#522 - CJ Werleman

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] My guest today, C .J. Worleman, will definitely ruffle some feathers, ladies and gentlemen.

[4] If you are of the religious inclination, if you are ultra -sensitive, if you have a problem with seeing Uncle Sam crucified on the cover of a book.

[5] That says, Crucifying America.

[6] And on top of it, he's not even a fucking American.

[7] When you hear him talk, you're going to go, hey, Pepey him.

[8] you're not even from here what's going on why you're shitting on us what about your your country man um thanks for joining me man i appreciate it thanks joe thanks having me on mate please i appreciate it um i watched a very fascinating interview today or conversation that you had today about the the religious right and how much hate do you get on a daily basis because like you're you're going hard here man you got you got uncle sam crucified on your book i mean made of i always told people that when they ask me where do you live i always say in California and I never give the exact address because there is a fatwa put out on me. Actually, and no joke, the West Borough Baptist Church, which we all know very well.

[9] When my first book was released in 2009, the title is God Hates You, Hate Him Back.

[10] They sought a title without understanding what the content of the book was and thought that I must have been on their side.

[11] They thought, hey, we've got somebody who's written a book in pro of our mission.

[12] Once they took a look at my book, they realized how off base that was and I was attacking them for some of their beliefs and Fred Phelps actually issued a public fatwa to have me killed.

[13] So I want to leave my address of Southern California because I do have kids.

[14] But he's dead, right?

[15] Does that fatwa have any teeth?

[16] I don't know.

[17] Do you inherit a fatwa?

[18] It's a good question.

[19] It just gets passed down.

[20] I'm no sure.

[21] Well, whatever happened is Solomon Ratchee?

[22] Like, he's around now.

[23] Yeah, he's now out in the open.

[24] I think that maybe people who want other people dead, particularly literally, literal people, is they have short memories.

[25] Well, he was, that was a weird one, man. He wrote a book that people had interpreted as being about the Prophet Muhammad.

[26] But it wasn't necessarily, right?

[27] No, it's more about the poetry, which was written, you know, on a segment of Islam, and it wasn't actually taking scripture from the Quran itself.

[28] So, I mean, what he wrote would be very mild in, say, comparison to a South.

[29] half -past episode where the Prophet Muhammad is dressed up like a bear.

[30] Islam is a very fascinating religion to me in so many different ways, but it's also fascinating in that liberals have, for whatever reason, chosen that as being the one to defend in some weird sort of a way.

[31] Like, anytime someone criticizes Islam, they become Islamophobic.

[32] But you will never hear, like, certain segments of the progressive population shit on someone who is criticizing Christianity.

[33] You don't become a Christianophobe.

[34] Mate, I mean, you've hit on a very important point here.

[35] The problem, I mean, Chris Hedges wrote a great book called The Death of Liberalism in America.

[36] The liberal class no longer exists in America.

[37] It has no voice.

[38] And to underscore that point, Hillary Clinton's popularity.

[39] Hillary Clinton doesn't, she doesn't stand for populist economics or she doesn't stand for progressive clauses.

[40] She's a cause of she's a brand and a brand only.

[41] So the liberal class has been left to be the political police.

[42] force for, you know, PC correctness, and that's it.

[43] So whilst, you know, you have Democrats in office who are attacking liberalism, things like the welfare state, free trade, and so forth, you had President Clinton who'd gutted the unions, destroyed welfare, and implemented NAFTA, which outsourced 800 ,000 jobs abroad.

[44] You're left with a liberal class, all they do is eat wine and, you know, wines and cheeses and pick up people who are saying the wrong things politically so so uh yeah i have a problem with political correctness yeah pick on people who are saying the wrong things you know that's that's the big one saying the wrong things not actions not picking on people and the the islamophobic one that to me is a weird one man like if you're going to be scared of any religion in my opinion it might it might have a good it's a good one to pick Islam's a good one when they're the number one suicide bombers the number one people that are the things that they're doing to women in Islamic countries, the things that you're seeing in the news on a daily basis that are from predominantly Islamic countries, if you're going to be scared of a religion, that seems to be a good one.

[45] Yeah, but my point is that that's happening over there.

[46] If we're going to worry about what's happening here, you're far more likely to be called by a right -wing terrorist than you are by an Islamist terrorist.

[47] Since 1990, there's been 345 Americans killed by American Muslims, whereas there's only been 20 Americans killed by Muslim Americans.

[48] You can't count the 9 -11 attackers as Muslim Americans because they're external.

[49] They were foreign fighters fighting for a foreign cause.

[50] So that's why I think the most dangerous threat to American democracy in our secular values is not Islamicism.

[51] It really is, you know, these Christian theological whack jobs that represent what is the Tea Party, which is really a proto -fascist movement.

[52] In this country.

[53] In this country.

[54] In this country, yes, you're definitely less likely.

[55] to be attacked by an Islamic terrorist.

