Angry Planet Reuters

Things feel surreal all the time now. We’re told that some of our favorite online personalities may just be sock puppet accounts for foreing governments. Russia, in particular, is supposedly a master at the new soft power internet based information warfare. Some people still believe that Trump is a Russian agent, the end result of a longcon forged years ago by the KGB and ushered into power by Russian trolls. Qanon, anti-vaxers, ant-maskers, shitposts, and doing it for the lulz. It can be exhausting. But understanding the myths of the modern age and how they permeate online is a key to understanding our world today. 


Here to help us figure this all out is Nina Janckowicz. Janckowicz studies the intersection of democracy and technology in Central and Eastern Europe as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in DC. She’s also the author of How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict. She’s also … a huge musical theater fan.


- Recorded 10/8/20
- A brief digression into musical theater
- What is an information war anyway?
- Russia and active measures
- Why Russia is better at it than America
- Ukraine and the human cost
- Poland and the dangers of building a government on conspiracy
- Allowing RT on American soil
- The responsibility of Twitter and Facebook
- Finishing up with a little Sondheim


Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.


https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe
You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nations rise and nations fall, as do their governments. Today, some people say the United States and its treasured republican virtues stand at a crossroads.


But how can you tell? Are we dealing with the mere panic of the moment, or something worth panicking about?


To help us get a grip on what’s going on, we’re going to reach into the past, today, to see if history is repeating or just rhyming.


Joining us to help us get a grip—and we could probably all use to get grip right about now—is Patrick Wyman.


Wyman is the host of the Tides of History podcast, which looks at moments when the world changed, including recent examinations of the world’s first farmers and the effects of plague on the Roman world.


- Recorded on 10/2/20
- What defines a Republic anyway?
- The Res publica
- “Don’t quote laws to men with swords”
- How the Roman republic worked
- A contract with the gods
- How the grain dole worked
- The private sector
- Why it’s so hard to maintain a Republic
- How cynicism degrades the political system


Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.


https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribe
You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What’s the difference between a Proud Boy and a Boogaloo Boi? Are Patriot Prayer and Patriot Front the same thing? If I wear a Hawaiian shirt while eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, does that make me a member of a far right group? How many of these tacticool bearded weirdos are there, really, and are they dangerous? If it feels like the world today is weirder, wilder, and grosser than the one in the past … I feel you. 2020 has seen an explosion of Far Right groups and if you find it hard to keep track of them all, you’re not alone.


Here to help us order and sort the Proud from the Boogaloo is Jason Wilson. Wilson is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in The Guardian and Bellingcat.


- Recorded 10/1/20
- What’s a proud boy?
- The Proud Boys debate moment
- Why Portland is the rallying point for far right groups
- What the Justice Department knows and what it’s doing
- Shirt movements, modern and historic
- Boogaloo bois
- What the numbers tell us
- The John Birch Society
- The Eisenhower Conspiracy


Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.


https://angryplanet.substack.com/
You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

America is perhaps more conservative today than it’s ever been. For some on the right, Obama, Biden and Clinton look like socialists. For people on the left, they look like moderate republicans. There’s a reason for both of those views that’s steeped in America’s recent past. U.S. culture was shaped by a suave and smooth talking President who promised we could be a beacon of hope for the world and a shining city on a hill.


Here to talk about what happened is Rick Perlstein. Perlstein is a returning guest and the author of the new book Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980. The book is, among other things, the story of how a Southern Evangelical Democrat paved the way for a divorced actor from California to ascend to the presidency and shape America’s destiny.


- Recorded 9/10/20
- How voters go from voting for Johnson to voting for Nixon
- America’s moral reckoning, from Vietnam to Watergate
- What Star Wars tells us about America today
- Stable government under a crook vs unstable government under an honest man
- Call of Duty: Cold War and the hero worship of Reagan
- Jimmy Carter as the redeemer of America’s sins
- The nightly hostage wrap up
- How the Camp David Accords set the Middle East against Carter
- Afghanistan as a stop on the Hippie trail
- When Carter cancelled the Olympics
- Nuclear debates
- Rick’s Reagan impersonation
- How the press and politicians misread the moment


Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.


https://angryplanet.substack.com/
You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Military needs gamers. Over the past few months, the U.S. Army and Navy have spent a considerable amount of time playing video games. The Pentagon is streaming on Twitch, showing up at video game tournaments, and sponsoring esports events. And it’s all in a bid to reach a younger crowd and fill out the ranks. The military is trying to meet young people where they live and, increasingly, they live online playing video games.
Is the military’s use of video games as a recruitment tool crossing the line or business as usual? To help us figure that out, we’ve got two guests today. Both returning champions.
Here to help us untangle this mess is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of the new book On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military Citizenry and Community.
We’ve also got Marty Skovlund Jr. Skovlund is a veteran of 1st Ranger Battalion and the Executive Editor of Coffee or Die Magazine.
- Recorded 8/28/20
- The long weird story of the Military going online
- Activists, trolls, and AOC
- Why the military is allowed to recruit at high schools
- The wild questions you get working as a recruiter
- Scumbag recruiters
- Military service as a path to a middle class life and education


Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.


https://angryplanet.substack.com/
You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Civil wars, proxy wars, cold wars, hot wars. Economic collapse, the collapse of civil societies and governments. Hunger, torture, disease.


Many parts of the world seem to be falling apart in 2020, but even then, the Middle East is its own special case.


To talk about the state of one of the world’s most turbulent regions, Steven Cook joins us. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.


He recently wrote an overview for Foreign Policy magazine that captures much of what’s going on—“The End of Hope in the Middle East”


- Recorded 9/10
- How bad are things really?
- How Western powers created a sectarian system in Lebanon
- Who is fighting on the ground in Libya?
- Russian mercenaries and air assets
- Iraq as America’s original sin of the current troubles, and why that’s wrong
- How Saddam held Iraq together
- Fragmentation of the Middle East
- Is Saudi Arabia as stable as it seems?
- The importance of having a vision for the future
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.