Ep 10: Darth Plague-Episode the Wise

To close out 2020, the podcast is taking a look at the mysterious ways in which plague and disease related reactionary anxieties have swept across the far right spectrum, catching transphobes in their wake. Britain has a long history of transphobia, but the political role of antivaccination is also a longstanding political tradition in British culture. Combine this with 2020 being Plague Year, and with a whole host of bizarre reactionary patterns of thought penetrating the general societal consciousness, and you get the perfect melting pot of hatred and pseudoscience.

 

Content warnings for this episode include: mentions of antisemitism, anti-asian racism, general transphobic bullshit, serophobia. discussions about eugenicist policies and generally ablist politics, as well as lengthy discussions of the various ways our governments have contrived to kill people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Sources and shownotes to be expanded later.


Articles directly mentioned:

 

https://www.jta.org/2020/03/06/opinion/history-shows-that-epidemics-can-carry-dangerous-side-effects-for-jews-deadly-anti-semitism

 

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements

 

Further background source on Medieval antisemitic narratives relating to leprosy:

 

https://opr.degruyter.com/confronting-antisemitism-through-the-ages-a-historical-perspective/erich-s-gruen-the-blood-libel-and-the-leper-libel-ancient-anti-semitism/

 

an article explaining the "Plandemic" hoax:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21254184/how-plandemic-went-viral-facebook-youtube

 

Music for this episode was kindly provided by Molly Noise who can be found at https://twitter.com/ImPureNoise  and whose other profiles are at http://linktr.ee/MollyNoise and whose music specifically can be found at https://mollynoise.bandcamp.com/