Episode 63: Mythmaking in the Empire (EDS Part 5)
Added 2022-08-06 15:01:32 +0000 UTCWe discuss the historians and historiography of the US empire.
This is Episode 5 of our Empire and the Deep State series--an in-depth exploration on my new book American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. I am joined by series co-host Ben Norton of Multipolarista as well our own Seamus McGuiness who is producing the series.
Special thanks to Casey Moore for the episode art and Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "This Nation" by Mock Orange
Comments
I liked The Power of Nightmares and the first episode of Century of the Self. I think his aesthetic sense and his general film making skills are great. The problem is that he has very bad politics if you know a lot about the issues he covers. I did not know much when I first saw The Power of Nightmares. In a way, the film may have inspired me to study certain subjects. But the time he did his last big series, I felt compelled to exhaustively critique it. Part one is here: https://www.kennedysandking.com/reviews/deep-fake-politics-getting-adam-curtis-out-of-your-head
Aaron Good
2023-12-06 15:19:42 +0000 UTCI'm an unashamed Adam Curtis stan and I felt the comments about his work made here were extraordinarily unfair. Having heard this episode only today, I rewatched the third episode of the Pandora's Box series -- the first of his work I encountered -- 'The League of Gentlemen'. This gives a fun survey of how Britain turned to Thatcherism, and concludes with one of the most overt statements of 'well, we were just the outside of the Trojan Horse, serving the enemy that would spring forth and destroy the working class' that I've seen. (Central to the episode is Tony Benn asserting that economics is a political matter, not a science.) I would be the first to admit that Curtis has turned away from such an approach in his most recent films, but partly I believe that is because we don't have Tony Benn around any more, and the Alan Budd's of today are not about to make suggestions that perhaps a Marxist analysis might be something to think about. The reality is that anyone working like Curtis today has to start from a different point with the audience from what Curtis was able to do in 1992. Curtis' elisions are necessary to push the narrative forward in order to make his point in the allotted time. Frankly, you do something similar at times, making things seem far more planned out from the moment of Catherine of Braganza's dowry than perhaps was in the minds of the Earl of Clarendon and the Duke of Ormonde when they promoted this alliance.
Paul Brewer
2023-12-06 03:57:13 +0000 UTCEp. 63 EDS pt 5 40:15 The total settlement was around 1.7 million for all parties (Haas, The Assassination Of Fred Hampton). Best part is that one of the parties ordered to pay was “The Estate of John Edgar Hoover.”
surrander 2000
2022-09-13 10:37:12 +0000 UTCFrom listening to Dave Emory's old podcast episode, it seems there's a quite a lot of evidence pointing at the Confederacy/Slave Power in Lincoln's assassination. I haven't had time to read any of the books yet...
Listen man
2022-08-11 17:26:55 +0000 UTCMarxists and other progressive historians and political theorists seek to CLARIFY history and the contemporary workings of power. Right-wing conspiracists, on the other hand, whether they intend to or not, do very much MYSTIFY these things. They're superstitious nuts, so that's how they see the world.
Cultus Daemon
2022-08-08 19:13:48 +0000 UTCNot so much, but there are a small number trying to work in these areas--usually spread out across universities and/or departments.
Aaron Good
2022-08-08 17:25:24 +0000 UTCIf the New School and perhaps the Wisconsin school have been disciplined by the power elites. Are there still academic history departments in the US where you have clusters of critical thinkers doing the work you discuss?
Mike
2022-08-08 15:37:31 +0000 UTCUnbelievable these people.....https://worldfreedomalliance.org/au/news/un-declares-war-on-dangerous-conspiracy-theories-the-world-is-not-secretly-manipulated-by-global-elite/
Lezli
2022-08-08 11:15:03 +0000 UTCGotta be "coding."
Aaron Good
2022-08-08 01:23:48 +0000 UTCWait, is it Shit Coating or Shit Coding?
Max Barnett
2022-08-08 00:39:01 +0000 UTCYeah, it really saddened me to see him be so dogmatic and unquestioning of the covid narrative, and his subsequent breakup with Max. I still respect him for his knowledge of political theory and history, but it's like he has no political survival instincts at all or simply doesn't care about reaching out to the North American working class. All he had to do was say he was against the mandates (even China didn't mandate the covid vaccine!) Also, his absolute dismissal of the Canadian Trucker movement was disheartening. He wrote them all off as irredeemably right-wing and as petty bourgeois. So sad. I hope he has the moral courage and integrity to come to understand his error and acknowledge it some day.
Cultus Daemon
2022-08-07 19:09:16 +0000 UTCGreat episode as always.. with all this talk of conspiracy theory being used to smear critics of state crimes, I’m dying to hear if Ben has an updated opinion on its use today towards people who question covids origin, especially given the recent news circulating about Chavez, and Russia’s accusations about labs in Ukraine etc. He had been a little bit dismissive of it last year.
Max Barnett
2022-08-07 09:49:27 +0000 UTCI also tend to believe the nineteenth century populists' narrative that the War of 1812 and the Civil War were set up by the City of London to re-establish a private central bank.
Jon Croteau
2022-08-07 04:24:17 +0000 UTCOccultist and Elizabethan spy John Dee coined the phrase British Empire. He was following in the footsteps of Cornelius Agrippa, occultist and likely an agent of the Holy Roman Emporer. The Rosicrucians were all up in Virginia Company and on the Mayflower. The Sons of Liberty were a secret society. Benjamin Franklin had his Junto Club with a bunch founding fathers. He lived among Hellfire Club members when he went to England. I have read that Dashwood was a Jacobite. Franklin helped found the Lodge of the Nine Sisters with his friend near Paris. Personally, I believe the American Revolution was a Jacobite color revolution. I am still digging into it. Lafayette wanted to keep going and assault England directly overland through Ireland.
Jon Croteau
2022-08-07 04:02:56 +0000 UTC
