Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, video games are a popular pastime at this point. From Halo to Super Mario Bros., video games have become become a juggernaut within the entertainment industry and remain hugely popular with people from various generations. As with other forms of entertainment it is possible to look at such video games as a reflecting pool for the culture from which they were prod...

  On this edition of Parallax Views, the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has proven a controversial figure within the hip hop scene. A master troll within the hip hop community, Tekashi69 became famouse after his sleeper hit track "Hummo" which features members of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods appeared in the music video for it. Tekashi would then become even more infamous when his NTG associates were buste...

  On this edition of Parallax Views, are the West's humanitarian interventions (or humanitarian wars) really waged for humanitarian purposes? Or is that just an Orwellian façade to cover-up for more strategic interests at play? Our guest labor and human rights attorney Dan Kovalik, author of No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Econom...

  On this edition of Parallax Views, modern wars in which the U.S. and Western powers invade nations like Iraq and Afghanistan are often waged under the pretext of being necessary "humanitarian interventions". Pro-peace activists and critics of U.S. foreign policy have long argued, however, that claims of "humanitarian intervention" are cover for more sinister motivations From this perspective, U....

  On this edition of Parallax Views, the Troubled Teen Industry offers parents a way to "fix" their rambunctious children by sending them to schools and programs that specialize in tough love behavior modification. It turns out, however, that the Troubled Teen Industry appears to do more harm than good, leaving a trail of destruction and abuse in it's wake. Jack Hodgson, the filmmaker behind the u...

  On this edition of Parallax Views, an excerpt from our Patreon program The Week That Was in which we celebrate the life and times of radio host Michael Brooks (1983-2020) of The Michael Brooks Show and The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder. J.G. shares a Michael story or two (Michael was on Parallax Views on three separate occassions) as well as explaining Michael's desire to lift others up using the...

  On this edition of Parallax Views, the coal industry may be dying, but the business refuses to go without taking others down with it. Case in point with the Appalachia regions of Amerca, which is simultaneously bombabrded with propaganda from the coal industry and fed false promises by the fracking industry. In the new documentary Hard Road of Hope, activist and artist Eleanor Goldfield examines...

  Mickey Huff of the media watchdog/media literacy group Project Censored returns to Parallax Views for a video chat about the project's latest works including the e-book compilation Censored News on Policing and Prisons and the documentary The United State of Distraction: Fighting the Fake News Invasion.   Links: https://www.projectcensored.org/ https://www.projectcensored.org/united-states-of-di...

  This is a repost Parallax Views Ep. 5 featuring Michael Brooks (1983-2020). The loss of Michael Brooks has hit a number of us very hard. As such I feel the need to repost this classic episode. This was recorded before I was technically proficient (which is to say that my audio comes in on one end and Michael's audio comes in on the other end; this caused problems for some listeners; but I am una...

  On this edition of Parallax VIews, fake news has been thrown about by both Republicans and Democrats since the 2016 election, but what does it mean? Nolan Higdon of Project Censored joins us to discuss his new book The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education. We begin how discussing how the term "fake news" gained popularity, how "fake news" is a reality beyond being a meme turn...

On this edition of Parallax Views, in these trying, some would say quasi-apocalyptic, times of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government jackboot coming down on citizens and activists the sci-fi genre seems like it could provide a lot of escapism. However, literary trends in sci-fi have moved towards a darker view of the future. Cynicism within literature has come to be seen as more "authentic". Bu...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Les Wexner, the founder of L Brands and former CEO of Victoria's Secrets, has come under scrutiny in the past year for his close association with the late billionaire pedophile "International Man of Mystery" Jeffrey Epstein. In some ways Wexner's association with the wealthy abuser can be considered the "Ohio Connection" to the sordid saga of Jeffrey Epstein. Law...

On this edition of Parallax Views, is there a connection between the rise of mass incarceration through what has been called the carceral state and elements of feminism? Aya Gruber says there is and joins us on this edition of the program to discuss her provocative new book The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in  Mass Incarceration. In this conversation we discuss:...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Western nations often speak about Putin and Russia in a way that would make two appear interchangeable. What if we were to view Russia beyond the lens of just seeing Putin though? That's what Tony Wood attempts to do in Russia Without Putin: Money, Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War (Verso; 2018). Among the topics covered in this conversation: - Red-baiting...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Tupac Shakur is without a doubt one of the most beloved rappers of all-time. A voice of the hip hop generation, Tupac's death remains shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories abound in its wake. Was it related to the gang war between the Bloods and Crips? Was it a revenge plot by Death Row Records' leader Suge Knight because the rapper sought to leave the...

On this edition of Parallax Views, a small but growing group of provocative scholar are leading an intellectual movement of thought known as Afro-pessimism. These scholars argue that there is not an easy way out of the hatreds and bigotries, specifically anti-blackness, which afflict our society. What does that line of thought entail? Is Afro-pessimism and idea that revels in resignation or a move...

In 2018 Parallax Views began delving into the sordid saga of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who had connections to various elite figures in high places included President Donald Trump, President Bill Clinton, former Victoria's Secrets CEO Leslie Wexner, and many others. This startling story ended up taking a new turn when Epstein was arrested and, shortly thereafter, found dead in his jail...

On this edition of Parallax Views, a roundtable discussion on Holocaust denial w/ Dr. Andrew E. Mathis (aka Thames Darwin) and our semi-regular correspondent Marlon Ettinger. Believe it or not, there are those who deny the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jewish people by Nazi Germany in the 20th century. Dr. Mathis, as an academic, has spent much time fighting against Holocaust denial. In fact,...

On this special 4th of July edition of Parallax Views, William Hogeland, author of the Wild Early Republic trilogy (The Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Autumn of the Black Snake) and Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation, joins us to give a different perspective on the U.S. founding fathers and the early days of the Republic. But, perh...

On this very special edition of Parallax Views, Ilyasah Shabazz , the third daughter of Malcolm X, joins us to discuss the legacy of her father, the work she has done to keep her father's memory alive (including her children's book Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Be Malcolm X), and her thoughts on the wave of protests that have followed the police killing of George Floyd. Ilyasah Shabazz on...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Slovenian philosopher and academic Slavoj Žižek is one of the world's foremost public intellectuals known for his wide breadth of work on a variety of topics including pop culture, Lacanian psychoanalysis, capitalism, the thinking of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, capitalism, left-wing politics, violence and Occupy Wall Street. Recently, however, h...

On this edition of Parallax Views, just a few short years ago the controversial psychologist and academic Dr. Jordan Peterson became internationally known for his strident crusade against the campus politics, political correctness, and "Social Justice Warrior". After his fame fully blossomed the professor turned his sights towards a quasi-messianic mission to save alienated young men from the thro...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Mike Africa, Jr. was born in prison. His parents, Debbie and Mike Africa, were one of 9 members of the Philadelphia-based radical liberation organization MOVE after a year long stand-off with police that ended in the death of an officer. MOVE stands by their claim that the police attacked them and that, in fact, they did not shoot the officer in question. Instead...

On this edition of Parallax Views, as the Saudi bombs fall on Yemen with the full support of the United States, protests over the police killing of George Floyd rage across the America and new cases of government misconduct arise as the National Guard is called in to quell dissent. Dave DeCamp of Antiwar. Com joins us to discuss both topics and how they relate to what the late public intellectual...

On this edition of Parallax Views, we return to the weird and wonderful world of Charles Band's Full Moon Features as filmmaker joins us to discuss his new movie Blade: The Iron Cross, a continuation of the beloved horror franchise The Puppet Master but this time focused solely on the most iconic puppet in the series. John joined us while babysitting his child during the conversation due to the co...