ReConsider

Mitchell Orenstein is a professor of Central and East European Politics in the Slavic department at the University of Pennsylvania and an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard. His research focuses on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe.

This episode is the latest installment to the four-part series on Reconsidering Russia, where we try to dig into Rus...

Time in Kyiv: 9am, Tues, Sep 13th.

Kharkiv Oblast is free.

Zelenksy announced about 6 weeks ago that a major counter-offensive in the South would take place. After a month of attacking bridges, rail depots, ammunition depots, C&C, bases, etc etc etc, the offensive started in earnest. 2 weeks in, they haven’t gotten a ton of territory back.

But, as all of us paying attention know, the Southern offensive may have been the gr...

Mark Schauss is the host of Russian Rulers History and Battle Ground History. Known for being heavily well-versed with the history of Russia, Mark Schauss joins us in today’s episode to talk about the Russian history in its most authentic form. Mark shares everything from Russia’s first invasion to how all these historic events reflect on how Russia moves socio-politically in today’s world.  

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Hot Updates

• Severodonetsk fell slowly as expected, but then Lysychansk fell quickly because Russian troops surrounded it, and Ukrainian troops had to retreat rather than be destroyed. It’s possible the Ukrainians were out-gamed by Russian mid-level commanders.
• So far, Russians have not been able to break out of Donetsk city -- that part of the original Feb 24 defense line is holding
• Russia appears to have deployed nearly 100% of i...

Lots of ways we can split this. Much has been discussed about decoupling of wages from productivity. 

Also note we are absolutely not going to get into 2022. But it’s clear the price increases since the pandemic (due to supply shortages, super aggressive monetary policy, gasoline ,and other drivers of inflation) are really eating into real wages.

See the full show notes at ReconsiderMedia.com

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OR, a tale of ups and downs

Lots of things seem to be getting worse, at least if you read the internet ever

This is not an episode to say, “nothing is getting worse,” but that what you hear about is probably not very correlated with what’s going on.

I’m leaving abortion out of this because honestly I can’t even deal with this shit right now. 

Major problem with talking about trends: how long are we talking here? A ...

Updates

• Situation in Severodonetsk
• HUGE numbers of troops from both sides
• Artillery war
• “Road of life” from Bakhmut to Severodonetsk has 1km clearance from Popansa salient and has been a huge fight -- if it goes down, UKR at risk of losing >10k troops in that pocket
• Ammo situation
• Ukraine out of Soviet ammo; now fully on NATO
• 100% dependent on Western shipments 
• Would have literally run out of ammo without that support -- possi...

First, war update:

• Mariupol fell after 2.5 months of truly insane holding out. Gosh dang. 
• 1900 surrendered and there is a POW complication that I”m not going to get into
• Ukraine has mostly booted Russia out of Kharkiv, though there is still some fighting and the Russians have not given it up entirely the way they did Kyiv/Sumy/etc, so there’s no obvious way to free up those troops for Ukraine
• Russians trying really hard to cr...

What happens when you start really believing your own bullshit?

What happens when you’ve created a yes-man bubble where everyone only tells you what you want to hear?

First a war update:

• Russia’s focus on the east and Donbass, which started a month ago, has made a bit of progress in a few places, but is now pretty stalled
• They do seem to be regrouping from Mariupol, but they’ve also been going into a meat-grinder
• Ukraine has mad...

The Russians are hoping to encircle Ukraine's defensive lines in the Donbass. If they do, they might be able to declare victory.

The Ukrainians are racing east, not only to defend their territory, but might just also be able to counter-attack.

Let's break it down.

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On this episode, Erik interviews Lindsay Graham of American History Tellers and History Daily. They talk about the similarities and differences between today's political and economic climate and that of the Civil War and the Gilded Age.

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Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/reconsiderpodcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...

"Another cause which kept the plebeians in as state of poverty was the unjust distribution of the public land (ager publicus) which had been acquired in war..."

William C. Morey, Outline of Roman History

The Optimates:

Represented the Elites in the run-up to, and the middle of, the Roman Civil Wars

Believe the mob wasn’t really fit to rule, wanted to rule for them

Also represented special interests who benefited personally from ...

Antiwork had a really bad day

Source Article

“Laziness is a virtue in this society” - r/antiwork moderator

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220126-the-rise-of-the-anti-work-movement

“Supporters of the anti-work movement believe people should self-organise and labour only as much as needed, rather than working longer hours to create excess capital or goods.”

USA is a tough crowd for this kind of pitch. See: bad bran...

Today we talk about something I've reconsidered lately: Antiwork

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Erik’s initial take

-labor organization and rights are a great thing

-Not putting up with crappy work conditions, and forcing companies to compete, is a great thing (and this is my opinion as an employer)

-saying “I want stuff - someone has to make it- and I don't want to work in exchange” seem...