On this short but sweet edition of Parallax Views, we delve into the world of female MMA. Thanks to fighters like Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg the female side of mixed martial arts has gained greater traction amongst combat sports fans and the general public in recent years. One need look no farther than the fact that Hollywood produced a major motion picture with Halle Berry,Bruised, based on subject to see how female MMA has become part of popular culture. Heading the charge for women's MMA is the promotion Invicta FC. For over 10 years now Invicta FC has provided a platform for top female athletes to compete in combat sports. Joining us ahead of Invicta FC 48, which will be available on AXS TV as well as the Invicta FC Youtube and Facebook pages, is Invicta FC's CEO/President Shannon Knapp. Among the topics discussed: - The birth of Invicta FC and the obstacles and hurdles it faced as an all-women's MMA promotion - Invicta FC's card including the Bantamweight championship bout between Taneisha Tennant (c) vs. Olga Rubin and pro boxer Melissa Odessa Parker vs. GLORY kickboxer Isis Verbeek - Invicta FC's adoption of the open scoring system for fights - Shannon as an advocate for female athletes in the combat sports world and why she calls them athletes rather than fighters - Thoughts on the old criticism that MMA is "human cockfighting" - The challenge of finding female athletes in an often male-dominated sport - Leveling the playing field for female MMA athletes and the importance of Invicta FC to the broader world of combat sports - Shannon Knapp's thoughts on the success of Ronda Rousey and what it has meant for female MMA - And much, much more!
On this edition of Parallax Views, Dutch sociologist M.B. Schuilenburg joins us to discuss his books Hysteria: Crime, Media, and Politics andThe Algorithmic Society: Technology, Power, and Knowledge. In this conversation we discuss the history of the idea of hysteria from it's origins in a clinical setting used, often times, against women to its usage by philosophers like Hobbes and Foucault and the concept of mass hysteria around hot topics like immigration. In addition to all of this we discuss the empirical research Schuilenburg did for the book, the Rotterdam race riots, anti-immigrant rhetoric and the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, the concept of security in Western society and its different connotations, Zygmunt Bauman's idea of "Liquid Modernity", neoliberalism and globalization, hysteria and the collective sense of a loss of control, positive security/hysteria vs. negative security/hysteria, the phenomena of moral panic, algorithms and social media as they relate to mass hy...
On this edition of Parallax Views, a previously unreleased conversation from April 2022 with Kali Tribune's Branko Malic, who specializes in writing about metaphysics from a Catholic and traditionalist bent, about the Russian philosopher that's been called "Putin's Rasputin", Alexander Dugin. Aleksandr Dugin has been a figure that's gotten media coverage ever since the election of Donald Trump. He's one of the most ardent supporters of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. But who is Alexander Dugin? What are his beliefs? Is he a Gnostic? A follower of the Traditionalist School of metaphysics in the vein of Rene Guenon or Julius Evola? An occultist who practices a chaos magick? A mere Russian imperialist who promotes his worldview through what he calls the "Fourth Political Theory" and Eurasianism? A madman? A Satanist? A Russian Orthodox Catholic? Or simply a man who wants to "immanentize the eschaton" (aka the apocalypse)? Branko and I will tackle all of this and much more in the conversat...
On this edition of Parallax Views, July 4th is just around the corner. What better way to celebrate than hitting the beach! Of course, if you're not careful in that water you could get munched up by a shark like in JAWS. Or worse... PIRANHA WOMEN! Piranha Women is the latest effort of Charles Band's long-running horror/fantasy/sci-fi factory Full Moon Features. It's also a return to said genre for it's director, the legendary independent filmmaker Fred Olen Ray. For a number of years now Fred has been working on TV, including making Hallmark Christmas movies with Chevy Chase and Lifetime thrillers. For him filmmaking is not merely some hobby, but a profession. Simply put, he's a working class filmmaker. Prior too much of his television work, Fred directed a great number of horror, sci-fi, action, and fantasy pictures during the VHS boom in the 1980s and a number of erotic thrillers during that genre's popularity in the 1990s. Among some of the cult classics Fred has directed are Hol...
