Ep 93: How Trotsky got Sp!ked w/ Trash Future
Added 2020-04-15 11:00:55 +0000 UTCTrashifada continues with a deep dive on the origin of the Koch-funded British anti-PC-hysteria-hysteria blog Sp!ked. We go through their origins in seventies Trotskyism to the bizarre posh ultraleftism in the eighties until they emerged as the magazine Living Marxism, famous for satirizing the nanny state and denying the genocide of Bosnian Muslims. From there they formed the Institute of Ideas, a collection of tiny front groups that have helped them along to mainstream media prominence. But to what ends? We offer a range of theories.
Listen this Friday for Real Sp!ked hours to hear some hot takes on goths, Karen-bashing, and Jimmy Saville.
Follow Alice and Riley and Trash Future
Jenny Turner's fantastic essay on Institute of Ideas: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n13/jenny-turner/who-are-they
Account of RCP's political shift in the eighties: https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/the-revolutionary-communist-party-living-marxism-and-the-road-to-free-speech-absolutism/
Brendan on Dave Rubin calling himself a Marxist Libertarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHUjZd63z9U
Songs: Whistling in the Dark and Come out Fighting by Easterhouse
Comments
The discussion earlier in the ep about rock against racism and Trotskyite affiliations in the punk scene reminded me of crisis and their involvement with that scene - crisis was the band of Douglas p before he became death in june. I’m driving to work atm but my third eye is bloodshot and the idea that Doug p is an mi6 asset or was at least driven to madness by an mi6 op is making mind race. Gotta dig through the old zine pile to find the oral history of crisis and try to clarify some stuffing
laihall
2021-01-27 16:02:17 +0000 UTCthis is a great summation. and yeah we'll do a full trotskyism episode someday. in the meantime check out our ep with alex gendler about the antisemitic trotsky miniseries!
The Antifada
2020-04-29 01:23:31 +0000 UTCHow did Minority Report end up with one of Living Marxism’s agents on? Even weirder this guy is on the editorial board of Jacobin Brasil. Someone can’t Google or has been played. https://littlesis.org/person/348115-Alex_Hochuli https://littlesis.org/maps/5018-alex-hochuli
Louis Gramaticus
2020-04-21 19:32:13 +0000 UTCAs someone who started organizing in late 90s Chicago, which was *rife* with commie splinter factions and front groups at the time.. more sectarian excavations please!
Three Capybaras in a Trenchcoat
2020-04-18 22:22:23 +0000 UTCBased on my experience as a member of the ISO/ANSWER back in the 2000's, the joke with trots is they keep splintering into more and more groups, each of which claim to be the REAL communists. When Trotsky was kicked out of the USSR, he made a point to argue that Stalin was not a socialist and that he was the true heir to Marxism-Leninism and then started the 4th International. Not unreasonable at the time, but his followers basically replicated this ad nauseam. There were multip6splits from the 4th International, each one claiming to be the real 4th International and then at a local level, there have been 5 million different trot parties in the US. They usually split over something extremely specific and not important, but they are so doctrinaire that any disagreement causes a rift. This was my experience with the ISO, which I joined in college because I wanted to protest the Iraq war. I didn't have a great understanding of Marxism at the time, but I had some disagreement with the leadership on, I think, what democratic centrality was, and they booted me. Andy has gone into some depth about trotskyism in some prior episodes, especially the one of Posadism. But I would love an episode on trotskyism too. I only have a limited understanding of the subject.
Matt
2020-04-16 18:22:43 +0000 UTCAntifada AND Trash Future?!?! Im in complete heaven.
Christian Pauley
2020-04-15 20:53:18 +0000 UTCDigging this episode. As a request: can yall do an episode one day on what Trotskyism is and why it's a punchline?
Keith Herbert
2020-04-15 19:58:51 +0000 UTCLOL I love how Rubin is just like "oh, I see, you're calling yourself a Marxist to get a reaction, but it sounds like you're just making the case for classical liberalism." And O'Neill is just like "yeah, I am."
Matt
2020-04-15 18:20:47 +0000 UTC
