The hilarious irony of him being so devoid of imagination that every attempt to describe a dystopia falls back so heavily on cliches that his "liberal" dystopia is just built on unambiguously conservative policies
I could write a better liberal dystopia than that. I'd go for the 'man out of time' idea. The liberal dystopia isn't nessicarily bad from the perspective of the liberals, but due to culture clash it is the personal hell of our protagonist. Everything they personally value is somehow against the new society. Protagonist loves meat. But there isn't much meat any more: Thanks to strict animal welfare and public health laws, American meat production must now be done only to high welfare and health standards. This is uneconomical, leading to the almost total collapse of the meat industry. You can buy it, but it's too expensive for most to eat more than once a week. The implementation of these laws was poorly planned leading many farmers to cut their losses by deliberately bankrupting their doomed businesses, so rural America is littered with abruptly abandoned livestock facilities still overflowing with sewage and rotting corpses. The protagonist takes great pride in their car - but thanks to new urban planning policies focused on public transport, the car mostly gets stuck crawling along behind the swarm of cyclists that invariably ends up in front. The protagonist also has to routinely travel out of town just to fill up the gas tank. America finally solved the housing problem by pressuring city councils to change their planning codes to allow vast amounts of affordable medium-density housing. While many have benefitted, the protagonist has not - their dreams of retirement rested upon their house, which lost 80% of its value in the course of two years when a number of small tower blocks alleviated the shortage. For comedy, the protagonist has Mr Bites, an African Grey parrot inherited from a relative which they are obliged to care for at constant expense, and unable to legally dispose of because no-one else can be suckered into buying a pet with such heavy upkeep costs and liability. The animal welfare police will surely investigate should anything unfortunate happen to Mr Bites. Worse, the former owner tended to leave Jerry Springer episodes running all day. To make this work, our protagonist is going to be from one of the last enclaves of what he calls 'Real America' - an isolated small town which thrived on a new wave of 'white flight' as older, more conservative Americans looked to escape the cities in the face of rapid liberal reform. He wishes very much to return to this last bastion of tradition, but the events of the story drag him from this comfort and on a tour through Liberal America, where he encounters the many, many new things which disgust him to his core. Multi-lingual signage! Veggie-burgers! Feeling constantly naked without his gun. Shifting awkwardly in his seat on the bus because the stranger next to him seems creepy. Trying to socialise with people who don't drink alcohol. Terror when he meets someone who might be trans and fears getting arrested if he doesn't guess the right pronouns.
@@vylbird8014 You save the best for last, where there is still religion in these cities but it is the singular worst kind to a deeply conservative christian: Multidenominational! He thinks he gets to go to a church and be in a safe space to only get horrified at the sight of Christians and Jews and Muslims all praying and conversing and communicating under the same building. THE HORROR.
The Muslim characters yelling at the workers for not observing their religious practice is a great example of this as well. Forcing people to do things required by your religion is what conservatives do. The author is horrified not by the action, but simply that it's being done in the name of the "wrong" religion.
Oh lord, that "What's the point of environmentalism if the Chinese and Russians are going to keep burning coal anyway?" talking point is something my dad STILL comes out with from time to time.
@20:00 Shortly after Trump was elected, but before he was sworn in, a Muslim temple in southern Fort Smith was defaced -- broken windows, the word "TRUMP" spray-painted on the sign, stuff like that. The entire neighborhood got together to help fix things, and one of the teens responsible admitted fault to the temple staff, and pointed the authorities to his accomplices. The staff chose to help cover the teen's bail in return for his help in repairing the damage. So even before Trump took office, we started seeing signs of the extremes people would go to, good and bad.
Good news, one of the comments on John Oliver covering RFK mentions you in the top 50 comments. Bad news, my response involving atonal screaming has the most likes.
I’m not surprised of this level of political ineptitude from the guy that wrote about how'statues shouldn’t be pulled down because it’s erasing history' in a battletech novel, because he was salty about Charlottesville.
"freedom lost" reminds me of a RC robot toy my family had when i was little that would just scream "signal lost" at top volume when it was out of range of the controller. it's about as deep too.
You should probably just get that "Jesus CHRIST" sound clip -- that exasperated, amused, disgusted, and shocked, all at once? That one? -- and hang onto it. Because, uh, the more your read of Blaine's work, and the more you learn about Blaine beyond his books? The more you're gonna want to hit that "Jesus CHRIST" button.
It's funny; very often I find myself critical of historical fiction or sci fi authors whose issue is "we know way too much detail about things that happened long ago" or otherwise having time take too long. Rarely do I see "Our whole society knows almost nothing about what happened five years ago".
