Van Jackson
@vanjackson
The class politics of geopolitics. Newsletter, . Co-host, ; . 🇺🇸🇵🇭🇳🇿.
Awesome having the actor Ryan Perez on the pod to talk about Alex Garland’s 2014 thriller Ex Machina! We get into AI, imperial relations in a robotic age, the political economy of Hollywood, and the death of mass culture
Congrats to Abdul El-Sayed, Will Lawrence, and the majority of progressives and democratic socialists who last night!
10k new defense tech companies since 2024! It’s not just war profiteering; it’s the material basis to perpetually wage illegal wars with impunity. Rosa Luxemburg warned us
Red scares are manufactured moral panics that serve three purposes: 1) Justify military buildups; 2) repress political enemies; and 3) weaken organized labor. We’re in the thick of one now. www.un-diplomatic.com/p/the-sixth-...
Back take from a 50/50 leg entanglement--even when you don’t quite get it, you end up in mount
The only president strong enough to be a peacemaker wasn’t even real! Historian @pauladlerstein.bsky.social joins the pod to discuss Seven Days in May, a film about a president who negotiates a peace treaty to end the Cold War, pursue nuclear disarmament, and faces down a military coup
The spread of imperialist statecraft. The rise of repressive capital. And the consolidation of oligarchy as the corollary of permanent war. All that and more in my public lecture tonight, available as a livestream open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...
I’ll be giving a public lecture next week about the geopolitics of class war at the NZ Fabian Society. If you’re in Wellington, come in person! If you’re elsewhere, it'll be live-streamed on YouTube www.fabians.org.nz/index.php?op...
I loved Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton when it came out, but it’s way more cringe and politically problematic than I remember! Hilarious convo w/ comedian @hiremeimfunny.bsky.social on the latest episode www.bangbangpod.com/p/hamilton-a...
Officially part of the flannel revolution. Half Cholo, half Graham Platner
The Iran war broke the first rule of imperial warmaking. Amazing convo w/ Morgan Spector (star of HBO’s The Gilded Age)! Available wherever you get your podcasts undiplomaticpodcast.com
The crisis facing most people isn’t who participates in athletics; it’s a very active class war, facilitated by denying equal rights to marginal populations on the grounds of outrage politics. Also fuck you if you want to come at me attacking trans people for any reason
By invading Iran, the US has committed a strategic blunder that costs lives and steals money from workers everywhere. But also, crucially, the US is in denial about having forced Iran into controlling the Strait of Hormuz—one of the capitalist world’s most important choke points
The NZ Greens show up and show out every time the people get together. Where u at, Labour!? @nzgreensglobal.bsky.social
The Iran war is also a war on the working class, literally www.un-diplomatic.com/p/aoc-agains...
Did Iran fire MRBMs at Diego Garcia or not!?!?!?!?!??! I Don’t think anyone is in position to be making claims like the WSJ is here
In 1999, Mos Def rapped, “$69 billion in the last 20 years, spent on national defense but folks still live in fear.” Imagine how he'd have to rewrite those bars now
