Left Anchor

Today we pose the question: how the heck did famed Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben turn into an anti-vaccine conspiracy nutcase? We've got Adam Kotsko, a leading Agamben scholar and translator of many of his works, on to discuss to what extent his goofball pandemic views emerge from his actual serious work. Enjoy! Check out Adam's Slate article on the topic here , as well as his books Neoliber...

This is the first half of our episode with journalist David Klion on the background of the Ukraine crisis. Check out the full episode here!

In this excerpt Phil talks about the weirdness of the norms of chivalry. Subscribe here to hear the whole thing !  Also don't miss his book How to Be Normal .

Today we've got economics professor Rob Larson back on the pod (see his previous episode here ) to talk about the bizarre state of the economy. The labor market is red hot, inflation is higher than in almost 40 years, and there are calls from the capitalist class to strangle the boom. We discuss whether Jerome Powell is going to pull a Paul Volcker on the labor market and what might be done to eas...

You can find the first part of the discussion with Jeff Spross here , or subscribe to hear the rest here , or check out Ryan's book here !

With the news of Justice Stephen Breyer retiring (and Ryan on vacation for the next week), we thought it would be a good opportunity to post this 2019 interview of Brian Fallon about his organization Demand Justice. Fallon is a longtime Democratic Party operative who nevertheless has become a pretty heated critic of the liberal legal establishment and an ardent advocate of Supreme Court reform. Th...

Ryan's book is finally out on January 25!! Called How Are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics , it's a book about political economy, how to break free of the mental stranglehold of neoliberalism, and how to fix up this jalopy country. (And then we've got a special guest at the end as well.) Ryan's doing a book launch event with David Dayen that you can chec...

Subscribe now to hear the whole episode ! Or you can pre-order Ryan's book here , or check out the launch event on January 25 here .

Today we are taking a look back at the January 6 putsch -- the total failure to prosecute any of the top organizers, above all Trump, how that has emboldened them to further extremism, how a segment of the left is weirdly naive about all this, and more. God help us all. Check out Osita Nwanevu's article here and Corey Robin's article here.

Subscribe now to hear the full episode!  

We're reposting our episode from last year discussing It's a Wonderful Life, one of our favorite films of all time, and one that has only grown in relevance compared to when we grew up watching it decades past. Enjoy, and we hope everyone has a nice holiday season!

In this preview, Harvey Kaye discusses Josh Hawley's bizarre new book. Subscribe now to listen to the whole thing !

Subscribe now to hear the whole episode!

Today we've got the authors of Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform on to discuss their book. We discuss some of the downsides of how criminal justice reform has been portrayed in popular media, in particular the downsides of the austerian logic that doing so will save the government money. Enjoy!

Subscribe now to hear the whole episode! Also don't miss Kate's book here .

Today we've got Smith College Assistant Professor of Government Erin Pineda on to talk about her book Seeing Like An Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement . We discuss how her work relates to the famous James Scott book Seeing Like a State, how civil disobedience really worked during the civil rights movement, how the movement against police brutality today has been sidetracke...

Subscribe now to listen to the whole episode ! And check out David's podcast series "Meltdown" here .

Subscribe now the hear the full episode !

Today we have Ashley Lucas on to talk about her essay " The End of Rage " about a man named Russell "Maroon" Shoatz. He was a Black Panther and political radical in the 1970s who ended up in prison for killing a police officer, despite a lack of any direct evidence he was the culprit, and later served over 22 years in solitary confinement after attempting to escape. He is now old and has terminal...

Subscribe now to hear the full episode ! Also, don't miss Alex's newsletter .

This time we've got philosopher David Livingstone Smith (last seen here on episode 165 ) to discuss his book Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization . We talk about the sources of dehumanizing ideology, what purpose it can serve politically, why even Heinrich Himmler couldn't take witnessing a massacre of Jews during the Holocaust, and more. Enjoy!

Subscribe now to hear the full episode!

After unlocking our episode about the January 6 putsch, Ryan is doing a quick follow-up on our episode with John Ganz from February. This time we're talking about Robert Paxton's book The Anatomy of Fascism in the context of Trump lawyer John Eastman's coup memo , and various aspects of current right-wing culture. Enjoy! Also check out the Adolph Reed essay mentioned here .

We're unfortunately delayed thanks to personal events so we're unlocking this one as a retrospective of our initial thoughts on the January 6 putsch. Tomorrow Ryan will have another episode on the fascism question, so stay tuned!

In this excerpt we make the case against sanctioning Afghanistan. To hear the full episode subscribe here !