Strong flashbacks to the GoldenEye Statue Park level from the Graveyard. Will forgive everything if the main character meets low-poly Robbie Coltrane in a shipping container there.
I'm brave enough to tell you otherwise; Garrison is clearly Robert's multiverse counterpart. Since Robert took an unholy concoction of substances and figured out dimensional travel about 2 universes ago, but once he came down the knowledge was forever lost.
Its always been so telling whenever right wingers talk about how they believe they will be oppressed by the left. Its always "this is 100% what i would do (or am curently doing) to you if i was in power, so obviously youre going to try to hurt me in the exact same way" and its like, naw man, kinda goes against my politics of "people suffering = bad"
I think that's part of the hidden motivation for anti-immigration sentiment too. The fear that if enough immigrants enter the country they will displace the existing population, destroy their culture, murder much of the number and forces the rest into poverty and oppression. After all, that's what /my/ ancestors did. It's just the natural order.
I've been through Wheeling, WV. Believe me, there is not enough flat ground to do a field of statues. The one piece of flat ground in the region is where they covered up a landfill and then they turned it into a subdivision that catered to a bunch of doctors and lawyers. The locals call it Radon Estates.
@@TelenTerror I've come to learn that they're just ALL nuts Cabelas. Every time I think "well that's just ridiculous", but then the next one is bigger somehow.
@@idontwantahandlethough Its part of the disconnect with any fringe ideology. Its that little ounce of introspection that some people severely lack. So their brain tells them "Everyone obviously thinks like I do, everyone who doesn't is an outlier." and are unable to really think otherwise.
I just listened to the first episode, the level of idiocy that the author display's is astounding. Additionally, they would do this to anybody that they do not agree with and they wouldn't see the problem...
It's also the National Sanitation Foundation, although I don't think they use the full name anymore. You might recognise their logo if you've ever worked in food service.
given how derivative his other work is I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to miss all the points in Deus Ex and just stole their first "villain"'s name.
Robert, if you ever want some background on the nontroversies Blaine stirred up - and the career he torched - to get this trash fire any traction whatsoever, hit me up. There are *stories* to tell about this guy.
In one of my favorite tabletop RPG's, Feng Shui, one of the evil forces is a futuristic police state that enforces both SJW racial policies (You are literally required to race mix by law, and you have to even fill out an application to have friends of your own race) and extreme consumerism capitalism (you have to pay for EEEEVERYTHING in life) and the population puts up with it because it's leaders control sites of mythological energy that cause people to agree with them, and they guard with demons they kidnapped from ancient China/Hell (they have time travel tech too) and armed with cybernetics. THAT dystopia is more believable than Blue Dawn.
Fun fact: The forced race mixing is based on the real policies of José de Francia, _El Supremo Dictator_ (actual title) of Paraguay. He forbade marriage between european families and forced them to marry indigenous people in order to eliminate Paraguay's racial hierarchy. And also because he himself was mestizo and hated 'pure-blooded' spaniards looking down on him over it. He'd be a fun one-episoder for the podcast, honestly.
Forced race mixing being sjw is just a bizarre concept to me. In most real-life cases forced mix marriages was an attempt, among many, to wipe the culture and appearance of conquered peoples. So that being a left-wing thing seems out there. Even the one example of the guy in Paraguay doesn't seem left wing. I doubt most indigenous people wanted to marry Spaniards that saw them as inherently lesser. It's not like the European side of family wouldn't try to lessen or wipe the influence of indigenous culture in their households.
wait, the old social media...roleplaying...thing, whatever the hell Gaia Online was? It's still alive? And has money to advertise? That's weirder than finding out the Battletech Confederate wrote another Turner Diaries From Wish.
@@youmukonpaku3168 Actually it's weirder/worse... Gaia is a streaming platform that promotes "alternative media" which is usually just conspiracy theories. One of the famous ones I've seen floating around is that reptile-people built the moon to live on and travel the unvierse using Stargates lmfao.
On the one hand, "special agent from an organization that doesn't officially exist shows up and is immediately allowed to do whatever they want by the local authorities" is pretty terrible writing. On the other hand, it's such a common trope even in mainstream movies and TV shows that I'm tempted to give it a pass. It's pretty much a staple of the spy flick genre.
