Guerrilla History - Parting Ways (For Now): Guerrilla History Bids Farewell to Breht & Dave

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we mark an era change in the show's history as we bid farewell to cohost Breht and Producer Dave.  After almost three and a half years of working together on the show, we amicably part ways as Breht and Dave take on new endeavors in their lives and renew their focus on Rev Left Radio and Red Menace.  From the bottom of our hearts, Adnan and Henry thank the Breht and Dave for their tireless pursuit of justice and for the effort they have put in alongside us from the inception of this show.  While we are officially parting ways for now, we will remain lifelong friends, and are looking forward to continuing to collaborate periodically going forward (including on an upcoming miniseries that you will be hearing soon on the History of Modern China, which Breht is guest hosting!).  Be sure to keep up with everything that they continue to do at revolutionaryleftradio.com. Also, special thanks to Comrade Booker Omole, Manny Ness, Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, Ken Hammond, Jon Melrod, and Alex Aviña for coming through on short notice to make an audio contribution to this episode, we deeply appreciate it!  Further thanks to all of the other guests we have had since the show's inception, we know that Breht has appreciated working with each of you! Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You remember Dinn-Vin-Bin-Bin-Brew? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history. podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined

as usual, and I will be saying that for the last time, unfortunately, by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Henry. It's wonderful to be with you both. Yes, absolutely. And we're joined as you. As you, usual all three yes we'll we'll talk about the guests in just a second uh man who's been behind many many things that we've done but we're bringing him to the four anyway our other usual co-host and again last time i get to say that so listeners you know what we're going to be talking about today brett o'Shea who of course is also host of revolutionary left radio and the

red menace podcast hello brett how are you doing hello i'm doing good today's going to be a little bit of a bittersweet moment but uh but i'm happy to to be here with with both of you and hopefully it's by no means the last time. Absolutely. And we also have a terrific guest today, somebody who guerrilla history would honestly not be what it is today if we didn't have with us for the last three and almost a half years. We have producer Dave.

Oh, Dave. Welcome to the show, or at least in front of a microphone on the show. Yeah, how are you doing? Good, good. It's finally nice to be on a public podcast. Yeah, I know that we asked to. Yeah. The man behind the current.

When we asked Dave, he's like, yeah, I'm not really a podcast guy. I was like, Dave, with all the episodes that you record, surely, surely we should be able to get you something out of you for this one. But it'll be great, I'm sure. So listeners, before I get into the conversation, I just want to remind you that you can help support the show by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. and following us on Twitter to keep up with everything that we're putting out at Gorilla underscore Pod.

Again, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-L-A-U-SKod, and that's a little hint about, you know, the state of the show. So the topic today is a debrief of Brett and Dave, because as you may have gleaned from the introduction of this episode, they are both leaving the show. Obviously, under relatively amicable terms, because we are still sitting. here with them. Brett, I'm going to turn it over to you and Dave. We'll get into this conversation. We've got just a couple of very broad questions planned, but I guess the first question is, you know, what's going on?

You know, you said that you're going to be leaving the show. What's going on in your life and, you know, what, we hate each other now is the point. Let us know about this decision, Brett. Never. No, yeah, it has obviously absolutely nothing to do with the show, with either of you, anything like that. And in fact, of course, the connections, which we'll make very clear right now, we're going to continue on. Like the tab on the RevLeft website, for example, for guerrilla history will stay up there.

I'll go on to guerrilla history and, you know, be a guest co-host once in a while. And I still importantly want to keep around that end of the year, revolutionary guerrilla menace episode where us get together with Allison and we just kind of have like a sort of reflection episode on the entire year that passed. We've done that for the last two years and I've really had a lot of fun with that. but in general my situation in life is just getting more and more complicated it's just a simple matter of not having enough time in the day to do everything i need to do obviously i have a family with multiple young children um i have other shows as well but i importantly i'm going to school right now um to try to become a teacher to get my master's in education and that is increasingly taking

up more and more of my time as i you know i have to do endorsement classes which are high level history courses. Right now, I'm doing a class right now in the Holocaust, which is fascinating, but also demanding. And it's just a matter of having to sort of condense the things that I do to make it more manageable. And after three and a half years, I felt like, you know, I've certainly played my role for this show, and I'm very excited to see where the show continues to go. I'm deeply grateful for every single episode we've done together for the fact that we've even, you know, when this started, we were pretty much strangers. You two reached out to me, and with the idea for the show, and that's a question I actually want to ask is who had the

original idea for the show and where to come from. But briefly, you reach out to me and pitch this idea, and I was all for it from the beginning. And I'm so happy about the work that we've done together. So happy for the friendships I've been able to develop between us, myself, and both of you. And so, yeah, this is incredibly amicable, not even relatively amicable, completely amicable, just sort of mild separation, as it was. were. But again, the work will, will continue and hopefully we'll continue to collaborate. And Dave, same question for you. What's going on in your life? You know, you're also leaving the show. I know the listeners don't get to hear you talk, but the situation is more or less the same.

Similarly, with family. My wife works seasonal. So summers are especially demanding. And then, you know, Brett and I kind of, we started Rev. Left together. We've done all these projects together. So we kind of, I'm going to go along with to put the extra attention towards our other projects that we've been working on. Yeah. Team basketball. Yeah, yeah. The Siamese twins. You can't really separate them very easily. It's ungodly. But before Ednon Hopson with the next conversation point, I just want to mention something that Brett had brought up, just so the listeners are aware, Brett is still going to be coming on as a guest host. Basically, whenever he knows about a topic

that he's interested in that we're going to be covering on the show and listeners, we are going to be continuing to put out episodes with the same frequency we were before and just as a little teaser for something that we've already announced that this miniseries is happening but we're already done recording it actually. Brett and I, Adnan was unfortunately unable to join for this miniseries. So great that Brett

was willing to guest host on these episodes. We have a mini series four-parter on modern Chinese history, which Brett is technically only a guest host for, but that's just also to signify that despite the fact that Brett is leaving the show in, in official capacity, he's still very much part of our orbit and we're very happy for anything that we're able to do with him. And certainly you will be seeing him on the show in a guest hosting capacity in the future as well as this, as I mentioned, miniseries that we, that you'll see coming out in the coming weeks, actually.

