Media critic and novelist Dennis Broe describes the lure and the trap of porn and gambling especially on young working-class women and men. These two multibillion dollar industries are examined as knowing how, much like series TV, to activate the addictive process. The standard narrative in porn is then characterised as one about male pleasure in the domination of a powerful woman with its ruling-class ethos located in the Epstein Scandal. Gambling is examined as a now ubiquitous enterprise that has corrupted first sports and now politics with its elite manifestation being Trump insider trading and manipulation of the stock market. We conclude with a reading from Dennis' novel Pornocopia which locates the origin of both phenomena in the mob-controlled Vegas of the 1950s.

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Dennis Broe and Toby Miller are joined by special guest Jules Boykoff who writes about sports with Dave Zirin for The Nation. Jules has written several books on the World Cup and The Olympics including his latest Red Card . He leads off by discussing Trump's overthrowing of the red card which he says was accepted graciously by the player who received it. We talk about the 2024 Paris and the upcoming 2028 Olympics, both of which Jules is covering and which includes militarizing the playing fields, removing homeless and reshaping minority neighborhoods. Finally, we discuss sports betting, how it is a plague on workers, how it is being rigged and how Kalshi stole into the World Cup.

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In Culture & Barbarism 12, Media Scholar Toby Miller from Mexico and Media Critic Dennis Broe from Paris look at the AI phenomenon, from a potentially bursting bubble to "To big to Fail." Market valuation is skyrocketing even as the service continues a massive drive toward job loss—with Amazon's "Fulfillment Centers now being converted into Unemployment Centers—a more total integration into the U.S. war machine and a gigantic and destructive use of resources. Meanwhile, AI in China is being developed in a different way, as the service is integrated into the industrial sector, a rotting core in the West, and used to better people's lives rather than as a new source of profit for the few.

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