Angry Planet

The United States’ military is an all volunteer force and has been since 1973. The people who fought both Gulf Wars and the war in Afghanistan asked to join up. They had as many reasons as there are troops, but not one was compelled by the government. 

Today, we’re talking to Beth Bailey, Distinguished Professor at Kansas University and the author of AMERICA'S ARMY: Making the All-Volunteer Force. We’re going to talk about the history of the draft and what came after.

• Recorded 1/19/21

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After surviving a poisoning attempt, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to his home country and was arrested. Now he’s been sentenced to serve a 3 and a ½ year prison sentence. After Navalny’s arrest in mid-January, people took to the streets of Russia’s cities to protest. We’ve seen this before, but there is a sense that this time is different.

Is it? 

Here to help us answer that question is Mark Galleotti. Galeotti is a frequent guest on the show, a Russia expert, and is currently the director of the consultancy firm Mayak Intelligence. His most recent books are We Need To Talk About Putin, and A Short History of Russia.

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Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

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You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.

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State Houses across the country are filled with monuments to losers, traitors, and terrorists. General Robert E Lee and Benjamin Tillman are lauded alongside figures like George Washington. The reasons why are complicated, but they’re bound up in something called The Myth of the Lost Cause. If you’ve never heard of this or don’t understand why it’s so critical to understanding American history well, honey, you probably ain’t from the South.

Here to help us understand what’s going on is Dr. Robert Thompson. Thompson is a historian working for Army University Press and the author of the forthcoming book Clear, Hold, and Destroy which is about the American war in Vietnam.

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Please blame Jason Fields for that headline.

Human trafficking and modern slavery are at the top of the news in the United States in the form of the QAnon conspiracy theory. It links together Democrats, child sex trafficking and a pizza place about a mile from my house.

The pizza at Comet Ping Pong is just OK, but don’t ask to see the basement. There isn’t one.

QAnon is one of the more whacko things going on in this country. Today we’re going to talk about the reality of human trafficking and how it actually works.

We’re joined by Kieran Guilbert who covers human trafficking and modern slavery for the Thomson Reuters foundation. I worked for Kieran and learned a lot from him.

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It finally happened. Twitter finally suspended Trump’s account. After the capitol riots on January 6, tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Twitter took the unprecedented step of invoking their first amendment rights and removing several users from their various platforms. I just want to remind everyone that the 1958 Supreme Court Decision in  NAACP v. Alabama outlined an implied part of the first amendment—that of Freedom of Association.

Is this big tech censorship? Are private companies silencing conservative voices or merely deciding who they want to do business with? Is Twitter the new townsquare or just another site among a sea of websites.

Here to help us figure some of this out is Dr. Alexi Drew. Drew is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Policy Institute at King’s College London. On Monday she published the policy paper “Disinformation Kills. Now what are we going to do about it?”

• recorded 1/12/21

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Sometimes referred to as Europe’s last dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Lukashenko, formerly in charge of a collective farm, has kept a tight grip on power and on the past. Belarus has kept Soviet symbols and economic policies long after they’ve gone out of favor elsewhere.

Elections have been held regularly in the country, but have been neither free nor fair. The latest, in August 2020, is considered to be the least fair of all. Since then, there has been a cycle of lies, protests and repression.

To help us understand the situation, we are joined by journalist and advocate Serge Kharytonau.

• Recorded 1/9/21

Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

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You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.

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Ghost guns. Untraceable weapons manufactured in the home. They’ve been with us forever, but they’ve taken on a new menace in the age of 3D printers and digital distribution. 

Here to walk us through the new phenomenon is Mark A Tallman. Tallman is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security & Emergency Management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He’s also the author of Ghost Guns. Ghost Guns is an in depth, data driven, and dare I say nerdy deep dive into homemade weapons in the post-industrial age.

You can buy Ghost Guns here.

• Recorded on 8/25/20
• The second amendment
• Cody Wilson and his terrible gun
• Working on guns is like working on cars
• “Most gun nerds are low risk”
• Why ban the bump stock?
• Additive manufacturing and the DIY weapons of mass destruction
• Recycling plastics into weapons
• The security implications of the fourth industrial revolution
• Raytheon has 3D printed a missile
• The tech backlash
• The costs of compliance only hit the open sectors, but don’t halt illicit activity
• The rise of the surveillance state

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Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.

https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe

You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.

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If you’ve ever heard the phrase one-man wrecking crew, they might well have been talking about Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Shadow Commander.

Soleimani’s first fight was against Iraq in the war that started right after Iran’s revolution and lasted until 1988. He went on to great success fighting bandits and drug lords, eventually taking over Iran’s Quds Force - Iran’s tool for diplomacy by other means.

For more than 20 years, Soleimani helped Ayatollah Khamanei project power around the region-becoming a force to be reckoned with in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and more.

In January, Qassem Soleimani was killed by the United States.

Today, we’re joined by Arash Azizi, who literally wrote the book on Soleimani. It’s called The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions, and it was published in November.

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