Safe for Democracy: Recent Episodes
Jonathan Coumes
A look at the foreign policy disasters of the United States and their long-term consequences, both for the people in question and for the world today.
Here it is, the end of the last real battle of the French war: Dien Bien Phu. After this it’s just Geneva and the transition from French ignobility to American monstrosity. That all comes next time though. For now, maps. And you can, as always, click these for a larger view. The overview: The view … Continue reading Vietnam VIII: End of Indo-China →
Finally we’re here, at the end of the French War, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Some cool show news: we’re registered for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. Which means I filled out a form at podcastawards.com. For that process to get any further, you folks need to head to podcastawards.com and nominate Safe … Continue reading Vietnam VII: Dien Bien Phu →
And here we are, finally, finally making it to the end of the French War. We still have Dien Bien Phu and the denouement to wrap up, which we’ll do in the next episode, maybe in the fastest-ever-produced next episodes, so fingers crossed there. Like last time, I’m covering pretty much all the material that I’m … Continue reading Vietnam VI: Learning Curve →
I’m trying something a little different with these show notes, especially since, with that interim show about Kennan already done, I don’t have any other story I want to be telling apart from the cast. So I’ve got a couple of supplementary things and then all the audio credits, but just giving you the videos … Continue reading Vietnam V: Giap and de Lattre →
Like I said at the end of last episode, there were some broader Cold War issues that I wanted to talk about and some history that I wanted to churn through that didn’t quite fit into the framework of the longer shows. That’s because I want those longer ones to be narrowly focused on the … Continue reading Kennan and Cold War Policy →
We’re getting into the French War proper now, and we’ll make it almost all the way to the outbreak of the war in Korea by the end of this one. I’ve got some videos whose audio I couldn’t use, for various reasons, in the show itself, but that might serve to give all of us … Continue reading Vietnam IV: The First Indochina War →
Hey folks, I thought I’d try something new with the show notes this time around and just give you the script. The only time I give this a real thorough proofread for typos, etc, is when I’m recording it, and I don’t stop to correct them, so keep that in mind. Before the script, as … Continue reading SFD Short—Refugees →
Well, we’re making time now, and I hope that keeps up. I’ve got some interesting stuff to show you today. First is the cover image for the show. That’s Ho Chi Minh on the left and Vo Nguyen Giap on the right along with their American OSS Deer Team advisors, who we’ll hear a fair … Continue reading Vietnam III: The World at War →
Hey folks, in lieu of notes this time, I’m going to give you the full outline that Rob and I were ostensibly working off in the show. Which should be enlightening, especially as we spend a lot of time talking about Syria instead of Vietnam. Ernie, unfortunately, caught that bug that seems to be circling the globe … Continue reading SFD Talk—Vietnam in the US Imagination →
Like it says in title, there’s no show this Monday, but there is going to be a show this week. Rob Morris, Ernie Piper, and I are going to be broadcasting another live show this Thursday from 11am to 2pm EST and this time rather than being tangentially related to what we do here, it’s right … Continue reading Announcement—Vietnam Talk →
It’s a day late but nowhere near a dollar short (except, I guess, in terms of what I’m paid for these shows; in that case it’s several thousand behind: Ho Chi Minh’s entrance into our story. I don’t have a subsidiary story to tell in this set of notes, like I often enough did have … Continue reading Vietnam II: Ho Chi Minh →
I’m back from down south in Oaxaca, and I’ve got the cut-down of the show that Rob Morris and I did, along with my buddy Ernie Piper, about a month ago. I met Ernie during a very brief stint in Istanbul, and since then he’s been all over the Near East and Eastern Europe, writing … Continue reading SFD Talk — Unending Oil →
Hey folks— It’s a longish show where myself and some Peace Corps friends of mine talk about two of the last few shorts, Liberal Arts, Again and Land and Food and Capitalism. The audio isn’t anything I could have wanted, and the looseness isn’t everything I did want, but it’s the first of what may be … Continue reading Peace Corps Chats →
Hey Folks, We’re back to a mix of history and short shows, which means we’re back to quick intros on the smaller episodes. It looks like I’m finally going to pull together that shorts discussion with some of my old Peace Corps buddies this week, and if I don’t have Vietnam II out by Monday—I’m … Continue reading SFD Short—Political Cynicism →
We're starting, literally, with the dawn of human history and carrying it all the way up to the 1700s. Like the folks over at Blank Check, we're connoisseurs of context, and to get Vietnam right in a way that the Americans didn't from 1946 to 1975, and in a way that even Ken Burns failed to get it in 2017, we've got to go way back.
