This Wreckage

Brooklyn vs. Dallas. Brownstones vs McMansions. Jelly Roll Morton vs. Jelly Roll. The Braves vs. The Savannah Bananas.

The authors of "Alphabet America" (Liam and Jackson) claim that their theory of a cosmopolitan America A and a psuedo-rural America B is "the most explanatory method of understanding the cultural divide," and that " the vast majority of people, whether they can name it or not, experience life in America this way more than they do under any other schema of social categorization we have seen."

We define the two Americas, pick apart their origins, speculate on...

Audio from our LIVE SHOW in Chicago at the first national ILC Convention!

For the full episode, including our panel with Jamie Merchant and 3 delegates from ILC locals, support us on patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

Song: Chicago - Saturday in the Park

&ers makes some recommendations for Mamdani's approach to the NYPD, &y recaps is Irish dérive, & we read together some excerpts from the recently departed Raoul Vaneigem

&ers essay on police reform: https://www.geesemag.com/articles/zohran-mamdani-needs-to-fire-jessica-tisch-but-who-will-he-replace-her-with

& reply from Ant L.: https://www.geesemag.com/articles/letter-the-nypd-is-none-of-our-concern

Basic Banalties: https://libcom.org/article/basic-banalities-parts-i-ii-raoul-vaneigem

Revolution of Everyday Life: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life

Vaneigem's address to Greek anarchists in 2010: https://illwill.com/the-state-is-nothing-lets-be-everything

Song: Pink Floyd - Time

FOR THE FULL EPISODE, support the show at https://www.patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

NEWS EP! We preview our coming events in Chicago and New York, and read about the United States' comic inability to make artillery shells.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

FRI 8/21 This Wreckage live event: https://luma.com/tc972eyv

SAT 8/22 UFOlogy to the People event at the Beach: https://www.instagram.com/thebeachchicago/

SUN 8/23 Metropolitans event at Pilsen Community Books: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMgcU2GRvQ/

WEDS 8/26 Heatwave Magazine release party...

The boys are back, Sean interviews Varn on his recent tour with Daniel Tutt, What did they learn and what did they see? Next is a segment about the DSA, its strategy and factions, present and future. What might we imagine coming of winning on the Democrat ballot line?

In the bonus room we get real doomer talking about the climate crisis, Complexity theory, public/private debt, the inability of US capitalists to get their shit together and the vagaries of Trumpism. You'll want to stick around for the discussion of ILC, DSA and pre-politics.<...

Sean (car painter) sits down with Billy OC (rod buster) and Gregory A. Butler (UBC retiree, IUOE member) to discuss the latter's new book The Workerist Manifesto. This is part 1 of a miniseries devoted to Greg's books, his news service Gangbox News and his many years of experience working in the trades and thinking about working class emancipation.

Chicago: get tickets for the This Wreckage Live Show sponsored by ILC Chicago on Friday, August 21st https://luma.com/tc972eyv?lm_source=embed

Song: Nourished by Time - Workers Interlude

Audio from our live panel on Saturday, July 25 at Woodbine where we go deeper on Varn & Tutt's new book The People Are Not One, starting with some normie vs. Marxist LARPing and ending with a spirited Q&A featuring Ross Wolfe, Greg Butler, Platypus, Donald Parkinson, and more!

For the full episode, support the show at http://patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

The event was sponsored by ILC of NYC Song: Run the Jewels - Goonies vs. E.T.

For the full episode, support the show at patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

Our consortium of classicists and Western Marxists review Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey, with the help of Adorno & Horkheimer's Dialectic of the Enlightenment

Song: Cream - Tale of Brave Odysseus

Andy reads the 99 page State Department report: "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism.”

For the full episode support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Episode with Blowback: https://www.patreon.com/thiswreckage/posts/e324-blockade-w-149781067

2021 Cuban uprising episode: https://www.patreon.com/thiswreckage/posts/talkin-tina-of-76203208

Song: Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

An interview with Matthew Wolfe about his new book Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage

Support DFW defendants: https://prairielanddefendants.com/

Legal Defense Fund for MN Anti-ICE Organizers: https://chuffed.org/project/186570-minnesota-15-legal-defense-fund

Chopped Uncle Ted doc The Net: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn9BvNAUvcU

Song: Iskra - Ash and Ruin

The authors of The People Are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism join us to discuss their intervention against the electoral-populist trajectory of the US left, their debate with Geese, and their solutions for reviving a Marxist left. SEE Derick Varn and Tutt on their

For the full episode, support the show at http://patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

Book Tour!

