I enjoyed the show for a bit and I was generally tolerant about the host's dislike of the USSR because they were still somewhat left adjacent. But now that Liam is pretty much the defacto co-host every episode that includes Russia amplifies the shit-take-meter. I get that Joe is Armenian so he's probably got some legitimate grievances with the USSR but motherfucker calls himself a socialist and calls out US propaganda all the time but can't even take the time to do some self-crit of his sources?
J R Sakai wrote the Lord of the Settlers: the myth of the white orc
Sakai's overall theory is basically that the Western sphere leftist doesn't have the potential for revolutionary change since the imperial Core will always:
1-make sure via it's state of exception to prevent it from happening 2-Make sure that you give enough welfare to the majority of the proles (in their framing the white settler working class) so that it becomes a labour aristocracy. By creating a welfare state, you can still keep the local people content while keep piling the skulls of the global south. The white proles will just develop a chauvinistic outlook in regards to Stalinist Hellhole like the USSR, China, VUVUZuela , etc.
The point is not wrong but it does go into that kind of argument bordering racial essentialism that some readers doesn't like.
His episode on the crusades was so outrageously bad and historically inaccurate it made me retroactively doubt literally everything he had ever said on the previous episodes I had listened to. It was comically, mid west middle school history lesson bad, so reductive as to be factually incorrect. Like I can't exactly articulate how bad it was, like he obviously did no research aside from a scan of wikipedia or outdated pop history from like the 40's. Like I don't expect like PHD level work, just basic competence and familiarity with the subject. For example I love the Orlando Bloom "Kingdom of Heaven" movie despite being terrible and full of factual historical inaccuracies, but it us true enough to the truth of the history that I don't mind. His episode was a crime against history.
What was his contention/why was it wrong?
Not familiar with the show, just curious what and how my conceptions of the crusades/ medieval history are prob incorrect.
The usual orientalism and anachronistic history. The "evil white imperialist europeans were launching an unjustified war on the poor innocent 3rd worlders by conquring the holy land" crap, like that's not even wrong its a frame of reference wrong and perceptually wrong. The condensing like 500 years of history into a few discrete events and then interpreting those events from a 19th century eurocentric lense.
I don’t think I’ve listened to that one, unless you meant the 4th Crusade One? What were some of his largest fuckups?
Honestly I don't remember specifics. I just remember it made me so mad after about 20 minutes I turned it off.
I have a pretty high tolerance to anti USSR cringe anyway, but the best way to get past it is remembering that every time Liam says something dumb his Communist dad will dunk on him.
I managed about 30 minutes of their series on the Soviet-Afghan war before turning it off. I can’t tell you what it was precisely, I just remember hearing things that boded very poorly for me not getting very angry at inaccurate and bad takes.
Lmao yeah zinc lined coffins, soldiers drinking antifreeze all sounded sorta Sus to me ngl
Yeah that reeks of the creepypasta esque writing style western propagandists tend to use when writing abt the USSR, DPRK etc. Another example is that story abt leaving toys with explosive booby-traps for Afghan kids. I can hardly even imagine the US military doing that, because it wouldnt be worth it even if the goal was just to spread fear (the CIA and KGB/FSB have much better, more subtle ways to do that). Everything is carefully calculated to make you uncomfortable, angry, or both. But when you look just below the flimsy reverse-engineered justifications they create for them, the supposed motives and logic behind them fade away
I don't really listen to the episodes on "modern" conflicts, which is anything after the 1st world war. His episodes on Baron Ungern von Sternberg were pretty good, and I remember being mildly impressed by the Nanjing episodes, though I only ever listened to two of them, so maybe the third was a stinker.