I've often thought of writing an intentional satire along these lines. Conservative gets frozen, Futurama-style, wakes up in the ANTIFA/Commie Dystopia of his nightmares. Poverty and hunger are eliminated, everyone has free health care and education, everything's a worker-owned collective and people work, like, three days a week , etc. Basically, Star trek. And he HATES it. Goes around trying to start a revolution to free people from this terrible oppression. If you wanna go dark with it, maybe he succeeds. Sells people on this ancient, abandoned Idea called Capitalism, and then pats himself on the back as the world burns.
Funny enough, this is almost exactly how I found out a close friend of mine was a raging conservative. I ran a tabletop RPG set in a setting that was gender diverse, post race, post scarcity and largely anacho-collectivist, and they completely lost their shit over it, basically found the one 'alpha male classical conservative' character in the setting (who could not have been more obviously a bad guy if you attached a neon sign to them) and unironically fell in love with them as being 'the only bastion of sanity amid the madness'.
@@gregoryvn3 Yeah, total derail, ended the campaign on the spot. Funny thing, another campaign ended in pretty much the same way, I ran a superhero game and the characters were assigned a job to protect an abortion clinic from a group of terrorists based on the Army Of God, only to find out that one of my players more or less refused to condemn them because they actually totally sympathised with their cause.
This book would have been so much better if the Sons of Liberty were a bunch of magical Seals lead by an ex-president clone of the greatest soldier ever with a hardon for quoting the founding fathers out of context. Also there is a white haired twink in tight spandex for no reason.
The two fastest street legal production cars ever made are all-electric, and the next two are hybrids, and it's literally been a decade since an ICE car has been the fastest.
I used to read this guy's Battletech novels when I was a kid. It's a shame he turned out to be a right wing creep. To he fair, his Battletech novels were probably just as shitty as this one. I probably only liked them because I was a kid.
Recently into Battletech and desperately curious if the signs were always there. Or if one day he just snapped and went "I can't remain silent any longer! Someone has to say something!"
@@tonyblitz1Blaine was always conservative - lots of white guys into tabletop wargames and war history in the 80ies were - and possibly a lost causer for most of it. There may be a few hints here and there even in his earlier stuff, but since a lot of his earliest work was on sourcebook lore (he wrote both lore, technical specs and novels) it is limited in scope. Professionalism and love of the franchise probably overrode any desire to insert real-world politics into the franchise. Things got more obvious as the metaplot of Battletech went past the Clan Invasion (and post 9/11 in real life). I'd say the tipping point probably came in the 2010s. A new generation got into _Battletech_, thanks to a combination of the new video games (HBS battletech and mechwarrior online) and GW policies causing some exoduses from 40K into other sci-fi wargame settings, a new generation that didn't always see eye-to-eye with the old guard and wanted more representation and less eugenics supersoldier heroes and yellow peril villains. Also, Blaine was getting old, retired from his real-life job, and had 20 years of FOX news poisoning. His last few years writing for the setting was pretty blatant.
@@tonyblitz1 From Measure of a Hero's dedication: "Finally, to the Sons of Virginia who died during "The War of Northern Aggression" and the tales they left about a real Civil War and its impact on our history. I think we've finally lulled the Yankees into a feeling of overconfidence. As the saying goes, "There is nothing 'civil' in a civil war.""
I know this is not on topic, but has anyone watched Home Movies the Kafka episode? That’s on in the background as I’m also listening to this. The “He is Franz Kafka” Rock Opera, is DELICIOUS!!!! Back to BTB. Another great episode!!!!
Is another side effect of this revolution that people have realized they're characters in a novel, and so only speak when the author wants to explain his views to the audience? Seriously, the exposition dumps here are making me feel like I'm being beaten over the head.
I mean, I'm not a huge Clinton fan, but he did, you know, actually make some peace. The Oslo accords weren't successful, but it's the closest any president's actually gotten for the Palestinians. More successfully though, he was pretty involved in ending The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
I'm listening through TH-cam music because google podcasts celebrated too many birthdays. Where's it could happen here? Is it just plain not available anymore?
Army Rangers aren't special forces really. Very different job descriptions. SF are about working with locals, training them, making business connections with poppy farmers etc. while Rangers are just meant to be really good light infantry that can deploy quickly in strength and take airfields and stuff. They're trained to a higher and broader standard on normal light infantry stuff. Basically, Rangers are the US equivalent of VDV but their training is actually good.
I kind of do want you to read a bit more of this book but I think you're right that the vast majority of it might be a slog. Maybe if you read it in private and find the best bits if you can bear it, that would be fun XD
I would say the irony would have been stronger from a Baptist or Evangelical preacher, rather than a Catholic priest, as historically, the Catholics haven't always been in favor in the US. Something about a fear of us being forced to submit to a Pope, much like the Conservative Christians preached a fear of Sharia
Starting this as I leave a comment. This *book* is so terrible that it's almost too much to even hear. Is there a word that encompasses foolish, grovelling, and pandering? AH... Sh*t. Yeah. That's the word.