Writing on the first script starts in earnest this week, and I thought everybody deserved to know more or less where we’re headed. This episode gets into all that, and, for anybody following along, gets into some of the books that are going to be the backbones of the series: Ellsberg, Daniel. Secrets: A Memoir of … Continue reading Vietnam: A Plan →
It’s the last of all news shows, folks, and it’s barely newsy at all. We’re talking about monopolies in the American economy, which was, incidentally, the subject of Robert Reich’s last book, Saving Capitalism. The show explains itself, and as it promises, here’s some graphs for you: This is an Econ 101 graph of perfect … Continue reading SFD Short—Monopolies →
I’m getting back on track after my internet outage, and as promised, here’s a make-up of a sort for those last couple of weeks. This is the show that Rob and I recorded back in December, and which went up earlier this week as the December news show on Patreon. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this … Continue reading Diminished US Power—A Conversation with Rob Morris →
Hey folks, Boy do we have some housekeeping. You probably noticed there hasn’t been a show the last two Mondays. That’s because fourteen full days ago, my internet went out, and it didn’t come back until pretty upsettlingly recently. I let everybody who’s checked the Facebook know, but if you’re just engaged with SFD through … Continue reading SFD Short—The Point →
I’ve been saying, for longer than it was exactly true, that everything’s bad and it’s only getting worse. The world’s come around to my point of view though, and at least in the US, almost a year out now from the inauguration, it certainly seems to be going that way. The President’s interviews, when anybody … Continue reading Liberal Arts, Again →
Well, my face isn’t totally unstuffed-up yet, but I think the nasal quality has dropped out enough to record, and I want my shows to hit the top of the week again. Check out our Patreon! Talk to me on Twitter! This is the Isaiah Berlin essay And this right here is the last chapter … Continue reading SFD Short—Maintenance →
I’m sick, basically, and my voice is gross. Show’ll be out as soon as I can speak again.
We’re talking about capitalism, and specifically the ways in which unrestrained, industrialized, late-stage capitalism like ours works to destroy, reconstitute and commodify widely-available goods, usually in such a way as to create a population that is so repressable, the state and its corporate partners don’t even need to repress it. Big ask for one show. … Continue reading SFD Short—Land and Food and Capitalism →
I have a whole new show all written up but between family stuff and, well, more family stuff, I haven’t been able to find a time to actually record and edit it here in Tennessee. Tomorrow, though, I’m on a plane, and I’ll be into Guadalajara and back to my desk by 5am EST on … Continue reading SFD Short—Trickledown →
It’s pretty straightforward on this one; October’s news show on Corruption just in time for December. Enjoy folks. Patreon people, appreciate the patience while I’m on my monthlong, sabbatical-type trip to see my folks in the US. I don’t do a lot of heavy quotes in this one, but I do lean very heavily on … Continue reading SFD Short—Corruption →
Hey Everybody— The folks on Patreon have voted the news shows into wider circulation, so they’ll be coming out either regularly or when we have a blank Monday to fill. That should make it easier for anybody who wasn’t into listening on Patreon (and who really wants, no sarcasm, to leave their podcast app to … Continue reading NAFTA →
Hey folks, This show’s coming to you on a Tuesday just because of that new job I mentioned and because Thanksgiving happened on a Sunday this year in Mexico. What I’d like to talk to you about now, though, is what’s going to happen to SFD over the next month or so. No big or … Continue reading Saving the State Department—A Conversation with Rob Morris →
We’re covering a pretty long period in this one, from half or most of the way through the war with Iraq all the way up to the present, although it’s a pretty quick hustle from Khomeini’s death in 1989 to today. The two major players during this period, if not in Hashemi’s case always from … Continue reading Iran IX: The End →
Hey folks— It’s explained in the show, but the tortured titling here comes from that I promised the last Iran show this week, and in what’s to me the most important sense, I delivered. It’s written, recorded, edited, all that. It’s just not up on the site. WordPress and my podcasting plugin don’t play too … Continue reading Iran VIII Part One: The War →
Hey Folks, This one’s number twelve, and while we’re not done with Iran yet, number thirteen, Iran VIII and the very last Iran show, come hell or high water, is gonna be here in three weeks or less. I get into it a bit in the show, but time’s going to be tight over the … Continue reading Iran VII: The Revolution in Power →
