Upstream

This is a free preview of the episode "Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber, you'll get access to biweekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.
In this episode of our reading series, Robbie reads and provides real-time analysis of the opening chapter of the classic book, Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media by Michael Parenti. The text explores the role that the media play in capitalism using a materialist, Marxist-Leninist analysis. 
The reading begins with Robbie comparing and contrasting Inventing Reality with the better-known book on a similar topic, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Robbie highlights the main antagonisms between Chomsky and Parenti in their approach to this topic and explores why these antagonisms exist. 
Robbie then dives into Inventing Reality, providing real-time analysis and commentary throughout. He presents Parenti's thesis and introduction to the content of the book before getting into some examples of how the media function under capitalism. Robbie uses the example of Skydance Media's merger with Paramount Global and the impact this had on CBS news and editorial coverage to explain Parenti's thesis on right-wing bias in the media. 
The text explores how the mainstream media covers race, gender, and class, and how this coverage is a result of the class position of those who own and control the media. This also explains why the mainstream media rarely if ever explore the structural causes of many of the issues they report on in society. Parenti explores the conservative nature of mainstream media through a variety examples, including coverage of candidates for political office. Robbie reads Parenti's analysis and then applies it to our current time, connecting the dots from the 1980s and 1990s when Parenti was writing the book to the present.
Robbie takes the example of skewed coverage of third-party candidates during elections to again parse out the differences between Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent, introducing Chomsky's concept of "structural filters" and contrasting it with Parenti's emphasis on property relations and class-struggle.
The reading ends with an exploration of how the media set the parameters around what is acceptable and not acceptable to discuss publicly—framing the limits of allowable discourse in a way that does not require them to always be controlling our minds in an Orwellian sense. Parenti argues that it's often much easier and more effective for our ruling class to  set the ideological tone and issue agenda with a much more insidious, subtle form of control than the nakedly brutish tactics of overt oppression. 
Further resources:
Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media
Related episodes:
A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations w/ Vijay Prashad

The Intellectual World War w/ Gabriel Rockhill

China Ep. 6: The Long Transition Towards Socialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill

Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill

Capitalist Realism with Carlee 
Four Ways to be Anticapitalist

Prefigurative Politics and Workplace Democracy w/ Saio Gradin and Nicole Wires

Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia
Battling the Duopoly w/ Jill Stein
A Socialist California w/ Ramsey Robinson
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this episode we're joined by Mohamed Khougali for a conversation exploring the history and politics of Sudan from the perspective of a Sudanese psychotherapist who participated in the 2018-2019 revolution. Mohamed Khougali is a socialist who was part of the Sudanese revolution of 2019. He's the author of Politically Unconscious: The Psychic Aftermath of the Sudanese Revolution, published by Iskra Books. He is currently residing in Germany, where he started the Black Radicals to incorporate the Black Radical Tradition into the German Left. 
The conversation opens with an overview of Politically Unconscious and then dives into Mohamed's work as a psychotherapist and his approach of praxis psychotherapy. We then take some time to orient ourselves to Sudan geographically and give some important context around its regions before we begin to explore Sudanese history.
We discuss Sudan's history beginning with the Anglo-Egyptian colonization period which lasted from the late 19th century to 1956. He discusses how this period shifted property, governing, and class relations in Sudan and paved the way for Sudan's contemporary conflicts. We discuss the resistance to colonialism and the formation of the Sudanese National Liberation Movement which later became the Communist Party of Sudan. We go on to talk about Sudanese independence, the quick overthrow of its new parliament by its first dictator, and then the emergence of neoliberalism in Sudan. 
Mohamed then talks about the financialization of Sudan—Khartoum in particular—and how this shaped and reshaped property relations and the lives of people in both the cities and rural areas. He talks about rebellions in the South and the West, the formation of the Jangaweed, which later turned into the Rapid Support Forces (or RSF), and the immiseration, racialization, and violence that resulted from these processes. We end by discussing the 2018-2019 revolution, how it was seized, and where Sudan is now.
Further resources:
Mohamed's psychotherapy practice
Politically Unconscious: The Psychic Aftermath of the Sudanese Revolution, by Mohamed Khougali
Black Radicals
Related episodes:
Listen to our ongoing series on Sudan
Feminism for the 99 Percent (Documentary)
Atlantic Slavery and the Plantation System w/ David McNally
The Democratic Party w/ Cecilia Guerrero
250 Years of Bourgeois Democracy w/ August Nimtz
Listen to our ongoing series on Palestine
This Missing Revolution w/ Vincent Bevins
Intermission music: "Ana lstu ri'deedan" by Atbarawi
We'll be off for the next couple of weeks for our summer break, so unless you're a Patreon subscriber this will be the last episode until August 10th. For Patreon subscribers, we've got an episode for you next week and then we'll be taking a break there also until mid-August. We've got some really exciting episodes planned for the weeks we're back so stay tuned!  
Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