Bill Clinton actually has some currency left in Ireland as a peacemaker. I can see a Bill Clinton Peace Garden here (boo?) but we made it CS Lewis instead (yaaayy?)
The weird anti-environmentalist stances remind me of the sci-fi novel "Fallen Angels" by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn. Thinking back, it's not a story that's aged very well, since it assumed certain things about climate change and the direction of politics that weren't really true at the time of writing (published in 1991) and are quite obviously untrue nowadays.
Dammit, that arent prayer sirens, that are , mauaezzin loudspeaker if, which actually exist, damn basic research, it has a name. It even can be very a thing of tension because, its a bit more noticable than church bells, but it freaking has a name, muezin loudspeaker, have a name. i mean the muezin is the shouter technically, people complain about loudspeaker if, but thats a real name thats specific. through not only the loudspeaker, but still the louspeaker mostly
this comment is evidently completely incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know much about Islam lol (It took me way too long to figure out that you weren't talking about some sort of guitar amplifier or something😂)
Maybe because there are far fewer promient leftists who did the kinds of things that get an episode made about them? Because the real tldr is evil people bad, actually
The hilarious irony of him being so devoid of imagination that every attempt to describe a dystopia falls back so heavily on cliches that his "liberal" dystopia is just built on unambiguously conservative policies
And copying 1984 with no actual understanding of it.
I could write a better liberal dystopia than that. I'd go for the 'man out of time' idea. The liberal dystopia isn't nessicarily bad from the perspective of the liberals, but due to culture clash it is the personal hell of our protagonist. Everything they personally value is somehow against the new society.
Protagonist loves meat. But there isn't much meat any more: Thanks to strict animal welfare and public health laws, American meat production must now be done only to high welfare and health standards. This is uneconomical, leading to the almost total collapse of the meat industry. You can buy it, but it's too expensive for most to eat more than once a week. The implementation of these laws was poorly planned leading many farmers to cut their losses by deliberately bankrupting their doomed businesses, so rural America is littered with abruptly abandoned livestock facilities still overflowing with sewage and rotting corpses.
The protagonist takes great pride in their car - but thanks to new urban planning policies focused on public transport, the car mostly gets stuck crawling along behind the swarm of cyclists that invariably ends up in front. The protagonist also has to routinely travel out of town just to fill up the gas tank.
America finally solved the housing problem by pressuring city councils to change their planning codes to allow vast amounts of affordable medium-density housing. While many have benefitted, the protagonist has not - their dreams of retirement rested upon their house, which lost 80% of its value in the course of two years when a number of small tower blocks alleviated the shortage.
For comedy, the protagonist has Mr Bites, an African Grey parrot inherited from a relative which they are obliged to care for at constant expense, and unable to legally dispose of because no-one else can be suckered into buying a pet with such heavy upkeep costs and liability. The animal welfare police will surely investigate should anything unfortunate happen to Mr Bites. Worse, the former owner tended to leave Jerry Springer episodes running all day.
To make this work, our protagonist is going to be from one of the last enclaves of what he calls 'Real America' - an isolated small town which thrived on a new wave of 'white flight' as older, more conservative Americans looked to escape the cities in the face of rapid liberal reform. He wishes very much to return to this last bastion of tradition, but the events of the story drag him from this comfort and on a tour through Liberal America, where he encounters the many, many new things which disgust him to his core. Multi-lingual signage! Veggie-burgers! Feeling constantly naked without his gun. Shifting awkwardly in his seat on the bus because the stranger next to him seems creepy. Trying to socialise with people who don't drink alcohol. Terror when he meets someone who might be trans and fears getting arrested if he doesn't guess the right pronouns.
@@vylbird8014 You save the best for last, where there is still religion in these cities but it is the singular worst kind to a deeply conservative christian: Multidenominational! He thinks he gets to go to a church and be in a safe space to only get horrified at the sight of Christians and Jews and Muslims all praying and conversing and communicating under the same building. THE HORROR.
Because what every conservative fears is somebody doing to them the exact things they already do to other people
The Muslim characters yelling at the workers for not observing their religious practice is a great example of this as well. Forcing people to do things required by your religion is what conservatives do. The author is horrified not by the action, but simply that it's being done in the name of the "wrong" religion.