So keep your eyes peeled for that for sure. Don't just unsubscribe because Brett is leaving. Please don't, yes. Adnan. Well, I just wanted to, you know, go back to the beginning since Brett sort of raised it. And it's also part of my gratitude to Brett and Dave. You know, I mean, I once had a show that was a little bit like guerrilla history called Radio Bandung on my local college radio station. I loved it.

But then, you know, for whatever. reasons I wasn't able to continue it. And after getting to know Henry and becoming a regular guest for some strange reason on this thing called the David Feldman show, I met Henry through, you know, through that and he was doing regular segments. And then he was going to bring on Brett because he wanted to discuss, I guess, an episode they had done together and it was about pandemics and other things. And he had been a guest on the Rev Left show. I believe talking about, you know, from, you know, a science perspective as somebody who's an immunobiologist, he forged a connection. And I had listened to a few episodes of Rev left.

And I thought it was just a fabulous podcast. I just loved it. And, you know, I've probably gone back and, you know, filled in and listened to lots of the previous episodes from, you know, Brett's more anarchist-oriented interests. And he had a lot of that. I just loved it. I just really loved it. And so when I thought about, you know, it would be really fun to do a new, a Left podcast three, four years ago, I thought it would make a lot of sense to partner. I knew Henry was very interested in history. I didn't want it to just be historians. I'm a historian, but I didn't want it to just be historians. But I thought given Red Menace's theory interests and Rev. Left's kind of broad. kind of all topics in the left. I thought a history-oriented podcast for activists and people who are interested in social justice struggles would make sense.

And I just thought that the best affiliation we could have is to be within the network of Rev Left's umbrella. And if Brett would join as a host, it would be really great because I just liked your approach to things and thought that it would make a nice triumvirate of different approaches and perspectives and emphasis emphases. And I have to say also, once we got going, it was also just such a boon to have high-quality audio production with Dave. It just sounded so good.

And I can really say that I don't think, you know, something that's been so meaningful for me these last three, four years, it wouldn't have been possible without the two of you. And so I'm so incredibly grateful that you took, a leap of faith. You didn't know us, as you said. You'd had one episode with Henry, but you liked the proposal enough to sacrifice quite a lot of time that is very precious. You were doing other podcasts. And initially, I think this was meant to be like a once or twice a month thing. And then events, because of topics, because of current events, things kind of got to being, you know, a lot of

a lot of time. And so I completely understand, you know, lots of priorities, develop and change. And I'm just so excited for whatever you're going to do, both you, Dave, and Brett. It's going to be quality. It's going to have an impact. It's going to be meaningful for yourselves and for other people. you're going to make a difference in other people's lives, just as you've done with Rev Left, you know, Red Menace and with guerrilla history. And I'm just glad that we had this opportunity to begin to forge something together.

I learned so much from you and from doing the podcast together. It really wouldn't have been possible to do it. And I don't know what the future for guerrilla history, we plan on doing new things. and who knows exactly what directions will take. We do plan to continue. However, it grows and develops.

Its base and its root comes from a wonderful collaboration together that has shaped its identity. And I'm just, again, so grateful for that. Thank you, man. That was incredibly, incredibly sweet and kind. And I really, really appreciate that. And, yeah, I totally feel the same way. I've learned so genuinely, I'm not just saying this, learn so much from both of you.

You both have your own little areas of expertise and interest. rest and just the way that, you know, us three would tackle topics together, you know, we would all sort of like bolster one another, but also add unique perspectives. And I always, I always valued that about guerrilla history. And again, I think we genuinely did a meaningful, good work. And I know you two will continue carrying that torch forward. And I do agree that adding the guerrilla history into the Rev. Left Red Menace really kind of expanded, you know, the family, the brand, the content for everything. Yeah, theory focused, Red Menace, history focused, guerrilla history, and then just broad umbrella with Rev Left. And yeah, I love that. And like I said, you're still in the Rev Left family. That will never change. So we'll make sure of that. Yeah, just when a kid moves out of the parents' house, it doesn't mean that they've, that they've been excommunicated from the family. But, you know, I want to hit on something that Adnan had said before I bring up this next topic for the two of you.

Adnan said that when we originally planned this about three and a half years ago that it was supposed to be once a month or maybe twice a month and it really has expanded since then I'm going to take a lot of blame for that I had been pushing from almost the beginning like there's so many topics that we think I mean it's history of course there's so many topics that you can cover but the main reason was because I felt like I was being pushed challenged and growing as a result specifically of my interactions with the two of you. Now, I'm somebody who's been reading as much as I can from when I've, since I've been able to hold the book, right? But the fact that we have this show pushes me to read challenging material or, you know, different topics that I wouldn't have necessarily, like, picked as, like, leisure reading. It's really driven me to accomplish understanding things and set periods of time. then also the interactions that I've had with you have helped me synthesize information much better. It has allowed me to think about things in different ways, challenged some of my views, helped shape some of my other views that I was a little bit cloudy on. And so how fruitful this was

for me personally, as well as how interesting getting to talk about all of these various topics. I mean, we have well over 150 episodes at this point. That has been something I've always been like, want to do more because there's so much fun stuff and so it ended up being a once a week thing i think that if you count how many weeks in a row we've gone without missing an episode we've got to be close to a hundred weeks it's a good story without missing a single week uh of an episode so i mean that's crazy first of all but you know i have to appreciate dave and brett for sticking around as long as they did given that bret when he came in said uh you know yeah once a month maybe twice a month I can do that as, you know, and I'll stick around for a while as long as it works with my schedule and I'm able to maintain it.

