden’s early moves? Luke talks to the New Republic’s Katie Aronoff (coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, coeditor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism — American Style, and author of the forthcoming Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet — and How We Fight Back) about climate policy under Biden.

Just when we thought we'd found the bottom of the barrel, we scrape a little bit further. From executive producers Van Jones and Meghan McCain, THE REUNITED STATES (2021) seeks to open a new chapter on the American story by highlighting people trying to bridge the left and right. But does a political "movement" that believes in nothing more than "listening to each other" actually do anything to address the issues allegedly dividing us? (Hint: no).

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/47524164

John Waters' transgressive masterpiece FEMALE TROUBLE (1974) envisions a moral and aesthetic universe in which everything ugly is beautiful and vice versa. We discuss the film's radically queer vision, and the way it dissolves the barrier between high and low culture. We also discuss the seismic impact that John Waters had on one of the cohosts as a young man (hint: it's Will), and how an iconoclast becomes an elder statesman. PLUS: Trump's (non-)impeachment, Woody Allen's new movie, and why it can be more productive to criticize liberals than conservatives.

For decades the most visible socialist in Britain, the late Labour Party MP Tony Benn is the rare instance of a left-wing politician who became even more radical as his political career progressed. The 1990 documentary TONY BENN: AGAINST THE TIDE, 1973-6 looks back at four years where radical change seemed possible and Benn was at the height of his power within Labour. We discuss his thwarted political vision, and how his politics remained consistent through the dark winters of Thatcher and Blair. PLUS: American media under Biden, and the death of Larry Flynt.

Watch the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h9qv1HQ4w8&ab_channel=ModernLonelyTV

"Tony Benn Spent His Life Fighting for Democracy and Socialism" by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys - https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/tony-benn-birthday-labour-party-uk-new-left

PATREON BONUS - https://www.patreon.com/posts/47344547

Sometime after the Second World War, neoliberal economics became the default economic theory. How did this happen? And is there any hope for a return to New Deal economics? Our own Luke Savage talks to Marshall Steinbaum (writer and assistant professor of economics at the University of Utah) about how the neoclassical right’s astonishingly successful intellectual revolution came about, its core beliefs, and the profoundly antidemocratic animus it owes to the liberalism of the nineteenth century.