So good to hear Terrence getting to the bottom of the dang e crisis

Ernst Bloch in his "Atheism in Christianity" examines the notion of a class struggle within Christianity, expressed as the conflict between the god of the people, and the god of the priesthood. The book really helped me grok the revolutionary potential of Christianity, as an atheist/marxist myself.

Their names are definitely going to be attached to it, as Tom says, but I'm not so confident that people will remember it as integral to Biden's or Blinken's legacy. Perhaps not an analogus example, but something I always think about is FDR's legacy wrt the Japanese internment. The US soc dem left worships FDR, even though I think they'll all unanimously agree that the internment was wrong. However, that doesn't seem to change FDR's legacy for a lot of people.

Matt Christman goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Topics: Schizophrenic bourgeois mind, life, death

Grill Stream

262 - Hyperborean Chamber II: In Through the Out Door 09.18.23

"Hitler was a product of his time," historian Kent Gardner told us in 1975, just thirty years after the end of World War II. "Was Frank Rizzo racist, or just a product of his time?" The Philadelphia Inquirer pondered in 2017 about the city's notoriously racist former police commissioner and mayor just 26 years after his death. "Christopher Columbus, no saint, was product of his time," explained a 2013 commentary in the Staten Island Advance.

We often hear this sentiment in reference to historical atrocities. Slaveowners, colonizers, genocidal tyrants, and right-wing bigots from decades or centuries past didn't know any better. They were simply responding to the time and place in which they lived — a different time, marked by different social mores, moral standards, and laws.

While it's perhaps fair to cite this cliche to explain, rather than justify, awkward song lyrics or offensive language and stereotypes used in movies from decades ago. But it's an entirely different issue with respect to how we venerate and remember the past. Especially since, in the most popular cases, famous people’s bad actions were roundly criticized, at the time.

Long popular as a catch-all to hand-wave away the misdeeds of slaveowners, colonizers and war mongers, Increasingly educational movements on the American right––from Ron DeSantis trying to remake history education to conservative propaganda targeting kids like PragerU — this "product of its time" cliché and its close cousin "don't judge the past by the standards of today" is making a bit of comeback, if it ever went away at all.

The defensive, superficially appealing cliche is a popular go-to for those who think we shouldn't criticize the supposedly sacrosanct secular deities of our past — from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. But the whole concept operates under a glaring double standard: how can we take pride in and venerate the supposedly good things Americans in history did but ignore and dismiss the bad things? How can we pick and choose our moral inheritance at will? How does the need for us to downplay slavery, colonization, and Jim Crow continue to be such a strong political force? And whose interests does this down-playing serve in 2023?

On this episode, we dissect the notion that the reactionary forces of history have just been "products of their time." We'll explore the ways in which this and related concepts are not only inaccurate, but also convenient instruments of right-wing historical revisionism, and how the need to make people feel good about our civic mythology makes for bad history, and even worse politics.

Our guest is historian and museum educator Erin Bartram.

Ep 189: PragerU, the 'Product Of His Time' Defense & the White Guilt Amelioration Industrial Complex

"Realities have forced us to remain on diplomatic terms with several dictators," the Pampa Daily News stated in 1958. "U.S. ambassador to the U.N Samantha Power has been forced to look the other way as Saudi Arabia does as it pleases in Yemen," Politico told us in 2016. Biden is being forced to accept the flaws of America's friends," claimed The New York Times  earlier this year, 2023.

For decades, we've heard the same excuse regarding US foreign policy: 'Our leaders might not agree with the world’s dictatorial, reactionary governments, but they’re forced –– by some unknown geopolitical dark matter of realpolitik –– to support them for some broader, more noble goal.'

Strengthening ties with the governments of Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Israel, The Philippines, and other countries under right-wing, human-rights-abusing governance might be a bit unpleasant, but it’s the pragmatic thing to do and, therefore, the morally acceptable thing to do.

But countries that are not the United States or its allies are never said to be "forced" into carrying out human rights abuses or supporting those that do. They back bombings, ethnic cleansings, the oppression of women for the sport, because they are existentially evil. No outside mysterious entity ever "forces" them to have to make compromises on the altar of "reality."

But there is nothing, of course, "forcing" these decisions on our own Western leaders, and in nearly every case, they're simply extensions of preexisting geopolitical relationships, imperialist policies, and arbitrary might-makes-right governance.

On this episode, we discuss the media narrative that the U.S. is "forced" to maintain long-beneficial alliances with right-wing regimes, looking at how this suggestion falsely presents the U.S. as an unwilling, but ultimately helpless, participant in repression of human rights around the world.

Our guest is author and NYU professor James Peck.

Ep 190: Why Media Insists the US is "Forced" to Commit Human Rights Abuses

Recorded 11/16/23

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 317: Ye Workers Of Iniquity

This week we discuss maps and their various uses; all the latest lies from Israel and the Biden administration; and why green feudalism isn't a thing. Finally we end on some synth your piece just like in the old days.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 321: Double Reverse Cartographic Own

This week we're joined by freelance writer Austyn Gaffney (@austyngaffney on Twitter) to talk about an issue that is near and dear to all of our hearts: the rise and fall of ag-tech start-up App Harvest

Check out Austyn's article for Grist here: https://grist.org/agriculture/appharvest-indoor-farming-morehead-kentucky/

Support us on Patreon here: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 322: Squash Appalachia (w/ special guest Austyn Gaffney)

This week we discuss South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide, as well as the latest climate news

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 325: The Genocide Paradox

If you don't want to hear us rant and rave about the Hofenstaufen dynasty, Frederick II, and how Prince Andrew of Hungary was the Hunter Biden of the middle ages, then fast forward to about minute 17. 

This week our old pal Kate Wagner (@mcmansionhell) joins us to discuss the pope, AI-generated content, conspiracy theory-fueled wildfires, the ecstasy we apparently felt at electing Joe Biden, and the latest designs at Neom. 

You can support Kate at the Duchy of Patreon: www.patreon.com/mcmansionhell

And us too: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 326: The Failson Crusade (w/ special guest Kate Wagner)

This week we talk about recently-departed singer Toby Keith's strange relationship with US four-star-general James Jones. We also talk about the current state of democracy, as well as the current state of mental health—like the health of our literal physical brains.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 329: Naptime Of The Peoples

We open this week with a tale as old as time: about a man and his unusual proclivities getting him into trouble. Then we switch gears a bit to talk about this week's USA-sponsored atrocities in Palestine

Support us on PATREON: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 330: Wood-Sprite's Tenure

This week we take a look at a very unique historical event: the infamous Bal des Ardents of 1393

Please support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 317: Ye Workers Of Iniquity

Trillbilly Worker's Party

Recent comments

hatin in the holler

hatin in the holler

hatin in the holler

Stručnjak Za Nejasnoće

Related tracks