A People's History of Violence: Recent Episodes
APHoV
Isaac and Peter scavenge their way through the remnants of history's great affairs, assassinations, crimes, conspiracies, coverups, and trials, uncovering the reality obscured by the interests of the rich the powerful, and the worst offender: True Crime.
The Final Part,
Into the Maw
Where is the body.
Who did it.
In this final part to the final chapter of our Hoffa and the Teamsters series, we hope to answer to the entangled questions of where Hoffa's body is, who ultimately commissioned his death, and finally, what force derailed this entire investigation? Why, to this day, do FBI excavation teams fruitlessly dig hole after hole in suburban Michigan, New Jersey and Florida?
The answer, we find quickly has to do with the government-protected status of one individual, the class-collaborator himself: Frank Fitzsimmons, and his relationship with a mob-owned sanitation company. One already known to informants as a part-time body disposal plant.
In our final look back however, we look at the words of Pete Camarata for what Hoffa's death meant to teamster dissidents and socialists trying to take control of their own union.
MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105393549
THE FINAL CHAPTER, THEY DISAPPEARED HIM:
TIMELINES.
WITNESSES.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.
On the cusp of retaking the presidency of the largest and most powerful union in the continent, and with an angry rank and file sweeping him forward, Jimmy Hoffa was abducted and murdered. The shipping company owners, white house staffers and collaborationist teamster regional chieftains could rest easy and look forward to a new and lucrative era where the highways are free of barricades and loads are plodded over by immiserated low-wage drivers. So why is the Hoffa abduction and murder thought of as a gangster story, rather than one of labor violence, a story used to put a note of mystery into the memoirs of dying mafia men?
In this 2-part final chapter to our Hoffa and the Teamsters saga we talk about the final hours of Jimmy Hoffa's life and the competing alibis given by his abductors. Along the way we discuss mid-70s luxury sedans, DNA analysis, and the maximum size of a Coho salmon.
MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105059752
As the economic order falls apart, the conspiracy to get rid of the Hoffa problem and the Teamster problem begins to take shape.
Music: Thanks as always to Komakino for our opening and closing theme. Opening and Interlude background music were "Soothing Gloom" (opening), and "Not meant to be" (interlude) provided by the artist Survival Spheres, more of their work here: https://www.youtube.com/@SurvivalSpheres
huge thank you to Survival Spheres for permitting the use of their work.
On this penultimate 2 part Hoffa series episode we begin with Hoffa at his lowest point: in prison stuffing mattresses on the orders of Robert F Kennedy. As Hoffa is removed from the seat of power the control of the Teamsters apparatus returns to to Frank Fitzsimmons and the local barons: blood soaked and ready for siphon money cutting deals with employers as the economic crisis of the 1970s dawned.
Under the Fitzismmons regime, the teamster's leadership became a crucial ally of President Nixon in holding down wages, prices and economic rebellion.
But in this section of this Penultimate Hoffa episode we detail how Hoffa's departure led to a revolt of the petty officers in the teamsters union, and a wave of pressure from below to free Hoffa and put the union on a war footing, cul
We introduce the new character of future Teamsters for a Democratic Union Leader Pete Camerata, who in a similar way to Hoffa himself, began as a rebellious warehouse worker in Local 299, seeing himself as a 'Hoffaist' hoping to purge the "crooked gangster element" from the union's empire.
MORE ON OUR PATREON (INCLUDING FOR THIS EPISODE): https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-40-hoffa-100701588
MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/extended-preview-97903649
This is an extended preview of a Patron-Only episode. For more, including the second half of this episode extra pictures and documents, sign up for a Patreon subscription today.
In this solo episode, Isaac showcases some of the most interesting pieces of evidence he has collected over time in researching the April 4, 1968 murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and the work of the sadly departed Professor Philip Melanson, one of the saner heads on this case.
The King case has always been the lesser case for conspiracy-heads behind JFK and RFK: a political murder of a socialistic leader in the midst of both a strike and a mass campaign for economic redistribution is for most of these hobbyists too grimy, too dirty, too "material" to imagine into a rorschach blot of 'what went wrong with america'. But the case is truly as fascinating as any, and Isaac provides the overview.