Oh lord, that "What's the point of environmentalism if the Chinese and Russians are going to keep burning coal anyway?" talking point is something my dad STILL comes out with from time to time.
lol that's such a blatantly dumb argument
I love it
31:58 Me looking at a garden full of Confederate statues:
"Umm... why do we have so many statues of traitors and terrorists?"
@20:00 Shortly after Trump was elected, but before he was sworn in, a Muslim temple in southern Fort Smith was defaced -- broken windows, the word "TRUMP" spray-painted on the sign, stuff like that. The entire neighborhood got together to help fix things, and one of the teens responsible admitted fault to the temple staff, and pointed the authorities to his accomplices. The staff chose to help cover the teen's bail in return for his help in repairing the damage.
So even before Trump took office, we started seeing signs of the extremes people would go to, good and bad.
Good on that kid for being able to turn around instead of digging himself deeper.
What’s up my imaginary antifa super soldiers!
Stand down, the prayer siren is sounding.
You didn't capitalize ANTIFA! Five lashes at the self-criticism session!
FANTIFA soldiers even.
Oh! I got that reference!
Good news, one of the comments on John Oliver covering RFK mentions you in the top 50 comments.
Bad news, my response involving atonal screaming has the most likes.
I’m not surprised of this level of political ineptitude from the guy that wrote about how'statues shouldn’t be pulled down because it’s erasing history' in a battletech novel, because he was salty about Charlottesville.
He also wrote about a guy being compared to a Confederate general as an unironic compliment to the quality of his character.
Uh _yikes_
Yeah he used the “evil people tear down statues” crap multiple times in battletech didn’t he?
@@Hudson316especially considering how positively the tearing down of King George and Saddam Hussein states is portrayed in US history/media.
Excuse me, in a f-ing battletech novel for real?
@@theautomaticfiend In a couple of BattleTech novels and at least one short story near the end of his time with the franchise.
I could go for part three, personally. I kind of want to know how this ends, since the 'and everybody clapped' catharsis is always hilarious.
"Nu-uh, it's really us doing it to you before you can do it to us!" The novel.
"freedom lost" reminds me of a RC robot toy my family had when i was little that would just scream "signal lost" at top volume when it was out of range of the controller.
it's about as deep too.
You should probably just get that "Jesus CHRIST" sound clip -- that exasperated, amused, disgusted, and shocked, all at once? That one? -- and hang onto it. Because, uh, the more your read of Blaine's work, and the more you learn about Blaine beyond his books? The more you're gonna want to hit that "Jesus CHRIST" button.
it's very telling that at 19:32 Raúl thinks of the other catholics as "old people" and "latino families"
It's funny; very often I find myself critical of historical fiction or sci fi authors whose issue is "we know way too much detail about things that happened long ago" or otherwise having time take too long. Rarely do I see "Our whole society knows almost nothing about what happened five years ago".
Strong flashbacks to the GoldenEye Statue Park level from the Graveyard. Will forgive everything if the main character meets low-poly Robbie Coltrane in a shipping container there.
Lucky refresh! Garrison is Robert's child and no one can tell me otherwise.
I'm brave enough to tell you otherwise; Garrison is clearly Robert's multiverse counterpart. Since Robert took an unholy concoction of substances and figured out dimensional travel about 2 universes ago, but once he came down the knowledge was forever lost.
The bookclubs in this story must be lit AF
This reads like David Wong doing a parody of Ben Shapiro sincerely trying to invoke the spirit George Orwell.
Glad to hear Garrison back on the show, great series!
43:30 "I want to end with a little bit more worldbuilding", my brain autofilled "but there isn't any".
We want part three!!!We want part three!!!
Its always been so telling whenever right wingers talk about how they believe they will be oppressed by the left. Its always "this is 100% what i would do (or am curently doing) to you if i was in power, so obviously youre going to try to hurt me in the exact same way" and its like, naw man, kinda goes against my politics of "people suffering = bad"
I think that's part of the hidden motivation for anti-immigration sentiment too. The fear that if enough immigrants enter the country they will displace the existing population, destroy their culture, murder much of the number and forces the rest into poverty and oppression. After all, that's what /my/ ancestors did. It's just the natural order.
I've been through Wheeling, WV.
Believe me, there is not enough flat ground to do a field of statues.
The one piece of flat ground in the region is where they covered up a landfill and then they turned it into a subdivision that catered to a bunch of doctors and lawyers. The locals call it Radon Estates.
Don't forget that baller cabelas
@@bafelix89 That is a pretty damn nuts Cabelas.
@@TelenTerror I've come to learn that they're just ALL nuts Cabelas.