Philadelphia — July 20 6:00 PM — RSVP Free Library of Philadelphia

Baltimore — July 21 7:00 PM — RSVP: Red Emma’s

Washington, DC — July 24 6:30 PM — RSVP: People’s Book

New York — Jul...

Audio from June 27, 2026 ILC of NYC panel and town hall event for pride month on LGBTQ workers self-organizing, past and present.

Watch and subscribe on ILC's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVfkabZCR04&t=4s

With the increase in anti-LGBTQ (and especially anti-trans) sentiment among American legislators, the Independent Labor Club views it as pressing to host a public conversation on issues facing LGBTQ workers. We are inviting historians and organizers in order to discuss the history of autonomous struggles and what lessons can the working class at large learn from their efforts.<...

NEWS EP! Andy's reportback from Summer of Ludd! Sean on the 42nd Street building collapse and its YIMBY origins! Finally, the war's back on. But did it ever end?

For the full episode, support the show at https://www.patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

Brooklyn Public Library event Monday: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/am-gittlitz-discusses-central-library-dweck-20260713-0600pm

Our visit to the Verso Archive. Use WRECKAGE at checkout for 50% off the books we mention: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/the-verso-archive-featuring-this-wreckage

Summer of Ludd schedule: https://buttondown.com/nycofftech/archive/summer-of-ludd-schedule/

...

A chat with Freddy G, @orangefreddyg on IG, a Leftist/Antizionist Jewish comic and Content Creator for @trackaipac

Check out Freddy and Anders' DSA-benefit comedy show: @paidprotestcomedy

Some of his vids:

Birthright https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaVtPlwiuC7/

Watermelon: https://www.instagram.com/p/DYU7Op2hYC1/

Pod Save America: https://www.instagram.com/p/DaNxxXahCbg/

Land Auction: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZIviHVtxnv/

With Jacob berger: https://www.instagram.com/p/DYSkspoRzUW/

Song: Yung Lean - Metallic Intuition

Devin Thomas O’Shea stops by to chat about his new book The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggle for St. Louis

Support the show at https://www.patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

Peter Thiel's Dialog leak: https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/

Song: Bryan Ferry - In Your Mind

Sean reports back on Labor Note drama!

In the fun half, we listen to some of Graham Platner's town hall in an effort to redeem the term ULTRA. Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/c/thiswreckage to hear it!

For a Fighting Workers Movement, A Militant Critique of Labor Notes panel: https://youtu.be/lt5X16UQ6bA?is=T_W0N0gkrCqkl9Dw

NYT piece on how ultra is a slur: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/magazine/ultraprocessed-food-insult.html

Check out geese: https://www.geesemag.com/articles/enter-daedalus-2028 https://www...

Henry Wallis of the FORMS podcast returns to help us read through Books 10-19 of BOOK OF REVELATION!

We meet the whore of Babylon, the Beast, and 666 On the next episode, we’ll finish Revelation and move on to Capital Vol III!

For the full episode support the show at http://patreon.com/c/thiswreckage

song: Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around

Thanks to friends in International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers, Sean was able to attend the 2026 Labor Notes convention in Chicago, Illinois. A bunch of fellow workers from ILC Chicago were also there so Sean sat down with them at a loud bar in the convention center hotel to discuss their experiences at various panels they went to.

Whither the Teamsters for a Democratic Union? Whither the labor movement? Is there a future for the types of left labor reform movements that Labor Notes calls for? Sean, Hope and Jamie Merchant...

The second episode from the Hyatt Regency in Rosemont, Illinois for Labor Notes 2026 convention. This time Sean sits down with fellow workers JoJo and Gav from ILC Chicago to discuss various panels that they had just seen. In a surprise appearance, friend from New York, Joyce of the dissident Teamsters Mobilize stops by to talk about the trouble their group had at the conference due to TM's adversarial stance towards the reigning Teamsters for a Democratic Union leadership.

Tune in to next week's new episode where Andy and Sean break down the counterprogramming event that occurred outside...

Sean is joined by favorite guest and wife Rax King to discuss her upcoming essay in journalism cooperative Flaming Hydra on why organizing in the food service industry is so difficult but also so vital. What will it take for labor to break through in this industry? What can restaurant work teach us about labor in general? Why are these restaurant owners always clenching their jaws and sweating so much? Answers to these questions, an introduction to Rax's patented Nine Rigors system of becoming a human, an old fashioned gripezone and more on this special, last minute episode.

As Sean and Varn reconvene we are faced with the unenviable task of trying to understand what the hell the Democratic Party is going to run on in 2026 and 2028, How to understand this economic moment? How to understand the various geopolitical crises around the globe? How are counterhegemonic actors like Graham Platner and Alex Jones going to politically confront the brave new world of AI? Stay tuned!

