This episode examines liberal Zionism as a political con game aimed at prettifying Israel’s collapsing legitimacy. We focus on the Democratic Party’s role in carrying out the Gaza genocide, repressing anti-Zionist activists, and trying to co-opt pro-Palestinian solidarity. We expose the hypocrisy of “progressive” politicians like Zohran Mamdani, Abdul el-Sayed, and Ro Khanna who uphold U.S. imperialism’s unwavering alliance with the Zionist state.

We’re joined by Simone Deckard, an organizer with the Wa’ad Community Fund, who came on our show last September to talk about her experience doing mutual aid in the Northern West Bank. Together, we examine a growing movement of liberal Zionists carrying out “protective presence” in occupied Palestine as a feel-good “charity” alongside Israeli NGOs and peace initiatives.

Liberal Zionist hasbara and its backers redirect struggle from dismantling colonial power toward saving Israel’s image. Ultimately, we break down how Palestinian liberation requires breaking with every political force that seeks to negotiate the terms of Palestinian subjugation.

We encourage our followers to contribute to the Wa’ad Community Fund to help Palestinian refugees in the West Bank resist further displacement.

Links:

Susan Abulhawa’s Full Response to Mamdani

Jeremy Scahill’s Drop Site News Debate with Ro Khanna

Zionism has always portrayed its terror and violence against the Palestinian masses as a “fight against antisemitism.” In this episode, we explore the history of Zionism as a colonial movement that despised Judaism and echoed the anti-Jewish tropes permeating 19th-century Europe. We look at how Zionist leaders have always sought to transform Jewish identity from a religion into a reactionary, oppressive nationalist project based on Israeli statehood and the militarized subjugation of Palestinian Arabs.

The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 could not have been accomplished without Zionism’s alliances with imperial powers and antisemitic regimes, ranging from British officials to Nazi leaders and the U.S. imperialists today. More than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled and displaced during the Nakba, which continues to this day with terror in the West Bank and the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Leaning on academic scholars and historical research, we discuss how Zionism, as an ideology, sustains itself through its founding myths, manipulative tropes, and brutal methods to put down any resistance. We discuss how Zionist leaders cynically invoke the Holocaust and historical Jewish suffering to shield Israel from criticism, suppress pro-Palestinian activism, and justify ongoing military occupation.

This episode centrally draws on the following works:

• The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation by Abram Leon, 1946
• “The Non-Jewish Jew” by Isaac Deutscher, 1958
• Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner, 1983
• Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years by Israel Shahak, 1994
• The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History by Keith Whitelam, 1997
• The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed by Hajo G. Meyer, 2003
• The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand, 2008
• Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany by Francis R. Nicosia, 2008
• “Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression” by International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, 2012
• Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe, 2017
• Zionism During the Holocaust by Tony Greenstein, 2022
• Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew by Avi Shlaim, 2024
• “The Forgotten History of Jewish Anti-Zionism” by Zachary Foster, 2025

We encourage listeners who want to support Palestinians to donate to the following organizations:

• Lifeline4Gaza

• The Sameer Project

Links:

• A Conversation Between the Sword and the Neck, with renowned PLFP leader and Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani in 1972
• Edward Said on His Experience as a Palestinian on Democracy Now!
  

Reality TV is everywhere. For decades, the industry has sold the reality genre as raw, unfiltered human drama, but behind the scenes there’s a billion-dollar machine built on manipulation, labor exploitation, and abuse.

Drawing on shows from The Real World to Love Is Blind, from Cops to America’s Next Top Model, we unpack the reasons why we’re so captivated by this human spectacle and examine historical comparisons to cruel voyeurism like gladiator competitions and public crucifixions.

This episode traces the evolution of reality TV and how it functions as both a reflection and a reinforcement of the capitalist system. We dig into the industry’s reliance on low overhead, cheap budgets, and intense psychological pressure tactics, including placing contestants in situations of intense sleep deprivation and isolation. We reveal how production companies exploit vulnerable participants for profit and evade unionization, and we discuss the current lawsuits advocating for basic labor protections.

Finally, we look at how reality TV sells the lie at the heart of the "American Dream," focusing on The Kardashians and The Apprentice, two shows that shaped cultural standards of so-called beauty and success. And we reminisce about older reality TV shows that haven’t aged well. If you ever wanted to know more about the manufactured misery behind the shows you binge-watch every day, this episode is for you.

This episode includes clips from More Perfect Union’s documentary short Inside Love Is Blind’s Brutal Conditions on Set, as well as from the podcast Curse of America’s Next Top Model.

Prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have promised a world where you can gamble on virtually anything, from presidential elections and global military conflicts to the weather and pop culture. Tech billionaires frame these prediction markets as the ultimate "democratization of finance" and objective "truth machines."

Behind the techno-utopian pitch, prediction markets are playgrounds for insider trading. As their CEOs dodge regulation, they threaten to turn the entire world into a high-stakes casino, where those with power always win.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jathan Sadowski, co-host of the podcast This Machine Kills and author of The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism. Jathan exposes how these wealth extraction machines cater to a tiny minority of insiders and skilled pros who extract profits from everyday traders. We discuss how prediction markets prey directly on this economic anxiety, luring desperate people into high-risk gambling under the guise of financial empowerment.

We share clips from Kalshi founder Tarek Mansour, who views all of human experience as a tradeable asset. As Jathan wrote in his piece The Kalshi-fication of everything: “Financialization is a predatory logic. It is not just one more way of organizing the world among many others. The goal is to eliminate other competing worldviews and reengineer society into a casino where the hedge funds always win. The only human values that matter are the ones that can be turned into tradeable assets and sold to the highest bidder.”

