Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine . A podcast of stories about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Parables are a valuable tool for making a quick, important point in a relatable way. Still, after just shy of fifty episodes, it's time for our last parable for a while...the story of the light switch, as a metaphor for interacting with complex mach...

Welcome back to Circa 1945. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Today’s story isn’t about 1945 directly. It’s about something older and more personal: how suffering becomes purpose — without becoming destiny. It’s also about Batman. Yes… that Batman. Stay with me.

Welcome back to Circa 1945. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Most people, on average, never consider what it means to have a country versus being made stateless. We live under a flag and take it for granted. But studying history brings us face to face with what a nation actually is…and what happens when citizenship is taken away....

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. This podcast asks one question: what would it take to genocide-proof a society? I want to start this episode somewhere unexpected. Not with history. Not with politics. Not even with the news. I want to start with a little cartoon. There’s a character online called Tubby Nugget. He’s round. He’s gentle. He’s deeply earnest. And in one short video, h...

Welcome back to Circa 1945. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Today, I want to finally talk about ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government department that did not exist until 2003 and has recently expanded its operations in major cities. Demanding the “papers” of ordinary working people and detaining them without tria...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine, A podcast about genocide as infrastructure, and the counter-infrastructure we must build to prevent it. This episode, I want to focus on the power of narrative storytelling as genocide prevention infrastructure. There’s a reason so many Holocaust survivors have shared their stories. In autobiographies, in the USC Shoah Database, in hours upon hours...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — the podcast about genocide as infrastructure, and the counter-infrastructure we build to prevent it. Today’s episode begins with something small. Not a historical moment, not a textbook, not a survivor quote. A cat. Well — a cat, and a vacuum cleaner. An inside joke between two friends turned into a metaphor so precise, I realized it might be one...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. This podcast usually asks one question: What would it take to genocide-proof a society? But today I want to tackle an even more impossible question. The question people write books about, join cults over, pay therapists to avoid answering, and Google at three in the morning. The question every stoned college freshman thinks they invented: What is t...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine, the podcast about genocide as infrastructure, and the counter-infrastructure we build to prevent it. Today we turn our attention to something subtle, something that rarely arrives with warning labels: eliminationist rhetoric. It doesn’t begin with open hatred. It doesn’t begin with violence. It begins with a dream — one that uses all the right word...

Welcome back to Circa 1945. Stories to Remember, lessons to resist, blueprints for hope. Every time genocide comes up online, someone eventually says a version of the same thing. "At least Thanos was merciful." They mean it was quick. They mean it was painless. They mean it didn’t single anyone out. Half of everyone. No hatred. No suffering. Just… gone. And I understand why that sounds humane. But...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Because studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today, I wanted to discuss how easy it is to misunderstand the term “genocide”, and why this is dangerous. ⁠ https://www.nahuntahall...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. In the last episode, I told a parable about three kinds of neighbors: the vulnerable, the opportunists, and the fire-minded ones. The people who help, the people who prey, and the people who show up. That parable was universal. It applied to any crisis, any disaster, any moment where a community is tested. Today, I want to talk about why I told tha...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast about genocide as infrastructure — and the counter-infrastructure we must build to prevent it. Today, I want to offer a very simple parable. One that came to me while thinking about safety, community, and the quiet ways we prepare for danger long before it arrives. It’s about neighbors. And fire. And the three kinds of people you meet whe...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. In today's episode, a darkly funny museum moment turns into a structural insight: how marginalized people learn to recognize the predator gaze long before danger arrives. Light, sharp, and surprisingly hopeful.

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast about genocide as infrastructure and the counter-infrastructure we must build to prevent it. Today’s story is about an autistic child, just like me. A twelve-year-old girl with Disney socks, a world-map rug, and a brain wired to see history as shapes. Not heroes. Not villains. Not morality tales. Shapes. Patterns. Structures. Heads that g...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast that asks one question. What would it take to build a genocide-proof society? Today, instead of telling you a parable, I want to take you on a journey with me. This journey will take the form of a guided meditation. So relax, close your eyes if you like, and listen to my voice. You see, I had a spiritual experience in summer 2025 that led...

Welcome back to Circa 1945. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. If you refuse to hear a person define their own viewpoint… If you rely on what someone else told you they believe… If you cannot tolerate being corrected about the beliefs of the group you claim to oppose… If your emotional state depends on refusing to listen… You’re not...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. This podcast asks one question: what would it take to genocide-proof a society? Sometimes the answer doesn’t come from a history book or a sermon. Sometimes it comes from a stranger on the phone — a man who’s lived long enough to know what patterns look like. Image Source: ⁠ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17299607⁠

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. After last week’s episode — one of the heaviest I’ve ever made — I want to shift into something gentler. Not emotionally gentle, necessarily, but structurally gentle. Sometimes the best way to understand the machinery of violence… is to look at a fictional world where that machinery has already won. Today’s parable comes from a horror movie. A gory...

This is Episode 30 — a landmark episode. And today, I’m not telling you a parable. I’m not telling you a story about cats or chairs or Thor or Thanos. I’m going to tell you what happened to me this week. The week that lasted a hundred years . And what it taught me about the machine we’re all living inside. This long, painful, clarifying week...I saw the Thanos Thread playing out not where I expect...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This week, we’re listening for a different kind of signal — not a shout, not a slogan, but a frequency. Because hatred rarely announces itself. More often, it hums under the surface — in jokes, in phrases, in the words that sound harmless to some and thr...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to genocide-proof a society. Every so often I stumble across a line so perfect it stops me cold. ⁠In the documentary "The Rise of the Nazi Party," author and historian Dr. Michael Lynch said:⁠ "Nazism was like a snowball. It flourished in cold, dark times. But you subject it to sunlight,...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. We live in a culture obsessed with true crime. Podcasts. Documentaries. Netflix series. There’s an entire industry devoted to exploring the “criminal mind.” And you know what? I get it. Especially for women, especially for survivors — many of us have be...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This week’s story begins with a baby. A baby doesn’t change, but the room he is in sure can. Just as we baby-proof our homes, we can genocide-proof our societies — with padded corners like food security, reproductive choice, housing integration, re...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This is an episode about vigilance. About living on the tracks when others say you are obsessed. And about how we might find, at the end of our lives, that vigilance was worth everything. Credit to Viktor E Frankl, who influenced my life more than any o...