To listen to the entire episode including the bonus section become a supporter of our show at www.patreon.com/thiswreckage

To watch the video of this whole...

NEW EP! Was Trump's China trip a Nothing Burger or a soy slop?

Why does the Deep State care so much about Taiwan?

And Sean's NY☭ hat came from WHERE?

All that plus choo-choo talk (LIRR Strike) in the bonus! For the full episode, sign up at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/nyregion/lirr-strike-long-island-rail-road.html

https://nypost.com/2026/05/16/us-news/hochul-pushed-lirr-strike-to-pick-up-votes-on-long-island-from-gop-opponent-transit-union-chief/

De-Tuckerized version of Sean's hat: https://www.neoliberalhell.com/shop/p/mysterious-hat

Song: Misfits - She (Demo version)

NEWS EP! Sean reports back from the a Beverly Hills Hedge Fund summit. Europe goes solar punk. US debt passes GDP as Project Freedom fails, and the Mideast bases lie in ruin. Is America through, or just through being cool?

Billionaires Unfazed by Iran: https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/19bda51e-fb62-4432-bc37-b9b425f19edd

Labor Market Unfazed by Iran https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/57482c61-164e-4f48-8214-370b269ac7b6

Europe Solar/Iran War: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/business/europe-solar-panels-iran-war.html

...

We're joined by Henry Wallis of the FORMS podcast to guide us through one of the most obscure and challenging, yet arguably most consequential Biblical texts: the Book of Revelations.

For the FULL episode, Discord access, and all bonus content support the show at http:///patreon.com/ThisWreckage

Written by a Christian exile on an Aegean Island in a time of intense imperial Civil War and internal repression of Jews and Christians, the text is interpreted by scholars as a coded polemic against tyranny and assimilation, and by end-times preachers (and...

Interviews from this past weekend's Upstate Anarchist Bookfair with Riot Act Books, Solarpunk writer Phoebe Wagner, Flock Off Ithaca, Bolshevik Tendency, and Warzone Distro

For an extended version of this episode, sign up for FREE at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

At the end I include a snippet of our Armed Love interview with Ben Morea, who passed away this weekend. Check out the full interview here: Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65595770?collection=87680 Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65563424?collection=87680

Critique of "win" narrative in Minneapolis: https://illwill.com/proto-politics-in-purgatory

Song...

We take another break from WW3 and various attempted assassinations with a sojourn into some economic shit with our guest Nicolas D Villarreal, an independent researcher focusing on the capitalist political economy.

For the full episode, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Full piece: https://cosmonautmag.com/2026/04/the-capitalist-in-the-21st-century/

Response https://cosmonautmag.com/2026/04/letter-limiting-factors-in-capitalist-growth/

Counter-Response https://cosmonautmag.com/2026/04/letter-why-the-limit-is-not-a-lack-of-opportunity/

FT article in agricultural inflation: https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/e13369c2-edb8-4418-adfb-3496d2fae185

CBS News' penny pinching tips...

Sean and Andy are joined by researcher A.J.A. Woods to discuss their new book The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West.

How did this basket of conspiracies come together in the post-60s moment? Who was Lyndon Larouche and how did he provide a bridge from quasi-Leninist elitism to the Reaganite New Right? What does culture even mean for the right and how has it taken such outsized importance for them?

And, in the bonus for subscribers, what might an actual...

&y & &ers celebrate weed's birthday with our annual reading of "Wally B" (Walter Benjamin)!

This year, we read Leon Wieseltier's weasel-tier preface to Benjamin's Illuminations, then "Unpacking My Library" and a section of Berlin Childhood.

For the full episode, subscribe at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage & listen to the end for a story of Anders' Benjamin-inspired direct action against Rahm Emmanuel.

Song: Eminem - Cleanin' Out My Closet (Slowed)

NEWS EP! Andy is a bestseller. Sean becomes a Luddite Gnome. Orbon is Or-gone. Situation monitoring Hormuz, and looking back at the Suez crisis.

In the bonus we discuss AI-generated Iranian propaganda. To hear that, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Metropolitans B&N event with Noah Kulwin: https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062206054-0

‘Summer of Ludd’ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/style/lamp-club-luddites.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Orban Loss: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/us/politics/orban-trump-maga.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Audio of Iranian warning that scared away US N...

Catching up with Molly Crabapple about Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, available TODAY!!