After laying the basics out for our listeners we turn to a long-forgotten fragment of stark evidence: a sworn affidavit by Pentagon Paper leaker Daniel Ellsberg, about detailed information leaked to him from the fractious House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, declaring that the congressional investigators "solved" the case: a team reporting directly to J Edgar Hoover carried out the assassination and the circumstantial evidence (which was described to Ellsberg) had already been assembled to prove it.
Above: A Map of the Memphis Crime Scene, as used by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)
MUSIC/SOUNDS: Special thanks as always to Komakino for our opening and closing theme: https://www.youtube.com/@komakinojoydivisiontribute4531.
The intro music is "Formlessness" by the artist Survival Spheres, their work can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@SurvivalSpheres. The interlude music is a slowed and reverb heavy mix of the Silent Hill 3 save theme.
The opening is an interview of King in 1968 by Harry Belafonte detailing his plans for the Poor People's Campaign, and saved and preserved by The Nation Magazine. The second is a mix of clips found on youtube of King's speeches from 1968, including fromt he Memphis Sanitation Strike, and interviews with Phil Melanson on the stripping away of security from King on the day of the assassination.
MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-38-hit-97064811
We're a bit late in commemorating the death of Class A War Criminal Kissinger, but, we hope you see it was worth the wait.
In this episode, Isaac and Peter lay out the case for Kissinger's direct guilt in the 1970 mob-hit-style murder of Chilean General Rene Schneider.; a man who simply got in the way of Kissinger's plan to overthrow elected Socialist President Salvador Allende.
It is a story of payoff cash stuffed in boots, machine gun handoffs, crash cars, and scumbag ex-detective hit men (an APHoV favorite), with the lying-to-grave Harvard-trained gangster running the whole show. We'll talk about why Kissinger's many defenses to the Schneider murder don't pass muster, and why the power elite love Kissinger more, not less, as his crimes became a matter of documentary record.
Music: Thanks always to Komakino for our opening and closing. The interlude music is "Far Below" by Ephraim Lovelace. The opening audio is a segment from Nixon's oval office tapes of Kissinger, Nixon and Bob Haldeman from June 11, 1971 talking about a recent assassination of a Christian Democrat, but then making reference to (and effectively admitting guilt in) General Schneider's own assassination. The background is "Cuba and Track 2" from the Nixon OST by John Williams.
References and Sources: Anyone interested in this topic should take a look at the National Security Archive (NOT a government website), especially: "The CIA and Chile, Anatomy of an Assassination" found here:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
...as well as Peter Kornbluh's The Pinochet File. Other details, though not all of them accurate, can be found in the Sy Hersh classic The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.
Happy Hoffa Holidays Listeners.
Here we have the legal offensive that took down Hoffa, and along the way rats, spies, crooked lawyers, and a cowardly supreme court. Your loyal not-spy co-hosts continue the story of Jimmy Hoffa's trials where red-hunter Walter Sheridan employs the slippery Ellroyan thug Edward Grady Partin to infiltrate Hoffa's camp and come up with extremely convenient stories to corroborate the stings Sheridan himself has set up. But was he guilty? Kinda guilty? Was the government guilty? (Yes.)
We turn also to the Hoffa's failed attempt to fight against the use of 'human wiretaps' at the Supreme Court, and how in the midst of this legal offensive, the IBT and Hoffa were still such a force that the Teamsters secured the National Master Freight Agreement and the capability of a "national trucking strike."
Sounds and Noises: Thanks to Komakino for our opening and closing theme. The sample from the opening is an actual recording of President Richard Nixon in 1971 talking on the phone about the Hoffa cases. The interlude segment is of Hoffa's speech at the 1964 convention of the Transportation Workers of America. The first speaker is communist fellow-traveller President Mike Quill and the second speaker is, of course, James Riddle Hoffa himself.
MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/95235234
Welcome back listeners.
Hoffa is on top, and the Wire Men are coming for him.
As the 1950's come to a close, Jimmy Hoffa, Harold Gibbons, and the Teamsters are at the height of their power. They are within an arm's reach of what Hoffa described as labor's "Atom Bomb": an alliance between the Teamsters and the the most militant communist and socialist-led unions in the country, with the aim to control every part of the American transportation system and deliver historic gains for workers.
