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Varn Vlog

C. Derick Varn

Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.

 

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  • Avg 1 hr 42 min
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  • S2 · E101
    Thursday · 1 hr 50 min

    Egypt After The Revolution with Hossam el-Hamalawy

    Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed Egyptian journalist, activist, and labor historian Hossam el-Hamalawy to discuss his vital text out from Verso Books, Counter-Revolution in Egypt: State and Barracks. A common mistake among Western commentators is to view the regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a simple replication of the old Mubarak-Sadat dictatorship. El-Hamalawy lays bare why this historical framing is fundamentally wrong: counter-revolutions do not restore old orders. They construct entirely new, hyper-militarized legal and security systems designed explicitly to correct the structural vulnerabilities that allowed the original popular revolts to happen. In this interview, we break down the explicit mechanics of Egypt’s Second Republic: The Transition from Coup-Proofing to Unified Repression: How the First Republic fragmented its intelligence agencies, police, and military to prevent top-down military coups. We explore why Sisi inverted this baseline, creating a hyper-centralized, coordinated security matrix designed entirely around the dominant perceived threat of popular working-class unrest. The Civilian Corporate Monopoly: How the Egyptian military has completely captured the domestic civilian economy. We analyze why military-owned firms—selling everything from honey and furniture to real estate—enjoy absolute immunity from taxes and tariffs while utilizing conscripted soldiers as a hyper-exploited, cheap labor pool to choke out private capital. The Gulf ATM and Sovereign Assets: How Sisi leveraged European fears of black and brown refugee migration to secure multi-billion-dollar western block grants and weapons contracts. We track how the UAE and Saudi Arabia acted as a financial backstop for counter-revolution, until shifting their strategy to aggressively eat up Egypt's core logistical assets, ports, and prime real estate in exchange for debt lifelines. The Imperial Boomerang: Why the highly militarized surveillance systems tested on Arab populations are inexorably boomeranging back into the domestic borders of the United States and Europe to crush civil liberties and local climate actions. The lesson of the Arab Spring remains clear: you cannot conquer an imperial apparatus through localized, reformist abstractions. Hossam el-Hamalawy's State and Barracks Substack is available now. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E100
    September 14 · 1 hr 20 min

    What Happens To Class Politics In A Service Economy with Annie McClanahan

    Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by Dr. Annie McClanahan (Associate Professor of English at UC Irvine) to discuss her groundbreaking book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work. While some spaces on the internet are still stuck rehashing old 19th-century debates about whether service workers even count as part of the working class, our current economic reality shows that services account for 60% to 80% of the entire workforce. The standard, hourly guaranteed wage that we treat as a permanent fixture of capitalism was actually just a brief 20th-century historical anomaly tied to the rise of mechanized assembly lines. In this episode, we trace how capital today is returning to sub-wage, piece-rate, and platform tasks to squeeze marginal productivity out of a stagnant economy. We lay bare the explicit mechanics of modern labor exploitation: The Tipping Subversion: How tips function as an algorithmic tool for enforced self-management while systematically offloading the fixed and variable capital burdens of a business directly onto consumers. Algorithmic Workplace Surveillance: Tracing the history of tracking from long-haul trucking to modern delivery apps. We expose how workers are disciplined, black-boxed, and deprioritized by digital parameters that mask raw domination as individual flexibility. The Precariat Fallacy: Why insecure, independent contractor status isn't a uniquely modern phenomenon, but rather the default historical mode of proletarian employment dating back to 18th-century domestic service laws. Bargaining for the Common Good: Why service stoppages among teachers, nurses, and hospitality workers carry immense regional leverage because they disrupt social reproduction, forcing a complete rethink of class consciousness. We also explore the qualitative landscape of the service economy by looking at unique cultural texts, from trashy reality TV shows that expose the performative nature of emotional labor to underpaid Amazon Mechanical Turk workers writing poetry for conceptual art. Dr. Annie McClanahan's book, Beneath the Wage, is out now from Zone Books. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E99
    September 10 · 1 hr 58 min

