The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has become a huge problem under Trump, but what led us here? How did we end up with a network of concentration camps for migrants, extrajudicial disappearances, and outright murder? Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus trace the United States’ relationship with immigration and deportation all the way back to the 19th century.

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Research and writing by Spencer Barrows and Grace Cathedral Park. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard.

Superstructurepodcast.com

Bibliography

• The Deportation Machine by Adam Goodman
• Everyone Who Is Here is Gone by Jonathan Blitzer
• The Contrarian by Max Chafkin
• The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration by Brianna Nofil
• Detention, deportation, devolution and immigrant incapacitation in the US, post 9/11 by Mathew Coleman and Austin Kocher
• 9/11 and the Transformation of U.S. Immigration Law and Policy by Deepa Iyer and Jayesh M. Rathod
• https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/immigration-act-1882
• https://www.vox.com/videos/479915/ice-history-video
• https://immigrationvisaattorney.com/what-do-dhs-uscis-cbp-and-ice-do/
• https://immigrationhistory.org/item/page-act/
• https://immigrationhistory.org/item/geary-act/

In the 50’s, Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh presaged a different future for the country. But he made a crucial mistake: he nationalized oil and attempted to lift his people out of poverty through social programs. This led to a CIA- and MI6-led coup and years of tumult for the country that has long been an American boogeyman. Julian Feeld and John Gabrus explore.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Séamus Malekafzali. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Saraabe Toe by Kourosh Yaghmaei.

Superstructurepodcast.com

Bibliography

• All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer
• The Coup by Ervand Abrahamian
• A History of Modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian
• The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy by Masoud Kazemzadeh
• Khomeinism by Ervand Abrahamian
• Iran’s Political Economy Since the Revolution by Suzanne Maloney
• Mossadegh in Military Court by Jalil Bozorgmehr
• Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran by Homa Katouzian
• https://www.nytimes.com/1952/09/28/archives/mossadegh-prophet-or-buffoon-his-place-in-history-may-be-determined.html
• https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fedaian-e-esla/
• https://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/indian-express/mossadeq-wants-monarchy-to-stay/
• https://dayan.org/content/worker-street-mosaddegh-street-struggle-over-collective-memory-iranian-prime-minister
• https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/24/newly_declassified_documents_confirm_us_backed
• https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afgani-jamal-al-din/

Julian Feeld and John Gabrus discuss the upcoming podcast.

For double the episodes you can subscribe to our patreon.

Theme song by Thiago França. Cover Art by Ruben Gerard.

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An American Neo-Nazi organization active in the 80s, The Order (AKA The Silent Brotherhood) partook in murder, armed robbery, and even declared war on the federal government. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus explore.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Spencer Barrows. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Smiling Faces by East of Underground.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens
• Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Order: Inside America’s Racist Underground

Revolutionary movements in Russia existed before the Bolsheviks. We explore the various groups attempting to topple the Tsar and lift the peasantry out of dire conditions. Notably and beginning in the 1860s: the Narodniks. Your hosts are Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Cooter Jones. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Program by Silver Apples.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in 19" Century Russia by Franco Venturi
• Peasant Economy, Culture, and Politics of European Russia, -- Esther Kingston-Mann (editor), Timothy Mixter (editor)
• Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, --by Martin E Malia
• The Oxford History of Russia, Volume 2
• Russian Populism: A History by Christopher Ely
• The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War by Manfred Hildemeier
• The Socialist Alternative to Bolshevik Russia - The Socialist Revolutionary Party 1921-1939 by Elizabeth White
• New Mecca, New Babylon: Paris and the Russian Exiles, 1920-1945 by Robert H Johnston

We explore CIA interventionism through Ted Shackley Jr, an agent involved in many of the more cruel and dramatic episodes over the course of three decades. From Operation Paperclip to the Cuban missile crisis to the toppling of Allende in Chile and even Iran-Contra, Shackley was there for it all.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Marty Pynchon Meyer and Ryan McGahan. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is You Don’t Know What’s Going On by Exuma.