Not a whole lot of news this time out. The title of the post is obviously drawn from the essay in Hannah Arendt’s Crises of the Republic. Which we should all read, but if the point of this show is that politicians stopped believing the American public capable of argument and then dumbed us down to … Continue reading Lying in Politics →
Alright, here we are, finally. The Iranian Revolution of 1979. There’s still some groundwork to be laid, but we’re getting there this episode, full stop. Let’s take a look at some of the folks coming to center stage. Here we’ve got the two principal players from at least the first half of the episode, both of … Continue reading Iran VI: Revolution →
Hey Everybody— Like I said up on the FB page on Monday, I wasn’t skipping this week, I just had a date with Rob Morris yesterday. Short show notes, but remember: Rate and review the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever else you use. An earthquake hit Mexico yesterday and it’s looking not too good. … Continue reading The End of the World—A Conversation with Rob Morris →
Hey Everybody— I was on the road a little longer than I thought I’d be and I missed last week’s show and for that I’m sorry. But I’ve got one this week, and I’ll be away from rural Tennessee and back in Mexico by next Monday and SFD should be back on track for a … Continue reading SFD Short—Collapse →
I’ve been thinking about patriotism in the US for a long time, long enough to have written this for the College Dems’ newspaper back at Georgetown. There’s something about how everybody wants to be a patriot without ever considering what the term might really mean; something about the way it is, for us, tied … Continue reading SFD Short—Bad Patriotism →
This is another one of those topics I’ve been thinking about for a long while, at least since I wrote this cute little essay sophomore year: And I think it ties in with what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago in the short on T. R. Fehrenbach. I mean what I say on … Continue reading SFD Short—Abolish the Army →
Hey all, I had this chat with Rob back in June, when some of you might have caught it live or on Rob’s Youtube channel, the More Freedom Foundation. I didn’t get it re-edited and trimmed down for a podcast until this past week, and here it is, in lieu of a Monday short, for … Continue reading Politico Is Full of It—A Conversation with Rob Morris →
Well, this is the tenth short, which means we’re putting out a helluva lot more content this year than last, and I hope that’s to the good. Our very first Patreon-exclusive news analysis show is going up this week, so head to our page to check out the details. Otherwise, share this show, man. You … Continue reading SFD Short—Ends and Means →
Hey folks, Not much to report but that the next Iran show is coming along and that my first Patreon-exclusive show is going up probably early next week. We’re talking this time around about TR Fehrenbach, a major in the US Army during the Korean War and latterly a historian: Fehrenbach wrote This Kind of War, … Continue reading SFD Short—American Legions →
Well, like I can’t remember if but might have said last week, we’re back from hiatus and onto regular production again, which means a show for you this Monday. It’s kind of an experimental one today, with a whole lot of half baked but interesting thoughts and an intermediate but definitely no final or satisfying … Continue reading SFD Short—Grand Theories →
Here we are, the absolute last episode (I promise) before we get to the Iranian Revolution and, I think, the Iran-Iraq War. In this episode, we’re covering the Shah’s White Revolution, the new liberal, socialist Shi’ite theologians like Shariati, and the dark reign of SAVAK in 1960s and 1970s Iran, along with the Shah’s famous … Continue reading Iran V: The White Revolution →
Hey folks, I know I’m running a little late on the next Iran show, but with some law school stuff, a family reunion, and a neat little piece I’m putting together on Ancient Aliens for The Awl all done by the end of this week, I should have that out soon. In the meantime though, we’ve … Continue reading SFD Short—Storming and Norming →
Hey folks, does just about what it says on the box. We’re having another conversation with Robert Morris of the More Freedom Foundation, a YouTube Channel (and a website) dedicated, at the moment, to exploring and exposing the toxic relationship the West has with Saudi Arabia and its poisonous effect on world Islam. It’s a … Continue reading Conversation with Rob Morris—Iran v Saudi Arabia: Backing the Wrong Horse →
Hey everybody, so two things I’ve mentioned coming to fruition this week. First, I’m gonna be having another conversation with Rob Morris of the More Freedom Foundation like the one we did a few weeks ago. That is, if I can find a library study room around here where I’m in Tennessee for a family … Continue reading SFD Short—Death of the Republic →
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.” —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass Another SFD short brought to you already by SFD. I’m going to be starting up a Patreon, probably sometime next week, and when I do, for the first thirty days, signing … Continue reading SFD Short—Alternate Realities →