    Green Politics After The AI Boom with James of Prole Kult

    Welcome back to VarnVlog. Today, we are joined by James of Prole Kult for an extensive, two-hour interrogation of eco-socialist strategy, environmental geopolitics, and the escalating ecological costs of the modern tech economy. Our theoretical baseline is his essential text out from Iskra Books, For the Land: Capital as Extinction. We confront a terrifying contemporary reality: under the spectacular weight of the large language model (LLM) and generative AI revolution, large swaths of the global public and political left have effectively abandoned any critical concern regarding climate change. Instead of analyzing the raw physical variables of resource extraction, data center expansion, and soil degradation, public discourse has completely fractured into online new-age conspiracism or marketized techno-optimism. James breaks down the material realities of this green impasse: The AI Energy Bomb: We expose the local and global destruction driven by hyperscale data centers. We map out the footprint of data hubs planned for semi-arid Western basins—projects requiring double the power grid of entire states while dumping immense thermal heat near fragile snowpack reserves and running on non-renewable natural gas pipelines. The Deforestation of Renewables: We slice through the sanitized lifecycles of green tech. James presents the raw data on rare mineral strip-mining from Bolivia to the Amazon, and tracks how the massive global demand for wind turbine blades drove illegal timber logging, cross-border smuggling, and intense indigenous dispossession across Ecuador's Pastaza province. The Degrowth vs. Eco-Modernist Fetish: We deliver a sharp critique of both dominant wings of modern eco-socialism. We unpack why the ecomodernism of Matt Huber and Leigh Phillips collapses into a technocratic, productivist fantasy that ignores how technology is structurally engineered under capital. Conversely, we challenge the popular degrowth frameworks of Kohei Saito and Jason Hickel—exposing how their horizontal "municipal commons" formulas function as an academic, petty-bourgeois retreat that evades the central question of state power and land nationalization. The Cuban Precedent: Why Cuba remains the only historical example of an agroecological transition executed at a national scale—and what its structural struggles with urban migration and resource blockades can teach us about real-world survival. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E98
    September 7 · 2 hr 31 min

    Trade Wars As Social Wars with Benjamin Studebaker

    Welcome back to the vlog. Today, we are staging an exhaustive, macro-analytical conversation with political theorist and author Benjamin Studebaker to unpack his recent landmark intervention in Isonomia Quarterly: "Trade Wars or Social Wars?" While modern political commentators treat the rising economic friction between the United States and its Western allies as a series of isolated commercial disputes, Studebaker argues that these tensions are deeply structural. Ever since successive U.S. administrations (from Obama to Trump and Biden) deliberately disabled the World Trade Organization by blocking appointments to its appellate body, the rules-based international order has fragmented into raw bilateral coercion. Under the second Trump administration, this geopolitical strangulation has accelerated. Allies are being forced to subsidize the U.S. military-industrial base and domestic shale oil industry by purchasing overpriced American weapons and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Paradoxically, European leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer are selling this massive defense buildup to their domestic publics as a triumph of "European autonomy" from a volatile United States. In reality, Studebaker exposes this "Euro-Gaullism" as a complete illusion: it actively Americanizes the European continent by forcing states to gut their social welfare programs to accommodate defense spending, keeping them trapped inside the NATO command structure. We recontextualize this crisis using an ancient historical framework: The Roman Social War. Unlike a civil war (fought among citizens) or a war of national independence, a social war is fought between a dominant empire and its own allies to reconfigure the legal and standing terms of their integration. We apply this structural lens to the major flashpoints of 2026: The Global Imbalance of Capital: Utilizing the insights of Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein (Trade Wars Are Class Wars), we track how global systemic friction is driven by states hyper-optimized for production (like China suppressing domestic wages) relying on consumers of last resort (the highly financialized, debt-leveraged United States). The Autarky Illusion: Why modern progressive demands for deep-green decoupling or monetary "money printing" (MMT) operate as dangerous, inward-looking hallucinations that ignore the thermodynamic realities of global supply chains and international court constraints. The Death of Left Populism: A critical post-mortem on why municipal socialist experiments—from Zohran Mamdani in New York City to Brandon Johnson in Chicago—fundamentally flatline when confronting the hard borders of the municipal bond and real estate markets. Benjamin Studebaker's books, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy and Legitimacy and Liberal Democracies, are out now in affordable paperback from Edinburgh University Press. Challenge the localized delusions, map the world system, and protect your peace. Link: https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2026/06/03/trade-wars-are-social-wars/ Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E97
    September 7 · 1 hr 32 min