Superstructurepodcast.com

Bibliography

• Blond Ghost by David Corn

Once again under mounting siege, Cuba’s revolution is no stranger to violent meddling by the United States and wealthy Cubans in exile. We explore a “wet work” team of assassins, spies and brutes assembled in 1960 and known as Operation 40. As usual, your hosts are Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Marty Pynchon Meier. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Canción del Elegido by Silvio Rodriguez.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• Daniel Hopsicker - Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob, and America’s Secret History
• Fabian Escalante - JFK: The Cuba Files and The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba (1959 - 1962)
• Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo - The Bush Family and the Kennedy Assassination
• Don Bohning - The Castro Obsession: US Covert Operations against Cuba, 1959 - 1965
• Roben Farzad - Hotel Scarface: Where Cocaine Cowboys Partied and Plotted to Control Miami
• Sean Oliver and Ricardo A. Morales Jr. - Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile, Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad
• Larry Hancock - Someone Would Have Talked: Documented! the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History
• Lesley Gill - The School of the Americas
• John Dinges & Saul Landau - Assassination on Embassy Row
• Spartacus Educational encyclopedia entry on Operation 40
• CRS Report for Congress - “U.S. Army School of the Americas: Background and Congressional Concerns” (Updated April 16, 2001)
• Manuel Roig-Franzia for WaPo - “Exile to Reveal Plan for Post-Castro Cuba: Goal is Indictment of Leader’s Successor”
• National Security Archive - FAA Email from Cecilia Capestany, “Cuban Unauthorized Flights” (1966; Brothers to the Rescue)
• Joe Walsh, CBS News - “The story of Cuba’s 1996 shootdown that led to Raul Castro’s indictment”
• New Hampshire Public Radio - “Former U.S. Ambassador Charged with Being An Agent for Cuba”
• David Wise, NYT: “Dark Side Up” (William Colby & Phoenix Casualties)
• George Venturini - The First 9/11: Kissinger, Operación Condor, Pinochet
• CIA Reading Room - “‘63 FBI Memo Ties Bush to Intelligence Agency”
• Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales - “Operation Condor: A criminal conspiracy to forcibly disappear people”

Guerrilla warfare in the 20th century United States? Factions of the Black Power movement made this a reality. Following our episode on the Weather Underground, we tackle the Black Liberation Army and the Republic of New Afrika. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus explore recent history that now seems farfetched.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Edwin O’Connell. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is My People… Hold On by Eddie Kendricks.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist by William Ayers
• Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough
• “From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After 43 Years of Silence” in Democracy Now! by Amy Goodman
• False Nationalism False Internationalism by E. Tani and Kaé Sera
• “Weather Underground: Driving down a dead end street” by George Tyler
• Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism by the Weather Underground
• Flying Too Close To The Sun by Cathy Wilkerson
• “Chicago: Law and Disorder” by the Chicago History Museum
• “Black History, And The Weather Underground Organization in America, a story” by the African American Registry
• The Road to Radicalization: Tracking the Development of the Weather Underground’s Ideology (an honors thesis) by Rachel McKee
• “The Crazy True Story Of The Weather Underground” in Grunge by K. Wells
• ““Free the Land!”: Fifty Years of the Republic of New Afrika” in Black Perspectives by Daniel Berger
• Negroes with Guns by Robert F. Williams
• “ASSATA SHAKUR The Interview” in The Talking Drum
• “Miss Chesimard Flees Jersey Prison, Helped By 3 Armed ‘Visitors’” in The New York Times
• “We Made a Village for the Kids: Reflections on the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee” by Mickey Ellinger in Viewpoint Magazine

One of the most well-known but least understood movements in the history of the American revolutionary left, the Weather Underground Organization is on our docket in this first of a two-part episode on domestic revolutionary groups in the USA. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus explore it with you.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Edwin O’Connell. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Left Me With a Memory by The Montgomery Express.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist by William Ayers
• Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough
• “Meet The Weather Underground’s Bomb Guru” in Vanity Fair by Bryan Burrough
• Bad Moon Rising How the Weather Underground Beat the FBI and Lost the Revolution by Arthur M. Eckstein
• Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond by David Gilbert
• “From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After 43 Years of Silence” in Democracy Now! by Amy Goodman
• SDS/WUO: Students For A Democratic Society And The Weather Underground Organization by David Gilbert
• “Chicago's Forgotten 'Days of Rage'” in WTTW by Daniel Hautzinger
• “Harvard Bomb Blast Damages Center for International Affairs” in the New York Times by Robert Reinhold
• Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen – A Gripping Memoir of Political Awakening and Seven Years as a FBI Most Wanted Fugitive by Mark Rudd
• False Nationalism False Internationalism by E. Tani and Kaé Sera
• “Weather Underground: Driving down a dead end street” by George Tyler
• Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism by the Weather Underground
• You Don’t Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows by the Weather Underground
• Flying Too Close To The Sun by Cathy Wilkerson
• “Chicago: Law and Disorder” by the Chicago History Museum
• “Black History, And The Weather Underground Organization in America, a story” by the African American Registry
• The Road to Radicalization: Tracking the Development of the Weather Underground’s Ideology (an honors thesis) by Rachel McKee
• “The Crazy True Story Of The Weather Underground” in Grunge by K. Wells

