Transcription of the Announcement: As many of you know, The Guillotine is done, canceled. There will never be another Guillotine episode again. We cannot, and will not, keep the show around and merely plug in another co-host, that would be absurd. We had a great run, and we deeply appreciate all the love and support The Guillotine has garnered over its one-year existence. We tried to do something totally new and unapologetically militant, and because of that we gained dedicated listeners as well as a long list of enemies; many of whom we were happy to earn. The point of this announcement, however, is not to reflect on the show nor to reflect on the events that have brought the show to its end. If you are interested in that side of things, I have made public statements on my personal twitter page that you can check out. I’ve also had long private discussions with family members and close comrades about this issue, as I prefer to deal with these sorts of things privately rather than publicly. Either way, the point of this announcement is to convey as much practical information as I can in as effective and succinct a manner as possible, so here we go: Starting in February 2019, we are launching a brand-new multimedia project under the name “Red Spectre”. It will be hosted by me and Alyson Escalante, a comrade of mine who has appeared on two Rev Left episodes, our Gender Abolition & Michel Foucault episode as well as what I regard to be one of the best episodes of Rev Left to date, our State and Revolution episode. Along with a new name, a new aesthetic, and a new set of hosts, comes a brand new show structure as well. We will release one episode a month, both in audio podcast form as well as in a produced video form on Youtube. Each show will be in two parts: the first part will be Alyson and I working through a theoretical text (much like our State and Rev episode), and the second part will be us applying the lessons from that text to modern political events, global news headlines, popular culture, and contemporary leftist organizing in order to bring the theory to life and use real world examples to explicate the major themes and arguments of whichever work of theory we are tackling that month. Our goal here is twofold: to bring theory and practice together in an illuminating, engaging, and educational way, as well as to break onto the YouTube platform, a platform too often dominated by the right, and make radical leftist politics more accessible to even more people. We will also be offering bonus content on our patreon, but we will get to that in a minute. Now, before I move on, I want to address something that a fraction of you may be bummed about. The Guillotine was a show hosted by two people on the left with radically different tendencies; me on the Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist side, and my co-host on the Insurrectionary, Anarchist, and Egoist side. Many people loved that dynamic, as it de-emphasized sectarianism, promoted dialogue across tendencies, and was welcoming to comrades all across the radical left wing of the political spectrum. However, my comrade and new co-host Alyson is a principled Marxist-Leninist, and our new show will focus on the Marxist tradition heavily as we are both of that tradition and operate within it. I personally feel that this is the right move for me and for what I want to do intellectually and creatively at this juncture in my political development. Now, to be clear, we will also de-emphasize hyper-sectarianism and offer a show that is, in some ways, even more welcoming to new listeners and comrades who are still learning and finding their place on the Left. But we will not have a consistent anarchist voice on this new show. In light of that, I want to offer some recommendations of anarchist podcasts and media outlets from comrades who prefer that tendency to go check out and support. We will list as many of these as possible in the show notes of this episode, and when we post this online, people should feel free to add more anarchist shows in the comment section for those interested. Given this relative absence of Anarchist voices on our new show “Red Spectre”, I will strive to ensure they continue to have a place on Rev Left Radio, where we’ve already done dozens of shows with anarchists. Moreover, Rev Left has, and will continue to, launch spin off shows on a wide range of topics which are hosted by a wide range of people on the Left. Our weird left spin off show, Black Banner Magic, for example, is hosted by one of the most principled and hardest working anarchists I’ve ever met and focuses on anarchist politics alongside the occult. Additionally, 2/3rds of all the patreon money for Black Banner Magic goes to fund the Omaha Freedom Fund, which is an anarchist organization that assists prisoners of the state in paying their bail. We are also working on bringing an anarchist journalist comrade of mine onto Rev Left to do correspondent segments covering the elections in 2019, which should be incredibly fun and interesting. Lastly, we encourage people to check out anarchist-led podcasts and outlets like Coffee with Comrades, Its Going Down, Solecast, and The Stimulator. You can also check out the Channel Zero Network for an entire podcast network of anarchist shows if you are interested. This brings us to our next point, which is perhaps the single most important thing to take away from this announcement, so listen up comrades: Instead of simply throwing away The Guillotine’s Patreon page, The Guillotine’s LibSyn hosting site, and The Guillotine’s social media platforms and starting with nothing, we will be taking over that infrastructure, scrubbing it clean, and launching our new show on those platforms. We are giving folks the entire month of January to hear about this plan, and to act according to their own wishes. If you do not want to support our new project on Patreon, we totally understand, we thank you so goddamn much for your support up to this point, and we are giving you a month to retract your patreon subscription and put it elsewhere. HOWEVER, if you are interested in our new project, if you want to be on the ground floor of our Patreon and help give us ideas on what sort of bonus content you would like to see from Alyson and I, if you believe in Dave and I’s ability to create exciting new projects from scratch as we’ve done so many times before, and if you basically just want to support a brand new radical leftist multimedia and multi-platform project while forming personal relationships with Dave, Alyson, and Me, then we encourage you to stick around and launch the Red Spectre WITH US! Additionally, and this is super important as well, since our new show will launch in February and we will not be putting out content for the month of January, we pledge to you, right here and now, that if you stick around through January, NONE of the patreon income for this month will go to Dave and I. Not a goddamn penny. Instead, every cent of our Patreon money for the month of January will be donated to the Nebraska Left Coalition, a political organization that I helped found, a member of the Marxist center, and an organization that, we are proud to say, is majority dominated and led by women and LGBTQ comrades. We at NLC are launching a big anti-gentrification campaign in 2019, as well as smaller projects like building hydroponic gardening systems so people can be food self sufficient through the harsh Nebraskan winter, loaning out money with no interest to low income members of our community, putting together and distributing necessity bags for people without homes in our community, organizing our third annual May Day event, and much more! So, if you stick around through January, 100% of your Patreon donation for that month will go to this organization and will help fund programs which materially help poor and working people. And in February, as I said, Red Spectre will publish our first episode, and all of you who stick around will be there to help steer this new project, give us feedback on what you want to see, and help create the patreon bonus content for the show going forward. To ensure as many patrons as possible hear about this, I will be messaging this announcement to every single member of our Patreon individually, publishing it on The Guillotines RSS feed, and posting it on social media. We are dedicated to being as transparent and open about all of this with our supporters as we possibly can. Before we end, I want to take a brief moment to thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for every single listener and supporter of The Guillotine over the past year. We strove to give as many of you as possible a platform and a voice on the show, and in return you gave us one of the most loyal and loving listenerships of any podcast. We built a diverse and international audience by being unabashedly and unapologetically anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. We had listeners who ranged from teenagers to middle aged, who called in from places like Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, and beyond, and who consistently took up our call to organize in their communities and to rebel against reactionaries on every front. We will never forget that love and solidarity, and we will carry that very same spirit into our next project and into every project we do; and we sincerely hope that many of you will stick around and stand side by side with us as we once again try to elevate class consciousness, offer sharp and principled leftist analysis of current events, bolster and expand the leftist media landscape, and build a community of comrades rooted in compassion, struggle, solidarity, and a militant rejection of every form of domination and oppression that exists on this smoldering planet. With endless appreciation, bottomless love, and infinite solidarity, Goodnight. ----------------- Anarchist shows from Channel Zero Network: IGDCast The IGDCAST is a weekly podcast of It’s Going Down which features interviews with participants in social movements, struggles, rebellions, projects, and organizations. Solecast Solecast is a podcast about Philosophy, Rad
