Failed State Update

Regular listeners of Failed State Update are in for a real treat. Our guest, Alfred W. McCoy, is an American historian and educator. Currently the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he specializes in the history of the Philippines, foreign policy of the United States, European colonization of Southeast Asia, the illegal drug trade, and CIA covert operations. His most recent book is To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change.

And some more big news: Beginning this episode, we are changing up the format. The show now features two hosts, Joseph L. Flatley, the founder and editor of Failed State Update, and J.G. Michael, host of the Parallax Views podcast. We hope you enjoy the show, and feel free to tweet at us if you feel that we've made a terrible mistake.

Alfred McCoy's latest book, To Govern the Globe: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1742-to-govern-the-globe

J.G.'s other podcast, Parallax Views: https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/

J.G. Michael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ViewsParallax

Failed State Update on Twitter: https://twitter.com/failedstatenews

Failed State Update daily news website: https://roundtable.io/failed-state-update/

Is the United States collapsing, or is all of civilization collapsing? To explore that question we bring you John Zerzan, an anarchist and primitivist author whose work has been compared to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, of all people. His books offer an alternative vision of history that focuses on the destructive nature of technology. And more importantly — and this is why we spoke to him — his work suggests a possible future free of the alienation and control of capitalism-run-amok.

His most recent book is When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics (Feral House). 

While you're here, be sure to check out the new Failed State Update website: https://roundtable.io/failed-state-update/

And sign up for the free newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.com/

Tom Mellett is a retired high school teacher of math and physics who delights in trolling UFO Twitter and Facebook because their emotional maturity is at a 9th grade level (as he puts it). He is also a cat butler in Los Angeles. We got on the phone after my story "The New Intergalactic Cold War" caused a (quite brief) firestorm on Twitter last week, and fortunately I recorded the conversation, because it really is podcast gold.

On this episode of FAILED STATE UPDATE Tom and I discuss the philosopher/engineer Arthur M. Young, parascyhologist (and frequent beneficiary of government contracts) Hal Puthoff, and the very nature of knowledge itself. Be sure to follow Tom on Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to the FAILED STATE UPDATE NEWSLETTER if you haven't yet. It's free, and it's fabulous.

Anthony Russo is the author of Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult, and for the next fifty-three minutes we'll discuss his book about Sherry Shriner, an online cult leader in rural Ohio who preached a bizarre combination of reptilian conspiracies, orgone energy pseudoscience, and discredited "bible code" theories. She briefly made headlines in 2017 when one of her followers was murdered by another former follower. Shriner died earlier this year, at the age of 45. Her beliefs were all over the place, but she must have had something going for her, because to this day people are still finding meaning in her BlogTalk Radio ramblings and bizarre YouTube videos.

Anthony Russo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bytonyrusso?lang=en

Anthony Russon on Substack: https://tonyrusso.substack.com/

Havana Syndrome is back in the news. On the one hand, it's clearly a psychogenic illness that's being misdiagnosed as the result of commie death rays. On the other hand, by treating it as an attack by America's enemies, politicians can use it to help further their foreign policy objectives. Which side do you think the media is going to take?

Robert E. Bartholomew is a native New Yorker who teaches history at Botany College in Auckland, New Zealand. His many books include The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes and Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior. Most relevant to this episode, he is the co-author of Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria with Robert W. Baloh.

Check out the Havana Syndrome article in Failed State Update newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.com/p/havana-affair

My second guest, Robert Skvarla is a conspiracy researcher, Assistant Editor at Diabolique Magazine, and the creator of the website Mondo Americana. Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/RobertSkvarla

And be sure to check out my story for The Outline, "Paranoid Delusions in the Police State," here: https://theoutline.com/post/995/targeted-individuals-paranoid-delusions-in-the-age-of-surveillance

REPOST: After decades of accusations and a weeks-long federal trial, R. Kelly has been found guilty of charges including sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering and sex trafficking that will put him in prison from 10 years to life. I figure now is as good a time as any to repost this interview with journalist Jim Derogatis, who did as much as anyone to put him in jail.

