Blood Work

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

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 Patreon
– Leave a rating or review on your podcast app
– Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter

THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: Little Marco’s Big Speech
ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

This week, we discuss the thinly-veiled white nationalist vision laid out by Marco Rubio in his Munich Security Conference speech. But first, we provide a little background on the man himself and what it means that a man like that would be giving such a speech—because this might be one of those cases where the medium is the message.

Sources:

C. J. Chivers (2010), The Gun: The Story of the AK-47

Larry Kahaner (2008), AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War

Chris McNab (2001), The AK-47

Image: The American-British entrepreneur Hiram Maxim posing with his eponymous Maxim Gun.

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.)

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 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

Image: A group of unidentified mercenaries operating in Gaza, 2025.

THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE: WEST MIAMI ANTISOCIAL CLUB
ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

For this week’s newsletter, we situate the United States’ latest wave of aggression against Cuba within the longer histories of the the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, stripping back the various narratives the western hemisphere’s imperial master has layered, like wallpaper, over its designs on Cuba over decades.

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.