But not if Robert Kennedy, his counter-espionage trained henchman Walter Sheridan, and an army of attorneys, feds, wire men, and (oddly) state troopers can help it. In this two-parter (it was long), we break down the details of every trumped up charge, and some real ones too, laid against Hoffa to bring him down, but even in the courtroom big H and the Teamsters Union still have a lot of cards to play.
Muzak: Special thanks as always to Komakino for our opening/closing theme. And credit to Obsidian Soundfields for the background ambience of "The Mourning Hall" in the interlude segment. Sound clips borrowed from the 1955 noir film "The Wiretapper" for the interlude.
BONUS EPS AND MORE ON OUR PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-35-hoffa-94337586
Decorated APHoV guest, Professor Tim Gill joins us to talk about the exploitative working conditions in a favorite form of on-screen violence: Professional Wrestling. We talk about the efforts to unionize wrestling, 'carnie language', the recent death of Bray Wyatt, Vince McMahon, and the nature of reality in the 'reality era', man.Link to Tim's 2022 article in Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2022/10/wwe-vince-mcmahon-wrestling-unions-healthMusic: Thanks as always to Komakino for our opening/closing theme. The interlude theme is from the original score to The Wrestler by Clint Mansell featuring Slash.
AND WE'RE BACK.Can a single piece of evidence say whether the murder of the president was the work of a lone assassin or a "professional hit"? Can "new s--t come to light" in an 80-year-old homicide? In this episode, Isaac and Peter warily stare into the abyss of Kennedy Assassination research, and try not to get consumed. We explore the recent revelation in the New York Times that Secret Service agent Paul Landis, found the barely-marked perfectly intact "magic" bullet in Kennedy's Limousine and placed it on a gurney himself. A simple detail that completes a picture painted years before by the Existential Detective himself, Josiah Thompson, in Six Seconds in Dallas, and makes the case for a "professional hit" more convincing than ever.On the way you'll hear about some Isaac's family assassination lore, demented texan blood souvenir hunters, and how the Kennedy case transformed soft-spoken philosophy professor became into a hardboiled private detective.MORE PICTURES, DOCUMENTS AND EPISODES ON OUR PATREON PAGE!: https://www.patreon.com/posts/91477720
Well listeners, we finally did a heist episode, we had fun with it.On November 24, 1971, the night before Thanksgiving, a man identifying himself only as Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight, and after receivingCooper said he had a grudge, but not against the airline.Only recently, in the 2010s civilian researchers uncovered a fascinating body of physical and circumstantial evidence peeled back layers of mystery around Cooper and strongly suggested that he was one of many thrown out of work and facing ruin in 1971 during the Boeing Bust. At the end of 1970, the US government, with one eye on the cost of imperial war in Vietnam and another on cutting the social budget at home, turned away from dreams of public-led peaceful technological projects as being not worth the money.But the evidence showed that DB Cooper was a peculiar victim, one who turned his grudge and knowledge of aircraft to do that one. big. score. And likely got away. Documents, pictures and bonus episodes at our Patreon page!: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-30-db-88516865
In this extended edition Part III of our series on the death of Jimmy Hoffa and the fall from power of labor in the US; we pick up in the 1950s and early 60s, which sees the Teamsters Union at the height its power. Despite escalating waves of prosecutions and new laws criminalizing their tactics by a rogues gallery of Jim Crow senators and grim capitalist republicans, the IBT organizes the south with boycotts, blockades, and bullets, and Hoffa runs headlong into the ruling-class opposition that will eventually put him in prison.We then take a close look at two very different pro-Hoffa locals in the teamsters empire: The social-democratic, humane Local 688, and the gangster-duchy of New Jersey Local 560. 688, headed by the socialist fellow-traveler and (Hoffa room mate) Harold Gibbons and militant black organizer Ernest Calloway forms a oasis of a welfare state in the white supremacist south. In 560, however, Tony Provenzano leads a repressive regime where dues are stolen, companies get sweetheart deals with no strikes, and, in a preview of what's to come, militant trucker opponents are made to simply 'disappear'.More on this ep and bonus eps on our Patreon!: https://www.patreon.com/posts/88050899
In the first full-length episode on the origins abduction and murder of Jimmy Hoffa, we take a trip back to the depression-era Teamsters and the powerhouse union they built with strikes, blockades, and yes, bombs. From a grocery store warehouse strike, to gunfights on the picket line, we look at how the Hoffa and the teamsters used the power over transportation to break the hold of the "Little Bastards" in company after company.We then turn to vision of (Trotskyist) communist organizer Farrell Dobbs at this time, and how "over the road" long haul truckers became the Fremen of the American labor movement, with the ability to enforce worker's power by stopping the flow of goods over the whole continent, until the slimy ghouls in congress tried to clamp it down.Without this strategy and power it gave the Teamsters, of course, Hoffa might never have been murdered.Music: Interlude music is "Pain will open any angry fist" by Junkyard Shaman. With a voice-over from the late Farrell Dobbs himself.
