Review: My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

The political podcast uses relevant history to contextualize controversial current events.

You know a politics podcast is going to be good when the first negative review excoriates it for being the work of a "left leaning hack" and the second chides it for "normalizing a fascist coup attempt."

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics contextualizes controversial current events with a wider consideration of relevant history. With people on both the left and the right looking to make exceptions to political process and personal principles because "this time it's different," this podcast goes a long way toward demonstrating that there is, in fact, nothing new under the sun.

Hosted by Bruce Carlson, the podcast has been around since 2006 and the production quality is just barely decent—especially in the early episodes. But the content more than makes up for the occasional audio misstep.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

"You know a politics podcast is going to be good when the first negative review excoriates it for being the work of a "left leaning hack" and the second chides it for "normalizing a fascist coup attempt."

You do know those are the same thing, right?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Hush, this time it's different.

[Quicktown Brix]

"You do know those are the same thing, right?"

Not to most people with any knowledge of history.

[Quicktown Brix]

I'll add: to me, redefining fascist as "left wing" is about the same as re-assigning your gender. Fascism historically has been conservative authoritarianism and men historically have had a penis.

[BigT]

Fascism is a variation on socialism where the producers get to keep ownership of facilities. There is nothing conservative or right wing about it.

[Overt]

It's right wing in that the Europeans literally defined their politics on that axis of the ownership of capital.

But the idea that fascism resembles at all what the Republicans or the Conservatives were doing in the 1900s is just wishful thinking. The Fascists were not substantially different from FDR at the time in economic policies and even many nationalist policies.

The idea that "conservatives" were the home of Nazi racism is absurd when you consider that while FDR was busy nationalizing major parts of our economy and starting Nationalist projects, it was his party (the Democrats) that were instituting racism in the South.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

FDR openly admired Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin for their economic control. He turned a blind eye to their murderous control. His jealous suckup to Stalin during WW II has always been something the Democrats have tried to sweep under the rug.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

And FDR was only kidding about being president for life, packing the Supreme Court, and nationalizing the economy.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Democrats have tried to sweep under the rug.

Do they?

[Zeb]

"Right wing" and "conservative" mean different things in different contexts. Too many people seem to assume that the contemporary American meanings are all that matters. And not every ideology fits nicely on a left-right spectrum. Nazis were a combination of things. We'd be right to call a lot of the economic policies left wing. But their militarism and appeals to tradition (if sometimes bizarre and ahistorical) are pretty conservative/right, particularly in the European and German context.
Stop this dumb argument and just accurately describe what they were. Which certainly bears pretty much no resemblance to the American right of any era.

[Quicktown Brix]

Thanks, Zeb. Pretty much my point, but said more eloquently.

[Social Justice is neither]

Let me guess, you also see National Socialism as "right wing", sorry comrade bit that's only true if your perspective starts from the far left.

[Quicktown Brix]

Nope.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

OK, wise ass. Tell us what you call a system where an autocratic government takes control of private enterprises while allowing political allies to ostensibly retain ownership?

[Quicktown Brix]

Probably communism.

[TJJ2000]

I'll add: to me, it seems you've been loaded with lefty propaganda...

What is lefty propaganda?? Full-on Projection...
"We support National Socialism" (Nazism)...
"but you guys are Nazi's"

Projection --- the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds.
Nazism --- National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP).

Yeah; leftard propaganda really is that stupid and it falls EXACTLY in-line with pick-a-gender that is just as stupid.

I'm sure it won't be long before the left blames mystery-gender on the right-wing also; exactly the same way they tried to peg slavery on the right.... The only think the left sells is PROJECTION.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Not to most people with any knowledge of history.

Overheard during the screening of Anna Karenina - 'Why do they keep calling everyone Conrad?'

[Brandybuck]

The "Left" is an extremely broad category, but in general encompass those suspicious or opposed to wealth accumulation, private property, and capital. The "Right" is even broader, but in the European sense can range from supporters of the Ancien Regime and titled land holdings, to political hierarchies, to cultural traditionalists.

So of course there is going to be overlap. The reason that Fasists are not Socialists is because the Socialists said they aren't. But there is still a helluva lot of overlap between the two. Nazis were national socialists, after all. They did not abolish private property (neither did most socialists, by the way) but still controlled its use through the state. Fascism is similar, and its economics is one of corporatism where the corporations are in service to the state. Thus there's not much difference between a state owned company (ei. Jaguar) being run by the state, and an ostensibly private company (ei. Volkswagon) being run by the state.

The big difference is the militaristic style of fascism. Which of course is not all that different from the militaristic style of some branches of socialism (North Korea, Maoist China, Stalinist USSR, etc).

So yeah, not much difference except to the nit picky ideologically pure. To the common man there is no difference.

[Azathoth!!]

The "Left" is an extremely broad category,

This is true.

But few understand just HOW broad.

The 'Left' and 'Right' from the Ancien Regime that got this all started referred to the 'left'--rule of the people vs the 'right'-- rule of the king/aristocrats

What most would be surprised to learn is that both sides of the modern right and left come from the left side of that ancien dichotomy.

And they had their own basic division, the individualists, at whose far extreme lived the libertines, and the collectivists at whose far extreme lived what amounted to a human hive system.

Since libertinage is much easier to achieve, it's excesses became apparent very quickly and the individualists began to moderate almost from the start into classical liberals, an-caps and eventually republicans. What they never got was any type of authoritarianism. Because it's incompatible with their most basic precepts.

The collectivists however faced a quandry. Humans are not organized collectively--they're organized cooperatively. Two similar appearing states that are very different. So similar that the collectivists figured that if they could just force the issue --just a bit-- they could get to that perfect homeostatic collectivism.

They couldn't. And their attempts at getting past the hurdle of human individuality created nazism, and fascism, and communism, and socialism and the authoritarianism that is so reminiscent of that aristocracy they all rebelled against so long ago. And this could happen because the idea that there is an overarching 'greater good' that takes precedence over all individual liberty is part of THEIR most basic precepts.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Fascists were anti-capitalists. Sometimes it's not as easy to tell as one thinks.