American Exception

Episode 149: Paranoid Petroleum Politics [TRAILER]

Brandon Wolfe joins us to talk about his important book, The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq. Wolfe is an associate professor of history at California State University at Stanislaus.
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "Stop and Go" by Mock Orange

UNLOCKED: Episode 141: Justice for 9/11?

We discuss the newly launched International Center for 9/11 Justice with Kevin Ryan and Dr. Piers Robinson.
Kevin Ryan was previously the Site Manager for the environmental testing division of Underwriters Laboratories (UL). In 2004, he was fired for publicly questioning and commenting on UL’s testing of World Trade Center construction materials and UL’s involvement in the WTC investigation being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Since 2006, Kevin has been the co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies, a board director at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and co-author of several books and numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles related to 9/11.
Piers Robinson is the founding editor of Propaganda in Focus. He is also co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, associated researcher with the Working Group on Propaganda and the 9/11 Global ‘War on Terror’, and member of Panda and BerlinGroup21.
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "This Nation" by Mock Orange

Introducing: Devil’s Chess Club! [AUDIO; video link in description]

David Talbot and Bryce Green team up with Aaron to launch Devil’s Chess Club, our new show which will be available on Patreon first, then on Rokfin, and then on YouTube.
In this episode, we talk about David Talbot’s two Kennedy assassination classics, Brothers The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years and The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government.
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode

Episode 148: Deep State Brain Trust

James DiEugenio returns to talk about two recent articles related to the JFK case:
The Mystery of Kennedy’s Brain Deepens
Hoover vs. King: The ARRB Documents
DiEugenio is the screenwriter and co-creator of Oliver Stone’s JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass as well as JFK: Destiny Betrayed—the four-hour cut of the film which is now available for purchase. Jim also runs the fantastic Kennedys and King website and is the author of Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case as well as The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today.
His latest book is JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass.
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode!
Music: "Mind Is Not Brain" by Mock Orange

Episode 147:The Leftist Case for RFK 2024

Dan Kovalik joins us to talk about the subject of his recent article, “Why We Need RFK, Jr.: Russia, Ukraine & the Slide into Nuclear War.”
Daniel Kovalik is a human rights lawyer, labor rights lawyer and peace activist. He has contributed articles to CounterPunch, The Huffington Post, and TeleSUR. He teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of several books, including his most recent: Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture. dana
Check out Dan Kovalik's author page at Amazon
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "Poster Child" by Mock Orange

Episode 146: Sweden, NATO, and Olaf Palme [TRAILER]

With Sweden officially becoming a NATO member, Ola Tunander returns to discuss the subject, with reference to his landmark article on the NATO deep state in Sweden. Entitled, “Dual State: The Case of Sweden,” this article was published in The Dual State: Parapolitics, Carl Schmitt and the National Security Complex.
Ola Tunander is Research Professor Emeritus with the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. He earned his doctoral degree in 1989 with a thesis on US Maritime Strategy. He has written and edited 15 books on geopolitics, military strategy and European security, submarine warfare, and deception operations (aka psychological operations).
Also, please subscribe to Ola’s Substack where you can check out these additional excellent articles by Ola Tunander:
The Concept of the Deep State (This one discusses his recent discussions on American Exception with Peter Dale Scott and Aaron)
Democratic State vs. Deep State: Part I (His classic article the deep state of the West)
“An Underwater U-2”: Part I (Important work on the Swedish version of the strategy of tension, psychological operations which in the Swedish case involved submarine warfare)
After Seymour Hersh’s article (His article on the Nord Stream bombing)
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "Hawks Can Go” by Mock Orange

Episode 145: Nord Stream CSI

We talk about the “unsolved” Nord Stream bombing with Jeffrey Brodsky and Bryce Green.
Check out Jeff’s Substack articles on the Nord Stream bombing crime scene:
New Revelations from Nord Stream Expedition
My Full Remarks before the United Nations Security Council
Lab Analysis Does Not Detect Explosives Used in Nord Stream Sabotage. Did Someone Clean Up the Crime Scene?
…and Bryce’s articles too:
US Media’s Intellectual No-Fly-Zone on US Culpability in Nord Stream Attack
My Briefing to The United Nations Security Council on the Nord Stream Pipeline Attack
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode!
Music: "Stuck In" by Mock Orange

Episode 144: Minding the Darkness, Minding the Light w/Peter Dale Scott (Part 17) [TRAILER]

Professor Peter Dale Scott reads his new poem for Dan Ellsberg. We then discuss the "Reagan Revolution" and how its dawning was the catalyst for a psychic crisis that Peter resolved through poetry—Coming to Jakarta, specifically.
This is the 16th installment of our oral history series with the prolific poet, historian, and political theorist who gave us parapolitics as well as the deep politics approach.
Special thanks to Casey Moore for the episode art and Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: "I Keep Sayin So Long" by Mock Orange

Episode 143: UFO, WTF? [TRAILER]

We discuss the history of UFOs and their recent reemergence in the news with Philadelphia-based independent researcher Robert Skvarla.
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode!
Music: "World of Machines" by Mock Orange

Episode 142: Minding Doomsday: Ellsberg and Scott in Conversation (Part 2) [TRAILER]

This is the second of two episodes featuring Aaron’s interview with two luminaries of US anti-imperialism—Daniel Ellsberg and Peter Dale Scott.
Daniel Ellsberg was an analyst for the Pentagon and RAND before he made the fateful decision to leak the Pentagon Papers—a top secret study on the US involvement in Vietnam from Truman to LBJ. Ellsberg is the author of two memoirs—Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. He is also the subject of The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, an Oscar-nominated documentary that Edward Snowden credited for inspiring his own act of whistleblowing.
Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and retired UC Berkeley Professor of English. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including The War Conspiracy, Coming to Jakarta, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Cocaine Politics (with Jonathan Marshall), Drugs, Oil, and War, The Road to 9/11, American War Machine, and The American Deep State.
This interview was originally recorded in October of 2018 at Marin College during Project Censored’s Media Freedom Summit.
Big thanks to everybody at Project Censored who helped with this, especially Mickey Huff, Anthony Fest, Dennis Murphy and John Bertucci!
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode!
Music: "This Nation" by Mock Orange