Paris Marx is joined by Gil Duran to discuss how Peter Thiel’s bizarre obsession with the antichrist is really a desperate and embarrassing attempt to divert attention from his own misdeeds.

Gil Duran writes The Nerd Reich and is working on his first book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Global Democracy.

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After almost a year of Trump stonewalling about the Epstein files, Republicans in the House finally took a stand against him. More than a hundred Republican members were prepared to vote for releasing the files. Facing a dramatic defeat, on Sunday night Trump caved, and Tuesday the vote in the House was nearly unanimous. John Nichols has our analysis.

Also: The Americans who fought in World War II have been called “the greatest generation,” but historian David Nasaw argues that it’s more appropriate to regard them as “the wounded generation.” That’s the title of his new book about vets coming home after WWII

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Danny and Derek speak with political theorist and author Lea Ypi about her new book Indignity: A Life Reimagined, which explores how personal memory intersects with imperial collapse, nationalism, and the surveillance state. They discuss her grandmother’s journey from Ottoman Salonika to Albania amid the rise of competing political projects; archives and the stories they erase; the challenge for universalist ideals in a capitalist world; the parallels between the 1930s and today’s anti-migrant politics; and whether collective political action remains possible as we’re shaped by platforms, algorithms, and anonymous economic power.

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The scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, who trafficked and abused children and died in a prison cell

in 2019, has never gone away. It continues to explode now that House Democrats have

released thousands of emails from Epstein and his cronies. But while the political class and

mainstream media are understandably focused on the sex scandal, another dimension of the

scandal goes uncovered except by independent media outlets such as Drop Site: Epstein’s deep

ties to the national security state. I talked to international relations scholar Van Jackson about

this crucial part of the story.

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This week, Jo discovers the seminal elegance of Sylvia Wynter’s Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World, while Charlotte considers how well she would fare if she traveled back in time to the era of Alexander the Great, as depicted in Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy. Then, the dazzling Lauren Michele Jackson joins to discuss the chaotic, thrilling, sexually vibrant, and deeply unwell narrator of Nettie Jones’ Fish Tales.

Also mentioned in this episode: Percival Everett’s Glyph, Danzy Senna’s Symptomatic, Street Zen by David Schneider, Eve Babitz, and Samuel R. Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.

Lauren Michele Jackson is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and contributing writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of White Negroes and the forthcoming essay collection, Back. 

Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.

Charlotte Shane’s most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  

Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.

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In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Elizabeth Yeampierre, veteran organizer and executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization, to explore how frontline communities are taking climate action into their own hands.

In a capitalist world that prioritizes bigger, faster, and more, Elizabeth’s work takes a different path. Small, hyper-local solutions like a community-owned solar grid have huge impacts. Residents of Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, where UPROSE focuses its work, are seeing lower energy costs, good green jobs, and local ownership. All while creating a blueprint for other communities to follow.

Elizabeth also takes us beyond the buzzwords of “green economy" and “clean energy” to show what a Just Transition really looks like. Mainstream environmental efforts often focus on the end goal: shifting to renewable energy. But they fail to ask “at what cost and to whom?” Elizabeth’s work ensures community members aren’t left behind.

This episode is a masterclass in how grassroots power can transition us to a just future.

Key Topics

• A Just Transition: Shifting to renewable energy while protecting workers and communities historically harmed by pollution
• The community-led renewable energy Grid Project
• Resisting extractive economies and reclaiming industrial spaces without displacement or gentrification.
• The importance of building an intergenerational movement
• How Trump-era policies have dismantled climate protections and undermined renewable energy incentives
• How disaster capitalism exploits crises and how community-led responses offer real solutions

Resources

UPROSE

The GRID 

Sunset Park Solar

A new solar project in Brooklyn could offer a model for climate justice

US Spending On Climate Damage Nears $1 Trillion Per Year

The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)

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Danny and Derek are vigorously programmed to bring you the news headlines. This week: the Thai-Cambodia ceasefire breaks down as border fire and incidents escalate (0:30); in Gaza, Trump’s framework stalls while governments debate the shape and purpose of an international security force (4:27); Syria’s President Ahmed al-Shara visits the White House (13:49); Iraq’s elections conclude with Prime Minister Sudani claiming victory despite an uncertain coalition (17:37); suicide attacks in Pakistan raise tensions with Afghanistan (20:11) while a constitutional amendment increases military rule (23:00); in Sudan, new reports suggest the RSF is burning bodies and digging mass graves to obscure its actions in al-Fashir (25:30); Russia advances in Ukraine with movement around Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, and Zaporizhia (28:02); Nathaniel Powell returns to the show, this time to delve into the unrest continuing in Cameroon after Paul Biya’s contested reelection (29:56); and the U.S. moves the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier into the Caribbean as international criticism grows over strikes on alleged “drug boats” (50:42).

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Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss how Saudi Arabia is buying its way into the sports, comedy, and video game industries in order to broaden its investment portfolio and launder its international reputation.

Nathan Grayson is a cofounder of Aftermath and the author of Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen.

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As mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani will be the first socialist in American history to hold significant power. It’s a huge opportunity, and a huge responsibility. Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation and author of “The Socialist Manifesto,” will comment.

Also: How a band of visionaries and a million dollars upended America – in the 1920s, which had some remarkable similarities to our own era. Award winning historian John Fabian Witt will explain; his new book is ‘The Radical Fund.’

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Derek is joined by Omar Zahzah, Assistant Professor of Arab Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University, to talk about his book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism. They discuss the Sheikh Jarrah uprising and the digital front of the Palestinian struggle, the difference between “digital apartheid” and “digital settler colonialism,” Meta’s censorship, the IDF Unit 8200—Silicon Valley pipeline, how AI and tech infrastructure are being weaponized, the legacy of Edward Said’s “Permission to Narrate,” and how Palestinians have used social media to change the narrative.

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