And listeners, I don't know if you know, but we do a lot of prep for this show. There is a lot of reading and research that we do for this show. And despite us having gone like a hundred weeks in a row with new episodes every week, Brett made it this far, despite having two other podcasts, a family and now is going to school. And Dave also having a family and having all of his other podcasts. projects that he's doing. Like, it's really wild that they were able to, uh, to make it as long as they did. But then the other thing that I wanted to touch on is that the aspect of connection that we've, that we've fostered and the friendship that we've made, you know, for me personally,

and this is something that I, I don't like talking about myself personally other than little funny anecdotes here or there, but I'm going to be, I'm going to be deep for once because this is my opportunity to do so on, on this farewell episode. You know, this show started a very interesting time. As Adnan mentioned, we started this during the pandemic. So at that point, I was visiting my family when I was, I was living in Germany for a couple of years doing research and studies. And so I was living by myself there. I visited my family and it was supposed to be for like two, two, three months while I was having some transgenic mice delivered to the laboratory.

And that was when the pandemic hit. All of the planes were grounded. I wasn't able to go back. Then my position at the lab that I was at got terminated. because one, I wasn't able to go back and two, there was budget restructuring. And so I ended up stuck in my parents' basement for like a year or a little bit over a year during that pandemic before I was able to travel back to Germany and do any of the things that I was planning on.

And so having this sort of connection because I was not having any contact with other people other than my siblings and my parents who were upstairs from me for like a year after we started the show. Then I moved back to Germany, was living alone there for a little while. And then, you know, was with my at the time girlfriend, now wife. And then I moved to Russia. And now I am in Russia. And the only person who I knew here when I got here, again, was my to be wife at that point.

And for the last six months, in case listeners don't know, my wife has been studying in the U.S., and once again, I am here all by myself. All of my, you know, childhood friends are back in the U.S. I had some friends in Germany that we text once in a while. My parents, my family, they're all back there. So, like, I am really far separated from anybody that I knew growing up. And so having this opportunity to get together with you roughly once a week to not only record these episodes with these excellent, amazing guests that we've been able to get for the last three and a half years, but just having the ability to connect with you and chat with you and learn with you and then have those extra conversations outside of the. actual recordings. It's made my life a lot more. It makes me feel happy that I have you as a

friend that even though we're a million miles away, I knew that I was going to be seeing you again very soon and getting to have these like very deep conversations with you, not just the passing in the street. Oh, hi, like I do to the bread shop that's up the street for me. Like, you know, it's poke my head and wave at the owner. Like this is different. So what I want to put out there for the two of you and I'm sorry for that really long exposition but what I want to put out there for you is you know what have you gotten out of the show both of you because we have spent three and a half years doing this together we've put in thousands and thousands and thousands of hours between researching recording producing all of these things just thousands of hours so I'm

hoping that you got something out of it maybe you can speak to that a little bit yeah no definitely I can go first the first thing is to say you know that's that's one wonderful. And it is kind of crazy that we've lived as we've sort of gone through deep things together, even though we've done it remotely. Like just even just you getting married, that whole process is interesting. We know, just the COVID pandemic, you know, writing that thing out. It was the origin of this show. And just going through that together. Some of the, my favorite episodes have been when it was just like us three shooting the shit or tackling a topic together. I remember our religion and Marxism episode. Our masculinity, hysteria on the right. episode, conspiracy theories and our analysis of conspiracy theories. Those were three episodes. It was just us. And it was so generative. And it teaches, it taught me a lot. And another thing that I really wanted to point out here is, you know, on Henry's part of it, I've never met somebody with such high level organizational skills. Like if it wasn't for Henry's ability to organize things and to take so much, you know, sort of food off my plate with regards to, you know, getting

things scheduled, reaching out to guests, et cetera. I wouldn't have been able to do it, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to do it for three and a half years. So, you know, just the real attention to detail and the real organizational commitment and skill set that Henry has has really been deeply helpful. But, you know, one thing that is true out of this show that I didn't get to achieve on any other show is, I think because of both of your, especially Adnan's sort of academic connections and also Henry's sort of, you know, dogged determination when it comes to trying to get a guest. We've had on guests on guerrilla history that really I haven't even thought of, didn't even know about, or wouldn't have been able to

pursue and get on Rev left, which allowed me to speak to people that I never thought I would speak to and also allowed me to learn things from scholars with expertise in areas that I virtually knew nothing about. I mean, Adnan himself has this, you know, deep fountain of knowledge when it comes to just history as a whole, the history of West Asia and Europe and that crossroads of civilizations, you know, your book about the crusading society, etc. That alone taught me, taught me so much. And then, you know, Adnan and I connect on the on the spirituality and religious level where we, I think we've done really, I think, important work on breaking down this sort of false barrier between like, you know, Marxism and

atheism and religious and spiritual traditions that are meaningful and can have real impacts on people's lives and that's one of the things that I was able to expand on on guerrilla history and I couldn't have done it without without Adnan. So yeah, just the depth of knowledge from both of you, the skill sets both of you brought to the show and the amazing guests that we've had that has filled out my knowledge of the world historically and presently, like literally sections of the world that I didn't know much about their struggle. their history, their culture, and because of guerrilla history, I've been able to radically, radically deepen my knowledge. And I have to say that my, you know, my pursuit of becoming a

teacher, and specifically, you know, down the history line, comes a lot from this show. I mean, I came into this show already with a love of history, of course, but this show has radically deepened my knowledge of history and my love for it. And I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a coincidence that during guerrilla history, I decided to take this path into becoming a teacher. And I really credit a large part of that to both of you and to the show. Yeah. And just to repeat, having that schedule, I know it was a lot to do it every single week for the past like a couple years or a hundred weeks or whatever. But it was really nice for me to have like, okay, every Thursday or every Friday, you know, I have to get this episode to Henry

as opposed to working with Brett. It's just like, hey, I'm going to be there in like two hours. we're going to record we'll see what happens how what do you think you can get that put out you know so um yeah in addition to that with like the guests and stuff they're from all over the world you don't always get like the best recording given their location their situation whatever so i was able to learn to work with some of those harsher recordings and you know i have some more tools of my toolkit going forward with you know uh mixing and whatever because you don't always get like somebody like Audnon's voice on a podcast, which is just super buttery and it's like the ideal for somebody in my position.

