Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 5 | Michelle Remembers: Themes & Framing

But the parents? Meh.  When fascism rises, and some young people are drawn into its orbit, because everyone from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate has figured out how to exploit resentment at the failures of capitalism, we have an opportunity to give our kids a lot more than moralistic calls for a return to normalcy, compliance, warnings about screen time, striving to be better students, doing more sports, and not making too much of a ruckus (as Marco Rubio calls it).  The kind of parenting that limits itself to restoring the status quo for younger people in an age of fascism is not engaged parenting.  It’s not enough to be a good boy or girl. Antifascism takes more than that. In this Part One, Matthew previews our main feed discussion of Adolescence (coming this Thursday), parses a speech by Gareth Southgate, wonders why Jonathan Haidt knows nothing about gaming, and remembers Sophie Scholl.  Show Notes Op-ed: Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions  Death toll since Israel's aggression on Gaza on October 7 rises to 31,819 (March, 2024)  Austerity Has Always Been a Project to Empower Capital at the Expense of Workers  It's Not Them; It's Us: Thoughts on the Show Adolescence Adolescence is a really well made depiction of misogyny that fails to critique it | by Mallory Moore | Mar, 2025 Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ Taps Into the Latest Moral Panic    Jonathan Haidt’s Claims On Kids & Tech Crumble Under Scrutiny From Top Expert, Candice Odgers | Techdirt  UK government's own estimate says welfare cuts to push 250,000 into poverty | Reuters Labour’s cuts to PIP will drag a quarter of a million people into absolute poverty, DWP figures show – Disability News Service 55: Games Against Humanity (w/ Thi Nguyen) — Conspirituality 207: Gaming Realities (w/Thi Nguyen) — Conspirituality   Reminder to the media: Research video games before reporting on them  Out of the Ruins:The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader  The People's Republic of Neverland: The Child versus the State   Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work Teaching Resistance: Radicals, Revolutionaries, and Cultural Subversives in the Classroom TRUST KIDS! Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy Refusing Complicity: The Bravery of Sophie Scholl - Radical Tea Towel Sophie Scholl and the youth resistance against the Nazis – DW – 02/22/2023 The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds  An Unclaimed Country: The Austrian Image in American Film and the Sociopolitics of The Sound of Music  The politics of The Sound of Music | Peter Levine  Edelweiss Pirate Walter Mayer The Edelweiss Pirates: A Story of Freedom, Love and Life Walter Meyer describes his 1943 trial for looting, and the impact of his role in the Edelweiss Pirates on the sentence he received | Holocaust Encyclopedia The Edelweiss Pirates The Child and Its Enemies | The Anarchist Library —Emma Goldman DECLARATION OF CHILDREN'S RIGHTS—Janusz Korczak  The King of Children: A Biography of Janusz Korczak - Betty Jean Lifton Sophie Scholl – The Final Days Remember the Mac-Paps - rabble.ca  The Canadians In The Spanish Civil War  'Gentleman Jules' lived for just causes | Sudbury Star  Poetry – Friends and Veterans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Apr 47min

"If Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator-phobia." That's neo-reactionary philosopher Curtis Yarvin in 2012, when he outlined a strategy that's eerily similar to how Trump and Musk are now destroying our government.  The "dark enlightenment" blogger, long a transgressive darling of the New Right, has in the last two months enjoyed a fresh round of mainstream exposure. We look at a man who has the ear of those who are reshaping our world at breakneck speed. Show Notes That's Bait - by Jeff Sharlet Kristi Noem Gets a MAGA Makeover - The New York Times Kristi Noem’s New Teeth Are Blowing Up in Her Face | Vanity Fair Venezuela-hired lawyers file petition in El Salvador aimed at freeing Venezuelans deported by US | AP News Kristi Noem’s El Salvador Prison Photo Op Might Have Violated the Geneva Convention Trump wants FEMA gone. But that could be its own kind of disaster. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posed in front of El Salvador prisoners wearing $50k watch   Will Stancil: "The El Salvador government is using its concentration camp as a kind of Disneyland thrill ride for right-wing influencers” Kelly Brogan’s Divine Dungeon: Pt 1 (feat/Esme Providence Brown) Kelly Brogan’s Divine Dungeon: Pt 2 (feat/Esme Providence Brown)   ‘All life is a service’: The Contested Erotics of Fascism from Foucault to Frost – Retrospect Journal Cathedrals of Erotic Misery • Ill Will Politico Yarvin Interview Financial Times on Dark Enlightenment TIME on Dark Enlightenment Common Dreams on Dark Enlightenment/DOGE NYT Podcast End of Democracy Jennifer Kollmer, 1971-2021 — Yarvin’s obit poem, TW on the rest of the blog! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Apr 54min

