Blood Work

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . Gregk and Thomas pause to reflect on some of the topics covered since they last spoke, and meditate on recent events. Image: A still from Werner Herzog’s 1992 documentary Lessons of Darkness Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our...

Joe and Gregk use Gregory Stanton’s ‘Ten Stages of Genocide’ to discuss the tactics & techniques states deploy to legitimise and perpetrate mass murder. Image: Remains of victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide retrieved from a mass grave in Huye District in January, 2024. Follow Joe Kassabian on Bluesky Listen to Lions Led by Donkeys Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produc...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . We take a foray into the world of euphemisms, turns-of-phrase and the disingenuous world of militarese Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our artwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobe...

We look at the history of women’s participation in suicide bombing attacks and how society has tried to make sense of women who carry out the most extreme political act of all. If you enjoyed this episode: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Leave a rating or review on your podcast app – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by T...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . In the conclusion to our series, we look at what happened when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the rifles it had been making for over four decades started leaking out into a rapidly changing world. Image: A screencap from a video dated June, 2001, showing al-Qaeda militants wiel...

Gareth and Rocz join Gregk to account for the many crimes of modernity’s slow, silent killers – engineers, technicians, and urban planners. Follow Gareth and Rocz on Bluesky Watch Well There’s Your Problem on YouTube Watch RailNatter on YouTube Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our artwork is provide...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . As the Soviets entered the Cold War, they had a gun they could use as conduit, commodity, or currency. The US, meanwhile, hit the snooze alarm. In Vietnam, a rude awakening awaited them. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our them...

We trace the evolution of international arms transfers from mercantilism to the modern era, and the perverse incentives produced by the symbiosis of private enterprise and state imperatives in arms production. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our artwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel If you enjoy...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . It’s time to tell the story of Mikhail Kalashnikov, his eponymous gun, the horrors of the Eastern Front, and one of the biggest fumbles in US military history. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Productio n This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ b...

We begin our history of the most famous firearm of all time with a prologue: Because in order to understand how we got here, you gotta understand where we came from. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our artwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel If you enjoyed this episode: – Support Blood Work via Pa...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . Josh drops by the Blood Work studio to talk about one of the most mentally unhinged prestige TV shows of the early millennium and what it might tell us about America’s relationship with violence. Follow Josh Boerman on Bluesky Listen to The Worst of All Possible Worlds Listen to...

Prompted by a meditation on mercenaries, Gregk consults the henchest man in ancient history to discuss ancient forms of violence work and whether our current conjuncture is really a rupture, or more a return to form. Follow Patrick Wyman on Bluesky Listen to Past Lives Listen to Tides of History Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Productio n This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . Gareth and Gregk reconvene to tell the second chapter in the C18 saga which, naturally, features some sunlit uplands, a Swedish man named ‘Pie’, and a wizard. Follow Gareth Watkins on Bluesky Read his recent article, “Has Ukip Gone Full Nazi?” in The New Statesman Read his excel...

Gareth and Gregk discuss what happens when a group of football hooligans decide to elevate their violent bloodlust into a fully-fledged political movement. (Spoiler: Bad, stupid things.) Follow Gareth Watkins on Bluesky Read his recent article, “Has Ukip Gone Full Nazi?” in The New Statesman Read his excellent essay, “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism” in New Socialist Listen to the Death // Sente...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . We situate the favourite tool in the U.S. arsenal in its historical context, and try to make sense of that silent, peaceful, deadly weapon. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Productio n This episode was produced by Thomas O’Mahony Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our a...

Gregk speaks to the award-winning national security journalist Spencer Ackerman about the long shadows of 9/11 and the War on Terror, how America’s response to those events contributed to its current condition, the media’s role in justifying and legitimating state violence, and much more. Spencer Ackerman is a national security journalist whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Daily Beast, W...

This is a preview. To hear the entire episode and help Blood Work to survive and thrive, become a supporter on Patreon . We look at the history and philosophy of a doctrine so broad and plastic that even its theorists concede it might not mean anything at all—because if it doesn’t mean anything, then maybe it means everything. Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Productio n This episode was produced by Th...

For their first ever Christmas episode, Gregk and producer Thomas get together for a casual fireside chat, discussing some of the key questions animating Blood Work, reflecting on the project’s progress so far, where they’d like to take it next year, and offer some perspectives on how this thing that we call violence connects to that other thing that we call politics. And then, as a little Christm...

This week, Gregk speaks to Anthropologist Florin Poenaru about his essay for North South Notes, published on the one-year anniversary of Romania’s cancelled Presidential elections, in which ‘outsider’ candidate Călin Georgescu was alleged to have benefitted from a Russian-coordinated TikTok interference campaign. In their conversation, they discuss the layers of power within a globalised political...

In 1823, US President James Monroe declared an end to European colonial ambitions in the Americas. By the end of that century, his declaration had morphed into a license for the United States to pursue unilateral political, economic and military actions across the Western Hemisphere. This week, we examine the history of the Monroe Doctrine and the wider geospatial order of the Americas, and see ho...

What are ‘libidinal politics’? What the fuck is a ‘machinic assemblage’? Why are these men all terrified of women? This week, we explore four key ideas in the fascist imaginary and head down to the stables to look at some freaks. If you enjoyed this episode: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Leave a rating or review on your podcast app – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter Blood Work is a...

In 1971, a group of people cast aside by the state rose up and attempted to reclaim their humanity and political subjectivity. This week, we look at the Attica Prison Uprising to see what that event might tell us about the relationship between politics, law and violence. If you enjoyed this episode: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Leave a rating or review on your podcast app – Follow us on Blue...

Come join us, won’t you, for a deep dive into one of the twentieth century’s biggest assholes. Say hello to Carl Schmitt: Jurist, legal scholar, political philosopher… Nazi? Look: We’re only showing you him so you know how to get away from him. Support the show on Patreon You have been listening to Blood Work A Scam Goldin Production Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.show On Instagram, @bloodworksh...

We take a break from scheduled programming to commemorate the passing of one of the greatest monsters of the early 21st century, looking back at some of his greatest hits of being a rancid asshole and how they show our exceptional times might not be all that exceptional. This episode is a little thing we've been calling internally, "The Gregk Directive", for when the news simply is too good to res...

In the mid-1990s, the political philosopher Giorgio Agamben began a 20-year project exploring the origin of what Michel Foucault called biopolitics – the governance of populations through technocratic management of aspects of their biological lives and the conditions intended to make live, or let die. Performing an archaeology of politics tracing back to the Greeks, Agamben identified a number of...