On this edition of Parallax Views, former Bloomberg News reporter and investigative journalist David de Jong joins Parallax Views to discuss his new book The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties. There has been much academic research and debate over the years on the topic of big business and the rise of the Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, specifically in the form of Henry Ashby Turner's 1985 bookBig Business and the Rise of Hitler. A little bit of digging will lead anyone interested in the subject to a secret meeting between Hitler and German industrialists that occurred on February 20th, 1933. De Jong picks up the story from those early days of the Third Reich and examines the wealthy families that prospered under Hitler's reign including the Quandt Family, the Porsche–Piëch family, the Von Finck family, the Flick family, the Oetker family, and Reimann family. These families have become associated with such familiar auto companies as Porsche, BMV, and Volkswagen over the ye...
On this edition of Parallax Views, journalist Kathyrn Miles joins the show to discuss her new true crime bookTrailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. In the spring of May 1996, Julianne “Julie” Williams and Laura “Lollie” Winans went into Shenandoah National Park, part of the Appalachian trail. They were two bright young women in college with a future ahead of them. That future, however, was stolen as both Lollie and Julie were murdered in the woods of Shenandoah Nation Park. Their murder became nationwide news. So much so in fact that when George W. Bush became President of the United States, the Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales of announced that they had found a suspect and that the murder was a hate crime. You see, Lollie and Julie had been in a romantic relationship. As such, their murder could've been a hate crime. The culprit? A man by the name of Darrell David Rice. However, not all is as it seems. Kathyrn Miles takes us through her investigation of...
On this edition of Parallax Views, a previously unpublished conversation from April 2022 with Brandan P. Buck, a Ph.D. candidate in history and Digital History Fellow at George Mason University. Brandan has been researching the topic of a early-mid 20th century conservative formation known as the "Old Right". Epitomized by figures such as Senator Robert A. Taft and journalists like John T. Flynn and Garet Garrett, the Old Right was a force that opposed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Some of this was in opposition to FDR's New Deal, but the Old Right was also known for its antiwar stance often leading to it being accused of isolationism or antisemitic, fascist/Nazi sympathies. Brandan and I discuss all of this as well as the history of the Old Right and specifically its connection to antiwar thought. This conversation came about after reading Brandan's piece at Responsible Statecraft entitled "No ‘Putin apologia’ and certainly not new: the Old American Right on war". Said pie...
On this edition of Parallax Views, Stuart Smith, author of Otto Skorzeny: The Devil's Disciple, joins the program to discuss the life, myths, and controversies of Nazi SS commando Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny is perhaps best known for his involvement in a 1943 rescue mission operation to save Benito Mussolini in what has become known as the Gran Sasso raid. In this conversation we discuss: - The Luftwaffe and the controversies around the credit Skorzeny gets for the Gran Sasso raid - The connection between Otto Skorzeny and Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 novelMoonraker - Skorzeny, Operation Greif, and the Battle of the Bulge; efforts of the Axis forces to deceptively dress as Allied soldiers to cause havoc during the Battle of the Bulge - The myth-making of Otto Skorzeny and the media; discussing how Skorzeny's superficial qualities, such as the distinctive scar that got him nicknamed "Scarface", and his self-aggrandizing memoirs (My Commando Operations: The Memoirs of Hitler's Most Danger...
On this edition of Parallax Views, Project Censored's Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon return to the program to discuss their new book, available now from Routledge,Let’s Agree to Disagree A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy. This was recorded around the time that Mia Janowicz and the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board was in the news so we also delve into issues related to censorship and corporate media bias. In the course of our conversation we also touch upon critical theory and Frankfurt School thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, the abortion debate, and much, much more! In the second segment of the show, a previously unpublished conversation from early 2022 in which J.G. spoke with friend of the show and returning guest John Duffy (co-author with Ray Nowosielski of The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror and the investigative documentary podcast After The Uprisin...
On this edition of Parallax Views, sociologist William I. Robinson returns to the program to discuss his new bookGlobal Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic. Picking up where his last book,Global Police State, left off,Global Civil War explores the growing global discontent in the age of transnational capitalism and the 21st century's emergent, high-tech surveillance society in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. Among the topics discussed on this edition of the show. - The digital revolution, the biopolitical regime, and the transformation of global capitalism - The transnational capitalist class and the Davos-based World Economic Forum - Social control, surveillance, and the disciplining of the global working class - The digital revolution and the exacerbation of global inequality and the rapid expansion of the ultra-wealthy's fortunes since the pandemic - The new, dramatic crisis of global capitalism and the history of crises within the capitalist system - The emergence of a biop...