What is the function and purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? This turns out to be a question even its founders struggled with. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus explore NATO’s founding after World War 2.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Ryan McGahan and Josh Messite. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Ramer Sans Rame by Akofa Akoussah.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• [1984] The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class - Kees Van der Pijl
• [2005] NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe - Daniele Ganser
• [2019] Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order - Timothy A. Sayle

Drug trafficking, the military, foreign interests… Honduras has long been a focus of the anti-communist project in South and Central America. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus explore the path to Hondurasgate, the latest scandal exposing this particular octopus of corruption.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Caio Almendra. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Corrido a Honduras by Unknown.

Follow Super Structure on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstructurepodcast/

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Bibliography

• ASTURIAS, Miguel Ángel. El Papa Verde. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1954.
• BARAHONA, Marvin. El golpe 28-J: Conspiración transnacional, un crimen en la impunidad. Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 2010.
• BLUM, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. London: Zed Books, 2003.
• CANAL RED. Audios filtrados del caso Hondurasgate. Madrid: Canal Red, 2026. Available at: https://canalred.tv. Accessed on: May 15, 2026.
• CARDOZA Y ARAGÓN, Luis. La batalla de Guatemala. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956.
• CENTRO NACIONAL ANTICORRUPCIÓN (CNA). Los pecados capitales de las ZEDE. Tegucigalpa: CNA, 2022.
• FRANK, Dana. The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018.
• GÁLVEZ BRESSER, Jorge; AGUILAR, Carla. “Las Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo Económico (ZEDE) y el perfeccionamiento de los mecanismos de despojo en Honduras”. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, San José, v. 1, n. 171, p. 45–63, 2021.
• MOLINA, Irene; ZÚÑIGA, César. “¿Excepción o continuismo? Nuevos enclaves: poder e infraestructura en Honduras”. Revista Iztapalapa, Mexico City, n. 91, p. 115–142, 2021.
• SCOTT, Peter Dale; MARSHALL, Jonathan. Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
• TORRES-RIVAS, Edelberto. Centroamérica: la democracia posible. San José: EDUCA, 1987.
• TORRES-RIVAS, Edelberto. La guerra de baja intensidad en Centroamérica. San José: EDUCA, 1988.
• WEBB, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998.
• ZAVALA, Oswaldo. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in U.S. and Mexican Culture. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2022.
• BBC MUNDO. “La influencia sombría de United Fruit Company en América Latina”. BBC Mundo, 2024. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/mundo. Accessed on: May 15, 2026.

The least known book that changed the world. The Late Great Planet Earth is the topic of our first Super Structure book club episode. Published in 1970, TLGPE became a huge best seller that influenced people from Ronald Reagan to Ruby Ridge’s Vicki Weaver. It’s also the blueprint for a now-resurgent form of Christian Zionism. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus are joined by Hayden Tank, host of the Bible Lore podcast, to explore this piece of apocalyptic prophesy.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Spencer Barrows and Grace Cathedral Park. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Dambala by Nina Simone.

Superstructurepodcast.com

The Bible Lore podcast: https://www.patreon.com/BibleLorePodcast

Bibliography

Hal Lindsay, The Late Great Planet Earth

A family beset by religious mania, white supremacist obsessions, and deep paranoia about the government. Federal agencies causing multiple deaths through a bungled attempt at apprehending Randy and Vicki Weaver. Ruby Ridge is a central flashpoint of the paranoid nineties. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus walk you through it.

Go to patreon.com/superstructure to get a feed with double the episodes for just $5 a month.

Research and writing by Spencer Barrows and Grace Cathedral Park. Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is I Shall Not Be Moved by Shirley Ann Lee.

Superstructurepodcast.com

Bibliography

Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop

John Ganz, When the Clock Broke

Jess Walter, Ruby Ridge

Chris Jennings, End of Days

https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1975-1999/foreclosures-lead-to-violence/posse-comitatus/

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/aryan-nations/

Retired Navy Seal Gary Busey heads to Cuba to get trapped in a web of violence and intrigue by a landmine baron and a KGB-trained Cuban spy in this straight-to-video movie from 1997. Half-hearted propaganda ensues. Julian Feeld and Jon Gabrus lead you through this delightful romp in Super Structure’s first movie night.

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Editing by Ty Wood. Theme song by Thiago França. Cover art by Ruben Gerard. Super Structure selection of the week is Tougnafo by Mama Keita.

Superstructurepodcast.com

Filmography

• Plato’s Run (1997)