Varn Vlog

  In this special episode, we are doing something a little different by introducing an urgent, concrete internationalist political project. We are joined by two representatives affiliated with RAIZ International. To protect the sensitive nature of their organizing on the ground, we have tailored this conversation to focus on their overarching strategic goals and material outlook without endangerin...

Why are public school budgets skyrocketing while student proficiency scores tank? How do districts artificially inflate graduation rates while leaving children entirely illiterate? In this episode of Varnblog, we sit down with Emmy award-winning investigative journalist Chris Papst to uncover the disturbing reality exposed in his new book, Failure Factory. For nearly a decade, Chris Papst and his...

This podcast and YouTube episode features an in-depth conversation with Anthony David Vernon, a philosopher and educator, exploring the intersection of disability studies, left-wing politics, and the systemic failures of accessibility in a post-pandemic world. The discussion challenges the "normative" framework of society, examining how both civic institutions and political movements oft...

In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with Sam Badger to explore the moral philosophy hidden within Marxian theory. While Karl Marx is famously derisive of "moralism," this discussion unpacks how his work actually outlines a robust "Ethics of Human Flourishing"—a vision of human liberation rooted in the realization of our creative and social potential beyond the constraints...

What did "materialism" actually mean to the ancients, and how does it differ from our modern scientific understanding? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Max Wade (Ph. D., Boston College) to bridge the gap between ancient Greek ontology and modern philosophical debates. We dive deep into the "weirdness" of ancient thought, exploring why the Stoics believed in physical gods a...

The working class is everywhere now. So why does it keep slipping out of view the moment we try to talk about power, strategy, and organization? We sit down with Marco from the Angry Workers Collective to dig into a question that quietly haunts modern labor politics: wage work has been universalized across the globe, yet movements get described with vague labels instead of clear class segments and...

Is American democracy broken, or is it just rigged? In this episode of VarmBlog, we sit down with Travis Misurell, founder of the Think: The Future is Now Coalition (Fink), to discuss a radical new framework for political engagement: moving beyond the traditional left-vs-right binary to an "Up vs. Down" perspective. We dive deep into the Digital Politics Hub (DP Hub), a materialist infra...

 In this episode of Varn Vlog, we welcome back British anthropologist and activist Dr. Chris Knight, author of Decoding Chomsky, to discuss the startling revelations surrounding Noam Chomsky’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. We go beyond the headlines to examine the deep-seated contradictions in Chomsky’s career, his historical ties to the military-industrial complex, and what these scandals me...

Approximately two years into the second Trump administration, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is at a critical crossroads. In this semi-annual check-in, we sit down with members of the Marxist Unity Group (MUG)—Cliff Connolly, Gene Allen, and Amy Wilhelm—to discuss the evolving landscape of American socialist politics. In this deep dive, our panel explores the significant shift followin...

You can learn a lot about the health of the left by asking one simple question: what happens when people disagree? We sit down with three organizers from Communist Unity to talk about building a mass communist party in Australia with open factions, democratic debate, and real programmatic unity and why that approach is so rare in practice. We trace their organizational roots through Socialist Alli...

Is our digital legacy the final frontier of storytelling? In this episode, we sit down with Miles Spencer, a serial entrepreneur, world traveler, and the founder of Reflecta AI. Spencer, who co-created the long-running PBS series Money Hunt, has dedicated his career to the power of narrative. Now, he is using artificial intelligence to bridge the gap between physical archives—like shoe boxes of ol...

Is it anthropology or a high-stakes hoax? In this episode of the Varn Vlog, we dive deep into the enigmatic life of Carlos Castaneda with author and visual artist Ru Marshall . Marshall’s expansive new biography, American Trickster (OR Books), unearths the startling reality behind the man who convinced the world he was apprenticed to a Yaqui sorcerer named Don Juan. We explore how Castaneda transi...

A lot of people can quote the right theory, wear the right shirt, and post the right meme. Then the moment arrives when you have to sit down with a coworker, ask what they need, and move them toward collective action and suddenly they vanish. We take on that tension by reading and reacting to the provocation “The Left-Wing Deadbeat,” using our own union organizing experience to separate what’s rea...

“Why does life feel poorer when the economy looks rich?” That question drives our talk with Hungarian-born creator and entrepreneur Matt Borka, who has lived and worked across the West, Eastern Europe, and Asia and who tracks real-world conditions through labor data, incentives, and what he sees inside marketing and online business. We start with the growing sense of Western decline and quickly la...

In Part 6 of our series "From Dawn to Decadence," we examine the intellectual trajectory and eventual "decay" of the Aufheben collective. This episode explores the group's early contributions to Marxist theory, their critique of the state, and the internal contradictions that led to their decline. We dive deep into the specific criticisms leveled by the Aufhebung Collectiv...

Romanticism gets treated like a synonym for nostalgia, and German Idealism gets shrunk to a few brand-name thinkers. We push back on both habits by talking with Christopher Satoor, a York University doctoral candidate and founder of the Young Idealist series, about what really happens when philosophy, poetry, art, and science collide in Jena. Schelling sits at the center of that collision. We dig...

Join hosts as they dive deep into the complexities of modern French politics with guest Henry Wallace. This episode explores the concept of the "new municipalism" and the strategic efforts of the La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) movement to reclaim local governance. From the legacy of the Yellow Vests protests to the innovative use of digital organizing tools, the discussion provides...

What happens when “march separately, strike together” meets real history? We dive into the tangled story of the United Front—where it came from, how it changed, and why its results ranged from lifeline to dead end. Starting with Marx and the First International and running through the Second International’s fights over ministerialism, we track Trotsky’s 1921 thesis, the KPD’s open letter strategy,...

What if the real story of American education isn’t test scores or culture wars, but air you can breathe, roofs that don’t leak, and the invisible money pipes that decide who gets both? We sit down with David I. Backer, associate professor of education policy and author of As Public as Possible, to follow the cash from property taxes to Wall Street and back again—and to sketch a better way forward....

What if the real engine of socialist history wasn’t just theory, but teaching? We sit down with historian Edward Baring to trace a vivid, often-misread story: Marxism as a mass educational project designed to turn scattered grievances into class consciousness. From best-selling primers that outsold Capital to study circles in factories and party schools, we unpack how organizers taught at scale—an...

A century ago, philosophy split its seams. Cambridge’s revolt against British Hegelianism promised “clarity,” Vienna’s scientific modernism tried to rebuild from scratch, and postwar America professionalized it all while quietly erasing the politics that once burned at the core. We invited Christoph Schuringa, editor of Hegel Bulletin and author of A Social History of Analytic Philosophy and Karl...

Politics keeps offering us drama in place of design. We sat down with Nicholas D. Vairo to chart how the post-liberal moment slid from grand promises into a Bonapartist reality: a leader-first spectacle with no plan to build or maintain the institutions that make a society work. The core insight isn’t just about ideology; it’s about capacity. Professional elites still run what functions, for bette...

What if “reindustrialization” delivers fabs, data centers, and subsidies—but not the jobs? We sit down with Marxist geographer Phil Neel to unpack Hell World, a sweeping account of how deindustrialization, gigified services, and AI deskilling have rewired the global labor map. Drawing on years of on-the-ground research and a panoramic read of supply chains, Neel explains why factories employ far f...

What if the most consequential “Marxist” of a generation refused to call himself one—and was more consistent for it? We dive into Immanuel Wallerstein’s intellectual journey, from C. Wright Mills’s classrooms to African political movements and a close reading of Fanon, to the long durée horizons inspired by Fernand Braudel. Along the way, we unpack how world‑systems analysis took shape against mod...

Coalitions promise power, but what if they mostly deliver blame? We dig into the sharp difference between a United Front and a Popular Front, trace their roots from the Second International through the Comintern, and confront the hard history behind antifascist coalitions in France, Italy, and Spain. Along the way, we separate romance from results: Allied armies defeated fascism; Popular Front cab...