Rev Left Radio

• The Years of Lead in Italy: Strategy of Tension, Operation Gladio, & the Long 1970s

  Most people, even on the Left, only know fragments of Italy's "Years of Lead." This episode pulls the whole picture into focus: the mass worker upsurge after the boom years, the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, the rise of the Red Brigades, the kidnapping and execution of Aldo Moro, and the 1980 Bologna massacre. Alyson and Breht trace how far-right stragismo (mass bombings) intersected with far-left clandestinism, and how segments of the deep state, intelligence services, and the Cold War Gladio architecture shaped a strategy of tension that isolated social movements, kept the socialist and communist left from power, and cleared the way for the establishment of neoliberalism in Italy and beyond. Alyson and Breht then discuss what lessons we can learn from this history and if there are any similarities to the contemporary United States.   Clips for this episode are pulled from this YT documentary HERE Check out our episode on the Italian fascist Julius Evola HERE Check out our episode on Carl Schmitt's Concept of the Political HERE   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

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• They Called Her Rebel: Speculative Fiction, Revolutionary Art, and the Politics of Imagination

  In this episode, Breht speaks with Jacob Dallas-Main, co-host of Workers' Lit and author of They Called Her Rebel; a dazzling fusion of fantasy, class struggle, and storytelling set in a world of debtors' camps, collapsing empires, and revolutionary possibility. The two discuss how speculative fiction can illuminate political struggle, not merely as metaphor but as a call to break the boundary between audience and participant. They explore what makes a work of art revolutionary rather than consumable, the dangers of reactionary storytelling in popular culture, declining literacy in the U.S., the threats posed by AI, the need for socialist transformation, and why imagination is a vital force in times of despair. From Le Guin to Kim Stanley Robinson to Lee Mandelo, they trace a lineage of speculative art that refuses cynicism and insists on transformation -- both political and personal.  Check out our episode with Kim Stanely Robinson on his book "Ministry for the Future" HERE Subscribe to Workers Lit podcast on youtube HERE ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

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• UNLOCKED: Mamdani, Marijuana Dependency, and Unconditional Life Acceptance

  This is an unlocked patreon episode. To support the show and get access to monthly bonus episodes like this one, join our patreon: www.patreon.com/revleftradio In this unlocked Patreon episode, Breht reads and responds to an article in the Tehran Times on the NYC mayoral race and left strategy around Palestine, then he plays and analyzes a Kurzgesagt video on the science and experience of marijuana dependency in your 20s and 30s, and finally Breht discusses his ongoing grieving process surrounding his Dad's death and the life lessons he's learned in the wake of it. In the process, he articulates what we need in left leaders, cultivating psychological resilience, the importance of sobriety as a baseline, the benefits of behavioral moderation, accepting worse case scenarios in life, the sweetness inherent in grief, dead loved ones visiting you in dreams, and much more. ---------------------------------------------------- Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

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• Heidegger in Ruins: Philosophy, Fascism, and the Politics of Being

  In this episode, Breht speaks with Dr. Richard Wolin, author of Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology, about the dark entanglement between Martin Heidegger's philosophy and his lifelong commitment to National Socialism. Heidegger is often hailed as the most important philosopher of the 20th century, yet his work was deeply shaped by the reactionary politics of his time. Wolin explains how Heidegger's central ideas -- Being, Dasein, authenticity, rootedness, and the "decline of the West" -- became intertwined with fascist notions of destiny, hierarchy, and belonging. They discuss the long history of attempts to sanitize Heidegger's record, what the Black Notebooks reveal about his true convictions, the interwar period in Germany and the conservative revolution, Heidegger's spiritual racism, and how the same civilizational despair and longing for renewal echo through today's far-right political movements. This conversation explores how the search for meaning and authenticity, when divorced from solidarity and democracy, can turn toward reactionary myth-making, hierarchical exclusion, and fascist authoritarianism. Check out Dr. Wolin's articles in the LA Review of Books HERE   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

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• From Reagan to Trump: Neoliberalism, Class War, and American Decadence

  In this episode, public school history teacher Gianni Paul joins Breht to trace the historical roots of our current crisis — stagnant wages, mass homelessness, collapsing infrastructure, rising fascism, Gilded Age inequality, and a beaten down working class — back to Reagan's counter-revolution against the New Deal and the forty-year neoliberal project that followed. Together, they explore how neoliberalism emerged out of the crises of the 1970s, Carter's role in laying the groundwork before Reagan, the destruction of unions and working-class power, the ideological weaponization of anti-communism, the bipartisan consolidation of neoliberalism under Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden, the ways Reagan and Trump represent two phases of the same class project, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of capitalist triumphalism, the slow disintegration of America's middle class into debt and precarity, the explosion of homelessness and hopelessness, the erosion of U.S. imperial dominance alongside the emergence of a multipolar world, and why the U.S. repeatedly chooses reaction over social transformation — raising the question of whether genuine change can still emerge from within the imperial core or whether new possibilities are taking shape elsewhere. Understanding this history is key to understanding why everyday life in America feels increasingly unstable, and what futures remain possible beyond neoliberal decay. Follow Gianni and The People's Classroom on Instagram @thepeoplesclassroom315    Check out his full lectures on YouTube HERE ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/  

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