On July 30, 1975 James Riddle Hoffa, the once and-he hoped-future president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was abducted and murdered. The body of never found. Hoffa's murder capped off a deadly open war between pro-Hoffa and mobbed-up anti-Hoffa forces for control of North America's largest union; a union that once had the power to shut down the continent's transportation network at the very dawn of neoliberalism.On this first episode of our Hoffa series, we take our listeners on an overview and discuss the contradictory figure of Hoffa: a red-baiting, corrupt, 'business unionist' who nevertheless believed that "capitalism is doomed" and that history might still prove his Trotskyist mentor right. A freewheeling friendly pragmatist, who would still not hesitate to use strikes, blockades, and a rogues gallery of specialized strong-arm soldiers to deliver life-changing gains for workers...only to have it wiped away with his fall from the presidency.So why'd Hoffa have to be out of the way?And why the hell can't they find the body?It's a series we're excited about folks, let's go.Music/Clips: In our intro clip of course is a segment of "In Search Of" featuring the late great Leonard Nimoy (season 5, episode 10). The interlude contains clips from IBT member interviews in that episode as well as Dominque Guiots La Danse De Meduses. Special thanks as always to Komakino for our intro and ending themes.Look for our next full-freight episode on Hoffa on 7/30.
We're back, people.Before starting in on another series, writer and cultural critic Leonard Pierce stops by to talk to us about Film Noir. It's a story of blacklisted working class and communist writers, near-bankrupt studios and b-list actors trying to pull something off with nothing to lose, and getting sex, contempt for cops, and a lot else past the red scare-era censors in the process.Pierce gives us a masterclass in the work in the Noir period as a filmed worldview animated by the struggles and doomed reality of working class life in America, it's entanglement with Italian Neorealism and its continued relevance today.Then we talk about some more of the movie pictures.Special Thanks: To Leonard Pierce, you can find Leonard's books If You Like the Sopranos..., and Moods from Marbletown here:https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Like-Sopranos-Oddities/dp/0879103906https://www.amazon.com/Moods-Marbletown-Leonard-Pierce-ebook/dp/B008A9LV3IAlso check out Leonard's article that we reference a lot in the show:https://jacobin.com/2020/10/working-class-film-noir-cinemaMusic: As always thank you to Komakino for our opening/closing theme, you can find their music here: https://www.youtube.com/@komakinojoydivisiontribute4531The opening clip is from the classic Dalton Trumbo horny heist flick Gun Crazy.The interlude music is "Vandredi Noir" by artist Manet, along with a clip of Sterling Hayden in The Asphalt Jungle.Bonus: The Big Combo, here is it's 100% legal entirety complete with torture-by-hearing aid, hypnotic lighting, gay hitmen, and the scene that almost got the director prosecuted by congress:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkCXF9Y4ow&t=657s
In the final part of our series taking apart the true crime myth of In Cold Blood, we make the case with evidence with eyewitness statements, letters, and testimony that the killers were part of a Murder-for-Hire plot. One that arose out of the collapsing "vast empire" of Herb Clutter's wealth.Behind the myth we find a far more interesting hardboiled reality of clandestine meetings, straw-purchased guns, shady insurance deals, and kidnapping plots. Of desperate and broken people carried by material forces to a bloody massacre.Sources: Gary McAvoy's And Every Word Is True, as well as In the Shadow of My Brother’s Cold Blood As told to Linda LeBert-Corbello, PhD by David Hickock, and, we must acknowledge Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, particularly the interviews conducted without acknowledgement by Nell Harper Lee.Acknowledgements: Our thematic clips are excerpted from the 1958 Noir classic "Murder by Contract".Music: As always thanks to Komakino for their cover of atrocity exhibition by Joy Division. Thanks as well to Junkyard Shaman for our interlude music from the album "We Become our Own Ghosts."The Document, Folks: Richard Hickock's final clemency hearing notes where he claims that "more money was taken than ever presented. Over $1000 was taken..." (page 2).