    Maoism Without The Myths with Black Red Guard

    Welcome back to the blog. Today, we are staging an uncommon but necessary conversation to slice through the amateurishness of internet leftist subcultures. We are joined by Chris—better known online as Black Red Guard (BRG)—a prominent Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) political educator and active cadre inside the St. Louis chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). To the average onlooker, the word "Maoism" conjures images of uncritical support for Deng Xiaoping's reforms, Xi Jinping, or the state-capitalist dynamics governing the modern People's Republic of China. BRG clears the deck, separating true, scientifically tested MLM from contemporary "Dengist" revisionism. He tracks how Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was actually formalized after Mao's death, growing out of the material lessons of global third-world insurgencies and the anti-imperialist vanguard of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. In this interview, we break down the core pillars of the mass line and revolutionary strategy: The Universality of Contradiction: Why class struggle doesn't magically evaporate during the socialist construction process. We explore how a new, insular corporate bourgeoisie can easily gestate within a revolutionary party that controls the commanding heights of the state apparatus. The Cadre Standard vs. Discord Vibe Culture: BRG delivers a fierce critique of modern internet "socialist" behavior. Drawing on historical anecdotes—from Fred Hampton reading theoretical texts for two hours before brushing his teeth, to the physical accountability of face-to-face community work—he contrasts a real, disciplined cadre with atomized edgelords shitposting on Twitter. A Critical Supporter of Zohran Mamdani: We apply this structural lens to the modern "Mamdani moment" in New York. While extending critical support, BRG analyzes why the NYC DSA set its executive darling up to fail by prioritizing top-down electoral brand management over baseline working-class leverage. We parse out why an isolated progressive executive will always get wrapped, tied, and tangled by the long-sighted, financialized vetoes of the bourgeoisie. The Realities of Global Exploitation: From the brutal, US-trained origins of Los Zetas in Mexico to the sugar riots under the Al-Sisi regime in Egypt, BRG reminds us of the stark material chasm between the sanitized lifestyle anxieties of the imperial core and the bloody sacrifices required to achieve true human emancipation. Marxism is a science of social practice tested in the grand laboratory of history—not an aesthetic hand puppet for online self-delusion. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E96
    September 3 · 1 hr 43 min

    Education, Literacy, and the Limits of Reform with Freddie deBoer

    Five years after their initial discussion, we are back with Freddie DeBoer—author of The Cult of Smart and the upcoming book All in Your Head—to revisit the state of American education. In this episode, we move beyond the usual pundits' talking points to address the material and institutional realities facing schools today. From the uniform decline in literacy scores globally to the complex economics of "cost disease" in special education, we explore why most modern reform efforts are failing to meet the actual challenges of the system. Key Discussion Points: The Literacy Crisis: Why reading scores are declining internationally and why standard "reforms" often prove delusional. The Myth of Educational Intervention: Challenging the belief that schools can fully overcome socioeconomic disparities and why academic aptitude remains remarkably static over a lifetime. The Cost Disease & Bureaucracy: How the expansion of administrative apparatuses, driven by compliance mandates (like the ADA) and state oversight, has bloated costs without improving outcomes. The Special Education Dilemma: Addressing the ballooning cost of special education and the perverse incentives created by a system that requires a "diagnosis" for students to receive basic resources. The Future of the "College for All" Model: Why the assumption that every student must pursue higher education is breaking down in an economy that no longer offers a reliable industrial path for those who don't. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E95
    August 31 · 1 hr 37 min

    Policing American Slavery: How the Slave Power Weaponized Society and the State with Gautham Rao

    How did the legal machinery of early America enforce human bondage? Dr. Gautham Rao joins the channel to discuss his book Policing American Slavery and the state's role in hunting fugitives. In this episode, we challenge the popular narrative that early American governance was weak, decentralized, or defined by "minimal state" intervention. Sitting down with legal historian and Law and History Review editor-in-chief Dr. Gautham Rao, we trace how the necessity of protecting property in human beings forced the federal government to build a highly robust, coercive, and thoroughly modern police apparatus. We break down the immense administrative strain of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Clauses of 1793 and 1850. Far from an ideological commitment to "states' rights," Southern politicians consistently demanded massive expansions of centralized federal power to override local Northern personal liberty laws. From the complicity of commercial northern ports to the brutal reality of custom houses and federal marshals, discover how the legal structures of the antebellum era laid the foundational blueprints for the development of modern American policing, surveillance, and state overreach. Read Dr. Gautham Rao's book: Policing American Slavery: The Machinery of Expulsion in the Atlantic World. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E94
    August 24 · 1 hr 20 min

