Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael J.G.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Western nations often speak about Putin and Russia in a way that would make two appear interchangeable. What if we were to view Russia beyond the lens of just seeing Putin though? That's what Tony Wood attempts to do in Russia Without Putin: Money, Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War (Verso; 2018).
Among the topics covered in this conversation:- Red-baiting and anti-Semitic tropes in Western thinking about Russia.
- The title "Russia Without Putin", its meaning, and thinking about Russia beyond Putin as an analytic challenge; Western reporting on Russia and the decline of expertise and understanding about Russia and the Russian experience after the Cold War.
- Thinking of Putin in terms of his being a result of the Soviet system and the KGB; trying to think about Putin more in terms of Russia's neoliberal turn, continuation of Boris Yeltsin's Russia, etc.
- The lingering holdovers of the Soviet experience on Russia; thinking about Russia after the fall of the Soviet union and the transition to capitalism in Russia; Understanding Boris Yeltsin's place in history and seeing Putin as, in some ways, a continuation of Yeltsin.
- The effect of the capitalist transformation of Russia on the lives and statuses of everyday Russians, "shock therapy"; wealth and class inequality in Russia.
- A sketch of Putin's rise to power.
- Russian foreign policy; U.S. foreign policy and NATO dominance over the world after the Cold War; perceptions of Russian aggression
- Criticisms Tony would make of Putin and his regime
- Will Putin be gone in 2024?; Putin's constitutional maneuvers going into 2024

On this edition of Parallax Views, Tupac Shakur is without a doubt one of the most beloved rappers of all-time. A voice of the hip hop generation, Tupac's death remains shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories abound in its wake. Was it related to the gang war between the Bloods and Crips? Was it a revenge plot by Death Row Records' leader Suge Knight because the rapper sought to leave the label? Author John Potash offers another theory in his book The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders.
Regardless your opinion on the theories surrounding Tupac's death, John offers a fascinating history of U.S. intelligence agency efforts to squash black liberations movements through the FBI's COINTELPRO as well as unveiling the radical political activism of the Shakur family dating back to the 1960's and 1970's with groups like the Black Panthers. He also unveils the often overlooked political side of Tupac Shakur in the process. In this conversation we discuss:- The history of COINTELPRO
- Shakur's family, including Tupac's mother Afeni Shakur and her involvement with the Panther 21 case, the work of Mutulu Shakur and his drug addiction recovery efforts at Lincoln Detox, and the frame-up of Assata Shakur (who remains on the lam to this very day)
- Tupac's own politics, his involvement with the shady Death Row Records, his attempts to end the East Vs. Left Coast gang wars, the suspicions related to his death, and much, much more!

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On this edition of Parallax Views, a small but growing group of provocative scholar are leading an intellectual movement of thought known as Afro-pessimism. These scholars argue that there is not an easy way out of the hatreds and bigotries, specifically anti-blackness, which afflict our society. What does that line of thought entail? Is Afro-pessimism and idea that revels in resignation or a movement with a revolutionary fervor that demands us to think beyond our Euro-centric frame of what we mean when we use the word "human" or "humanity"? One of the leaders of this new movement, Frank Wilderson III, the acclaimed author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, joins us to discuss his latest book Afropessimism, a work that is one part memoir and one part theory, in this fascinating and challenging conversation.
In this conversation we discuss:
- Frank's interest in the 70s conspiracy thriller movie Parallax View
- Defining blackness
- Humanity as defining itself by its anti-blackness; the Master/Slave dialectic
- Dedicating the book to Assata Shakur
- Afro-pessimism's relationship to the ideas of Karl Marx and Marxism
- Afro-pessimism as descriptive rather than prescriptive
- The confrontation created by Afro-pessimism and the phenomenological "end of the world"
- Frank's story of a student who was upset by Afro-pessimism
- And much, much more