I've always hated my voice. This is really strange for me to hear. Just as it is strange when I hear my voice. That's very funny to be described that way. Notice how he said that you have the buttery voice that none. I was good practice for Dave for the last three and a half years. Like he said, you know, sometimes it's the recording quality. Sometimes it's the voice itself.

Listeners, you know, if you've been able to stick with us for three and a half years, it is not because of how I sound. It is because of Dave making me sound tolerable. Well, that end up in the content that comes out. Absolutely. Well, I guess this is a good time, actually. You had mentioned guests that we have had on Brett, and I told you that I had a little surprise for you. Yeah. I have been trying to get a little present together for you.

And I guess we'll turn it on now. Dear comrades from the guerrilla history podcast, I will want to sincerely and most profoundly on behalf of the Communist Party of Kenya and the listeners of the guerrilla history podcast here in Kenya We would like to profoundly thank our comrade bread and produce the day for the invaluable insights that you've been able to contribute, particularly to deepen our understanding on how we could even advance internationalism and our anti-imperialist, understanding the anti-imperialist, understanding the anti- are imperialists, struggles from the belly of the beast, which is the United States. And as you exit, guerrilla history, we would like to just thank you and wish you well.

And we hope that we could be able to engage on other platforms. And of course, wish Comrade Henry, Harkhamaki, the very best as he continues to run the Guerrilla History podcast. Hi Brett, this is Manny calling. Just want to thank you for the great experience we've had over the years on guerrilla history. I want to also commend you for the two other incredible shows. Rev. Left and Red Menace. I will be listening to it on a regular basis, and I look forward to speaking with you in the future. We need to fight against imperialism, and we need to fight for,

for socialism. Looking forward. Revolutionary greetings, many. Hey, Brett, this is Brandon Wolfe, and I just wanted to say thank you for all of the hard work that you've done to make guerrilla history the amazing resource that it is. I always learn so much from the depth and breadth of the insights that you bring to every show.

But above all else, what stands out for me is your immense humanity and your acute sensitivity to the intricacies of the human condition. Thanks for everything. Hasta, the Victoria Sentry. Hey, this is Ken Hammond from New Mexico State University and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I just want to say that it's been so great working with Brett and Dave here on Guerrilla History.

I've been on the show a number of times in these last six or seven months, but I know that Brett and Dave been working here for three and a half years and are moving on. I think it's very exciting that they're going to be working on a revolutionary left podcast going forward. and I just want to wish you guys the very, very best. It's been a real adventure. Hey, this is John Melrod, the author of Fighting Times. And I wanted to take this opportunity to offer a shout out to Brett, who did a fantastic job interviewing me when I was on Guerrilla History Podcasts and producer Dave.

I got to say that the show that they did was one of the most popular, podcast that I've been on and I've been on quite a few and I really appreciate that. And I'm sure that when they go on to continue with Revolutionary Left Radio, they'll continue to make a contribution to the struggle of people worldwide for justice and solidarity. So thanks and good luck with your venture. Hey, Brett and Dave, to Alex Alvina, just here to demonstrate extreme gratitude for all the amazing work that you guys did for guerrilla history and to make it the amazing podcast that it is today and I'm also I will be eternally grateful to you guys because you guys help my own podcasting quote unquote career way back in 2017 but thank you

again for everything that you've done and as always you know you can count on me for anything solidarity compass that that's incredibly sweet and those are genuinely some of my absolutely favorite guests and some of my favorite episodes So, yeah, just very, very sweet that they took the time out of their day to give us some well wishes and, you know, a salute to whatever we contributed to guerrilla history. It's, that's beautiful. Thank you for putting that together, Henry. That means a lot of them. Yeah, that's really sweet.

Yeah, speaking of favorite episodes. I really liked the beautiful game. That was with Alex Avenia, right? You guys did that with? That was Dave's favorite up? Yeah, that's probably my favorite one. Yeah, that was the first of the two football episodes that we did with Alex. We had that one in the World Cup one.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Notice how Dave's favorite episode is one I wasn't on. there is no coincidence here but yeah that's awesome so cool and I have to say like obviously I loved all the episodes with everybody you just mentioned but this upcoming series on China with Ken Hammond is honestly one of my favorites

and I think the perfect while I'm there I'm technically in the capacity of my guest co-host position you know my first time coming back as a guest host but fascinating fascinating series I learned so much about a topic that I'm not totally ignorant of. Like, I've certainly done lots of work on Chinese history. And yet these episodes with Ken Hammond on the history of China, the last 200 years of Chinese history, absolutely fascinating.

And I cannot stress how everybody listening to this right now is going to love that series and be on the lookout for it. Well, I wanted to ask you, Brett and Dave. Well, Dave, we got the sense he liked the ones about, football and politics. Any other special episodes that were fun to work on either because of the content

or from your perspective, Dave, were just interesting, you know, doing any audio stuff on any sort of highlights or things you want to kind of point out. And then I'll ask, you know, Brett maybe also a similar kind of question you know none that really stick out in particular because again episode every week and it's a lot

of information you guys put pack a ton into each episode but so it is nice to just get like retain some information from each one and like have a little bit of a better understanding of history and like different places that honestly i have never even heard of a lot of the times yeah that's cool that's yeah and for me i mean there's so many like it's really hard i even I get this question sometimes on like Q&A's for Revel, like what's your favorite episode or some of your favorite episodes? I just can't do it because there's so many and, you know, they're always new ones and it's really hard for me to like put them into a hierarchy. But of course, you know, that episode with Comrade Joma was really interesting because I'm deeply interested in that particular

struggle and already was, but also that he passed shortly thereafter, meaning that we were at least one of the last English speaking interviews that that he possibly did. So that that connection, that real connection to a real fighter who's made real history, and then for him to pass so quickly after our interview really just drove home the importance of it. And of course, other figures like, you know, interviewing Nome Chomsky together, right? Just a, just a crazy experience that I never, ever thought that I would have. And, you know, I can, and, you know, he's in his 90s and very soon, unfortunately, he will pass. And, you know, people have split opinions about his politics, and certainly I don't agree with all of his politics, but I don't have to to realize