For fifteen years, DeRogatis was the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. It was while there that Jim and his colleague Abdon Pallasch became the first reporters to expose R. Kelly's sex trafficking cult. His book Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly both exposes what rich people get away with in this country and gives the reader a first-hand account of the work that investigative journalists do. I think it's one of the most important books of 2019.

R. Kelly Found Guilty Of Racketeering And Sex Trafficking: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/27/1040528011/r-kelly-verdict-guilty-racketeering-sex-trafficking

Jim DeRogatis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimDeRogatis

Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly: amzn.to/32x1MOP

Music: "City of Crime" by Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd

The subject of political cults continues with Marley Clements, a writer, producer, and documentary filmmaker whose work includes Active Measures (2018) and QAnon: The Search for Q (2021). Her company Bunker Crew Media is responsible for the Kremlin File podcast.

Kremlin File: https://pod.co/kremlin-file

Erica Duggan on Lyndon LaRouche & the Mysterious Death of Her Son Jeremiah Duggan (Parallax Views podcast): https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/ep-62-erica-duggan-on-lyndon-larouche-the-mysterious-death-of-her-son-jeremiah-duggan/

Order my book NEW AGE GRIFTER: https://amzn.com/1627311106/

Sign up for my newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.com/

Website: https://www.lennyflatley.net

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennyflatley

MOVE is a radical Black communal organization founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, best known for the 1985 firebombing in which 11 members (including 5 children under the age of 14) were murdered by law enforcement. These days, the group lives on as a "political cult," as former member Kevin Price reveals in his blog, Leaving MOVE. In part one of the series, Kevin gives the true history of the group as it morphed from what was considered to be a Black liberation group to a political cult. In part two, he explains what led up to the 1985 firebombing. He also describes many of the novel religious and philosophical beliefs of the group. Part three will bring us up to the present, including Kevin's own story and the unsolved 2002 murder of John Gilbride — believed by many to be a "hit" by MOVE.

Kevin's blog, Leaving MOVE: https://leavingmove2021.blogspot.com/

Murder at Ryan's Run podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-at-ryans-run/id1561552064

Philadelphia Inquirer article on the group: https://www.inquirer.com/news/move-bombing-philadelphia-africa-podcast-blog-abuse-20210827.html

MOVE is a radical Black communal organization founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, best known for the 1985 firebombing in which 11 members (including 5 children under the age of 14) were murdered by law enforcement. These days, the group lives on as a "political cult," as former member Kevin Price reveals in his blog, Leaving MOVE. In part one of the series, Kevin gives the true history of the group as it morphed from what was considered to be a Black liberation group to a political cult. In part two, he explains what led up to the 1985 firebombing. He also describes many of the novel religious and philosophical beliefs of the group. Part three will bring us up to the present, including Kevin's own story and the unsolved 2002 murder of John Gilbride — believed by many to be a "hit" by MOVE.

Kevin's blog, Leaving MOVE: https://leavingmove2021.blogspot.com/

Murder at Ryan's Run podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-at-ryans-run/id1561552064

Philadelphia Inquirer article on the group: https://www.inquirer.com/news/move-bombing-philadelphia-africa-podcast-blog-abuse-20210827.html

MOVE is a radical Black communal organization founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, best known for the 1985 firebombing in which 11 members (including 5 children under the age of 14) were murdered by law enforcement. These days, the group lives on as a "political cult," as former member Kevin Price reveals in his blog, Leaving MOVE. In part one of the series, Kevin gives the true history of the group as it morphed from what was considered to be a Black liberation group to a political cult. In part two, he explains what led up to the 1985 firebombing. He also describes many of the novel religious and philosophical beliefs of the group. Part three will bring us up to the present, including Kevin's own story and the unsolved 2002 murder of John Gilbride — believed by many to be a "hit" by MOVE.

Kevin's blog, Leaving MOVE: https://leavingmove2021.blogspot.com/

Murder at Ryan's Run podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-at-ryans-run/id1561552064

Philadelphia Inquirer article on the group: https://www.inquirer.com/news/move-bombing-philadelphia-africa-podcast-blog-abuse-20210827.html