See also Molly's "My Great Grandfather was a Bundist" in New York Review of Books

Support the show / get bonus content at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Song: New Yiddish Chorale/Workers Circle Chorus feat. Adrienne Cooper - Barikadn (Barricades)

Sean and Varn are joined (eventually) by Henry Wallis, official France correspondent of This Wreckage and Varn Vlog, to talk about upcoming elections on the commune level and France Unbowed's plan to grow from municipal power to a mass political movement.

Beforehand we had a brief discussion of the economic fallout from the Iran war which has subsequently went into a tentative two-week ceasefire.

For access to this and all our bonus content become a supporter at www.patreon.com/thiswreckage

For the video of this episode and lots of great educational material...

Everybody preorder Metropolitans now!!!!

One of the longest and weirdest baseball books ever written, METROPOLITANS is a marxist history of America’s pastime in which the Mets serve a messianic main character.

Check out this excerpt, this interview, or this Adam Gopnik New Yorker review.

PREORDER from Penguin, Bookshop.org, Amazon and/or find me at one of the following launch events:

April 1: Official book launch! w/ Bradford William Davis at Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn (Ticketing information: https://powerhousearena.com/events/book-launch-metropolitans-by-a-m-gittlitz/)

April 3: Release celebration at Lou’s Athl...

audio from the Independent Labor Club of New York City's 03/21 panel at the NYU Games Center featuring JD Calvelli, Nathan Greyson, and Goran, Svorcan-Mercola. Moderated by Alexander King. To find more info about the ILC check out ILCLabor.com to sign up.

Become a supporter of our podcast at www.patreon.com/thiswreckage

Song: LDR - Video Games (Live at Stagecoach)

Sean and Andy are joined by Deep State Kuba Ph.D., international relation expert to the podcasting stars, to discuss current events in an unraveling world. Who is winning the wars in Iran and Ukraine? How has the media coverage of war and peace gotten so bad since the last great period of wars in the early 2000's? What kind of divisions exist within the global ruling class and what aspects of governance unify them? Whither the great post-war institutions in an era of global turbulence?

For the fun half, support the show at http...

The full episode is avaiable for FREE members at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Paid subscribers can watch the video version of the pod here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/152718531

We're joined by actor, comedian, activist, & Anders lookalike NATE SMITH! The two mog each other as we discuss the roots of his two action groups Climate Defiance & Extinction Rebellion, the recent interest both have received from the state, tips on dealing with FBI knocks from Ron Kuby, the use of humor in disruptive actions, anti-ginger racism, & much more!

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/left-wing-activists-storming-synagogue-use-knee-pads-adult-diaper-mock-dem-congressman-ice-vote<...

We go through different theories of WHY the Iran war is happening: ZOG/Epstein, Venezualizing Iran, Destabilizing the Gulf, Neo-Neoconservativism, immamentalizing the evangelical eschaton, or just because they can

For the full episode, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

Kharg theory: https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-oil-island-that-could-break-iran/

https://x.com/guy_laron/status/2030262780389937167

Uniparty Theory: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-iran-regime-change-democrats-chuck-schumer-midterms?utm_source=publication-search

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-nuclear-2672345081/

Armageddon Theory: https://theintercept.com/2026/03/05/iran-war-end-times-christian/

Klip Theory: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/why-we-struck-iran

To access the entire conversation, all of our bonus content and more become a supporter at www.patreon.com/thiswreckage

The boys are back to discuss the latest war in West Asia. How should socialists view this recent outbreak of violence? What role does Zionism have in US foreign policy? Is the tail wagging the dog or has Dr Frankenstein lost control of his creation?

In the fun half we discuss American Bundism and its failure, what role artificial intelligence is playing in the imperial military, and how the US military has entered...

Our gothic romance correspondent Susannah returns to chat about Emerald Fennell's kinkified adaptation of the Brontë classic, Wuthering Heights!

For the full episode, Discord access, and all bonus material, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

For the full episode, Discord access, and all bonus material, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage

In part two of our news episode we chat with Varn about his DSA organizing in SLC, the Board of Peace and its plans for Gaza, and read a scene report from a Nick Land/Curtis Yarvin meet-and-greet in SF.

News ep! We talk striking nurses, MLBPA drama, SCOTUS vs POTUS, the changing tactics of ICE, looksmaxxing, and more with our cool Social Studies teacher, future governor of New York, the Sigma Marxist, C. Derick Varn!

In part two of our new episode we chat with Varn about his DSA organizing in SLC, the Board of Peace and its plans for Gaza, and read a scene report from a Nick Land/Curtis Yarvin meet-and-greet in SF. For the full episode, Discord access, and all bonus material, support the show at http://patreon.com/thiswreckage