Hey folks. We’re getting on with it, but research and length got away from me again, and it’ll be another episode before we’re edging up towards Revolution. For now, though, we’ve got the reign of the Shah. Here’s our boy at his coronation in ’67 with the incredibly British commentary that Pathé apparently monopolized: The … Continue reading Iran IV: America’s Dictator →
I’ve been telling you folks about and pitching you on Rob Morris, who runs the More Freedom Foundation and its YouTube channel, for a couple of weeks now. Well, we got together yesterday and sat down to talk about his new essay and video series, Everybody’s Lying About Islam, along with Iran and Mexico and a … Continue reading Conversation with Robert Morris of the More Freedom Foundation →
This is the fourth short, adapted from something I wrote way back in the day when I was still fighting the good fight. I told you folks last week that I’d be having a talk with Robert Morris of the More Freedom Foundation on YouTube Live this week. Well, turns out my internet here in … Continue reading SFD Short—Liberal Arts →
This is the third short and the first entirely new one, although I’ll get it typed up and post it like any other blog and then link it here sometime this week. The big news this time though is that sometime next week I’ll be having a long conversation with a guy named Robert Morris … Continue reading SFD Short—Forgetfulness →
The next one of these, I think, or the next two (who knows!) will be totally new, but this one, like the last one, does what it says. New intro on this one, but I might shorten it up, given that the eps are shorter. Let me know how you guys are liking (or hating) … Continue reading SFD Short—Looking at History from the Outside →
Hey folks, does what it says on the box. It looks like I might end up in law school this fall, so there’s a fair chance the show is winding down. But I’m going to fill up the interim with episodes, and to that end, I’ll be taking some of the stuff I’ve written (that … Continue reading SFD Short—Historical Optimism →
Well, we finally made it. I thought I’d blow from the ancient Persian Empire straight through to the plot of Persepolis in one episode, but just like with Guatemala, things got away from me. This time, though, we’re getting to the coup in August 1953 and looking forward to its consequences as they echo down through Iranian … Continue reading Iran III: Guns of August →
Here we are at Episode 7. Like I say in the cast, I thought we’d get farther down the road with this one, but podcasts are long and history’s longer, and we’ll have to wait until Episode 8 to get all the way to the coup. In the meanwhile, though, we’ve got the rise … Continue reading Iran II: Nationalization →
Hey everybody, we’re back from hiatus. I spent the fall studying for the LSAT and applying to law schools and scrounging enough cash to stay alive, so the show kind of fell by the wayside. That’s over with now, though, and this next series is set to come out pretty regular. We’re turning to Iran … Continue reading Iran I: Take Up the Burden →
Hey guys. Welcome to the fifth episode of Safe for Democracy, the podcast about the foreign policy disasters of the United States in the 20th century. This is the fourth part of a series exploring the violent aftermath of the US-backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, which was itself the subject of the first … Continue reading Aftermath Part IV →
Hey everybody, and welcome to the fourth episode of Safe for Democracy, the podcast about the foreign policy disasters of the United States in the 20th century. This is the third part of a series exploring the violent aftermath of the US-backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. If you’re just now coming … Continue reading Aftermath Part III →
Hi, and welcome to the third episode of Safe for Democracy. Which is the second part of the Aftermath, which, in four shows, is the second part of our overarching series on Guatemala. Simple. Last time we worked our way from the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 through the repressive regimes of Carlos … Continue reading Aftermath Part II →
Hey everybody, welcome to Safe for Democracy and our second episode. If you’ve listened to the first podcast, you know that we’d originally planned to do a quick one-two, one episode for the coup in 1954 and one to cover what happened afterwards. But history can balloon on you, and the material I wanted to … Continue reading Aftermath Part I →
Hey, welcome to the first full episode of Safe for Democracy. We’re going to be looking at Guatemala from 1930 or so until 1954, in the lead-up to the coup against President Jacobo Arbenz in the June of that year. What comes after we’ll tackle in the next episode, which should come out sometime … Continue reading The Coup →
This is just a primer for anybody who's interested in the shape of this project, the arc of its future, and who I am. For everybody else, there's Episode One, which is about Guatemala.