Wanting to take a look at something more optimistic after our last prison-heavy episode, Peter and Isaac decide to leave the forced-scarcity war of all against all and instead have a look at a complete opposite: the prisons of min-incarceration social-democratic Norway.Of course, it's worth discussing the well-stocked grocery stores, "social worker" CO's, relatively nice-looking prison "rooms", and the fact that few inmates ever re-offend. But we explore this system, through the eyes of its harshest test and critic: the complete unrepentant occult nazi prick and Black Metal murderer Varg Vikernes. Given the maximum sentence of 21 years for stabbing black-metal scene member in the back, Vikernes' whiny and contempt-filled interviews over the course of 15 years and 5 prisons show a reformed system looking pretty good, even in its harshest light. But that doesn't mean there aren't still questions....Along the way talk about how Norwegian prisons got the way they are, prisoners movements, the surprising pivotal role the correction officers union played, and abolition vs. reform of prisons.Pictures, documents and more at our Patreon page, subscribe today!: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-23-varg-82288058/edit
In this second episode on the Clutter murders made famous by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, we clean up even more of the mess left by Truman Capote’s sloppy work by having a look at the two killers. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were not the simple embodiments of hick evil they were made out to be. Like their victim Herb Clutter, they were products of the epochal changes that the twentieth century brought to the American heartland, and specifically an institution designed to manage the wasted humans these changes created: the prison system. We take a look at the life of “the devil’s front porch,” aka Lansing prison where the 'score' was exchanged like any other currency in the hellish environment, by later informant Floyd Wells. We'll look as well as the two killers long experience of mental degradation and bodily damage. Nothing can excuse the brutal murders they committed, but we’re willing to put chips down on the claim that if basic social security disability insurance existed at the time, Smith and Hickock would not have been anywhere near the Clutters home…though, given some aspects of the crime that do not sit well with official accounts, the "Clutter job" would likely still have lured other killers.Images, documents, and more at our Patreon page!: https://www.patreon.com/posts/81994062
In this episode we begin to take apart a monumental myth of True Crime lore. The high school assigned text and Kansas government official truth of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. The official story seems like a simple one: Herb Clutter and his family were massacred in his modern Holcomb, KS farmhouse in 1959 by two paroled ex-cons: one dreamy and deranged, and the other a demonic sociopath, thus ending an age of Arcadian innocence in small-town Kansas. But the real story, unearthed from files only found in the last decade, is far more complex and interesting, and may have even been a murder-for-hire 'job.' It's a story of the vast transformation of midwestern American farming in the 1950s that left the families of the would-be killers broke and unsettled, and those like Clutter's presiding over large, mechanized, estates. But for this episode, we start with the victim.Clutter lived in two worlds, in the one he was a successful, pious, businessman that built the "vast empire" of his farm with new machinery, complex crop planning, and a steady flow of bank loans greased by his image as being so straightedged he'd fire workers for drinking a beer. But in Clutter's hidden life the bills were coming due. In the crescendo that led up to his death, Clutter's empire was quietly falling apart; and the newly chain-smoking Methodist was staring down his own impending death. The Documents, folks (viewable on our patreon page): A couple of interesting news clippings, including the bizarre eulogy for Clutter in Holcomb shortly after his death.Music: As always thank you to Komakino for our opening/closing theme. The interlude music is a synthwave mix of Young People of the Farm by Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble. More as always at: https://www.patreon.com/posts/80849401
(UPDATE 3/10/2023): Since releasing this patron-only ep, the NYTimes floated an absurd theory that the bombing might have been done by private people in a small boat for their own reasons. Peter and I will be releasing a patron-only follow up episode soon that discusses in detail why they're wrong but listeners to this ep will see that it's obvious. Enjoy!