Every time I think "well that's just ridiculous", but then the next one is bigger somehow.
Hard right people always think that everyone is just like them while constantly complaining about how everyone is so different from them.
lol why is this so accurate
@@idontwantahandlethough Its part of the disconnect with any fringe ideology. Its that little ounce of introspection that some people severely lack. So their brain tells them "Everyone obviously thinks like I do, everyone who doesn't is an outlier." and are unable to really think otherwise.
I just listened to the first episode, the level of idiocy that the author display's is astounding.
Additionally, they would do this to anybody that they do not agree with and they wouldn't see the problem...
This is darkest timeline After the Revolution
The author doesn't know that "The N.S.F." is already The National Science Foundation.
The woke mob hates real science
It's also the National Sanitation Foundation, although I don't think they use the full name anymore. You might recognise their logo if you've ever worked in food service.
Do you think he was thinking about the guys from Deus Ex?
given how derivative his other work is I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to miss all the points in Deus Ex and just stole their first "villain"'s name.
Robert, if you ever want some background on the nontroversies Blaine stirred up - and the career he torched - to get this trash fire any traction whatsoever, hit me up. There are *stories* to tell about this guy.
There’s some fancy hobby drama subreddit posts about it if I remember right
@@Hudson316Looks like he does a lot of weird right-wing stuff in his battletech novels
In one of my favorite tabletop RPG's, Feng Shui, one of the evil forces is a futuristic police state that enforces both SJW racial policies (You are literally required to race mix by law, and you have to even fill out an application to have friends of your own race) and extreme consumerism capitalism (you have to pay for EEEEVERYTHING in life) and the population puts up with it because it's leaders control sites of mythological energy that cause people to agree with them, and they guard with demons they kidnapped from ancient China/Hell (they have time travel tech too) and armed with cybernetics.
THAT dystopia is more believable than Blue Dawn.
Fun fact: The forced race mixing is based on the real policies of José de Francia, _El Supremo Dictator_ (actual title) of Paraguay. He forbade marriage between european families and forced them to marry indigenous people in order to eliminate Paraguay's racial hierarchy.
And also because he himself was mestizo and hated 'pure-blooded' spaniards looking down on him over it. He'd be a fun one-episoder for the podcast, honestly.
Forced race mixing being sjw is just a bizarre concept to me. In most real-life cases forced mix marriages was an attempt, among many, to wipe the culture and appearance of conquered peoples. So that being a left-wing thing seems out there. Even the one example of the guy in Paraguay doesn't seem left wing. I doubt most indigenous people wanted to marry Spaniards that saw them as inherently lesser. It's not like the European side of family wouldn't try to lessen or wipe the influence of indigenous culture in their households.
Which TTRPG is it?? Shadowrun?
@@haltorn2611 Feng Shui.
@@MarquisLeary34 Ooooh I thought the evil force was called Feng Shui x)
Thanks, Robert. I literally got an ad for Gaia, Inc.
(also, can Orson Scott Card get a few episodes?)
wait, the old social media...roleplaying...thing, whatever the hell Gaia Online was? It's still alive? And has money to advertise? That's weirder than finding out the Battletech Confederate wrote another Turner Diaries From Wish.
@@youmukonpaku3168 Actually it's weirder/worse... Gaia is a streaming platform that promotes "alternative media" which is usually just conspiracy theories. One of the famous ones I've seen floating around is that reptile-people built the moon to live on and travel the unvierse using Stargates lmfao.
@@youmukonpaku3168 Uh, not that Gaia .inc. I was talking about that "Alternative Media" streaming service. Don't worry, Gaia Online is fine.
@@youmukonpaku3168 I meant Gaia, Inc. (the "alternative media" streaming service. Don't worry, Gaia Online is not BtB worthy.
@@youmukonpaku3168 I meant Gaia, Inc. (the "alternative media" streaming service". Don't worry about Gaia Online.
I'm so early I'm terrified ANTIFA Social Enforcers will torch my car!
don't worry, we're stood down for the muezzins.
All I can hear is "Nu-Merica" like "NuvaRing". It's awesome. Love you!
On the one hand, "special agent from an organization that doesn't officially exist shows up and is immediately allowed to do whatever they want by the local authorities" is pretty terrible writing.
On the other hand, it's such a common trope even in mainstream movies and TV shows that I'm tempted to give it a pass. It's pretty much a staple of the spy flick genre.
I hope the author of Blue Dawn listens to this.
This book reads like a South Park parody of itself
I wonder how well a South Park style show would do that simply parodies right-wing nonsense.