This is a free preview of the episode "250 Years of Bourgeois Democracy w/ August Nimtz" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.
In this episode, August Nimtz joins us to discuss 250 years of bourgeois democracy. August Nimtz is professor of political science and African American and African studies and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of many books including The Ballot, the Streets, or Both? From Marx and Engels to Lenin and the October Revolution, which we had him on to speak about back in 2023, and most recently, Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique.   
Our conversation begins by revisiting our last conversation with August and providing a brief synopsis of The Ballot, the Streets, or Both?, setting the record straight on the intentions of the book in order to clear up some misunderstandings that many democratic socialists (particularly those of DSA) have around Marx, Engels, and Lenin's views on electoralism. In the process August discusses the recent victories of progressive candidates in Democratic primaries in the context of the two diseases of bourgeois politics: voting fetishism and parliamentary cretinism, which he says organizations and progressive politicians such as DSA and Bernie Sanders are afflicted with. 
We then take a deep dive into the history of the American Revolution, looking at the differences between the Revolution of 1776 and the writing of the Constitution—which August describes as a form of counterrevolution. We explore the creation of the proletariat as the first class in history that has the ability to emancipate humanity and explore bourgeois democracy—particularly what the bourgeois revolution required in order for capitalism to flourish, including certain rights intended for the emerging bourgeoisie. 
We then fast-forward to the present and explore how Donald Trump is an embodiment of American capitalism—a perfect example of the ideals put forth in the Constitution and the most authentic capitalist who has ever been in the White House. We discuss how Trump is capitalism's chicken coming home to roost. We end by talking about the "Great American State Fair" and survey the mood of the country, questioning whether the anger that people feel right now can be channeled into a constructive direction. 
Further resources:
The Capitalist Chicken That's 'Come Home to Roost': What Two Hundred Fifty Years Hath Bequeathed,  August Nimtz
Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique, August Nimtz
Lenin's Perspective: What Exactly Does It Mean to Vote -- Part 1 Against the Current No. 231, July/August 2024
Lenin's Perspective: What Exactly Does It Mean to Vote — Part 2 Against the Current No. 232, September/October 2024
Related episodes:
A Marxist Perspective on Elections w/ August Nimtz
The Democratic Party w/ Cecilia Guerrero
The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism w/ Torkil Lauesen
China Pt. 2: Socialist Democracy and Democratic Centralism w/ Ken Hammond
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this episode Cecilia Guerrero joins us to pick apart the sordid origins and class orientation of the Democratic Party. Cecilia Guerrero is chair and founding member of A Luta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville, Tennessee which incubates and trains young people and workers within advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations.
The conversation opens with a history of the Democratic Party, which is also a history of the development of US capitalism. Cecilia takes us back to the formation of the Democratic Party and describes the role it played in opposition to the Republican Party during slavery and up to the Civil War. She then outlines how the party shifted and evolved up through the Robber Barron days around the turn of the century up to WWI. 
We then explore how the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA), despite its successful origins, succumbed to opportunism and failed to be a vehicle for the working class in the United States. This resulted in the New Deal Democratic alliance being widely recognized as a working class party, despite, of course, being nothing of the sort. This shift paved the way for Franklin D. Roosevelt's program of throwing crumbs to the working class while working on behalf of the bourgeoisie to reform and stabilize capitalism.
Cecilia goes on to describe how the Democratic Party has now fully embraced the role that it took on under FDR—promising watered down reforms to an increasingly exploited and immiserated proletariat as a release valve for their anger while never delivering meaningful change. She describes how the Democratic Party inserts itself into radical movements only to co-opt and neutralize them, providing examples from Ferguson to Nashville, where she herself organizes. 
We then discuss the Democrats role in upholding imperialism through their history of supporting imperial exploit, particularly their uncompromising reliance on sanctions, predatory development schemes, and other forms of economic warfare. Finally, we discuss what needs to happen in order for us to break out of this two-party duopoly of capitalism and build a party that truly represents the working class. 
Further resources:
A Luta Sigue
Workers Unity League
Southern Youth Solidarity Network: Lessons from the 1934 San Francisco General Strike 
Nashville People Power
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (bolsheviks): Short Course
The Results and Significance of the US Presidential Elections. Lenin, 1912
After The Elections In America, Lenin. 1912
Letter to the Workers of Europe and America, Lenin. 1918
Struggle Against Opportunism in the Labor Movement – For a Socialist United States. William Dunne, 1947
Related episodes:
From the Frontlines: Class Struggle and Class War in the US Southeast w/ Cecilia Guerrero

