Zero Books: Advancing Conversations

Michael Tracey is a freelance journalist who has written for publications including VICE, The Daily Beast, The American Conservative, and The Guardian and he was formerly a reporter for TYT. Tracey is also a member of a small set of leftish Russia collusion skeptics. He’s on the list that includes Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Aaron Mate along with a few others. In this podcast we discuss the Mueller Report, the Barr letter, the Russia collusion investigation, and the failure of most journalists to be skeptical and consistent enough since 2016.

I want to say that I’m aware that many people feel as though we won’t know the truth about Trump’s involvement with Russia until after the Mueller report is released to the public. My feeling is that whatever is in that report, it’s clear that the idea that Trump conspired with Russia to fix the election is no longer viable. It’s a dead end politically, and maybe even a counterproductive if we want to protect democratic institutions and civil liberties.

This week’s podcast is available in full for our patrons. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. At the moment we have 587 patrons. When we reach 600 patrons we’ll introduce a new series of patron only videos tentatively entitled Communism 101.

Benjamin Lain (@chickenfrend) is an undergraduate math and computer science student at the University of Oregon, a member of the U of O’s YDS chapter, and my oldest son. This week he joins me to discuss Marx’s theory of Value, David Harvey, and an essay by professor Mark Worrell entitled “A Faint Rattling: A Research Note on Marx’s Theory of Value.” This is the first half of the conversation. The second half will be released in two weeks time. Both podcasts will be available in full for our patreon supporters.

This week’s podcast is available in full for our patrons. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. At the moment we have 575 patrons. As is typical we lost a few supporters at the end of last month. When we reach 600 patrons we’ll introduce a new series of patron only videos tentatively entitled Communism 101. This series will be based on a close reading of a 1970 book entitled “Communism” and written by the American professor Emile B. Ader as well as on research inspired as I summarize, critique and refute aspects of Ader’s book. I’m really eager to get started on this series and will make the audio from these videos available for free as audio podcasts on this RSS feed. Help me get started. Also our patrons get invites to both our Capital Volume One discussion streams and, if you donate $15 or more, you’ll receive a new electronic Zero Books title every month along with an invite to discuss it.

Derick Varn continues his conversation withTad Tietze about anti-politics. Tietze blogs at Left Flank, tweets as @Dr_Tad, and has a book coming out from Verso books.

From an essay by Tietze and Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the Illusions of Neoliberalism

We live in anti-political times. After a twentieth century in which Western societies experienced the rise and entrenchment of mass representative institutions, where hundreds of millions of people accepted that politics was the main way to have their social interests advanced, these arrangements have ever more obviously fallen into disrepair, decay and even frank breakdown.

Part Two of this conversation is available, in full, for our supporters on patreon.

Adam Proctor is the host of the Dead Pundits society and the guest on this week's episode of the Zero Squared podcast. Adam and I discuss just what a social democrat looks like, the base vs. superstructure split, crass economism, and today's socialism.

This week’s podcast is available in full. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. At the moment we have 572 patrons. When we reach 600 we’ll introduce a new series of patron only videos tentatively entitled Communism 101.

Derick Varn talks to Tad Tietze about anti-politics. Tietze blogs at Left Flank, tweets as @Dr_Tad, and has a book coming out from Verso books.

From an essay by Tietze and Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the Illusions of Neoliberalism

We live in anti-political times. After a twentieth century in which Western societies experienced the rise and entrenchment of mass representative institutions, where hundreds of millions of people accepted that politics was the main way to have their social interests advanced, these arrangements have ever more obviously fallen into disrepair, decay and even frank breakdown.

Part One of this conversation is available on the public feed. Part Two will be available on for our supporters on patreon.

Andrew Wallis is a freelance journalist, academic, and author, and a leading expert in the African Great Lakes Region, especially Rwanda. His previous book, "Silent Accomplice: The role of France in the Rwandan genocide' was praised as a 'damning new book' by the New York Review of Books, and his new book Stepp’d in Blood is due out next month from Zero Books.

This week’s podcast is available in full for our patrons. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. At the moment we have 583 patrons. When we reach 600 we’ll introduce a new series of patron only videos tentatively entitled Communism 101.

This week's Symptomatic Redness is available in full for our Patreon supporters.

The co-founder of the “Evolving Media Network” media collective, author of the novel Join My Cult! (published by New Falcon Press) and the founder of the band Babalon. His nonfiction work includes works of philosophy, mysticism, myth, and psychology and his first full length nonfiction book is entitled Narrative Machines. Derick Varn and Jamie Curcio discuss far right or fascist aesthetics, chaos magic, Heidegger, Mishima, and David Bowie.

"I didn't even know if there was a direct connection between Mishima and Bowie when I started."

Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week.

Michael Brooks is the host of the Michael Brooks Show, the co-host of the Majority Report with Sam Seder, and a soon to be author here at Zero Books. In this episode Michael Brooks discusses Bolsonaro’s Brazil and what promises to be a torturous 2020 US presidential campaign.

This week’s podcast is available in full. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. At the moment we have 572 patrons. When we reach 600 we’ll introduce a new series of patron only videos tentatively entitled Communism 101.

C Derick Varn continues his conversation with Ed Simon. Ed Simon is an editor at Berfrois, a British magazine of “Literature, Ideas, Tea,” and a staff writer at The Millions, which the New York Times has called the “indispensable literary site.” Simon is also the author of "America and Other Fictions" from Zero Books.

The conversation begins with Derick explaining the American Southern Left and their alienation, but quickly moves on to the significance of the 2016 American presidential election, Ta-Nehisi Coates, whether race or economics were most significant in 20016, and the way in which the political chattering classes cynically frame questions, white Evangelicals, the DSA, and so on and so on...

Peter Hudis is a professor of the humanities and philosophy at Oakton Community College and a member of the IMHO or International Marxist Humanist Organization and in this episode of the Zero Books podcast we attempt to discuss the idea that African Americans are the vanguard of revolutionary socialism but pretty quickly get stuck discussing just how or whether the racial categories that are have arisen historically and are familiar to us today are intrinsic to capitalism as a mode of production.

This week’s podcast is available in full for our patrons. Our Patreon supporters get access to two podcasts every week: Symptomatic Redness and Zero Squared, but if you’re listening on our free feed you’ll always be able to access one or the other podcasts each week. I hope you enjoy them.