No shortage of good material.
I've often thought of writing an intentional satire along these lines. Conservative gets frozen, Futurama-style, wakes up in the ANTIFA/Commie Dystopia of his nightmares. Poverty and hunger are eliminated, everyone has free health care and education, everything's a worker-owned collective and people work, like, three days a week , etc. Basically, Star trek. And he HATES it. Goes around trying to start a revolution to free people from this terrible oppression. If you wanna go dark with it, maybe he succeeds. Sells people on this ancient, abandoned Idea called Capitalism, and then pats himself on the back as the world burns.
Funny enough, this is almost exactly how I found out a close friend of mine was a raging conservative. I ran a tabletop RPG set in a setting that was gender diverse, post race, post scarcity and largely anacho-collectivist, and they completely lost their shit over it, basically found the one 'alpha male classical conservative' character in the setting (who could not have been more obviously a bad guy if you attached a neon sign to them) and unironically fell in love with them as being 'the only bastion of sanity amid the madness'.
@@josephpotter5766Now that is hilarious. Must have thrown a bit of a wrench into the plot gears at the time.
@@gregoryvn3 Yeah, total derail, ended the campaign on the spot.
Funny thing, another campaign ended in pretty much the same way, I ran a superhero game and the characters were assigned a job to protect an abortion clinic from a group of terrorists based on the Army Of God, only to find out that one of my players more or less refused to condemn them because they actually totally sympathised with their cause.
@@josephpotter5766You need better friends, my dude
@@Backinblackbunny009 Don't i know it. Fortunately this was several years ago and that problem no longer exists.
First time listening to an ep on here, exciting!
i think that's the noise i wake myself up with when i have a stressful dream
Hilarious. They dont mean willy clean; they mean Hillary
Sons of Liberty has me thinking of Metal Gear Solid everytime 😂
This book would have been so much better if the Sons of Liberty were a bunch of magical Seals lead by an ex-president clone of the greatest soldier ever with a hardon for quoting the founding fathers out of context.
Also there is a white haired twink in tight spandex for no reason.
I like how he says "do you want to go to David Lynch in the afterlife-" in the intro like David Lynch isn't very much alive
The two fastest street legal production cars ever made are all-electric, and the next two are hybrids, and it's literally been a decade since an ICE car has been the fastest.
Lets go
The author definitely watched Red Dawn too many times and just switched the characters right?
I mean he literally just called it Blue Dawn. That's gotta be the biggest sign that he's just ripping Red Dawn and replacing soviets and leftists.
I used to read this guy's Battletech novels when I was a kid. It's a shame he turned out to be a right wing creep.
To he fair, his Battletech novels were probably just as shitty as this one. I probably only liked them because I was a kid.
Recently into Battletech and desperately curious if the signs were always there.
Or if one day he just snapped and went "I can't remain silent any longer! Someone has to say something!"
@@tonyblitz1Blaine was always conservative - lots of white guys into tabletop wargames and war history in the 80ies were - and possibly a lost causer for most of it. There may be a few hints here and there even in his earlier stuff, but since a lot of his earliest work was on sourcebook lore (he wrote both lore, technical specs and novels) it is limited in scope. Professionalism and love of the franchise probably overrode any desire to insert real-world politics into the franchise.
Things got more obvious as the metaplot of Battletech went past the Clan Invasion (and post 9/11 in real life). I'd say the tipping point probably came in the 2010s. A new generation got into _Battletech_, thanks to a combination of the new video games (HBS battletech and mechwarrior online) and GW policies causing some exoduses from 40K into other sci-fi wargame settings, a new generation that didn't always see eye-to-eye with the old guard and wanted more representation and less eugenics supersoldier heroes and yellow peril villains. Also, Blaine was getting old, retired from his real-life job, and had 20 years of FOX news poisoning. His last few years writing for the setting was pretty blatant.
@@tonyblitz1 From Measure of a Hero's dedication:
"Finally, to the Sons of Virginia who died during "The War of Northern Aggression" and the tales they left about a real Civil War and its impact on our history. I think we've finally lulled the Yankees into a feeling of overconfidence. As the saying goes, "There is nothing 'civil' in a civil war.""
@@Runningfromtheredqueen "Fox News poisoning" lol I laugh but the disease is all too real all too deadly and all too contagious :/
I love that my home town has made a second cameo on BtB, and it in no way is surprising. First was the goat doctor, now this, and...it just tracks.
fedgov sounds like scientology took over
This book feels like the Kirkland Brand version of 'The Turner Diaries'
I know this is not on topic, but has anyone watched Home Movies the Kafka episode? That’s on in the background as I’m also listening to this. The “He is Franz Kafka” Rock Opera, is DELICIOUS!!!! Back to BTB. Another great episode!!!!
