Blood Work

Justin Roczniak, podcaster Roz who analyzes engineering failures. Gareth Dennis, rail commentator and author on transport policy. They trace engineering’s roots in military logistics and how designers shape cities, displacement, and surveillance. They debate tech ’engineers’, ethics, AI risks, and where talent could rebuild water, transit, and public infrastructure.

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 theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis Tron Our artwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel For more: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: The Stinging Tree ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO For this week’s newsletter, we look at the long arc of US-Iran relations during the twentieth century, and place the Persian state’s current horizontal deterrence strategy against its American and Israeli aggressors in its proper historical context. Image: A Viet Cong soldier posing with a Type 2 AK-47 rifle during a POW exchange in 1973. (Source: SSgt. Herman Kokojan, Defence Visual Information Centre)

A historical tour of how arms trades evolved from mercantilism to modern global networks. Short profiles of 19th-century inventors and wartime profiteering. Deep dives into covert supply chains, proxy wars, and how embargoes are skirted. Stories of diverted weapons fueling atrocities in Rwanda and recent flows into Sudan.

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 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 For more: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: Pox Americana ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO For this week’s newsletter, we provide a little Blood Work commentary on two morbid eruptions borne from the American imperial violence machine. Chronic and acute, all at once. Image: Mikhail Klashnikov posing with the AK-47 at an event commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the gun’s creation in 2007

A dense history of how rapid-fire weapons reshaped warfare, from early volley guns to Gatling and Maxim innovations. Close looks at colonial uses and massed-fire slaughter. Traces the shift to lighter automatic rifles and the development path that leads toward the AK-47’s origins.

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 Ill Conceived Image: Jack Bauer interrogating Marie Warner in Season 2 of 24. 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 For more: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: Zombie Liberalism ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO This week, we took a look at Nancy Pelosi's response to a question on the topic of Iran at the Munich Security Conference, examining what her answer (or non-answer) can tell us about the state of establishment liberalism as we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century, and whether these obstinate, self-ordained standard-bearers of the liberal international order are sufficiently equipped to bring the fight to an ascendant Fascist International drawing the knives out on nearly every continent. (Bad news. Sorry.)

Patrick Wyman, historian and podcaster known for Tides of History and Past Lives, explores the long arc of violence work across eras. He traces mercenaries from ancient Greek markets to modern private forces. Short takes on Wagner, imperial uses of contracted violence, state weakening, and how overseas violence can migrate back home.

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 excellent essay, “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism” in New Socialist Listen to the Death // Sentence podcast Image: A title card from a C18 propaganda video tape, sourced from the third World in Action documentary about the group. 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   For more: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: SURGES, EMISSIONS, FLOWS ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO Following a few weeks in which the news has focused heavily on events which continue to unfold in Minneapolis and the broader United States, this week we’re shifting the focus to West Africa and the Middle East, to two conflict zones which still swirl and churn amidst the fallout of the 2011 Arab Spring, and the long first two decades of the twenty-first century.

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 // Sentence podcast 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 Patreon – Leave a rating or review on your podcast app – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: OLD WORLD BRB, NEW WORLD AFK ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO This week, we took a look at Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent address at Davos in which he declared the end of the ‘rules-based international order’ (while conceding this had always been US hegemony draped in a convenient fiction) plus recent developments regarding Trump’s grotesque Board of Peace foundation, and provide some thoughts on where we now stand, how we got there, and who walked us there, step by step. Sources: Nick Lowles (2014 [2001]), White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18

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 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 For more: – Support Blood Work via Patreon – Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE – Witness, No Witnesses This week, we look at two news stories which demonstrate the differing approaches to advancing right-wing politics in the US and UK. The rise of Donald Trump and his dominance of political discourse over the past decade has placed spectacle front-and-centre in our understanding of right-wing thought and, indeed, placed right-wing thought front-and-centre in our perception of dominant political ideology. But as our second news story hopefully demonstrates, the brazenness of Trump’s particular political style at times serves to aid the advancement of right-wing cruelty and sadism elsewhere, when a comparative lack of ripples across the water creates the illusion that less is occurring beneath the surface. Now available in audio Image: An Iraqi mother nurses her sick child at a hospital in Baghdad in 1994. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)