Blood Work

They Kiss Horses, Don’t They? / Four Fascist Concepts

What are ‘libidinal politics’? What the fuck is a ‘machinic assemblage’? Why are these men all terrified of women? This week, we explore four key ideas in the fascist imaginary and head down to the stables to look at some freaks.
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Blood Work is a Scam Goldin ProductionThis episode was produced by Thomas O’MahonyOur theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis TronOur artwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel
THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE – Hit & Run
This week, I take a look at some articles about drone warfare in Ukraine, Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, and the transfer of those tactics to the US’ steady approach to War on Venezuela, and meditate on what these might portend about the new rules of engagement for warfare in the 2020s. Plus: Some further thoughts on a man and his horse, childhood romance, and the death of intimacy.
Available now for Patreon supporters.
Sources:
Walter Benjamin (1999), ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ [1935], Illuminations
Richard Evans (2003), The Coming of the Third Reich
Richard Evans (2005), The Third Reich in Power
Roger Griffin (1991), The Nature of Fascism
Mark Neocleous (1997), Fascism
Klaus Theweleit (1987 [1977]), Male Fantasies, Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History
Image: German Freikorps soldiers standing by an armored car during the German Revolution, January 1919.

To Live as People or Die Like Men: Attica

In 1971, a group of people cast aside by the state rose up and attempted to reclaim their humanity and political subjectivity. This week, we look at the Attica Prison Uprising to see what that event might tell us about the relationship between politics, law and violence.
If you enjoyed this episode:
– Support Blood Work via Patreon
– Leave a rating or review on your podcast app
– Follow us on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter
– Blood Work is a Scam Goldin Production
THIS WEEK IN VIOLENCE – Ground Zero
The first in a weekly series of posts where I share recent articles that have caught my attention and some brief commentary, along with some broader musings on the nature of violence. 
Available now for Patreon supporters.
Our theme song is ‘Dream Weapon’ by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel
Sources:
‘15 Practical Proposals of Attica Prisoners’ (1971), People’s Law Office
The Attica Liberation Faction Manifesto of Demands and Anti-Depression Platform (1971), Freedom Archives
Traci Curry & Stanley Nelson (Dir., 2021), Attica
Fred Ferretti (Sept. 13, 1971), ‘Attica Prisoners Win 28 Demands, but Still Resist’, New York Times
Brad Lichtenstein (Dir., 2001), Ghosts of Attica
Charlotte Rosen (May 26, 2025), ‘How Should We Remember Attica?’, The Nation
Wendy Sawyer, ‘How much do incarcerated people earn in each state?’ (2017), Prison Policy Initiative
Heather Ann Thompson (2021), Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
Image: Participants in the Attica Prison Uprising raise their fists during a negotiating session on Friday, September 10, 1971 (AP)

Crock of Schmitt

Come join us, won’t you, for a deep dive into one of the twentieth century’s biggest assholes. Say hello to Carl Schmitt: Jurist, legal scholar, political philosopher… Nazi? Look: We’re only showing you him so you know how to get away from him.
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You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT Kobel
Sources:
Gopal Balakrishan – The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt
Angus Brown – ‘The Left Should Have Nothing to Do with Carl Schmitt’, Jacobin
Stuart Elden – ‘Reading Schmitt Geopolitically: Nomos, territory and Großraum’, Radical Philosophy
Carl Schmitt – Dictatorship
Carl Schmitt – The Concept of the Political
Carl Schmitt – The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum
Carl Schmitt – Political Theology
 
(Image: Carl Schmitt’s grave in Plettenberg, Germany. The Greek inscription reads, “KAI NOMON EGNŌ” / “And I Know the Law”)If you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time
 

Dick Down

We take a break from scheduled programming to commemorate the passing of one of the greatest monsters of the early 21st century, looking back at some of his greatest hits of being a rancid asshole and how they show our exceptional times might not be all that exceptional.
This episode is a little thing we've been calling internally, "The Gregk Directive", for when the news simply is too good to resist.
Support the show on Patreon
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

The Leper in the City (w/ Serene Richards)

In the mid-1990s, the political philosopher Giorgio Agamben began a 20-year project exploring the origin of what Michel Foucault called biopolitics – the governance of populations through technocratic management of aspects of their biological lives and the conditions intended to make live, or let die. Performing an archaeology of politics tracing back to the Greeks, Agamben identified a number of governmental apparatuses through which our world is both split, and bound, in two, between the included and the excluded; the inside and the outside; the human and the not-quite-yet.
 
In this episode, we talk to Serene Richards, a Lecturer in Law at New York University London, and author of the book Biopolitics as a System of Thought. During our conversation, we discuss the origins of two of Agamben’s most famous political concepts: Homo Sacer, the sacred man or ‘bare life’; and the State of Exception, the mechanism by which Law establishes its own ‘inside’ through the creation of an ‘outside’ that lies beyond it, and yet which must be included. Later we discuss Serene’s book, her concept of Smart Being, and how our techno-capitalist moment has seen biopolitical logics extend beyond the political realm, penetrating even how we think, perceive and understand our own lives.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/biopolitics-as-a-system-of-thought-9781350412095/
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

Hot Rod of the Apocalypse: The History of the Car Bomb (Part 2)

With the quotidian workhorse of urban terror now well on its way, we round out our story by looking at how the car bomb became conscious of the city as its object, target and victim, its proliferation during the Iraq War years, and its seeming culmination as both a herald and producer of escalatory political nihilism.
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

The Poor Man's Air Force: The History of the Car Bomb (Part 1)

What has 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and massive destructive potential?
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of KT KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

Slouching Towards A Critique of Violence

We dive deep into German Walter Benjamin's seminal essay 'Towards A Critique of Violence' to try and understand violence not only as a phenomen, but also as a powerful force in society, politics, and everything around us.
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of Kyle KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

The 1033 Program

How did the American police get access to a nation's war chest? 
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of Kyle KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time

An Introduction to Blood Work

What is Blood Work, and who profits from violence?
You have been listening to Blood WorkA Scam Goldin Production
Follow us on Bluesky, @bloodwork.showOn Instagram, @bloodworkshowand on Twitter @bloodworkshow
Our theme song is Dream Weapon by Genghis TronArtwork is provided courtesy of Kyle KobelIf you want to get in touch, email us at contact@bloodwork.showThanks for listening, and I'll see you next time