Its always projection.
omg they're really bringing back the anti-catholicism? deep cut, guys, props .
This is your brain on Fox news
Thanks for another banger
Is another side effect of this revolution that people have realized they're characters in a novel, and so only speak when the author wants to explain his views to the audience? Seriously, the exposition dumps here are making me feel like I'm being beaten over the head.
13:27 - look up "sepoy mutiny".
Absolutely forgot Robert is a bear of a man
Watch any single episode of last week tonight and you'll realize the dystopia we already live in is worse than this
16:45 It thats old facist trope where the enemy must be both all powerful and pathetically weak at the same time.
I mean, I'm not a huge Clinton fan, but he did, you know, actually make some peace. The Oslo accords weren't successful, but it's the closest any president's actually gotten for the Palestinians. More successfully though, he was pretty involved in ending The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Man, this Deus Ex fanfic is weird.
I'm listening through TH-cam music because google podcasts celebrated too many birthdays. Where's it could happen here? Is it just plain not available anymore?
the whole "cops intimidating family members of people they killed" thing sucks man, I hate this place sometimes
Army Rangers aren't special forces really. Very different job descriptions. SF are about working with locals, training them, making business connections with poppy farmers etc. while Rangers are just meant to be really good light infantry that can deploy quickly in strength and take airfields and stuff. They're trained to a higher and broader standard on normal light infantry stuff.
Basically, Rangers are the US equivalent of VDV but their training is actually good.
Newmerica: Less calories, same great American taste.
I think the Clinton Memorial referenced Hilary rather than Bill?
Is it just me or are all these far right fantasy novels just aping the turner diaries but making more appealing to less nazi like folks?
Pretty much
I kind of do want you to read a bit more of this book but I think you're right that the vast majority of it might be a slog. Maybe if you read it in private and find the best bits if you can bear it, that would be fun XD
It's increble how dense and empty-headed conservatism really is.
I would say the irony would have been stronger from a Baptist or Evangelical preacher, rather than a Catholic priest, as historically, the Catholics haven't always been in favor in the US. Something about a fear of us being forced to submit to a Pope, much like the Conservative Christians preached a fear of Sharia
45:00 spoiler alert:
The Bad orange man didn’t survive the night of the insurrection
Will this get four parts? Please say this will get four parts
Starting this as I leave a comment. This *book* is so terrible that it's almost too much to even hear. Is there a word that encompasses foolish, grovelling, and pandering? AH... Sh*t.
Yeah. That's the word.
Smurf invasion?
Its should have been NeoAmerica
Bill Clinton actually has some currency left in Ireland as a peacemaker. I can see a Bill Clinton Peace Garden here (boo?) but we made it CS Lewis instead (yaaayy?)
Still call the Cuomo bridge "The new Tap" because fuck Cuomo, thats The Tap.
Where video?!
Does being Mexican-American also make you quasi-Hispanic?
The weird anti-environmentalist stances remind me of the sci-fi novel "Fallen Angels" by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn.
Thinking back, it's not a story that's aged very well, since it assumed certain things about climate change and the direction of politics that weren't really true at the time of writing (published in 1991) and are quite obviously untrue nowadays.
Dammit, that arent prayer sirens, that are , mauaezzin loudspeaker if, which actually exist, damn basic research, it has a name.
It even can be very a thing of tension because, its a bit more noticable than church bells, but it freaking has a name, muezin loudspeaker, have a name. i mean the muezin is the shouter technically, people complain about loudspeaker if, but thats a real name thats specific. through not only the loudspeaker, but still the louspeaker mostly
this comment is evidently completely incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know much about Islam lol
(It took me way too long to figure out that you weren't talking about some sort of guitar amplifier or something😂)
Lee Atwater
We love an episode without pdfs, don't we folks?
Ah, the eloquent Robert Evans
Ahhh god...why'd the Blue Dawn author have to bring Wheeling, WV into this hahaha....ugggggh.
LFGOOOOOOOO!
Bro some of this is so cringy that it made my stomach hurt
tl;dr for a lot of Behind the Bastards podcasts-conservatives bad, right wing bad
@redjirachi1 damn, thats crazy
I wonder if thats because its mostly right wingers who do all these spectacularly awful things?
Maybe because there are far fewer promient leftists who did the kinds of things that get an episode made about them?
Because the real tldr is evil people bad, actually