American Exception
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Episode 62: The Deep Politics of Heroin w/Peter Dale Scott and Alfred McCoy
🕑 Added 2022-08-02 21:50:07 +0000 UTCReleased in conjunction with the upcoming publication of Peter's "lost" (read "stolen by the CIA in 1970") article originally intended for Ramparts, we present a 2011 debate between the two top experts on the Postwar Southeast Asian heroin traffic: Professors Peter Dale Scott and Alfred McCoy.
I add some context at the beginning which will hopefully be of interest to everybody!
Peter Dale Scott is the prolific poet, historian, and political theorist who gave us parapolitics as well as the deep politics approach.
Alfred McCoy is History Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin and the author of The Politics of Heroin—now in its third edition.
Apologies for the weird noises during the debate. We have no idea exactly what was making that intermittent whirring and clicking noise.
Special thanks to Casey Moore for the episode art and Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering!
Music: “Payroll” by Mock Orange
Comments
Adam Murphy
Obv coming to this late, but still an important conversation. I'm in the process of reading Politics of Heroin while taking copious notes, and McCoy's reluctance to close the loop is the major issue holding the book back. It's still a great resource for understanding the tactics behind drug trades, but it brushes aside strategy which is far more important. Peter tackles strategy head on but admits the total influence of narcotics trade is unknown.
DevNull
I think it’s an old style slide projector. That’s what it sounds like to me
Aaron Good
McCoy has done good work, even if he is cautious and likely used as part of a CIA damage control operation (which screwed PDS, as I note in the episode). McCoy at least produces serious scholarship that can be analyzed and critiqued. I find this less harmful than those who use terrible "methodology" and thus discredit research into these areas to a degree.
Sean Atkinson
Academic collegiality I see is just a shield for those that least need it.
Sean Atkinson
Frustrating to see Peter constantly prostrate himself before this dipshit.
Jay Acton
Thanks - learnt a new word: privished
Aaron Good
Excellent, thanks!
Craig McCallum
Excellent, many thanks. I have a small selection of books for sale in our bakery. Yours is right next to the war nerds illiad and Ursula leguin's the disposessed.
Aaron Good
I made it public. And it is embedded in the new article: https://americanexception.com/private-war-enterprise-in-asia-air-america-the-brook-club-and-the-kuomintang/
Craig McCallum
I would love to share this with friends and enemies. How big of a donation to make it sharable?
Aaron Good
Hmmm, well that's as good as any guess I have.
NYCM&AHole
The whirring and clicking is the camera taking facial recognition of the crowd and feeding it into the NSA computers
Aaron Good
I'd put it differently, but I do think that Peter has the stronger case.
Louis Waweru
Song nom: https://music.apple.com/us/album/top-gift/957577763?i=957577769
Max Barnett
PDS SMOKED HIS ASS
Sam
“We have no idea exactly what was making that intermittent whirring and clicking noise.“ One could guess 😬😬😬