Well folks, we have deep dive on deep divers and stuff they do in the deep. A little news, a good chunk of history, and a lot of stuff about how the hell saboteurs can survive in deep water.
On September 26, 2022, two waves of explosion rocked the Nordstream gas pipelines in the Baltic sea. The pipelines connected the vast natural gas reserves of Russia to Germany and Central Europe, and left behind a mystery of who would have the means and motive to carry out what was described as "massive explosions" and "gross sabotage". That is until famed journalist Seymour Hersh released the article "How The U.S. Took Out the Nordstream Pipeline", with a pretty clear culprit.
In this episode, Peter and Isaac return to what we know of the Nordstream bombing crime scene and re-examine what exactly happened, and the massive constraints on anyone trying to pull off this kind of sabotage, before turning to the historical example that, in Hersh's was the inspiration for the bombing: Operation Ivy Bells. Ivy Bells is a wiretapping caper from the height of the paranoid Vietnam-era war machine, with mixed gas divers descending into dark impossible depths and using the most advanced technological apparatuses. Sound familiar?
MORE ON OUR PATREON PAGE, SUBSCRIBE TODAY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-19-from-79423972
Music: As always thanks to Komakino for our opening and closing theme. Supplemental music for the interludes are fragments of Outer Space Suite II from the Twilight Zone and the US Navy Documentary "Diving for Science".
The document, folks: read Hersh's piece for yourself listeners, https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
In Part II of this Peter-led series dissecting the memoirs of Boston's fin-de-siecle Irish gangsters, we move on to the upper tier of memoirists. Discussing the memoirs of actually Irish-born Patrick Nee and actual martial artist Ed McKenzie, we find some ex-goons that actually have some self-awareness, insights and some interesting stories.
It's an episode with armored car robberies, bumbling IRA gunrunning, and an unexpected source of personal growth: roundhouse kicks from a gay kung fu self-defense squad.
Boston sometimes has its surprises.
(Pictured above: McKenzie in front of the demolished Old Colony housing project)
Peter takes the lead on this ep! Guiding us through a deep dive into the once-thriving cottage industry of what was once the gold standard in some kind of white blue collar authenticity: Boston Irish gangster memoirs.
In Part 1 we deal the government creation of the island against the world community of South Boston, or Southie through the pouring of social democratic tendencies through the static mold of 19th century racist machine politics. We then turn to the memoirs of I-AM-NOT-A-RAT John "Red" Shea and the scummier, but more eloquent I-am-a-rat, and a racist, and a murderer but also a good guy Kevin Weeks.
But most importantly, your humble people's detective agency needs your help finding the (probably imaginary?) black-jewish-communist defender of children and arch-foe of Kevin Weeks: Siegfried Goldstein.
FREE SIEGFRIED
FREE SIEGFRIED
FREE SIEGFRIED
We've arrived at the finale of our Rosenbergs series, and it isn't looking good. Beginning our story in the middle of the trial, Isaac and Peter discuss how the Rosenbergs kneecapped defense team tried and failed to counter-attack the prosecution's perjury-boosted case. The stage is set to use execution to get Julius to break and name some names.
But it's only months after the death sentence is handed down on Julius and Ethel that the more than 2 year fight to save them for the electric chair begins, with a crew of misfit liberals and leftists at the (deep breath..) Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case. There's a fair bit for law nerds to chew on but more importantly a person-by-person movement unfolds that takes our saga through physical brawls at the supreme court, last-minute surprise evidence, backstabbing prima donna judges and even an appearance by a nuke-nerd eccentric country lawyer.
It's a grim story, listeners, but sometimes the end isn't the end.
MORE CONTENT, EVIDENCE, AND BONUS EPISODES ON OUR PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/aPeoplesHistoryofViolence
INCLUDING FOR THIS EPISODE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/76011392
It's the holiday season listeners, and we have a gift for you.
This is a big one, folks- on this episode we talk to former presidential candidate, congressman, mayor of Cleveland, and author Dennis Kucinich! Many of you may remember the congressman as one of the few to consistently stand against the war fever of the post 9-11 period. He was also Mayor of Cleveland in the 1970s, where his bold, uncompromising efforts to protect his constituents from exploitation at the hands of highly connected corporate crooks earned him the ire of the powerful- and assassination attempts.