Check out more of Jathan’s work here:

The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism book

This Machine Kills podcast

Interview with Paris Marx on Tech Won’t Save Us

In this episode, we explore the U.S./FIFA corruption that has riddled the 2026 World Cup: from predatory ticket pricing to the racist exclusion of fans from Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world; from the introduction of “hydration” advertising breaks to the “Americanization” of the game.

We examine the horrific treatment of the Iranian national team, who were forced to compete as the American rulers actively carried out terror on their home country, and who faced relentless interrogation and isolation while their families were barred from entering.

A follow-up to our fourth episode, “Race, Class, and the Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game,” this episode dissects some of the dirty, colonial history of FIFA, showing how politics and sports are structurally integrated. The consequence is a tournament in which bribery and cronyism have become so blatant that Trump can get a red-card suspension overturned for an American player.

Football is a deep passion for billions around the globe. For many working-class and poor people, it is an escape from the daily drudgery they endure under capitalist rule. The capricious venality and imperial arrogance of the U.S. and FIFA, the contemptuous disregard for the fans who form the backbone of the sport, all threaten to unravel the beautiful game.

This episode honors the athletes who showed up, improvised, and delivered profound moments of pride in the game despite oppressive conditions they did not choose.

“Protect the children” is the rallying cry behind a sweeping new wave of internet regulation, sparking a moral panic to justify censorship and surveillance. Across the globe, governments are advancing social media bans and age-verification laws, often citing a youth mental health crisis popularized by works like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. These policies claim to reduce harm, yet in practice, they concentrate power in the hands of the state and Big Tech, requiring users to hand over IDs, biometric data, and other sensitive information just to participate online.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jillian York, Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism. We examine how these measures make social media a convenient scapegoat, while failing to address the real conditions shaping young people’s lives. From biased age-estimation systems to the exclusion of millions without government ID, these laws destroy anonymity and deepen inequality while normalizing invasive control over our digital lives.

We also challenge the idea that social media is responsible for driving a mental health crisis. As lawmakers fixate on screens and algorithms, young people are reduced to statistics or stereotypes, and deeper pressures shaping their experience (economic instability, social isolation, political uncertainty) are ignored.

Following our interview with Jillian York, we include segments from a conversation with a 10-year-old about her relationship with technology, her views on the world, and the fears and hopes shaping her generation. Any serious conversation about kids’ well-being has to start by actually listening to them. (Note: This conversation was shared with the full knowledge and consent of her parents, who reviewed and approved the edited excerpts included in this episode.)

Check out more reading from EFF:

Age Verification Harms Users of All Ages

10 Not-So-Hidden Dangers of Age Verification

Age Gates Threaten the Expressive Rights of Every Internet User

The Impact of Age Verification Measures Goes Beyond Porn Sites

No, the UK’s Online Safety Act Doesn’t Make Children Safer Online

The Kids Online Safety Act Will Make the Internet Worse for Everyone

The Science Is Not Settled: Weak Evidence Is Fueling the Push to Ban Social Media for Youth

AI won’t make you stronger, but it might kill you. In Part 2, we discuss how AI is constructing a high-tech infrastructure of control, where every movement and transaction becomes data to be monitored, commodified, and weaponized. We examine the growing fusion between AI companies and militarized state power, using Palantir’s recent manifesto as a case study to show how tech companies are advancing the chatbot-to-kill pipeline.

We also delve into the deeply anti-human ideologies driving many of the most powerful figures, like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, in Silicon Valley’s bizarre death cult. Within the TESCREAL movement, which includes transhumanism and singularitarianism, humanity is merely an inefficient stepping stone toward superior machine intelligence.

We explore the psychological and social consequences of AI companionship and chatbot culture, including what researchers and critics have begun calling “AI psychosis.” We look at a growing number of reported cases involving manipulation, emotional dependency, overdoses, and suicide linked to the AI killbot.

The core issue is not the technology itself, but its ownership. Who should control technology? Capitalist rulers and the state? Or the workers whose collective labor built society?

Finally, we share a movie review of Amazon’s Mercy, a corporate surveillance fantasy disguised as a sci-fi thriller and stitched together from tech CEO talking points.

Is artificial intelligence an inevitable leap toward superintelligence, or just a high-speed statistical guessing game backed by billions in venture capital? In Part 1, we peel back the marketing blitz to reveal how these hyped-up "God Machines" are merely software built on data theft and corporate speculation.

We deconstruct the "booster" vs. "doomer" trap, arguing that they’re two sides of the same coin, each serving the myth that AI is an all-powerful force capable of either saving or destroying civilization. We look at what’s behind the AI bubble, and how the flood of investment money into the industry has inflated the U.S. stock market and artificially bolstered the economy for a tool that’s neither inherently valuable nor profitable. When the bubble bursts, the pain will be felt by the working class and the oppressed, who are footing the bill. We also pull back the curtain on the massive AI data centers destroying local communities, guzzling fresh water, and threatening power grids to keep this subsidized tech fantasy running.

The billionaire tech overlords use AI hype to gaslight us, to fuel anxiety about layoffs, to justify surveillance, and to popularize their sociopathic goals for human obsolescence. The growing opposition to AI asks why this technology is being forced upon us, and what's the true cost to our labor, our creativity, the environment, and the future?

Shoutout to Ed Zitron for giving us tons of fuel and inspiration for this episode! Special thanks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna for their research in The AI Con. Come on our show!