Red Menace

Alyson and Breht explain and explore this famous text from Karl Marx, in the process they discuss French history, class conflict, the peasantry and lumpenproletariat, Bonapartism and Fascism, history, the role of the State under capitalism, and how all of this helps us to make sense of our contemporary moment of crisis in the US and around the world.

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Rest in Peace, Aaron. Free Palestine!

"To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with utmost courage, frankness, determination, and sincerity."

- Thich Nhat Hanh in a letter to MLK Jr. regarding the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhist monks

On this episode of Red Menace, Alyson and Breht had some things come up such that they couldn't record their planned episode on Marx's 18th Brumaire (coming soon!), so instead they have a deep, organic and wide-ranging conversation on mysticism; together they explore humanities religious and spiritual traditions and the mystical strain within them, discuss atheism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Sufism, mystical experiences, the role of suffering, holy union and oneness, the dissolution of subject/object duality, the role of psychedelics historically and experientially, dialectics, and whether or not any of this has any relevance for political struggle.

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All Music by Mount Eerie

In this Rev Left Family Annual Collab (Rev Left+Red Menace+Guerrilla History), Alyson, Henry, Adnan, and Breht sit down for a deep dive on South African Apartheid. Together they discuss its euro-colonialist origins, explain the significance of the Boer Wars, define and explicate the origins of apartheid, explore the political economy of apartheid and how brutal racism shaped it, examine the multi-faceted indigenous resistance to apartheid, analyze the end of formal apartheid as well as its ongoing legacy in post-apartheid South Africa, and try to extract important lessons from this history to apply to the ongoing struggle in Palestine.

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Alyson and Breht discuss the ongoing national liberation struggle in Palestine (recorded Oct. 30th 2023). Together, they discuss the incredible shift in public opinion on Israel and Palestine, the internal and external contradictions culminating in unison for Israel, the discussion about whether or not what Israel is doing is technically a genocide (it absolutely is), international law, Frantz Fanon on the psychology of national liberation, the prospects of a broader regional war, the possibilities of Turkish or Iranian engagement, the history and core elements of Zionism, the analytical importance of the settler colonial and decolonization frameworks, the disgusting role that Biden and the Democratic Party are playing in manufacturing consent for Israel's civilian mass murder campaign, how Hamas is basically an orphan army of men who have had their families killed by Israel in previous assaults, why we should reject the "terrorist" framing of the western ruling elites, what the palestinian resistance has managed to accomplish, and what might emerge from the Ruins of Gaza when all is said and done...

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What Is To Be Done? This is the question so profoundly posed by the Russian Revolutionary and Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, in his landmark text of the same name. Although it was written well over a century ago, this text, the questions it asked, and the paths forward that it provided, are just as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago. And just as urgent.

What roles do spontaneity and disciplined organization have in leftist movements? Can we focus simply on economic reform, or do our actions need a larger political framework to structure, guide, and propel them?

Why does it feel like even though so many of us are motivated to work towards structural change, that things continue to get worse? Why does it seem like potential revolutionary struggles in the West always seem to stall and fail to move from a singular moment to a protracted movement?

These are old and familiar questions — a lot of ink has been spilled and speeches made exploring them — and in this Conversation, we've brought on two guests who've not only thought about these questions in depth, but who have some pretty compelling answers that draw from revolutionary theory and practice in both their personal lives and from the deep well of wisdom bequeathed by theorists Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao.

Breht O'Shea is the host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and a co-host of Guerrilla History. He's been on the show multiple times so you may already be familiar with his voice. Alyson Escalate, who has also been on the show, is the co-host, along with Breht, of Red Menace, a podcast that explains and analyzes revolutionary theory and then applies its lessons to our contemporary conditions.

Further Resources:

• Red Menace – What Is To Be Done? - V.I. Lenin
• Revolutionary Left Radio – Politics in Command: Analyzing the Error of Economism
• Red Menace – The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon: On Violence and Spontaneity
• Red Menace – Understanding Settler Colonialism in Israel and the United States
• Revolutionary Left Radio on Instagram
• Upstream – Buddhism and Marxism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation)
• Upstream – Trans Liberation and Solidarity with Alyson Escalante (In Conversation)
• Upstream – Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation)

This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support

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Breht discusses the current situation in Palestine, helps listeners navigate and dismantle common Zionist talking points, and (hopefully) brings some much needed moral clarity and intellectual honesty to a topic that, especially in the West, often lacks both...

Originally Aired on Oct 31, 2021

On this episode of Red Menace Alyson and Breht teach, discuss, and apply the lessons of 'Decolonization is Not a Metaphor' by Tuck and Yang

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Alyson and Breht finish their 3-part series on Friedrich Engels' text "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and The State", and reflect on the text as a whole. Together, they wrestle with questions, like: What is family abolition? How do rich people buy extended, communal family? What happens to the family and romantic relationships under communism? Should people ever be treated like commodities? How does the title of the text reflect historical and dialectical materialism? and much more!

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Alyson and Breht discuss the recent rulings by the Supreme Court, a wildly anti-democratic, thoroughly corrupt, and staunchly reactionary institution that the American right has spent years and billions of dollars capturing in order to impose its minoritarian rule on an American majority that firmly rejects what they stand for. And they do it all without having to worry for even a second about pesky things getting in their way: like democracy, human rights, or basic accountability to the American people.

Get access to three bonus episodes a month here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace