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Literate Machine

Eric Rosenfield

Literate Machine explores media through the lens of culture, history, and politics, examining the ways capitalism, power, and ideology shape and are shaped by the stories we love.

Written and performed by Eric Rosenfield, Literate Machine is available as blog entries, newsletter, podcast, and YouTube channel.

Literate Machine is available on Apple Podcasts and finer podcast apps everywhere.

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  • 23 episodes
  • monthly
  • Avg 47 min
  • English
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • Aug 21, 2022 · 41 min

    Loki and How Conservatives Become Fascists

    Marvel's Loki shows us what fascism looks like, and how it comes to take root within innocuous conservatism. https://literatemachine.com https://Patreon.com/ericrosenfield Corrections: • Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Bros are not Jewish. Actual examples of Jewish funders of the right include Sheldon Adelson and Ike Perlmutter. I may upload a revised version of this audio with the names changed. • Malthus never directly said that the poor and unskilled should be liquidated, but he did oppose aid to the poor on the theory that they should be allowed to naturally die out if they were of no use to society in order to preserve resources. Interstitial music: "I Can't Stop" by Punch Deck | https://soundcloud.com/punch-deck Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US Bibliography and Further Reading David Brooks article on the foundations of conservatism: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/brooks-true-conservatism-dead-fox-news-voter-suppression/620853/?utm_source=feed George W. Bush says he looked in Putin's eyes and "saw his soul": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenia_Summit_2001 Mussolini on Totalitarianism and Fascism: http://www.historyguide.org/europe/duce.html "Ur Fascism", Umberto Eco Rich Scott wants to raise taxes on the poorest: https://news.yahoo.com/rick-scott-lies-tax-proposal-171630154.html 10% of Americans own 89% of the stock market: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.htmlRight-wing proposals to nationalize Facebook: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/bannon_proposes_nationalizing_facebook_google_data Laura Ingraham on punishing Disney: https://www.thewrap.com/laura-ingraham-disney-apple-republican-retaliation/ Texas arresting parents of trans kids: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/10/texas-trans-kids-abortion-lgbtq-gender-ideology/ Republicans allowed the Child Tax Credit to expire, throwing 3.7 million children into poverty: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/study-child-poverty-rising-tax-credit-expires-83071832 FDR achievements: https://fdrsuite.org/americas-greatest-presidents-franklin-delano-roosevelts-top-achievements-as-president/ Half of Americans are "not American in any meaningful sense": https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/ More than half of Republicans believe in Great Replacement Theory: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/nearly-half-republicans-agree-with-great-replacement-theory/ 77% of drug traffickers are US citizens, and come through ports of call: https://www.cato.org/blog/77-drug-traffickers-are-us-citizens-not-illegal-immigrants The border is not a "war zone": https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/not-war-zone-veterans-visit-texas-borderlands-military-outdoors-sierra-club Growing number of Republicans think Democracy is wrong for America: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/21/republicans-biden-trump-election-democracy GOP seizing the election system: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-01-01/insurrection-gop-seizes-election-power 401ks are a scam: https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses America's disappearing middle class: https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-the-future-well-all-be-renters-americas-disappearing-middle-class Peter Thiel's essay on how democracy is not compatible with freedom: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/ Republicans becoming anti-democratic in charts: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22274429/republicans-anti-democracy-13-charts More information on the Backfire Effect, where people dig into their beliefs when presented with contrary evidence: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2017/01/13/yanss-093-the-neuroscience-of-changing-your-mind/

  • Feb 23, 2022 · 18 min

    The Confused Ideology of Schitt's Creek

    How a show about poverty that can't ever bare to really show poverty illustrates everything we've been blind to. Support the show on Patreon and get early access to episodes and exclusive Authors Notes: https://patreon.com/ericrosenfield Text of the show and more information about other formats it's available can be found at: https://literatemachine.com Bibliography and Further Reading - Hallmark Christmas movie montage sourced from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vu6GlstKl8 - On the urban-rural divide of Christmas movies: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-24/the-urban-rural-divide-of-tv-christmas-movies - The TV Tropes entry for From New York to Nowhere: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FromNewYorkToNowhere - Ted Koppel's piece on The Andy Griffith Show and modern politics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/12/29/ted-koppel-mayberry-cbs-sunday-morning/ - A fascinating video that explains how the ethos of "personal responsibility" leads naturally to white nationalism: https://youtu.be/jmT7nLDinhY - How and why small towns are in decline: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html - How teen birth rates are higher in rural areas: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/teen-birth-rate-higher-rural-areas - On the myth of welfare dependency: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/welfare-childhood/555119/

  • Oct 12, 2021 · 24 min

    Defund the Paw Patrol

    Is the Paw Patrol an unintentional conservative utopia? What can the show tell us about how the political spectrum views the police, its purpose, and its funding. For as little as $1 an episode (going forward) you can get early access to episodes, as well as exclusive author's notes at Patreon.com/ericrosenfield. More information about the show and other formats in which it's available, including YouTube, can be found at https://literatemachine.com Bibliography and Further Reading How the regulations around tv shows as toy commercials were repealed in the Reagan administration How square dancing was popularized as a tool of white supremacy How EMTs are underpaid, overworked, and underrecognized About police officer Joe Crystal, shunned by police for trying to hold them accountable Wikipedia entry on the Blue Wall of Silence NYPD internal investigator called a "rat" Prosecutors don't like to prosecute cops Attorney General Letitia James plan for civilian oversight of the NYPD Police departments aren't largely being defunded Crime is rising in cities that did not defund their police the same as those that did How torture doesn't work About Abner Louima who was sodomized with a broken broomstick by the NYPD The great Forced Adversity video about the Punisher/Police Problem Some More News video about the Warrior Mentality training given to the police How congress buys equipment for the military that it doesn't want or need as pork barrel Study finding conservatives lack a sense of humor Last Week Tonight's video about Tucker Carlson and his lightly veiled fascism and even less well veiled white supremacy Edmund Burke and the origins of conservatism Conservatism defending the status quo The myth of meritocracy Book about how billionaires are funding the radical right: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer On prison labor in America The Thought Slime video that covers the video where John Doyle says that conservatives aren't about equality, they're about hierarchy and natural law Police will tell you to obey them if you value your life Republicans legalizing the automative murder of protesters Poor people can't just get a better job Why conservatives are more punitive than liberals The penal system as slave labor

Showing 21–23 of 23 episodes