The recent waves of unionizing in the US ranging from Amazon to Starbucks have garnered national attention. Not to mention the eye roll that is Elon Musk and his notorious Twitter takeover. Clayton, Julia, and Cody talk about the history of labor movements in the US, the union-busting tactics of corporations, and how the current workforce scene translates into everyday life.

Consider supporting the podcast on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=89403232) or leaving us a review!

Sources

The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions In The U.S.

From the 1830s until 2012 (but mostly the 1930s-1980s)

Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter

By Kate Conger, Mike Isaac, Ryan Mac and Tiffany Hsu

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LABOR, RACE AND SOLIDARITY

Jacobin:

Mick Lynch: The UK’s Proposed Anti-Union Laws Are “a Suppression of Our Human Rights”

The US Labor Movement Notched Some Impressive Victories in 2022

Jenny Brown

The Great Resignation: the great knowledge exodus or the onset of the Great Knowledge Revolution? Alexander Serenko

A Twitter manager says laid-off engineers he's rehired are 'weak, lazy, unmotivated'

Sam Tabahriti

The American public is back in love with labor unions, so why aren’t workers?

Eric Rosenbaum

Inside the Wild Starbucks Manager Kidnapping Incident That Wasn’t

Paul Blest

Ex-Starbucks Manager Says He Was Given a List of Pro-Union Workers to Target

Paul Blest

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz blames Dem-run cities for store closures

Ariel Zilber

How the Plaza Starbucks Closure Went Down, As Told by Workers

Vicky Diaz-Camacho

Medicalizing the Mexican: Immigration, Race, and Disability in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States

Natalia Molina

De/Instutionalize is a new series from Un/Livable Cultures that focuses on the un/livability of academia and the ways in which academic institutions participate in regimes of oppression and subjugation. This first episode of the De/Institutionalize series covers the elitism of knowledge, the profitability of academic publishing conglomerates, and the struggle for open-access scholarship.

The average cost of a scholarly journal article is $32. With profit margins to rival the likes of Google, academic publishing has become a gatekeeper of knowledge and access while keeping scholars on the hamster wheel of exploitation. As capitalism maintains the Ivory Towers, resources like shadow libraries have emerged to create more equitable opportunities to engage with scholarship. But as the recent FBI seizure of domains of Z-Library remind us, knowledge is power, and the role of the system is to exclude those who do not belong from using our power to make our lives more livable.

Special Guest Dr. Laurie M. Johnson (Political Philosophy: Dr. Laurie Johnson YouTube channel and The Maurin Academy) shares her rich experience in academic publishing and invites us to reflect on the purpose of knowledge production when it is inaccessible to the public. 

Find more of Laurie’s work: https://lauriemjohnson.com/

Consider supporting the podcast on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=89403232) or leaving us a review!

Sources:

Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

 Stephen Buranyi

Feds Seize One of the Largest Sites for Pirated Books and Articles, Z-LibraryZ-Library Was a Lifeline for Students on Shoestring Budgets

https://eua.eu/news/188:scholarly-publishing-eua-asks-european-commission-to-investigate-lack-of-competition.html

Many articles from https://torrentfreak.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8qby/feds-seize-one-of-the-largest-sites-for-pirated-books-and-articles-z-library

https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/z-library-pirated-books-papers-school-tor.html

In today’s episode, resident archaeologist Julia teaches their co-hosts Clayon and Cody about the dark side of archaeology conspiracy theories, such as those forwarded by Graham Hancock’s popular Netflix Series, Ancient Apocalypse (Ancient Aliens connoisseurs beware—it may be next). In deconstructing Hancock’s language, “evidence”, and rhetorical flourishes, the hosts build on other scholars who have pointed out the half-truths and outright lies, white supremacy, and broader conservative ideology embedded in the series and packaged in a more palatable way. We primarily focus on episode 6, “America’s Lost Civilization, and episode 8, “Cataclysm and Rebirth”. Send this episode to your friends to share a laugh, your MLM aunt to challenge the inappropriate “hot takes” she shares at family gatherings, or your worst enemies to tease them. 

If you are enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a rating, or supporting us on Patreon. You can also follow us on Twitter @UnlivablePod where we will be tweeting about other articles, news sources, and other forms of content that relate to each episode, or that we think are important to know about.

Sources:

https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2022/12/fitting-the-sky-to-the-ground-a-review-of-ancient-apocalypse-5-and-6/

https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2022/12/down-with-derinkuyu-and-the-scablands-scuttle-a-review-of-ancient-apocalypse-7-and-8/

https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2022/11/graham-hancocks-ancient-apocalypse-a-review-of-episode-one/

https://twitter.com/Ella_AlShamahi/status/1593902831865585664

https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1591863566273073154?s=20

Documentary about the astrological alignments between Great Houses in Chaco Canyon, mentioned briefly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6dEQ0QMdus

In today’s episode, Cody, Julia, and Clayton discuss the outcomes, manipulations, failures, and long-term impacts of COP27 and COP15, along with a multitude of topics surrounding the issue of climate change and environmentalism . They bring in the philosophy of French theorist Bruno Latour and others he has inspired, dissect that moment of dissent from the Democratic Republic of Congo at COP15, talk about the struggles of Indigenous activists under the Biden administration, and dig into how current approaches to climate change center humans and downplay the vitality of nature and our more-than-human kin.

Works referenced:

Bathsheba Demuth. 2019. Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/20/cop15-summit-drc-drops-objections-to-seal-deal-on-historic-action-on-biodiversity-aoe

David Graeber quote on how to create new organizing structures: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii13/articles/david-graeber-the-new-anarchists

Great Memorial about Bruno Latour from The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bruno-latour-obituary-science/

Half-earth project from the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation https://www.half-earthproject.org/

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/lack-funding-focus-congo-hosts-pre-cop27-climate-talks-2022-10-03/

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2012. The Radical Luhmann. Columbia University Press.

Nordensvard, Johan & Markus Ketola. “Populism as an act of storytelling: analyzing the climate change narratives of Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg as populist truthtellers.”, Environmental Politics, 31:5, 861-882, 2022. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2021.1996818

“I definitely write fan fiction of us three. … We break into an Anthropologie … take off the ‘ie’ and replace it with a ‘y’.” -Clayton

In this introduction episode, Julia, Clayton, and Cody provide a breakdown of the trailer, explain their backgrounds, tell some jokes, and share their motivations behind the podcast.

You can find our website at www.unlivablecultures.wordpress.com and our patreon at www.patreon.com/user?u=89403232

The trailer contains both snapshots of important issues and events that the podcast will cover as well as hints of ideas, social theories, and thinkers that we like to draw on in the podcast, such as Donna Haraway, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber.

You can find our website at www.unlivablecultures.wordpress.com and our patreon at www.patreon.com/user?u=89403232