the contributions that he's made to educating people like me on many things, including Western imperialism and its deleterious effects on people around the world. I remember one of the first political books I ever read was, as a teenager, profit over people by Noam Chomsky, and it blew the, you know, it blew my mind. It blew the lid off my conditioning, and it set me on a path to becoming who I am today. So regardless of whatever political differences may exist, you know, between, you know, me as a Marxist and him as not a Marxist, his contributions to education are really important and his own contributions to my political development are incredibly important. So to be able to talk with him and was a fascinating, fascinating experience and one I'm very

grateful for. And I wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't for guerrilla history and both of your ability to get great, great guests. Yeah, that's a great shout out. I mean, I also never would have imagined that I would have Noam Chomsky on a podcast that I was doing. That was just nuts, you know, the idea of doing that. But, you know, one thing that you mentioned that just reminded me about, you know,

the approach that you take on Rev. Left, that also, you know, was one of those things, one of those qualities that made me think that it would work on, you know, guerrilla history, was that kind of ecumenical left approach, you know, that you can, you know, have some disagreements, but that doesn't mean that you can't have useful dialogue, learn from one another, still be principled and committed, but maybe not always emphasize where we have our divisions in unproductive ways. something I noticed about your approach and I very much appreciated and I think is part of what makes guerrilla history work is because some people's approach to the past has been just to work out the sectarian differences and project that onto the past when in fact what it is is what we're dealing with right now is you are there's so many confusing contradictions and ideology and fake news and all kinds of swirls of different interests. And it's very hard sometimes when you're dealing with the alternative, so-called alternative

media to kind of parse through what's important, what's not important. What's kind of related to just the self-aggrandizement of the space and the logics of promotion and various things that are really not productive politically. you know, we're having to parse that in a very confusing moment of a lot of change, where the left has, you know, kind of received a lot of energy and a boost from various things because there's so much dissatisfaction. But it doesn't mean that it always has translated into a coherent, comradly and productive approach. And so when we look at history as well, you've got to understand that everyone thought that they were doing the right thing.

Everyone, you know, probably believed that they were making the right decisions. And you have to restore to the subjects of history some sense that it was open for them, whereas we're looking back and we can see the results of it. We need to learn from those results, but also have that human understanding and empathy and generosity with one another that political education is we're going to require sometimes things not being clear, us having to discuss, debate, and you have to be open to the idea that you might learn something new, that one's going to change your principles, but might alter the way you see those principles actually applying to real world circumstances and material conditions. So that just reminded me about that, you know, because, you know, some people might say, oh, well, I disagree with Chomsky, this and that,

and fine, you know, have our disagreements. We do have our disagreements, perhaps. But that's something that I think was very important to the dynamic that we had and to the approach that the podcast has and that revolutionary left and Red Menace also take. It's an important kind of quality that I just wanted to kind of just emphasize that I really appreciated about and learned from, I would say, I mean, you know, from you, Brett, and I'm going to miss having that kind of sense of of dialogue among among the three of us i think so we'll have to keep the spirit of that going i want to add into that very briefly you know that adnan what you were highlighting is something i was planning on bringing up which is that i had been at rev left listener since almost the beginning

i think that i started listening about a year after you started the show and then of course when i started listening to it went back and listened to some of the back episodes as well so i was a very early listener. And one of the things that I felt was the most important about Rev Left was that while I didn't agree with a lot of the guests, actually, what I was seeing was that you had this constant faith in your ability to synthesize information, regardless of what tendency it was coming from. And at that time, I mean, I was young at that time. I'm still not that old, but I was really young at that time. But I almost felt like my intellectual growth was being stunted because I was drifting into almost a dogmatism where I would

either only communicate with other Marxist Leninists or if I was talking to people outside of Marxism, Leninism, I would just kind of dismiss what they had out of hand as soon as I finished the conversation and then think back within my Marxist Leninist circle, which was, you know, I was learning things obviously. I was still reading things, but I wasn't being pushed to think about what I was thinking and why I was thinking it more deeply. But when I started listening to Rev. Left, what I was seeing is that you were having these conversations with people from wildly different tendencies and were willing to take on information from these people, not to take on their ideology. I mean, I did, you know, obviously

you have had your ideological shifts over time, but it wasn't like this conversation is going to shift your ideology. But what I could see is that you were going, you took this information that you were being presented, you were saying, okay, this information is obviously super useful for me, or this information is not super useful for me. And when you had some information that you knew was useful, but was coming from a perspective that you possibly disagreed with, you were able to synthesize that information into your own ideological worldview, which that opened my mind completely into how we should look at interaction and look at how we are taking up information. And that's something I've been thinking about

for the last six years or so is how do we have these conversations with people that we don't necessarily agree with, but that we respect intellectually to be able to take what they're presenting to us, synthesize it into our own thought so that we're able to grow intellectually, but still remain committed ideologically. Rev Left was one of the things that did that for me. And as soon as I started thinking more deeply about that, and it did take me a couple of years, they really get into the mode of, you know, listening to people outside my attention. I really saw my intellectual acumen skyrocketing at that point.

And a very funny story. This is an aside. We can actually even cut this if we want, but you just might find it funny. And we can keep it. I don't know. I was in the forest on Saturday or Sunday. I was in the forest both days. But one of the days I see this guy out there, who I know, he is a communist ecobiologist. I met him in the forest one time. We had a little chat. He knows some English. My Russian is very bad. But, you know, so we communicate in English. And at one point he brings up, yeah, I'm a Russian communist. I said, oh, I'm an American communist.

Of course, we got along very well. But I saw, I saw, and of course, eco-biology. I was an immunobiologist in the book that I'm working on right now was on agroecology in the Soviet Union. So, like, really, this is all of my interests being, you know, collided in this one person, interestingly. But I was in the forest this weekend, this past weekend. And I saw the communist ecobiologist and his family.

But, you know, what was very funny is that he was with one of his best friends out there. And they were having a good old time out in the forest. And he introduces me to his friend. And who's his friend? Not a communist ecobiologist, but an anarchist environmental scientist. And these two are just chumming it up as best you can imagine. And you think, you know, in Russia, the communists and the anarchists didn't exactly have warm relations. But what you can see is that these two are obviously in a very generative relationship.