    Rewriting Columbus From The Taino View with Andrew Rowen

    Why does mainstream history completely erase the stories of the Indigenous leaders who actively fought back against European conquest? How did the fluid, complex politics of the Caribbean reshape global history long before the fall of the Aztecs and Incas ? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with historical researcher and novelist Andrew Rowen to explore the unsparing, bicultural reality of ground zero in the Americas. Andrew Rowen has spent over a decade parsing through dense anthropological records and reading between the lines of heavily biased Spanish primary sources to reconstruct the authentic perspective of the Taino people. In this deep-dive conversation, Andrew illuminates the life of Anacaona—a shrewd, competent ruler, poetess, and the first female Native American chieftain to resist the Spanish conquest. We explore her brilliant and tragic political strategies of separate coexistence, tracking how her chiefdom leveraged food logistics and made uneasy alliances with Spanish mutineers to stave off total annihilation. We also turn the lens toward the European side of the equation, dissecting the conflicting motivations of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella. Rowen traces Isabella’s internal journey of conscience regarding the enslavement of her Indigenous "vassals," , contrast to the craven extraction methods of the commoner conquistadors who disobeyed her orders to establish the roots of centuries-long forced labor networks like repartimiento and encomienda. Finally, we confront the raw data behind the catastrophic Indigenous population collapse—sorting through the realities of forced gold mining slavery and the merciless spread of European diseases like smallpox and typhus . If you want an objective, unromanticized framework for how the transatlantic world was truly forged, this bicultural breakdown is an absolute must-watch. Explore Andrew Rowen's acclaimed historical novel series (Encounters Unforeseen, Columbus and the Caonabó, and Isabel Anacaona and Columbus's Demise) on AndrewRowen.com! Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E93
    August 17 · 2 hr 10 min

    Geopolitics of the Data Economy: Tech Monopoly, Neoliberalism, Resource Wars with ProleKult

    Why are tech monopolies quietly building massive, "war-eating" data centers in global deserts? How does the infrastructure of artificial intelligence directly intersect with resource imperialism, greenwashing, and active combat zones? In this episode of Varn Vlog, James of Prole Kult fame joins us to unpack the terrifying realities of the modern geopolitical and tech economy. We kick off the conversation with a critical look at the stark environmental and spatial trade-offs of the digital age. From the accursed, floating isles of the UK to the arid deserts of the American West, tech oligarchs are accelerating a resource-extraction blueprint that threatens local ecosystems. James breaks down the material underpinnings of the AI bubble, explaining how immense computational demands require unprecedented amounts of water, electricity, and land, driving a new wave of localized climate strains and energy centralization. Moving beyond infrastructure, we dive into the dark alignment between big tech logistics, state power, and global conflicts. We trace how military occupations and modern surveillance networks are increasingly trial-tested on marginalized populations before being automated and scaled globally. James also highlights powerful counter-narratives of resistance, detailing the profound human cost of ongoing blockades, historical violence, and the generational struggle for liberation. Whether you are trying to understand the macroeconomic traps of corporate tech monopolies or seeking an unsparing analysis of how digital architecture enforces modern imperial hegemony, this raw and wide-ranging discussion is an essential guide. ✨ Check out the Prole Kult channel for deep-dive video essays exploring history, technology, and global political economy! Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E92
    August 13 · 1 hr 27 min

    Brandon Lightly on the Mass LIne and New Democracy, Part 2

    In part two of our deep dive into China (and part four of our socialist organization series), we break down how Mao attempted to dialectically sublate a national front and a united front. We explore the structural inclusion of the "patriotic national bourgeoisie" into the block of four classes (symbolized by the stars on the Chinese flag) and contrast it with classical Soviet developmental theory and orthodox Marxism. We also dive into: - The historical debate between Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Lenin, and Trotsky. - Why modern "Hoxhaists" and Left Communists consider New Democracy to be revisionist. - The evolution of class structures under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" doctrine (allowing billionaires into the Party). - The reality of modern China's development: Is it a transitioning socialist project, or an hyper-competent form of state capitalism and developmental liberalism? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for Episode 5, where we pivot to National Frontism and National Bolshevism. Journal Articles Dirlik, A. (1970). The ideological foundations of the Chinese Revolution. Journal of Contemporary History, 5(3), 39–54. Dittmer, L. (1977). Line struggle: Notes on its organizational context and theoretical development. Modern China, 3(3), 303–312. Fogel, J. A. (1980). Ai Siqi, establishment intellectual by Joshua A. Fogel. Modern China, 6(1), 23–47. Hammond, E. R. (1978). Marxism and the mass line [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Korolev, A. (2017). De-ideologized mass line, regime responsiveness, and state-society relations. China Review, 17(2), 7–36. Lyman, S. V. (1970). The Chinese Communist Party in the United Front, 1937–1945 [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Mazur, M. G. (1995). The United Front of the 1940s: A social and cultural perspective. Modern China, 21(4), 431–456. Selden, M. (1971). The Yenan Way in revolutionary China. The China Quarterly, (45), 263–294. Steiner, H. A. (1951). Current mass line tactics in Communist China. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 277(1), 422–436. Teiwes, F. C. (1978). The origins of rectification: Inner-party purgation in the 1930s. The China Quarterly, (74), 181–201. Tokuda, N. (1971). The mass line during the Yenan period. The China Quarterly, (47), 1–18. Townsend, J. R. (1967). Political participation in Communist China. University of California Press. Womack, B. (1980). The phase of de-Maoization in China. China Report, 16(1), 7–21. Womack, B. (1991). Mao Zedong and the sinification of Marxism. The China Quarterly, (126), 1–15. Young, G. (1980). On New Democracy and the transition to socialism. Modern China, 6(1), 3–22. Books & Primary Sources Coble, P. M. (2023). The collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek lost China’s civil war. Cambridge University Press. Elbaum, M. (2018). Revolution in the air: Sixties radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. Verso Books. Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. Karl, R. E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world: A concise history. Duke University Press. Li, H. (2024). Fighting on the cultural front: U.S.-China relations in the Cold War. Columbia University Press. Lin, C. (2019). Mass line. In C. Sorace, I. Franceschini, & N. Loubere (Eds.), Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political concepts from Mao to Xi (p. 122). ANU Press. Lovell, J. (2019). Maoism: A global history. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Lowe, D. M. (1966). The function of "China" in Marx, Lenin, and Mao. University of California Press. Mao, Z. (1940). On New Democracy. Marxists Internet Archive. Mao, Z. (1977). A critique of Soviet economics. Monthly Review Press. Moufawad-Paul, J. (2016). Continuity and rupture: Philosophy in the Maoist terrain. Zero Books. Schram, S. R. (Ed.). (2005). Mao’s road to power: Revolutionary writings 1912–1949: Vol. VII. New Democracy, 1939–1941. M.E. Sharpe. Zheng, Q. (Ed.). (2020). An ideological history of the Communist Party of China (Vol. 2) (L. Sun & S. Bryant, Trans.). Royal Collins Publishing Group. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E91
    August 10 · 2 hr 25 min

