American Exception
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USAID and the National Endowment for Anti-Democracy (DCC71 - Audio)
🕑 Added 2025-02-14 14:34:02 +0000 UTCAaron is joined by Ben Thomason. Ben recently earned his doctorate in American Cultural Studies from Bowling Green State University. His dissertation title is Making Democracy Safe for Empire: A History and Political Economy of the National Endowment for Democracy, United States Agency for International Development, and Twenty-First Century Media Imperialism. In the show, we discuss the subject of his dissertation: the US empire’s so-called “democracy promotion” enterprises.
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music
Comments
Jonathan Lampart
https://youtu.be/Q2BfqDUPL1I
Aaron Good
Yes, they think these are communist organizations that are spending US taxpayer money to turn people trans around the world.
Jim McSporran
The trans dance group in Bangladesh was apparently funded via the IRI part of NED. On the board of IRI? - Rubio & Tom Cotton! Really enjoyed your discussion. Wish Ben well for his future.
Keith
MAGA is getting a lot of mileage out of this (USAID, NED, etc), its like they have the basic facts kinda right but have twisted the entire thing into bizzaro world -> https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/1886916890427318673?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Aaron Good
Thanks and yes, I know of the Rohrbacher thing...but as I recall there were more aspects of the proposal which led to Assange rejecting it. Maybe someone can find a good write-up of it. Regardless, the fact that the rweaction from Trump and all was (iirc) to back away from this and denounce such a plan suggests that Assange was right that the administration was not trustworthy about it.
Abra K
Lovely podcast thank you, you are both heroes, whether in or cast out of academia
Sebastian O'Brien
Great stuff. Loved it. I am biased tho. One small thing - Assange was offered a pardon if he told Trump who his source was for the 2016 Podesta/ DNC emails . He told him it is Wikileaks policy to never disclose their sources even if they know. The same thing he said when he very unsubtly implied Seth Rich was a source of Wikileaks way back when. It was confirmed in Stefania Maurizi's 2022 book 'Secret Power' quoting Jennifer Robinson Assange's Australian lawyer P308-309
Suneil Basu
I really liked your line "The result is that US Politics is basically one giant rolling cover story for what the US really is."
MN
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=bgsu1711480290212777&disposition=inline
Cole Sheridan
Is there a way to access Ben’s dissertation online?
Sean Atkinson
21:34 that exactly is the definition of democracy that our city commissioners openly advocate for: "you get to vote every two or four years". On that basis, and IN MY OPINION colluding with the police union, they remove protection covenants off of city owned parks and sell them at discount prices to selected developers. It's America, a dictatorship of a rotating cast of thieves. God forbid you don't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance though. The continuity between international, domestic, state, county and city is striking.
Keith
Had to chuckle at the thought of an NED record label.
Ian Be
Got distracted by all the album art on the wall. Had to stop the interview and listen to bro hymn tribute before going any further.
