The State Between Us

For true fans of the over-a-decade-long Christian fiction series, Left Behind, and it's apocalypse addicted author, Tim LaHaye. Follow Timmy's political and cultural rise, evangelical influences, and the birth of the New Right's gray eminence, the Council for National Policy. Then, Fritz reviews Timothius' unfortunately impactful series of books and films. Also, some original Left Behind fan-fic from your host!

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Trailer music by Ramona

Fritz digs even deeper into the cultural crater left by the Regnery family with the unending Fash Fic novel, Mister, written in 2009 by soon-to-be Alt-Right darling, the insufferable Alex Kurtagic. This 500-page self-published fashy rant is both pointless and terrible, and so is the perfect x-ray image of the 'New New Right' brain and its cringe-core obsessions.

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Trailer music by Ramona

Fritz, following some leads in episode 15, picks up a novel written by turn-of-the-century Secretary of State, John Hay: The Bread-winners (1884). The book follows Arthur Farnham, military-industrial exemplar of the 'American Race', as he woos the ladies and puts down labor rebellions led by conspiring socialist agitators. It's not as gross as fash fic, but it ain't great...

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Outro music by Ramona

Bursts of The Final Straw joins Fritz to reflect on the HBO miniseries created by David Simon (Homicide, The Wire, etc.), The Plot Against America (2020), based closely on the novel of the same name by Phillip Roth in a counterfactual 1940s USA where the Nazi-loving aviator Charles Lindbergh becomes president. The series follows a middle-class Jewish family in Newark as they respond to the rising realities of American fascism, posing relevant questions on when to flee, when to stand your ground, and when to take the fight to the enemy, but offering no easy answers.

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Trailer music by Ramona

TSBU begins their study on the early-1980s information clearinghouse and private surveillance organization, Western Goals, focusing on two of its founders: the English scam-artist John Rees and martyred John Birch Society luminary, congressman Larry McDonald. The edgiest kids in the capitol, the threads of Western Goals weave their way from McCarthyists like Roy Cohn through Nazi intelligence agents around Gehlen to Cold War hawks and all the way up to present day American fascism under Trump.

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Reading:
Dorfman, Zach. "The Congressman Who Created His Own Deep State. Really." Politico. 2018.
Gelbspan, Ross. Break-Ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement. South End Press, 1991.
Manzione, Elton. "The Private Spy Agency". The National Reporter. 1985.
Recluse. A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: The Secret Origins of the Patriot Movement Part IV. VISUP blog. Link here. (Also check out "WACL VII: Eighties Part I w/John Brisson, Keith Allen Dennis, Moss Robeson, Don Diligent, & Recluse". Podcast. The Farm Mach II. 2022. Link here.)
Simpson, Christopher. Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.

This episode also used documents from the Larry McDonald archives from Emory University and the online Ernie Lazar FOIA collection of FBI files.

Music:
Slime - "Polizei SA SS", 1980.
CCCP Fedeli Alla Linea. "Spara Jurij", 1983.
Also featuring compositions by Koleso Nešťastia and Ramona
Other music from youtube.com, pixabay.com, and fesliyanmusic.com

TSBU breaks ground on its study of Americanism and American Fascism, and grips their stubborn roots in the 19th Century. From the Mexican-American war, through the 'Real' First Red Scare, to the creation of a Military/Industrial aristocracy, Fritz gets his timeline right by meandering around some books in front of a psychedelic camp fire. Features willful overproduction and special guests from the distant future of 2025!Photo by Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters

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Reading:
Richard Slotkin. The fatal environment: the myth of the frontier in the age of industrialization, 1800-1890. Antheneum, 1985.
"". Gunfighter Nation: the myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. Atheneum, 1992.
Tariq Kahn. The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft Repression. Illinois, 2023.

Check out Burst's interview with Prof. Kahn on the Final Straw Radio!