Immigration, ICE, and Working Class Rebellion w/ Cecilia Guerrero

A Marxist Perspective on Elections w/ August Nimtz

Atlantic Slavery and the Plantation System w/ David McNally
International Workers' Day w/ John from Working Class History
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante
US Labor & Imperialism Pt. 1: the War Against Communism w/ Jeff Schuhrke
Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill
The Intellectual World War w/ Gabriel Rockhill
China Pt. 9: Taiwan w/ Charles Xu and Feiyung Sun
Black Scare / Red Scare with Charisse Burden-Stelly
Iran Pt. 2: The Impacts of Economic Strangulation w/ Elina Xenophontos
Migration as Economic Imperialism w/ Immanuel Ness
Intermission music: "The Democrats" by Carsie Blanton
Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

This is a free preview of the episode "Iran Pt. 5: Is the US-Iran Deal a Trap for Iran? w/ Elina Xenophontos" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber, you'll get access to biweekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.
Although the episodes build on each other in certain ways, all of our series are designed so that each episode can be listened to as a standalone
In Part 5 of our ongoing series on Iran, Elina Xenophontos joins us to discuss the US-Iran deal and what it could mean for Iran's economic sovereignty. Elina Xenophontos is an international law and economic globalization specialist. She produces much of her own material on her Substack and is also featured regularly on the Colonial Outcasts podcast. 
Our conversation begins with a brief overview of how Iran and the United States got to this point, leading up to the current deal that is being negotiated. Elina unpacks the various terms of the current agreement before discussing how one element of it, the $300 billion reconstruction and economic development fund, is an attempt to impose a form of neocolonial imperialism onto Iran by injecting Western capital into Iran's strategic sectors.
We tie this agreement into the broader geopolitical context, looking at how the United States is attempting to sustain itself, maintain its global hegemony, and prevent China's growing influence and tying in Venezuela and Cuba. Elina outlines the strategic role that Iran plays in China's Belt and Road Initiative and how the United States is attempting to disrupt China's growing influence. Elina then describes the threats to the petrodollar posed by Iran's strategic alliances and how the United States is attempting to intervene in these alliances. 
We end by discussing how this deal potentially threatens Iran's anti-imperialist unity and its role in the Axis of Resistance and explore how this deal and Iran's potential liberalization are being grappled with internally by the Islamic Republic's different political factions.
Further resources:
Elina Xenophontos on Substack
Support Elina's work on Patreon
Related episodes:
Listen to our ongoing series on Iran
Listen to our ongoing series on Cuba
Listen to our ongoing series on Venezuela
Listen to our ongoing series on China
The Rise (and Fall) of the US Dollar w/ Fadhel Kaboub
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.