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  • Three Kings (1999) w/ Kevin Fox | Bang-Bang Podcast Crossover | Ep. 223
    2025/02/22

    Free preview episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

    This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

    From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

    Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast to unlock the rest of this episode, Part II, and the entire Bang-Bang catalog: https://www.bangbangpod.com/p/part-i-three-kings-1999-w-kevin-fox

    Further Reading

    Kevin’s Website

    “The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

    “Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

    “The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

    “The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont

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    48 分
  • White Nationalism and China | Ukraine's Imperial Peace | Tupac and the Pentagon | Mercenary Monroe Doctrine | Democratic War Hawks | Ep. 222
    2025/02/15

    What Tupac predicted about the defense budget. Pete Hegseth unveils Trump's imperialist peace plan for Ukraine. The Monroe Doctrine means mercenary imperialism. Why the Democratic Party can't critique Trump's lies about being antiwar. In the Trump era, being anti-anti-China is worse than being a white nationalist.

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

    Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

    Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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    58 分
  • Live Lecture! What Good is the National Interest? Rethinking the Foundations of Peace, Democracy, and War
    2025/02/11

    Dr. Van Jackson gave a public lecture at the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin on February 4, 2025. This episode is the full set of remarks plus Q&A from that lecture.

    About the lecture: The concept of the “national interest,” Van Jackson argues, has become an under-appreciated source of global insecurity. Not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with people having interests that must be preserved, promoted, or protected. Rather, the “national interest” as such obscures whose interests are served (and harmed) by the efforts of policy elites to secure the state. Governments routinely use the language of the national interest to justify a politics of violence, secrecy, and exclusion while bracketing off explicit questions of morality and justice. And national frameworks for mobilizing resources and collective action are logically mismatched against global threats like climate change. But rather than wishing away the modern nation-state or simply suggesting changes to the words that governing elites use, this lecture argues that addressing the contradictions in the national interest—as well as some of international security studies’ most cherished strategic constructs—is a start point for constructing more durable forms of security.

    The full video lecture: https://youtu.be/6uEGvZQTjNA?si=LvOqClXur72a7v7T

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

    Un-Diplomatic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

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    1 時間 15 分
  • Palantir is Evil | USAID w/out World War III | ICE Performing Terror | Imagining Restraint in Asia | Foreign Influence is the New Cocaine | Ep. 220
    2025/02/07

    Why Palantir and the new Silicon Valley defense-industrial cartel is bad news for humanity. How to talk about USAID without starting World War III (w/ cameo from Senator Chris Murphy). ICE immigration raids are trying to perform terror. Foreign influence is the new cocaine--legal for white folks. And imagining what a restraint-based, antimilitarist foreign policy could look like in Asia if the Philippines could make a missiles-for-peace deal with China.

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

    Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

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    35 分
  • Perils of Christian Patriotism | We're All Antifascist (Right?) | How to Cut the Pentagon Ep. 219
    2025/01/31

    Why JD Vance's understanding of Christian patriotism fundamentally misunderstands christianity...on purpose. ANTIFA is not a terrorist organization, and we should all be antifascist. Why Burmese scholarships are not woke and DOGE has cut too far. And how to cut the Pentagon intelligently.

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

    Read Julia's report (with William Hartung and Gabe Murphy) on cutting defense spending: https://www.stimson.org/2025/developing-efficient-effective-defense/

    Catch Un-Diplomatic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

    The views expressed are theirs alone.

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    43 分
  • How Saudi Arabia Bought Trump, DEI and Militarism, Nuclear No First-Use, Elon Musk and the Far Right | Ep. 218
    2025/01/24

    The gang's back with another variety episode. Why Saudi Arabia throws so much money at Trump. Matt's trip to Israel amid ceasefire negotiations. The truth about DEI initiatives and the Pentagon. The best time for nuclear no first-use was 4 years ago; the second best time is now. What's Elon Musk doing with far right parties in Europe? And why is "the quad" both a joke and Steve Bannon's Asia fantasy?

    More Perfect Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su8NHZY-CyY&t=92s

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

    Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

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    51 分
  • Live! Guest Daniel Bessner on The Crisis of Liberalism, The Failure of Democrats, and the Truth About Chomsky | Ep. 217
    2025/01/21

    Guest Daniel Bessner of The American Prestige Podcast joins the Un-Diplomatic livestream to talk about many topics. Is international relations dead or just irrelevant? Where did Democrats go more wrong, on domestic or foreign policy? What was the problem with Noam Chomsky's theory of change? And what even is a crisis of liberalism?

    Subscribe to The American Prestige Podcast: https://americanprestige.supportingcast.fm/listen

    Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

    Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

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    45 分
  • Ender's Game w/ Alexander McCoy (2013) | Bang-Bang Podcast Crossover | Ep. 216
    2025/01/14

    Just for the strategy nerds, sharing a free preview of the Bang-Bang Podcast episode covering Ender’s Game, the 2013 film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel of the same name. Neither achieving box office nor critical success, the movie still evokes a wide range of reactions. Especially when it comes to its ambiguous relationship to the original text. Van and Lyle have fellow vet and strategist Alexander McCoy on the show to debate their competing reads. Along the way, they come to agree that certain insights gleaned from the cinematic rendering might be at odds with Card’s politics. Ranging from the ultimate lovelessness of war to the emptiness of any strategy unharnessed from justice and peace.

    Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast for the full episode and more: https://www.bangbangpod.com

    Alex on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexandermccoy.bsky.social

    Further Reading

    “A Primer on Orson Scott Card and the Ender’s Game Controversy,” by Anna Silman

    The Internationalists, by Alexander Ward

    “The Great Humbling,” by David Klion

    “Four Futures,” By Peter Frase

    Strategy and Conscience, by Anatol Rapaport

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    36 分