Libsyn Directory

[BEST OF] What Is To Be Done? Understanding Communist Strategy

Release Date: 05/27/2025

Anti-Capitalist Parenting: A Dialectical Perspective w/ Breht O'Shea (Upstream Podcast)

Rev Left Radio

One of the most radical things you can do is live your life in direct opposition to the forces that control our society. Not just fighting for policies or organizing your community, although those are certainly important parts of it, but also living with values that oppose the values of our dominant society. And even more importantly, raising the next generation to embody those values—not in a coercive way, but through organic parenting and role modeling that make radicalism irresistible. This is how we raise revolutionaries: instilling community, love, egalitarianism, and a need for justice...

Fascism w/ American Characteristics (The Pokepreet Podcast Ft. Breht O'Shea)

Rev Left Radio

"In this episode we are joined by Breht O'Shea to talk about fascism and it's peculiarities in the 21st Century." I went on for a second time recently and had a really in-depth and nuanced conversation about fascism, presently and historically; together we discuss how American fascism arising out of the ruins of neoliberalism is qualitatively different than previous fascisms, the role of insecure masculinity in all fascist movements, the implications of a lack of an organized and militant working class to combat it, the feckless liberal (non)response, the Democrats embrace of the "Abundance"...

OTU Under Attack by Landlord Lobby

Rev Left Radio

In this episode, Breht welcomes on Seth from for an in-studio discussion about OTU's slate of recent successes organizing several tenant unions, and a subsequent new legal assault on the organization by the local landlord lobby. The legal implications of this attack are truly monumental for virtually all forms of organizing. They also discuss how landlordism is a feudal hangover with modern capitalist dynamics, the differences between tenant organizing and labor organizing, tenant organizing as a particularly potent site of struggle, and the material underpinnings of recent superstructural...

Still Laundering Black Rage: DEI as Counterinsurgency

Rev Left Radio

In this incisive conversation, Breht welcomes poet, scholar, and organizer, filmmaker, and host of the Black Myths Podcast back to the podcast to critically examine the recent attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Anchored by the penetrating analysis in Too Black and Rasul Mowatt’s article, this episode dissects DEI as a capitalist pacification strategy, historically rooted in reaction to radical Black movements and inherently limited in delivering meaningful change. Too Black articulates how DEI serves capitalist interests by redirecting genuine Black rage into...

Farce, Finance & Fascism: Margaret Kimberley on Empire in Decay

Rev Left Radio

In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, —senior columnist at Black Agenda Report and a leader in —joins Breht to dissect the spectacle of American decline and, as usual, Kimberley offers a razor-sharp analysis of late-stage capitalism’s collapse into cruelty, chaos, and confusion. Together, they explore the Democratic Party’s complicity in ushering in this moment, U.S. weapons transfers to Ukraine in support of their proxy war against Russia, and the genocidal assault on Gaza as a revealing - if disturbing - lens into the true nature of the American empire. Kimberley also...

Dialectics of Nature: Engels on Dialectical Materialism as a Worldview

Rev Left Radio

In this episode, Alyson and Breht explore Friedrich Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, a bold and underappreciated attempt to apply dialectical materialism to the natural sciences. Often dismissed or misunderstood, this unfinished work offers a sweeping view of reality - from physics and chemistry to evolution, human consciousness, and ecological breakdown - through the lens of Marxist philosophy. Together, they unpack Engels’ central claim that nature itself unfolds dialectically: through contradiction, motion, transformation, and interconnection. They cover the three laws of dialectics,...

Teaser: The Role of Labor in Human Evolution

Rev Left Radio

This is small snippet from a much larger episode coming soon wherein Alyson and Breht cover Friedrich Engel’s famous text “Dialectics of Nature”, in which Engels argues for dialectical materialism as a scientifically grounded, philosophically rigorous, and holistic worldview—one that understands nature, society, and thought as deeply interconnected and constantly evolving. Find the clip used at the end of this teaser here:

Uprising in LA: ICE, Mass Deportations, and American Fascism

Rev Left Radio

Recorded on June 8th: Alyson and Breht record an emergency podcast on the current riots in LA, and resistance across the country, to mass deportations. Together they highlight recent events, discuss the function of mass deporations in a decaying capitalist system, analyze the spontaneous and militant community response, how terrorizing undocumented workers is a form of labor discipline, the fascist tactic of scapegoating the powerless for the crimes and chaos of the powerful, the role of AI in both displacing labor as well as bolstering the repressive state apparatus, and much more. Learn more...

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Rev Left Radio

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[BEST OF] The Fundamentals of Marxism: Historical Materialism, Dialectics, & Political Economy

Rev Left Radio

[Originally released Oct 2020] Alyson and Breht summarize and discuss the fundamental ideas, concepts, and arguments within Marxism. We want this episode to stand as a resource for *everyone* interested in Marxism - from those who are brand new to the Marxist left all the way to veterans of the Left who simply want a concise refresher. If you know someone who is moving leftward but still struggling with understanding Marxism, please point them toward this episode! ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: Make a...

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ORIGINALLY RELEASED Oct 23, 2023

UPSTREAM INTERVIEW W/ BREHT AND ALYSON:

What Is To Be Done? This is the question so profoundly posed by the Russian Revolutionary and Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, in his landmark text of the same name. Although it was written well over a century ago, this text, the questions it asked, and the paths forward that it provided, are just as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago. And just as urgent.

What roles do spontaneity and disciplined organization have in leftist movements? Can we focus simply on economic reform, or do our actions need a larger political framework to structure, guide, and propel them?

Why does it feel like even though so many of us are motivated to work towards structural change, that things continue to get worse? Why does it seem like potential revolutionary struggles in the West always seem to stall and fail to move from a singular moment to a protracted movement?

These are old and familiar questions — a lot of ink has been spilled and speeches made exploring them — and in this Conversation, we’ve brought on two guests who've not only thought about these questions in depth, but who have some pretty compelling answers that draw from revolutionary theory and practice in both their personal lives and from the deep well of wisdom bequeathed by theorists Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao.

Breht O’Shea is the host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and a co-host of Guerrilla History. He’s been on the show multiple times so you may already be familiar with his voice. Alyson Escalate, who has also been on the show, is the co-host, along with Breht, of Red Menace, a podcast that explains and analyzes revolutionary theory and then applies its lessons to our contemporary conditions.

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