Dennis takes Isaac and Peter through the labyrinth of Cleveland municipal politics, recounts his (successful!) battle to keep the city’s electrical grid in the hands of the residents, and tells us the harrowing story of it nearly cost him his life. We don’t always get a lot of victories, and this one was hard fought- it’s genuinely moving to hear it in the voice of the man who did it.
The Division of Light and Power can be found here in paperback and kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/Division-Light-Power-Dennis-Kucinich/dp/1638772347
Thanks again to Komakino for our opening music and Ubuntu 444 for the closing track as well.
above: Mayor Kucinich with future Cleveland Chief of Police Fox talking to a group of striking municipal mechanics.
MORE CONTENT AND BONUS EPISODES ON OUR PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/aPeoplesHistoryofViolence
Happy New Year Listeners! For this month's bonus episode Isaac and Peter re-examine the 1943 drive-by murder of Anarchist/Organizer/Fed?/Gadfly and "man of great appetites" Carlo Tresca. And for our non-subscribers we're happy to provide this 30 minute preview, with almost a whole hour extra along with more documents, if you subscribe.
Tresca had a incredible career as uncompromising anarchist man-among-the-people, who for decades unleashed a flood of agitprop for strike defense and against the church, mafia, and fascists as a speaker and in his constantly financially-troubled newspaper Il Martello. As he got older though, we see Tresca as an alliance-spinning wheeler and dealer and FBI informant, who became an increasingly annoying thorn to the newly-sanitized fascists and mafiosi ready to resume running Italy following a US invasion.
With documents from the NY archives we unpack the details of Tresca's 'unsolved' murder by Mafia gunman Carmine Galante, and then walk through the rogue's gallery of a fascist oligarch and his henchmen who organized the hit, as well as why and how an investigation with serious evidence got derailed.
More evidence, pictures, and bonus content on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/76699998
Welcome back, listeners. Today we look at the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, where a bomb in a luggage compartment downed a PanAm flight and killed 270 people in all, including 190 Americans. Allegedly, supposedly, maybe the US has arrested and charged the Libyan bomb-maker that brought down the plane. But this case is not that simple, and might actually be steeped in Imperial global politics.
Unlike most acts of mass terrorism, where a group or person takes credit for the act (because, well, that was the point) there are two completely different narratives that both have evidence behind them. One, the current theory of the crime of the US government, is that the bomb was planted by Libyan intelligence, with islamo-socialist super-villain Muammar Gaddafi rubbing his palms in the background.
The other is that it was planted by Palestinian splinter group PFLP-GC on a cash commission from the government of Iran in revenge for the US destroying an Iranian airliner; and that the bomb with the bomb built by none other than a bona-fide US asset. We go through the many layers of sometimes conflicting evidence of all kinds — informant testimony, physical remains, the logistics of baggage claims — to try to get to the bottom of it.
More evidence pictures, content and bonus materials at our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-14-part-77500846
The meta-motivated media-saturated too scripted for tv Idaho student murders dragged your lofty co-hosts out of the higher dimension of history and into a bout of manic social analysis and 'mindhunting'.
After analyzing the evidence in the pretty straightforward case, we talk about the True Crime "community", it's explosion and "Power of Nightmares" function, and how it seemed to shape the (alleged) murderer's mind as he scripted himself a crackpot mission: first as would-be Profiler, then as slasher-movie-killer in an anomic and antisocial landscape.
Your humble detectives then turn to musing on James Ellroy, the late Mike Davis, and how detective fiction, even with its contrived plots and mysteries, might give people a clearer picture of the world they live in and maybe even how to change it.
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Special Thanks: Thanks to Osaka-based artist Junkyard Shaman for our interlude music "The Silence of the Moonlight Screeching on Dark Walls" from his new album. More of his music here: https://www.youtube.com/@Junkyard_Shaman.
Special thanks as always to Komakino for our opening and closing themes (part of their cover of "Atrocity Exhibition"), you can find more of their music here: https://www.youtube.com/@komakinojoydivisiontribute4531
Interlude sound bites are from Unsolved Mysteries Season 8, Episode 14, featuring James Ellroy himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S1gkM_stZU&t=2129s