    Writing and Revolution: Cultural Production vs. Neoliberal Aesthetics with Sudip Bhattacharya

    How does ruling-class hegemony quietly dictate the boundaries of our creative imagination? Can art still serve as a weapon for genuine political transformation, or has it been entirely neutralized by capitalist realism? In this episode of Varn Vlog, regular guest Sudip Bhattacharya returns to dissect the profound relationship between literature, cultural production, and power. We begin the conversation by addressing contemporary cultural blockages before zooming out to analyze the structural landscape of modern storytelling. Drawing from deep Marxist theory, Gramscian notions of cultural hegemony, and literary criticism, Sudip maps out how the contemporary publishing industry and academic creative writing spaces systematically steer writers away from systemic, macro-level critiques. Instead, modern narratives are frequently flattened into hyper-individualized, therapeutic accounts of trauma that accommodate—rather than challenge—the status quo. We also dive into the concept of "combat literature" and revolutionary writing. Together, we examine how radical movements historically utilized the novel, the essay, and the poem to construct counter-hegemonic worldviews. Sudip shares insights from his own work on writing and revolution, parsing how artists can break free from neoliberal aesthetic traps to revitalize an art form capable of genuinely imagining alternative futures. Whether you are an aspiring writer, a student of critical theory, or someone deeply invested in the intersection of radical politics and art, this wide-ranging dialogue offers an indispensable framework for navigating cultural production today. ✨ Read more of Sudip Bhattacharya’s essays on his Substack, featuring deep dives into combat literature and the mechanics of writing and revolution!: https://sudipbhattacharya.substack.com/ Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E90
    August 6 · 3 hr 39 min

    The Cultural Marxism Myth with A.J.A. Woods

    Where did the "Cultural Marxism" talking point actually originate? How did obscure 20th-century sectarian group battles evolve into the foundation of today's right-wing culture wars? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with Dr. A.J.A. Woods to dissect the bizarre, interconnected history of political paranoia, conspiracy culture, and the weaponization of critical theory. Dr. Woods—a PhD graduate from the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism—joins the show to trace the genealogical lineages outlined in his book, The Cultural Marxist Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West. Together, we map how legitimate left-wing internal critiques of figures like Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno were absorbed, rebranded, and mainlined into mainstream conservative media by the LaRouche movement, William S. Lind, and eventually Andrew Breitbart. We pull back the curtain on how these highly elaborate historical myths function as porous, left-right feedback loops. From the "Plato vs. Aristotle" secret histories of the 1970s to contemporary discussions surrounding "wokeness," Alexander Dugin, James Lindsay, and Jordan Peterson, we unpack how social media algorithms flatten intellectual nuances to spawn a new generation of conspiratorial thinking. Finally, we address the "Radical Chic" commodity of theory in academia, the historical distortion of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, and why the left's fixation on policing external myths often comes at the expense of addressing its own structural organizing failures. ✨ Check out Dr. A.J.A. Woods' work and grab his book to explore the full intellectual history of modern political myths! Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E89
    August 3 · 1 hr 22 min