What is an oligarchy, exactly? Is the US entering a period similar to post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s? What do Russian oligarchs have to do with proven interference in the 2016 US election?  Julian digs into Russian history to explore parallels with modern-day America. Meet Vladislav Surkov, the architect of both Putin’s 25-year rule over what Surkov has dubbed “sovereign democracy,” and the global propaganda strategies generating our post-truth ecosystem of disinformation and conspiracies. There’s a reason why politics feels like theater these days, why democracy seems like a pipe dream.  While MAGA has a fascism fetish, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might be a better match for Hitler on the verge, with Trump and Co acting as macho-clown versions of Neville Chamberlain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Mars 6min

Derek and Julian discuss Robert Paxton's 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism, in light of 2025 America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Mars 43min

McGill University science communicator, Jonathan Jarry, was recently given hundreds of hours of Zoom calls between alt-med salesman, Joseph Mercola, and a supposed clairvoyant that goes by Bahlon. Jonathan joins us to discuss what he found. Show Notes Brad Schimel Admitted to Having "Psychologically Beat the Daylights Out" Of His 8-Year-Old Daughter - MeidasTouch News Rallying Anti-Musk Donors, Liberal Judge Raises $24 Million in Key Court Contest - The New York Times Here are claims about Wisconsin’s Supreme Court candidates — and the facts Ahead of Wisconsin Supreme Court election, Elon Musk PAC offers cash for pledge - WPR Trump backs Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate in hotly contested race - ABC News Billionaires become a focus of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race Brad Schimel Begins Campaigning With Anti-MLK Advocate Charlie Kirk - MeidasTouch News Exclusive Videos Show Dr. Joe Mercola’s Dangerous Ideas Whipped up by Alleged Medium Brief: RFK's Health Propaganda Roundtable Terminated HHS grants Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Mars 56min

The Wellness Company is now selling retatrutide, a weight loss drug currently undergoing stage 3 trials by Eli Lilly. An anti-vax company that uses fear-based marketing to push supplements appears to be overstepping legal lines. Yet will they be held accountable in an RFK Jr-led HHS? Derek looks at private market healthcare propaganda from Ronald Reagan to Kennedy, showing how health is not the real goal of MAHA. But if they can sell untested products to fat and chronically ill patients along the way, all the better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Mars 6min

Julian covers the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London. Headlined by Jordan Peterson, featuring Konstantin Kisin, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Jonathan Pageau, and Eric Weinstein, the conference positioned itself as an inspiring cultural gathering focused on reclaiming Western values.  Behind the scenes, a hedge-fund billionaire new media baron, conservative libertarian think tank, shady funding source in Dubai, and an evangelical English aristocrat use the prestige of ARC and its celebrity figureheads to popularize a very specific political, economic, and religious agenda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Mars 40min

Trump administration Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently stated the American economy is going to need a "detox" period. And so today we look at peak the conspirituality convergences between biological and political purification projects. Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, joins Matthew in the final segment to offer his big picture view on the Kings of Pain. Show Notes Johns Hopkins to lose 2,000 jobs after Trump’s $800m cut in USAid funding Young scientists see career pathways vanish as schools adapt to federal funding cuts Report: mRNA vaccines are in RFK Jr’s crosshairs; funding in question FDA Makes Flu Vaccine Recommendations Without Convening Advisors HHS sends all employees a $25,000 voluntary buyout offer Exclusive: US CDC plans study into vaccines and autism, sources say USDA gears up for MAHA dietary guidelines update Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True. Watch CNBC's full interview with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Why we must teach medical students about the role of physicians during the Holocaust | AAMC Teaching Hard Truths About Medicine and the Holocaust | Journal of Ethics | American Medical Association Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Mars 1h 3min