And that's not because they ideologically fall within the same realm. They don't. But they are working together on environmentalism and, you know, ecological issues with their own ideologies. But clearly they are learning from one another. And that also just reminded me of how, you know, Rev. Left made me think about these things all those years ago and how I've really, that's been one of my key. you know, guiding lights since then is how do we synthesize information that we've deemed to be relevant or important, regardless of the messenger of that information. Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating.

I could walk around the forest outside of Omaha for years and never bump into a Russian communist. I was going to say, Henry, you've got some great forests there. Fascinating. You've got to come over any time. But to both of your points, thank you for the kind words, but also that's reflected back in both of you. right we i think both of you also have this this humility neither of you are you know so egoic as to think you've had everything figured out and sometimes when you come across the dogmatist of any stripe it gives that sense of what what you need more of is humility you're not aware of everything

you don't know and even and i've always said even when you listen to somebody you disagree with it's generative because you are now forced to wrestle with why you disagree with that person you have an anarchist on and they give you a critique of the vanguard party well you Yeah, if you're a supporter of the Vanguard party, you should hear the critiques of the Vanguard party from somebody who's not a reactionary, not in fascist, not interested in maintaining liberalism, but could still have some things. Now, you don't agree with that, but in response to that, when you start thinking in your head, well, they just made this critique, and this is why I disagree with that critique, you're actually building up your own knowledge. And so you should be grateful for that person, right? Because they offer you now an opportunity to learn something new. And that's always been my approach.

And I think it stemmed out of my organizing before I got into Rev Left. Rev. Left, of course, was an outgrowth of my organizing. And when you're in a city like Omaha, you don't have the luxury of like getting into your exact tendencies organization. It's not like in Omaha, there's like Leninist organizations and Maoist organizations and anarchist ones. It's like, you know, the 57 people in the metro area who have radical politics come together and try to do work. And I remember, you know, I fought alongside these people. I got arrested alongside these people who fed people. alongside these people and so when I got to by the time I got to Rev left I had I was already shifting and moving in my own way and you know and more and more embracing Marxism

but I I would never you know turn around and shit on those people because they weren't just like internet memes to me they were real people who had real commitments that I might disagree with

but I know they were good people and I wanted to bring that energy onto the show because you know in the US the radical revolutionary principled left beleaguered beaten down whitewashed out of our own history And, you know, there's not a lot of us out there. And if we're going to turn on one another on 5% ideological differences or, you know, treat non-intaginous contradictions like they're the end of the world, I think that debases us and I think it further weakens us. That's not to say that we should liquidate our principles and our values into a big tent party or anything like that. But it does mean that we should struggle together and come from a position of good faith, humility, and a love of learning. Like, I just literally love learning.

I love hearing other people's, you know, takes on things and trying to understand what their influences were, what life experiences might have pushed that person in that direction instead of, you know, maybe towards my exact ideological orientation. And so, you know, I always have had that approach. It's like a personality thing in me. I can't be, you know, a super sectarian dogmatic weirdo. I just can't. It's not in me. But also it's not in you. And that's when I knew that I agreed to be a part of guerrilla history because it's not that we all share.

the exact same ideology, even if we did or don't, I wasn't sure of that at the time. But I knew that both of your approach was in line with my approach, which is humility first, principled approach. We have our principles. We're not going to back down an inch on those, but we're going to hear people out. We're going to explore together. We're going to learn together. And from day one, you both had that energy, and I knew that I was going to say, yes, when you asked me to be a part of this project precisely because of that. And Allison, as well, has that. And that's the people that I gravitate towards. And I like to work with, you know, Allison is a great example of somebody who's incredibly principled, incredibly consistent, incredibly knowledgeable, but also incredibly humble. And, you know, is never trying to put anybody down or shit on anybody or attack anybody.

And I love that about her, and I love that about both of you. And so I'm attracted to people who are sort of have that mindset and bring that to the left. And, you know, it's that balance between being open-minded and humble while also being incredibly, you know, principled and, and, and, you know, and holding on to what you actually believe and not being buffeted around by political wins or, you know, what's happening in the greater politic. Because we've seen many people, you know, over the course of just guerrilla history, we've seen people that, you know, were sort of on our ideological side. And, you know, not that we personally know them a lot, but, you know, online and stuff. On our, on our political side. And then, you know, the political wins change and people all of a sudden shift to a new position because there's more opportunity there because there seems to be more energy behind that new.

faction or momentum, et cetera. And that's just never been us. So that, yeah, that balance between humility and being principled, I think is really important. And both of you strike it well. I'm really curious of Dave's opinion of this, actually, because I know Brett, between you, Adnan, and I were constantly scheduling guests. And we always make those decisions before we bring the people on of whether or not they have, you know, some information that can be synthesized and is generative and whether or not they have things that we, we want. to hear in whether their ideological tendency is something that we you know even if we don't adhere to it is something that we can that we can learn from versus obviously there's plenty of

other shows where every guest is going to fall in the same ideological line as the host but dave you know you haven't been involved in those scheduling things so it's particularly interesting to hear your opinion on you know what is it like to work with a show where you have all of these different tendencies being represented within the guest thing of of the show because i mean that's almost got to be i mean it's disorienting for me sometimes and i'm the one inviting them so i can only imagine that like it would be i don't know uh yeah it's definitely just like a crash course a lot a lot of the times for the most part again i deal with like the behind-the-scenes stuff brett doesn't really read reviews or anything like that so i get to and then so you'll notice by like when you have

somebody on as a guest and the dogmatic sectarian people come out and try and like drag you in the comments or leave shitty reviews or whatever but all and all no it's it's been really fascinating it gives me something to talk about with my friends because we're all like outside of bratt i mean like my group are kind of like baby leftists we're still learning and trying to settle settle things out. But, yes, I say at least have topics. A lot of times are easy enough to digest. Sometimes they get a little too heady for me.