    A People’s History of the Mets: Urban Planning, Labor, and Radical Politics with A.M. Gittlitz

    Why are the New York Mets the ultimate team of the working-class underworld? Author A.M. Gittlitz joins the channel to discuss his new book, Metropolitans, and pitch why leftists should actually care about sports. In this episode, we dive deep into the Mobius strip dynamic of sports, mass culture, and radical politics. Far from just a corporate monopoly, baseball has a long history as a battleground for popular power and control over our collective leisure time. We trace the lineage of the Mets from their 19th-century amateur roots through the turbulent 1960s, exploring how the team became an anti-elitist symbol coded in direct opposition to the financial elites of the New York Yankees. We also unpack the dark side of New York’s urban planning. Discover how "Master Builder" Robert Moses manipulated transit infrastructure around Shea Stadium to intentionally cut off public access from marginalized communities—shaping the geography of fandom we still inherit today. Whether you're a die-hard Mets fan or a Marxist skeptic of mass sports, this conversation breaks down the beautiful contradictions of a middle-class game captured by billionaires Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E88
    July 27 · 2 hr 32 min

    Cold War Cinema — History, Propaganda, and Left-Wing Film Analysis with Jason Christian & Tony Ballas

    How did decades of geopolitical paranoia, nuclear anxiety, and state-sponsored propaganda completely reshape the landscape of global filmmaking? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we dive deep into the intersection of history and film with Jason Christian and Tony Ballas, the hosts of the Cold War Cinema podcast. From Hollywood blockbusters and hidden indie gems to the stark cinematic outputs of the Soviet bloc and divided Germany, our guests break down how the global standoff between capitalism and communism played out on the silver screen. We discuss the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways governments weaponized art for ideological subversion, the lingering psychological weight of the nuclear age on directors, and how the tropes established during the Cold War continue to dictate modern media narratives today. We also explore the unique challenges of analyzing historical film through a critical, left-wing lens, sorting through the layers of censorship, blacklisting, and cultural memory that still distort how we view mid-century art. Whether you are a hardcore cinephile, a history buff, or a casual fan of classic cinema, this deep-dive conversation offers a fascinating look at the movies that defined an era. ✨ Check out the Cold War Cinema podcast on all major audio platforms to explore their full catalog of film analyses!: https://coldwarcinema.com/ Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E87
    July 23 · 1 hr 19 min

    Gerontocracy in America: Samuel Moyn on Aging Wealth and Shifting Power

    Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed legal scholar and historian Dr. Samuel Moyn (Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University) to discuss his critical book, Gerontocracy in America. While the public focus on modern gerontocracy often centers on the visible, late-stage cognitive decline of celebrity politicians like Joe Biden or Donald Trump, Dr. Moyn argues that these figures are merely the tip of a much deeper, structural iceberg. The real-world data demonstrates that our entire legal, economic, and institutional architecture has been intentionally engineered since the 1970s to entrench an elder caste and restrict succession for the prime-age working class. In this interview, we break down the explicit mechanics of this generational system: The Inverted Demographic Pyramid: How changes in medicine and declining birth weights have historically squared the old population curves, concentrating absolute power within an aging, self-perpetuating class. Constitutional Architecture & Veto Points: How the framers explicitly engineered the U.S. Constitution to blunt majoritarian democracy—imposing strict age minimums that historically excluded 80% of the population, and cementing lifetime tenure for federal judges. The Housing & Tax Trap: How the destruction of the intergenerational home has led to acute, geographic age segregation. We analyze why elderly voters routinely assemble at town meetings to block new housing supply and pass local laws (like California's Prop 13) to permanently immunize real estate assets from funding the public education of younger generations. The "Grand Bargain" Solution: Dr. Moyn outlines his provocative, counterintuitive policy path forward: establishing mandatory retirement caps, re-regulating campaign finance, and providing total state-funded long-term care in exchange for a massive, structural taxation on aging wealth to fund youth opportunities. The Critique of Progressive Care: A macro-analysis of why the contemporary Left has abandoned its 19th-century commitment to creative dynamism and material freedom, retreating instead into a technocratic, namby-pamby moralism centered solely on managing a civilized decline. Dr. Samuel Moyn's book, Gerontocracy in America, is available now across all major bookstore divisions. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E86
    July 20 · 2 hr 31 min

    Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Jung with Rob Faure Walker

    Why are so many political activists crashing into severe burnout and depression? Can the deep psychology of Carl Jung provide a radical toolkit for modern survival without retreating from the fight? In this episode of Varnblog, we sit down with ecotherapist and author Rob Faure Walker to deconstruct his groundbreaking book, Radical Jung . We dive into a mind-bending exploration bridging the Marxist radical imagination with Jungian analytical psychology. Rob shares his personal journey through school teacher union organizing, severe activist burnout, and finding spiritual navigation via dream integration and Gnostic texts. Together, we unpack how modern capitalism has become truly nihilistic, why mainstream psychoanalysis often defaults to isolationist individualism, and how right-wing figures like Jordan Peterson have weaponized and essentialized Jungian concepts on hierarchy and gender . Furthermore, we explore the terrifying intersections of state power, counter-extremism governmentality , and how billionaire techno-oligarchs like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg project their own "shadow of privilege" onto marginalized groups while building automated survival bunkers and centralizing control . If you are looking for a deeper psychological toolkit to understand the algorithm's control over our unconscious mind , structural political failure , and the path toward true recovery , this deep-dive conversation is for you. ✨ Grab Rob Faure Walker’s new book, Radical Jung, out now from Revo Press! Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E85
    July 16 · 1 hr 51 min

    Brandon Lightly on the Mass Line and New Democracy, Part 1

    In this episode of VarnVlog, we are joined by Brandon Lightly to discuss the complex and often misunderstood history of Maoism. We dive deep into the theoretical underpinnings of the "mass line" and "new democracy," exploring how these concepts served as an internal critique of Marxism and a departure from Soviet-style bureaucracy. Key Topics Covered: Defining the Mass Line: Is it just populism, or a sophisticated leadership feedback loop? The Historical Origins: From the Hunan Report to the Long March and the second United Front. Theoretical Innovations: Mao’s 1961 critique of Joseph Stalin and the rejection of the "Great Man" theory of history. Fragmentation: Why there are so many different Maoist tendencies (MLM, MIM, Third Worldism). Praxis: The rectification movement and the relationship between urban intellectuals and the rural peasantry. Journal Articles Dirlik, A. (1970). The ideological foundations of the Chinese Revolution. Journal of Contemporary History, 5(3), 39–54. Dittmer, L. (1977). Line struggle: Notes on its organizational context and theoretical development. Modern China, 3(3), 303–312. Fogel, J. A. (1980). Ai Siqi, establishment intellectual by Joshua A. Fogel. Modern China, 6(1), 23–47. Hammond, E. R. (1978). Marxism and the mass line [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Korolev, A. (2017). De-ideologized mass line, regime responsiveness, and state-society relations. China Review, 17(2), 7–36. Lyman, S. V. (1970). The Chinese Communist Party in the United Front, 1937–1945 [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Mazur, M. G. (1995). The United Front of the 1940s: A social and cultural perspective. Modern China, 21(4), 431–456. Selden, M. (1971). The Yenan Way in revolutionary China. The China Quarterly, (45), 263–294. Steiner, H. A. (1951). Current mass line tactics in Communist China. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 277(1), 422–436. Teiwes, F. C. (1978). The origins of rectification: Inner-party purgation in the 1930s. The China Quarterly, (74), 181–201. Tokuda, N. (1971). The mass line during the Yenan period. The China Quarterly, (47), 1–18. Townsend, J. R. (1967). Political participation in Communist China. University of California Press. Womack, B. (1980). The phase of de-Maoization in China. China Report, 16(1), 7–21. Womack, B. (1991). Mao Zedong and the sinification of Marxism. The China Quarterly, (126), 1–15. Young, G. (1980). On New Democracy and the transition to socialism. Modern China, 6(1), 3–22. Books & Primary Sources Coble, P. M. (2023). The collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek lost China’s civil war. Cambridge University Press. Elbaum, M. (2018). Revolution in the air: Sixties radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. Verso Books. Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. Karl, R. E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world: A concise history. Duke University Press. Li, H. (2024). Fighting on the cultural front: U.S.-China relations in the Cold War. Columbia University Press. Lin, C. (2019). Mass line. In C. Sorace, I. Franceschini, & N. Loubere (Eds.), Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political concepts from Mao to Xi (p. 122). ANU Press. Lovell, J. (2019). Maoism: A global history. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Lowe, D. M. (1966). The function of "China" in Marx, Lenin, and Mao. University of California Press. Mao, Z. (1940). On New Democracy. Marxists Internet Archive. Mao, Z. (1977). A critique of Soviet economics. Monthly Review Press. Moufawad-Paul, J. (2016). Continuity and rupture: Philosophy in the Maoist terrain. Zero Books. Schram, S. R. (Ed.). (2005). Mao’s road to power: Revolutionary writings 1912–1949: Vol. VII. New Democracy, 1939–1941. M.E. Sharpe. Zheng, Q. (Ed.). (2020). An ideological history of the Communist Party of China (Vol. 2) (L. Sun & S. Bryant, Trans.). Royal Collins Publishing Group. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E84
    July 13 · 1 hr 11 min

