Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist reporting for Italy's Il Fatto Quotidiano who has dedicated a large portion of her career to covering Julian Assange and Wikileaks, joins us to discuss her book Secret Power: Wikileaks and Its Enemies. The book details how Wikileaks related to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the War on Terror, diploma...

On this edition of Parallax Views, David Isenberg, a long time independent researcher into the subject of PMCs (private military companies) and PMSCs (private military and security companies) and bloggers at the Isenberg Institute of Strategic Satire , joins us to discuss his article "The Rise and Fall of the Mozart Group" . The Mozart Group was founded amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine...

On this edition of Parallax Views, controversial German-born filmmaker Uwe Boll has alternately been called "the world's worst director" , potentially "the most misunderstood filmmaker in the business" and a "legitimate auteur" , "a brutish bully inclined to lash out against his detractors" , "the only filmmaker interested in investigating the likelihood of a violent response to political powerles...

On this edition of Parallax Views, David Metcalfe, Santa Muerte researcher and Editor-in-Chief of Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies, joins us for a long, jam-packed discussion of the Morbid Anatomy online course he is teaching with Dr. Diana Pasulka entitled "Your Waking Nightmare: Exploring the UFO Through the Lens of Horror and Techno-Realism". The course will take a...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Joshua Frank, muckraking journalist extraordinaire and editor at Counterpunch, joins us to discuss his new book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America. Joshua tells the story of the Hanford, Washington's struggles with radioactive waste (which has led it to be dubbed "the most toxic place in America" by the EPA) and how, at a cost of $67...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Brazil's President, Lula da Silva, recently made a 48-hour visit to the United States and met with U.S. President Joe Biden. The-left-of-center politician from the Worker's Party recently defeated the controversial and right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's previous President, to achieve his third term in office. What can we glean from Lula's visit to Washington D.C...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Mel Gurtov, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Perspective, blogger at In the Human Interest, and author of Engaging China: Rebuilding Sino-American, joins us to discuss the 2023 Chinese Spy Balloon Incident aka #Balloongate that has further inflamed tensions between the U.S. and China. The incident caus...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Jared Yates Sexton, host of The Muckrake Podcast and author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, joins us to discuss his latest book The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis. In The Midnight Kingdom Jared delves into the lies, paranoia, mythologies, and pursuit of power the undergirds the far-r...

On this edition of Parallax Views, anthropologist David H. Price, author of Weaponizing Anthropology and Cold War Anthropology: Social Science in the Service of the Militarized State, returns to discuss his latest book The American Surveillance State: How the U.S. Spies on Dissent. The conversation begins with David H. Price discussing his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about interacti...

On this edition of Parallax Views, noted Portland, OR radio personality Rick Emerson joins us to discuss the wild story of the controversial anti-drug book Go Ask Alice as explored in his book Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposer Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries. In 1971, a book purporting to be the diaries of a teenage girl who fell into drug addiction through LSD swept the...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Joseph Fishkin, Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, joins us to discuss his new book, co-authored with William E. Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy. Oligarchy is a term often used when describing power players in countries like Russia. But what of the United States? And what can a look at t...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Richard Silverstein of the Tikun Olam blog returns to discuss the latest eruptions of violence in Israel/Palestine starting with the massacre in the Palestinian Jenin refugee and then the deadly attack on Israelis outside a Synagogue in East Jerusalem shortly thereafter. In addition to this, we talk about the anti-government protests in Israel against Netanyahu's...

On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made about the dark, harmful, deceptive, and negative ways which deepfake technology can be utilized as its usage becomes democratized in the coming years. From racists using the tech to make the black lead actress of Disney's upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid white to involuntary pornography and nudification apps, there are some noxious ways...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Ramon Glazov, whose articles have been featured in such publications as Jacobin and Overland Magazine, returns to the program to discuss the problematic elements of political philosophers Hannah Arendt's famous "Banality of Evil" hypothesis born out SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem after the Holocaust. Among the topics covered in this co...

On this edition of Parallax Views, scholar, international speaker, and Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, host of the Committing High Reason podcast, joins us to discuss his book The Empty Wagon: Zionism's Journey from Identity Crisis to Identity. Rabbi Shapiro is an opponent of Zionism from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. From his purview, Zionism represents a hijacking of Jewish identity or,...

On this edition of Parallax Views, economist, geopolitical financial expert, and investigative journalist Nomi Prins joins us to discuss her new book Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever. Nomi began her career in the world of finance and Wall Street working for Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Chase Manhattan Bank. Since then, however, she has...

On this edition of Parallax Views, the 1989 horror film Society has become a cult classic for it's wild mix of body horror, dark humor, satire of high society, and class warfare politics. Joining us to discuss that movie, as well as his work on other horror movies past and present, is the film's co-write Zeph E. Daniel. In the second hour, Zeph and I discuss his return to screenwriting with the 20...

On this edition of Parallax Views, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft's Ben Freeman returns to discuss his report  The Emirati Lobby in America and his upcoming report on Saudi lobbying in the United States. We begin the conversation by discussing the nature of the U.S./UAE relationship and the way the military, economics, and weapons sales figures into that relationship. We then delv...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Adult Swim, the late night programming block, followed up the Season 6 finale of the popular Rick and Morty with the Adult Swim Yule Log (aka The Fireplace). What started out as a seemingly ordinary yule log video quickly morphed into something more unexpected: a feature-length film. More precisely, a horror movie featuring a cavalcade of genre tropes including U...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Rey and Boris of the antifascist The Empire Never Ended podcast join the show to discuss the strange story of David Myatt and his neo-Nazi Satanist sect The Order of Nine Angles. For many years the O9A remained relatively obscure, only really known to people on the fringes of the occult/esoteric community. But it has gained notoriety more recently, along with the...

On this edition of Parallax Views, author, filmmaker, and TV producer Natasha Lance Rogoff joins us to discuss her new book Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia. Natasha was tasked with making the Russian version of Sesame Street, called Ulitsa Sezam, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The show faced many struggles as Russia was dealing with what it...

On this edition of Parallax Views, a previously locked to Patreon subscribers episode of the show. I spoke with Ryan Koch and Tyler Cornack about their absurdist horror-comedy Butt Boy and their series (now a movie) Tiny Cinema. Butt Boy follows an unassuming man who becomes addicted to making things disappear up his butt. When children go missing a detective slowly unravels the horrific secrets o...

On this holiday edition of Parallax Views, Youtuber, voice actor, and filmmaker Dave McRae joins the show this Christmas season to discuss the holiday (or is it anti-holiday?)  horror classic Black Christmas, his and Bruce Dale's Black Christmas fan film, and his upcoming appearance as Freddy Krueger in the Wes Craven's New Nightmare fan sequel Dylan's New Nightmare starring Miko Hughes (Wes Crave...

On this holiday edition of Parallax Views, Robbie Martin of Media Roots Radio and the documentary A Very Heavy Agenda returns to spread the holiday cheer of a Christmas classic... the 1984 Joe Dante/Steven Spielberg collaboration Gremlins! Yes, Gremlins is a Christmas movie, especially if Die Hard is considered a Christmas movie! It's a festive conversation about the little green monsters that ter...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Hassan El-Tayyab, Legislative Director for Middle East Policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, joins the show in the first segment to discuss the delay of the vote on the Yemen War Powers Resolution. For some years now Hassan has been at the front of the struggle to get Congress to act in ending the U.S. role in Yemen war vis-a-vis it's arms supp...