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In 2018 Parallax Views began delving into the sordid saga of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who had connections to various elite figures in high places included President Donald Trump, President Bill Clinton, former Victoria's Secrets CEO Leslie Wexner, and many others. This startling story ended up taking a new turn when Epstein was arrested and, shortly thereafter, found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide (although due to Epstein's ties to the elite strata of society conspiracy theories abound).  Since then a Netflix documentary, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, has been released and the sordid saga of this billionaire child sex offender and the mysteries of his life have garnered widespread attention. Now, Epstein's procurer, the elite socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, has been arrested by the FBI and the case is again commanding public attention.
On this edition of the Parallax Views, J.G. Michael welcomes Brace Belden, co-host of the of the popular TrueAnon podcast alongside Liz Franczak, to the program to revisit the story of Jeffrey Epstein, the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, and the connections of Leslie Wexler and MC2 Model Management's Jean-Luc Brunel (himself accused of multiple acts of rape) to this sordid saga. Parallax Views' occasional French correspondent, Marlon Ettinger, who was at the New York trial of Epstein, pops up for a portion of the conversation as well. Brace also gives his thoughts on TrueAnon's dark humor, thoughts on the right-wing's obsession with Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories (with comments on Roger Stone, Jack Posobiec, etc., his experience interviewing Epstein victim/survivor Maria Farmer, Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre vs Epstein pal and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz, whether Brace is CIA, Brace's personal story of being sent to a troubled teen boot camp (known as a CEDU program and related to WWASP behavior modifcation schools and the cult Synanon), and more.

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On this edition of Parallax Views, a roundtable discussion on Holocaust denial w/ Dr. Andrew E. Mathis (aka Thames Darwin) and our semi-regular correspondent Marlon Ettinger. Believe it or not, there are those who deny the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jewish people by Nazi Germany in the 20th century. Dr. Mathis, as an academic, has spent much time fighting against Holocaust denial. In fact, he has even gotten into the weeds and spoken to/debated the deniers themselves. In this roundtable conversation we discuss:- What Holocaust Denial is and the elements of it.- The early history of Holocaust denial from revisionist historians like Harry Elmer Barnes to the various operations of white supremacist move-and-shaker Willis Carto of the Liberty Lobby, Institute for Historical Review, the Barnes Review, and the American Free Press (we also touch upon Carto's connection to the mysterious post-war American Nazi Francis Parker Yockey aka Ulrike Varange)- The relationship between figures like Willis Carto and neo-nazis like William Luther Pierce and the way in which Holocaust denier target young men for recruitment.- The connection between the extremely conservative Regnery Publishing family and Holocaust; thoughts on historian like Ernest Nolte and whether they can be considered adjacent to Holocaust denier- British historian David Irving's infamous involvement in the world of Holocaust denial and his lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt, who took issue with Irving's revisionism.- The Jewish holocaust denier Dr. Fred A. Leuchter, the strange Nazi UFO conspiracy theorist Ernst Zundel, and holocaust denier's claims about "Prussian Blue".- Why combating Holocaust denial matters, what the passage of Holocaust deniers in historical memory means for the future, and much, much more.

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On this special 4th of July edition of Parallax Views, William Hogeland, author of the Wild Early Republic trilogy (The Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Autumn of the Black Snake) and Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation, joins us to give a different perspective on the U.S. founding fathers and the early days of the Republic. But, perhaps even moreso, William also helps us examine this history from a "meta" by forcing us to ask: How do we interpret history? And is our popular understanding of the U.S. founding distorted by hagiography?
In this conversation William touches upon:
- How he became involved in writing popular history and how his approach differs from many others in the same milieu
- His book The Whiskey Rebellion, how his work has appealed to both the left and the right over the years, and his response to being called a "left-wing critic" of the Founding Fathers
- The liberal establishment's consensus view of history, the works of Charles Beard, how the Beardian Progressive School of history was systemically attacked by the reigning consensus, and the OSS (U.S. intelligence service prior to the founding of the CIA)
- The Founding Fathers and slavery, the Founding Fathers and their complex relationship to democratic and liberal values, thoughts on Alexander Hamilton in light of the success of Lin Manuel Miranda's hip hop musical Hamilton (now experiencing even more success due to it's streaming release on Disney+), William's criticism of Brett Stephen's "unbrokeness" theory of the American political tradition, and the debate around pulling down Confederate statues.
All that and much more on this special 4th of July edition of Parallax Views!

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