But those ones that, like, those ones that hit hit really well, I'd say. And I would also add to that as, you know, the times that we've gotten shit, right? Like, which is, they come in waves. It's just a natural part of being a political, a public voice in politics of any scene, right? is that you're going to ruffle feathers. People are going to disagree with you. Early on, as Adnan said earlier, I came to Rev. Left was sort of a libertarian Marxist ideology and with an interest in anarchism.

So that was very heavy. And that, of course, brought in a lot of, like, anarchist fans. And then, you know, I continued evolving politically. And I, you know, went through a sort of Maoist phase. And then really, really solidified, you know, my sort of anti-revisionist, Marxist, Leninist position. And, you know, those shifts, yeah, threw off a lot of people. People felt betrayed about that. Every time we've gotten shit, it's been because in one way or another, we've sort of deviated from a political tendency or at least had on somebody of a different political tendency that other people in a different tendency didn't like and didn't appreciate.

And so it's sort of amusing. And at first, you know, it bothers you. It sucks to have to read negative comments or people that used to be your fans attacking you and shitting on you. You get used to it. Yeah. Now it's just like, okay, that's fine. It's not for you. You know, like, I'm not going to lose any sleep.

That's one of the things I've never quite understood is people can get really like, it's like a personal insult. Like I personally came to your house and slapped you or something. It's just like, oh, when that happens to me, I just push the off button and I find a different show that I like more. But, you know, I'm not complaining. It is what it is. It's part of the territory. And I've sort of had to adapt to accepting that part of things.

Maybe it says something about the intimacy of the podcast. You know, much more than the video show, you know. It's like just in your ears, you know, and you're just having to picture. There's maybe something a little intimate about the audio form, and it makes people feel very close and connected, you know. That could be part of it, you know, over-identification. It's just a voice that's in your head, you know. It's your voice.

It's the voice that's there. But so anyway, amongst all of the others, of course. Right, exactly, yeah. Cacophony. But yeah. Well, my big hope as we, as we gear towards the end of this episode, is that eventually we could, you know, be on the same continent would be nice at once. But meeting up in real life at some point is definitely on my to-do list. And I think it would be awesome if we ever find ourselves in the same corner of the world at the same time for us to like, you know, have a day.

where we just go out and hang out as friends and then maybe even, you know, do some work together at the end of that. But I still hold out hope that one day we'll find ourselves in a similar location. That would be fun. I think, Brett, you and I may find ourselves at least on the same continent, but Henry seems pretty well situated in Asia. You know, we'll have to wait for, you know, one of his required visits to family, perhaps, to do something like that. that I'll be taking the cheese tour across Wisconsin this summer probably really you know I I'm well you know listeners I again we can cut this it's up to Dave Dave listeners you don't know this but every recording we've done has actually been about five hours long but Dave cuts about three and a half

hours of my ramblings every time you just don't know that so you know if this is in there you can thank Dave and if not you really should thank Dave but you know I'm from the upper peninsula I I was born about three miles away from the Wisconsin border. And even after my family moved, we moved to another town that was three miles away from the Wisconsin border. And so, of course, we spent quite a bit of time in Wisconsin, which gave me a long-held, lifelong love of cheese. And Wisconsin, having cheese as its main tourist industry, has like a developed cheese tour that you can, that you can follow and visit all of the different creameries and cheese manufacturers. and my wife is also a cheese fan, even though she did not grow up in a place that made good cheese.

And so I might take her on that tour this summer. I don't know. That's only a few hours away from here, to be honest. Wisconsin is, yeah, if we get down towards Madison, you've got to hop on up and we'll get some cheese together. Absolutely. I love that. For sure.

Well, I guess since we are moving to inclusions, I just did want to say before we do wrap up, that one thing you said very early on in this episode was about the conversations among the three of us and some of those episodes like the intelligence briefings where we didn't have a guest on but we just talked about a topic those were among the most fun I think I mean I think some of these other episodes with great guests were phenomenal and our wonderful products just because we got the chance to really engage with somebody who had done some amazing research and had incredible analysis that was so valuable. But in terms of just what was personally very beneficial

and enjoyable, were that comradly kind of conversations and getting to really understand the impressions and opinions and perspectives of one another? Those were among my favorites to experience and will be very, you know, special for me. And I would say the last thing is just that you mentioned our mutual interests on kind of religion and spirituality. And you also mentioned the importance of humility as a value and an approach. And I think of those things as sort of going together is that there is regardless of what you want to, whether you want to think about it as religion or spirituality or just personality and disciplining oneself to be open and connected to others, which is so important, you know, to actually be effective. It's not just about the

ideas. It's not just about being right. It's somehow translating that into human interactions to socialize these commitments and solidarity that makes left politics and movements and change real and possible. And so that's something that's been very important for me, and I've gained a lot in that through our interactions. And I think is also something very significant and important about Rev Left's interest, that you have that as a thread of episodes. And I enjoyed very much being a guest on Rev Left.

And I hope that sometimes we'll recreate those either there or something. Sometimes when you come on to guerrilla history is really exploring some of those personal and political intersections of, you know, how I think we talk about activism, but also some kind of disciplining of oneself, training of oneself, of connecting with people and some things that are bigger than ourselves is also very important for the success of the left and left movements. and I hope we'll continue exploring facets of that together. It's been very important for me and a significant experience to connect with somebody with such amazing left analysis and interests in those things who also appreciates those in a conscious way. So that's a value to me. And that's why I think no matter whether you're on the program,

regularly or not and you're pursuing these other interests, that's always going to be a connection that I feel very strongly to you, Brett, personally and as a comrade, you know, working towards spreading some kind of approach that we think might be useful in facilitating the change that we all want to see. I genuinely feel the exact same way about you. And I've loved those episodes that we've been able to do, too, that jump to mind. We put out on Rev. Left that grill history listeners might not have even seen is our episodes on St. Francis and our episodes on the mystical strain of Islam Sufism, which are two wonderful episodes. They're still fan favorites. I still get comments about our St. Francis episode that we did together.