    Screened Realities and the Complicit Lens: Robin Andersen on Media Complicity in Gaza and Beyond

    While the atrocities in Palestine and Gaza have been live-streamed by courageous on-the-ground journalists, American legacy media have operated in an entirely different reality. Dr. Andersen details how establishment journalism has actively abandoned baseline standards of accuracy and fairness to echo fabricated atrocity propaganda and shield the state of Israel from accountability. In this interview, we break down the explicit mechanics of this media complicity: The New York Times Bureau Bias: How the "paper of record" has historically staffed its Jerusalem bureau with known Zionists and activists whose families actively serve in the IDF. We discuss the biostructural compromise of the bureau physically operating out of a home stolen from a Palestinian family during the Nakba. Leaked Style Guides & Directives: A look into the newsroom directives leaked to The Intercept that formally banned journalists from using core factual terms like "occupied territories," "refugee camps," "massacre," or "genocide". Weaponized Passive Voice: How headlines use phrases like "aid-related deaths" or "explosions" to describe situations where Israeli soldiers actively shot starving civilians or bombed densely populated neighborhoods like Jabalia. Billionaire Capture & Digital Suppression: The chilling effects of doxxing groups like the Canary Mission on university campuses, and the corporate takeover of networks like CBS by tech moguls implementing top-down Zionist editorial overrides. Dr. Robin Andersen's book, The Complicit Lens, features an introduction by Rashid Khalidi and is available now directly from OR Books. Like, subscribe, drop a comment, and protect your peace. To support independent, commercial-free media analysis, join our community on Patreon at patreon.com/varnvlog. Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E83
    July 9 · 1 hr 8 min

    Real Internationalism: Inside the RAIZ International Project

    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 endangering any ongoing local initiatives. RAIZ International rejects the dominant trend of contemporary Western "solidarity," which often reduces internationalism to hollow press releases, moralistic posturing, or aesthetic digital templates. Instead, RAIZ operates on a model of concrete internationalism—rooting its efforts in the actual relations of production, global displacement patterns, and working-class organization. We discuss the material realities of their focus areas: The Colombian Context: Navigating the complex aftermath of displacement, land conflicts, and regional state violence, and tracing how those struggles connect directly back to Western imperialism and transnational resource extraction. The Migrant Labor Pipeline: How global capital forces displacement from the Global South into the centers of Europe, turning vulnerable migrants into hyper-exploited labor pools. Building Independent Working-Class Power: How RAIZ coordinates across borders to offer material support, link regional organizing struggles, and establish durable counter-institutions that empower workers directly rather than funneling them into state-vetted NGOs. If you are listening from Europe and hear about RAIZ initiatives or their upcoming speaking tour through local newsletters or radical community spaces, we highly encourage you to attend an event, stop by, and get involved. This is how we begin building a concrete, internationalist future with a real revolutionary outlook. Project Links & Fundraising Official Website: https://www.raizinternational.org/ Fundraising Tour Support: https://chuffed.org/project/gira-venceremos Support our analysis on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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  • S2 · E82
    July 6 · 46 min

    Grade Scandals, Bureaucracy, and the Truth About the Teacher Shortage with Chris Papst

    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 team at Project Baltimore have investigated the deep-seated corruption, administration failures, and academic integrity issues within the Baltimore public school system. In this eye-opening conversation, Chris breaks down why Baltimore encapsulates a playbook used by major urban school districts across the United States to prioritize funding over educational outcomes. We pull back the curtain on shocking grade-changing scandals, the erasure of standardized testing, and the systematic hiding of school violence data to avoid "persistently dangerous" labels. Chris also explains the toxic structural mechanics that are driving real educators out of the profession, revealing that the nationwide teacher shortage is a direct symptom of unmanageable classroom conditions and a total lack of administrative discipline enforcement. If you are a parent, taxpayer, or educator looking to understand how the bureaucratic state manipulates public education, this breakdown of the "50% rule" and institutional data juking is essential listening. ✨ Order Chris Papst’s book, Failure Factory: How Baltimore City Public Schools Deprive Taxpayers and Students of a Future, available now! Send us Fan Mail Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake Support the show Crew: Host: C. Derick Varn Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake. Intro Video Design: Jason Myles Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn Links and Social Media: twitter: @varnvlog blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social You can find the additional streams on Youtube Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon, Buddy Roark, Daniel Petrovic,Julian, Drea, Free Beer

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