Red Menace

Breht and Alyson explore Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity , a foundational work of existentialist ethics that asks a deceptively difficult question: if there is no God, no predetermined human purpose, and no absolute moral order written into the universe, why shouldn't anything be permitted? They examine Beauvoir's understanding of ambiguity -- the strange condition of being finite, si...

In this episode Alyson and Breht enter the strange and unsettling world of Nick Land: Marx, Nietzsche, Delueze, cybernetics, accelerationism, and the possibility that capitalism is becoming something more than a human social system. For Land, techno-capital may be an inhuman process using humanity as a temporary vehicle - accelerating through markets, machines, computation, and artificial intellig...

Breht reads the speech he recently gave in-person at the 2026 Socialism Conference in Chicago. In the Speech, he analyzes the role of human subjectivity in revolutionary politics, explicates Che's argument in his famous essay "Socialism and Man in Cuba", articulates his notion of the Bodhisattva Revolutionary archetype, and argues in favor of Buddhist meditation as a potent and time-tested tool fo...

In this episode, Alyson and Breht examine the Trump administration's emerging campaign against what it calls "far-left terrorism." We begin with NSPM-7, the presidential directive encouraging federal agencies to investigate not only alleged political violence, but the organizations, funders, media networks, and ideological communities surrounding it. We then look at two distinct examples of this f...

Breht gives details on his upcoming speech and Q and A at the Socialism Conference in Chicago this September, the listener meet-up afterwards, and the patreon raffle for TWO FREE TICKETS! Check out the Socialism Conference HERE Join the Patreon for a chance to win free tickets and attend the meet-up HERE Learn more, follow us, get merch, and suppport the show HERE

Alyson and Breht reflect on recent Democratic Socialist electoral victories, the ongoing contradiction between the progressive left and the corporate center within the Democratic Party, the principled and strategic approach to this development that Marxists should take, the implications for the near future of american politics, what it all means for the broader socialist left in this country, prol...

In this episode, Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante join forces for a deep philosophical conversation on Marxism, consciousness, and the mind-body problem. Using China Miéville's essay on consciousness and materialism as a starting point, they explore why the nature of subjective experience remains such a profound challenge for crude or reductionist forms of materialism -- and why this question mat...

Alyson and Breht spend three hours answering your questions about politics, theory, socialist stragey and much more! Watch the video version on Youtube HERE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio  https://revleftradio.com/  

In this episode, Breht and Alyson sit down with Arlene Eisen to discuss her new memoir,  In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women . Eisen reflects on her political formation across the upheavals of the 1960s through the early 1980s, her encounters with Black liberation and anti-imperialist struggle, and the forgotten history of militant women who built relationships of solidarity across borders....

Alyson and Breht apply dialectical and historical materialist analysis to the current war of aggression in Iran. Together they break down the Marxist methodology into its three main parts - dialectics, materialism, and history - and showcase how they apply to the US and Israeli war on Iran, before bringing them back together into a coherent whole. Then they compare and contrast dialectical and his...

On this YT livestream (3/1/26) Alyson and Breht discuss the illegal war of aggression launched by the US and Israel against Iran. Throughout the discussion they take live questions from the chat. https://www.youtube.com/@revleftradio   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes:  www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Re...

Alyson and Breht discuss a range of current events, including Cuba, the Epstein Files, Iran and much more.  Make a donation to Socialist Night School via Venmo @OmahaNightSchool Outro Song: "to each their dot" by Haley Heynderickx & Max Garcia Conover

Breht discusses recent events in Minneapolis... ---------------------------------------------------------------------   Outro Music: Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover - Song For Alicia

In this Christmas special, Alyson and Breht reinterpret Jesus through Jewish mysticism, Christian contemplative traditions, and Buddhist conceptions of Enlightenment, offering an understanding of his teachings and words as attempts to articulate the ineffable and non-dual, rather than metaphysical propositions to be believed. Drawing heavily on the Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, the Christian conc...

This is a small snippet from a much larger patreon exclusive episode, which you can sign up for (and support the show in the process) here: www.patreon.com/revleftradio

Most people, even on the Left, only know fragments of Italy's "Years of Lead." This episode pulls the whole picture into focus: the mass worker upsurge after the boom years, the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, the rise of the Red Brigades, the kidnapping and execution of Aldo Moro, and the 1980 Bologna massacre. Alyson and Breht trace how far-right stragismo (mass bo...

Alyson and Breht analyze current events, including the ceasefire in Gaza and its implications, the newest round of US imperialist aggression against Venezuela, Regime Change aspirations in Iran and Venezuela, the absolutely horrific state of the American economy, the AI bubble, Free Speech, ICE raids, and more. Learn more about the show at https://revleftradio.com/  

In this episode, Alyson joins members of the Ultra-Red collective to discuss their recent trip to Central America where they learned first hand about popular education movements of the past and present. The discussion gets into the history of popular education, existing social movements in Central America today, and what we can learn from these movements in our organizing work. The journal of Ultr...

Alyson and Breht critically engage with the concept of "technofeudalism" from a Marxist (and thus historical materialist) perspective, analyzing its origin and recent popularity, critiquing its depoloyment and the implication that it represents a "new mode of production", explaining related concepts like rent-seeking, discussing the role of private equity in the modern American economy, the politi...

Alyson and Breht are guests on the Red Star Ministry Podcast , a Christian Communist outlet. Together with the host Christian, they discuss Alyson and Breht's evolving personal relationship with religion and atheism, the Dialectics of Nature and Human Consciousness, Spinozist Philosophy, Marxist Philosophy, Post-Atheism and much more.

In this episode of Red Menace , Breht and Alyson dive into Mao Zedong's pivotal 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People . This foundational text offers insight into Mao's dialectical approach to politics, particularly in navigating the complex terrain of class struggle within socialist society. Together they explore Mao's crucial distinction between antagonistic and...

Alyson and Breht record an emergency podcast on the current riots in LA, and resistance across the country, to mass deportations. Together they highlight recent events, discuss the function of mass deporations in a decaying capitalist system, analyze the spontaneous and militant community response, how terrorizing undocumented workers is a form of labor discipline, the fascist tactic of scapegoati...

In this episode, Alyson and Breht explore Friedrich Engels' Dialectics of Nature , a bold and underappreciated attempt to apply dialectical materialism to the natural sciences. Often dismissed or misunderstood, this unfinished work offers a sweeping view of reality - from physics and chemistry to evolution, human consciousness, and ecological breakdown - through the lens of Marxist philosophy. Tog...

This is small snippet from a much larger episode coming soon wherein Alyson and Breht cover Friedrich Engel's famous text "Dialectics of Nature", in which Engels argues for dialectical materialism as a scientifically grounded, philosophically rigorous, and holistic worldview—one that understands nature, society, and thought as deeply interconnected and constantly evolving. Find the clip used at th...

In this episode, Breht welcomes on Seth from Omaha Tenants United for an in-studio discussion about OTU's slate of recent successes organizing several tenant unions, and a subsequent new legal assault on the organization by the local landlord lobby. The legal implications of this attack are truly monumental for virtually all forms of organizing. They also discuss how landlordism is a feudal hangov...