And of course, you and I, one of the first things we did together, Adnan, was the Michael Brooks tribute in that sort of collective Zoom call. And that was another time that you and I got to express a sort of different side of the coin, right? We have our part. politics, but we also have this existential, spiritual, religious orientation that we got to explore in the context of losing somebody, you know, who was an important voice on the left and that human element. And so that's something you've always brought out of me. And so when you and I have worked together and that's come out, it's sort of a natural result of us too coming together more than it is, you know, any one of us separated from the other, having that, which of course

we do. But when we come together, I think something even more interesting happens. And so I've always deeply appreciated that about you. Yeah. And I just want to, again, reiterate the fact that I deeply appreciate not only the intellectual bond that we've been able to share and foster together, but also the, you know, comradeship and friendship, true friendship between all of us, including you, Dave. You know, I remember going back, you talked about the Alex Avenia beautiful game episode, but I also remember we had some chats during the Women's World Cup and we didn't get to do

a women's World Cup episode on the show, but we were like texting back and forth, like, you know, I don't, I don't even remember anymore, but, you know, some of the things that were coming up during the Women's World Cup, it was like, yeah, you know, I'm really connecting to Dave on this issue. I didn't know that he was that, but it was, it was awesome, you know, so, but we've, we've weathered some pretty, pretty heavy things in the last three and a half years. I know, Brett, you've had, uh, I, I, I want to bring him up myself on your behalf, but, you know, you've talked about them publicly. You've had your, your own share. of personal, you know, hardship, tragedy, loss, all of those things.

I've had my fair share as well, which, you know, again, I've touched on in the past. There's no real point in bringing it up again now because, yeah, the listeners don't really know me. Who really cares about these things? But it's been great to be able to commiserate with one another, to be able to support one another and have that bond where we know that, you know, there's somebody that cares, even if it's nothing more than just knowing that that person is there caring about these sorts of things. Like it really does mean the world.

And so don't leave the group chat because, you know, we're friends, whether you like it or not, you know. Absolutely. And in those moments where I did have some personal hardship and some tragedy, you know, both of you were incredibly kind and humane with me and reached out compassionately. And, you know, that will always stick with me. So, of course. I appreciate that. So you've got a friend here.

come to Russia, Brett, and Dave, both of you. My coach is, it's big enough. I know you've been working out, Brett. You can fit on a small area, so you, you know, just shove you in there. Anyway, I think we probably should wrap this up at some point because otherwise I'll just get into storytelling mode again. And Dave will have to cut another three hours out of an episode before it gets to the listener. So on that note then, and for the final, oh, before we wrap it up, I just want to let Brett you talk about. about the last thing that's going to be coming out from us before our guest hosting things

where you come on with us, the historic documents of the PLO book, which we co-wrote a forward to, is due out, it's due out March 30th in terms of when people can actually get it. So I don't know if you want to just reflect on that briefly, like the fact that we're going to have our name on a book together before, you know, this amicable departure. I love that. And that's kind of a natural exclamation point on our three years together with guerrilla history that we could have this resource that will now go out in the world, stay out in the world, about a very important topic, which is near and dear to all of our hearts, the struggle of Palestinians for liberation, and that we got to put, we got to not only have a forward to a book about that, but that we got to work together on it and just trying to work out the logistics of how we're going to do that and doing it together and then getting to see the final product very soon. I think it's a natural high watermark and a perfect place to end this sort of formal collaboration. But again, keeping in mind that this is by no means the last time that we're all

going to work together and collaborate. So I love that. And I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm very happy that we didn't forget to bring that up in this episode. Yeah, absolutely. And listeners, you can look for that at iscrabbooks.org. PDF will be available for free. But just to encourage everybody, I know that everybody always likes people to buy physical copies of books for this reason or that reason. But for this book, there is a great reason. The main reason is that all of the proceeds of this book are going to the Middle East Children's Alliance to benefit those affected in Palestine by the ongoing settler colonial regime of so-called Israel, you know, oppressing the Palestinian population, and particularly the genocidal actions

in Gaza. All of the proceeds of that book are going to Mecca to support people in need in Palestine. So I highly recommend everybody pick up the book physically for that reason. But if you're financially unable to do so, of course, along with everything else that Iskra does, the PDF will be available for free. So, IskraBooks.org, March 30th is when it's due. So for the final time, Dave, it's been an absolute pleasure working with you. I mean, your production has made my life significantly easier and I am dreading you leaving. Thank you. And any parting words for the audience as you go out the door.

same it's it's been great working with you guys and obviously if you need anything anytime we're on a group chat so you have my number obviously absolutely yeah totally and for the final time as a co-host at least brett can you tell the listeners where they can find your other excellent podcasts yep thank you both again a long live gorilla history um but as for me you can find what i do at revolutionary left radio dot com absolutely and of course we will continue to support Rev Lep, Red Menace, despite this, you know, this departure of Brett from the show. So, you know, he's always going to be a friend of ours. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other excellent podcast?

Well, you can follow me on Twitter. I still insist it's Twitter at Adnan, a Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N, and check out the modulus, M-H-A-L-S on all the usual platforms. Absolutely. highly recommend everybody do that. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. In addition to the Palestine book that we had mentioned, you can also keep your eyes peeled for the official announcements of the next book

that Salvatore Engel de Mauro and I are translating and editing together to be coming out relatively soon. Again, I already told what the topic is. It's an agro-ecological history of Cuba and the Soviet Union. So keep your eyes peeled for that, rather essence. a taric book, but it's a very fun read. I can assure you of that. As for the show, listeners, you can help support the show and allow us to continue, which by the way, in case it wasn't clear, we are, in fact, we already have, I think, six episodes recorded,

which are unreleased at this point. So listeners, don't worry, there's a lot of things coming your way. You can help support us and allow us to continue doing that at patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, that's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can follow the show to keep up with everything that we're doing individually and collectively at Gorilla's underscore pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-L-A underscore pod on Twitter. We do have an Instagram as well. It's at Gorilla underscore history, I think.

I don't know. You can find us. And until next time, listeners, and for the final time with a huge panel here with Brett, Dave, as official hosts of the show, Solidarity. Thank you. Thank you.