Music:
"131", "But at the same time, I don't want to feel detached from the shithole. I don't want to be a tourist in my own ends. I don't want to feel completely separate from the struggles my friends ", and "I fucking hate when westerners go and watch us like in damn safari. Our depression is not for their privileged amusement" by Koleso Nešťastia. Check it out on bandcamp!
"Train Robbery" by Hayden Folker
"In Honor" by Fesliyan Studios
"Cannibal" by Ennio Morricone

Other music from pixabay.com
SFX from freesound.org

Mark Bray, historian and author of Translating Anarchy (2013), Antifa (2017), and the Anarchist Inquisition (2022), joins Fritz to critically examine the life and death of Spanish educator, revolutionary, and provocateur Francisco Ferrer (1859-1909) as covered in Mark's book, Anarchist Education and the Modern School (2018). They discuss some possible lessons for the contemporary movement from this revolutionary period and reflect on its effects in history, from the good, to the bad, to even the proto-fascist. Finally, Mark shares his thoughts on today's rising red scare and the latest moves of the US administration.

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Links to Mark's Books:
Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader - PM Press
Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook - AK Press
The Anarchist Inquisition: Assassins, Activists, and Martyrs in Spain and France (1891–1909) - AK Press
Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street - Zero Books

Music:
Intro - Los Showmen, "Los Cuatros Muleros"
Midpoint - Skaparapid + Unknown performer, "Arroja La bomba"
Outro - Rolando Alarcon, "Ay Carmela"
Other music by pixabay.com
SFX by freesound.org

Keith Allen Dennis rejoins The State Between Us to offer a one-stop-shop for all things China Lobby, the original network of right-wing power players, spies, and criminal capitalists who positioned the "loss" of China to communism at the center of the new red scare in the USA that bookended the entire 'Cold War'. From the Kuomintang to the National Alliance, the China Lobby connects the worst of the worst in Americanism, imperialism, and fascism.

Cool art from The Reporter, 1952.

Keith's pile o' references

References Mentioned (see above photo for more references):
Bellant, Russ. Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party. Boston: South End Press, 1991.
Lintner, Bertil. Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld in Asia. 2003.
Seagrave, Sterling. The Soong Dynasty. Harper & Row, 1985.
Recluse's VISUP blog on the ASC

Music:
Intro - "The Red Sun Must Illuminate Taiwan", performers unknown
Outro - "Joe McCarthy's Ghost", Minutemen. 1982.
"I Can't Have Your Love", Yao Li. 1930s.
"Holo Holo Kaa", Hal Aloma. 1940s.
"Careless Hands", Sammy Kaye. 1949.
"Tracy's Theme", Spencer Ross. 1959.
Also includes music from FesliyanStudios.com

Like it? Share it! Connect to The State Between Us at patreon.com/TheStateBetweenUs and on Bluesky @thestatebetweenus.bsky.social‬.

The forgotten story of American Industry's post-war espionage, propaganda, and policy outfit, the American Security Council. Launched by Robert E. Wood and Hitler-loving Chicago Tribune owner, Robert McCormick, in the mid-'50s, the ASC was built on the work of Nazi spies, staffed with Special Agents of the FBI, and funded by - and serving - the USA's most powerful firms. From the China Lobby, through WACL, to the Reagan administration and beyond, the American Security Council makes an ignominious addition to the terrible giants of The State Between Us.

Reading:
Ernie Lazar's FOIA boxes on The American Security Council available at archive.org
Turner, William. Power on the Right. 1971, Ramparts Press.

Also, check out Keith Allen Dennis' ASC work on The Farm Podcast here!

Music:
"240" by Koleso Nešťastia
"In Honor" from FesliyanStudios.com
"Running Night" from pixabay.com
Additional sounds from freesound.org
Like it? Share it! Connect to The State Between Us at patreon.com/TheStateBetweenUs and on Bluesky @thestatebetweenus.bsky.social‬.

Fritz meets with labor organizer, Eli, to discuss the early career and connections of Alt-Right co-founder and Regnery Dynasty byproduct, Richard Spencer, and how Gainesville organized to de-platform Dicky and his fashy friends at the University of Florida in 2017, the first real test for Spencer's circle following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Photo by Brian Bianco from Getty Images published by NBC news.

Intro and outro music:
"Atados" by Gutless (Gainesville, FL. 2017.)

Additional music from pixabay.com

Intro clip from CBS News

Reading:
Bar-On, Tamir. Richard B. Spencer and the Alt Right. In, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right. Ed. Mark Sedgwick. Oxford, 2019.

Like it? Share it! Connect to The State Between Us at patreon.com/TheStateBetweenUs and on Bluesky @thestatebetweenus.bsky.social‬.