36 Comments
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Craftsman Redux's avatar

The chirp in the background is the second best part.

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Oshin1's avatar

Thank you Mr. President

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Fife's avatar

Nice episode! The 21st C mythos around John Brown and the retconned righteousness of the weirdo Unitarians and outright commies who stirred up Kansas, Harpers Ferry, and had the original concept for "fundamentally reshaping America" is more or less non-existent, except as a rationalization of the Meltdown movement.

I came across a little-known book in some research on the authentic foundation of the Republican Party that has been a real joy. I think you might enjoy it, as it explores the group of New Englanders who funded the whole thing and manipulated Brown, who is shown as what he was -- a corrupt, dishonest, lunatic who was manipulated as a result of his religious zealotry and serious financial problems.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2664015-the-secret-six

Here's a passage from the prologue about the dawning of the age of terrorism:

"Unlike those who murdered innocent people in the past, this new type of assassin was praised by many journalists and hailed by some as a hero of the people. His murders were blended, by skillful propaganda, into praises of the cause he claimed to represent and this, too was a departure from standards of judgment that had distinguished civilization from barbarity throughout the centuries."

Anyway, it strikes me as the sort of virtually unknown book you would enjoy. Cheers!

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Rofesto's avatar

The victims of John Brown needed to be getting bigger

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CS's avatar

Wow. Never realized how ruthless and motivated the Union was, vis a vis the Confederates. I think most of modern history is defined like this; the strongest will always wins.

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Racist Gorilla's avatar

Can you give more of your thoughts on the Civil War? You kept mentioning it but I don't remember many of those those tweets. Also you're wrong and I hate you, everything you said was dumb and I am currently screaming and crying.

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Swig's avatar

This was really cool, bought the book. Love reading about history leading up to conflicts. Also learned that Mystery Grove is actually Joe Biden, I'd recognize that voice anywhere!

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≠Cool2BCool's avatar

Very well made, worth my $5. Brown being a psychopathic serial killer really propped up probably a few others who would kill civvies only with guns, who inspired others to fight armed combatants, etc. You can only go as high as the guy willing to go the lowest.

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Kelvin Tempura's avatar

This was edgy? You didn't even call people names.

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Thusundi's avatar

Will you start doing a transcript for wordcels that don’t like podcasts?

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Conundrum Cluster's avatar

I'll look into this

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BDW's avatar

If you record your episode in Descript, it makes recording/editing easy and automatically generates a transcript.

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Stealthy Mat's avatar

Following up: Even though I listen, transcripts are super helpful, like if there was something you said that I wanted to quote or follow up on, I could ctrl + f instantly instead of relistening to a 30-90 minute podcast.

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Danfromdc's avatar

Well done. Going to see movie ride w devil. It never made your best if list don’t think.

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Stealthy Mat's avatar

I absolutely loved Ride with the Devil.

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Literally Kane From C&C's avatar

I love you too

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Joe Weil's avatar

This is great work. Ordered the book and keen to read it. Thank you for the sober insights.

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Sbub's avatar

So many parallels to today. Which led me to wonder, as we see lots of dark money flowing in to the BLM/antifa paramilitary - who was funding those Sharps rifles used by the abolitionists moving with the Emigrant Aid Societies? Where was that money coming from?

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Expo_88's avatar

Thank you very much for this episode.

If I may, in a similar vein, readers may like to look at the French Revolution and how City V Country panned out (TLDR City went out to the country and committed atrocities, country boys were better but failed to achieve victory because reasons)

The second historical event I think people may find interesting is 1381 Peasant Revolt in England. TLDR Peasants won the day, lost the war and then some.

Again, TYVM for this podcast

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Rubicon♔'s avatar

Great stuff. Appreciate the fair perspective on the south 🤝

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