[56] And that's because America's doing its job and keeping us safe over here.

[57] We fight over there so we can keep you safe over.

[58] I mean, I'm not exactly sure if that is a zero -sum game.

[59] I'm not sure how that is working or if it's working or if it's just some massive debt that we're going to have to come back and pay, sort of like the housing crisis.

[60] You know, I mean, it kind of seems like it, doesn't it?

[61] Well, it's blowback.

[62] I mean, we've meddled in the Middle Eastern Fares for so.

[63] along and we wonder why shit happens.

[64] I mean, you know, if you listen to the conservatives, they'll say that, you know, they want to attack us for our freedoms.

[65] They want to attack us because we like drinking beer or watching porn on the internet.

[66] You know, they have a very, very specific agenda.

[67] They hate the fact that we have our fucking military bases in the middle of the Holy Land.

[68] They hate the fact that we're not willing to operate in a bipartisan manner to solve the Israeli -Palestinian situation.

[69] And so that's why they're angry.

[70] You know, it's got nothing to do really with religion.

[71] And if you actually look at All terrorist attacks over the world, 95 % of all suicide bombs bombing attacks have been committed against occupying forces rather than being a religiously motivated event.

[72] So religiously motivated in that they have inspired these people to attack and blow themselves up with religion?

[73] Good point.

[74] What it is, you got the power structure, whether that's, you know, if you go all the way back to Osama bin Laden, say he's the top of Al -Qaeda, they have very, very specific political.

[75] objectives.

[76] Obviously, the fundamentalist, Islamic, lowest common denominator in society who's starving and doesn't have a job, has no future.

[77] They're the ones they recruit to carry out the deeds.

[78] But they're certainly a very rather politically motivated rather than religiously motivated.

[79] Yeah, I would assume that if you're living in a country and you have a giant, huge empire that is invaded not just your country, but a hundred different countries.

[80] We have a giant, military bases in more than a hundred different countries all over the world.

[81] I would feel like you would want to resist that.

[82] That would naturally be something that people would be, you know, resisting.

[83] Imagine if JFK Airport was a Saudi national airport and they're flying their fighter jets in and out there and doing loops of New York City all day long.

[84] Yeah.

[85] Yeah, I mean, you've got guys in the South and the Confederate States that love to blow up the Capitol because there's a black man in the White House.

[86] Imagine if there was an airport.

[87] Well, I'll tell you what, CJ, would you fancy accent, you tell me how else we're going to keep America safe.

[88] At this point, how can you?

[89] I mean, that is the big question.

[90] Like, say, I mean, I don't know what the real number is, but it's more than a hundred, more than a hundred military bases and more than a hundred different countries all over the world.

[91] Like, people talk about the Roman Empire.

[92] Rome doesn't have shit on America.

[93] It's a joke.

[94] It's like, not even close.

[95] Like, this is the craziest empire.

[96] Fuck Angus Khan.

[97] Fuck all those other people.

[98] those amateurs that came before us.

[99] This is the nuttyest empire that's ever existed.

[100] How could you ever pull, how do you pull that back?

[101] Look what's going on in Iraq right now.

[102] This void that is being filled now by these jihadists once we're pulling out the American troops and the Iraqis are being inundated with these various terrorist groups, this ISIS organization, and it's scary stuff.

[103] when you see what happens when the predominant power, military power in the area, pulls out, and then it's left this vacuum and this power struggle.

[104] What is the solution?

[105] Well, I mean, you first have to look back at the root cause of it all, and the root cause was we drew up fictitious, we, the West, not just the U .S., but we the West drove.

[106] Not me, buddy.

[107] I wasn't involved.

[108] Yeah, me there.

[109] So we drew up fictitious borders, and we said here, basically said the three different people, you know, the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shias, Here's a country.

[110] We're going to draw the boarders now coexist and get along in Kumbayar.

[111] What happens, of course, it's those three, you know, three different, you know, sectarian sex can't get along.

[112] So you needed a hard man, a dictator to keep the people suppressed and control.

[113] So it leaves internal strife out.

[114] Remove him like we did and then not replace it with a suitable alternative leaves this massive power vacuum.

[115] And that's why we have the situation where we're today where we have all out civil war.

[116] So is the solution?

[117] Do you continue having a hard -line dictator like Saddam Hussein, which was, you know, obviously, you know, a brutal, oppressive guy?

[118] Or do you just withdraw?

[119] Obviously, there has to be a midpoint where it has to be a political solution, and that's the only way out of this.

[120] A political solution, though.

[121] But how do you organize a political solution when you're faced with these overwhelming numbers of jihadists and people blowing themselves up?

[122] And the Sunnis versus the Shias is the whole place is just overrun with turmoil.

[123] I mean, how does that ever become a political solution?

[124] That seems like just a phrase that you can use.

[125] We need a political solution.

[126] But what does that really mean?

[127] I mean, the only way forward, the only answer to this is you draw Iraq up in the three different countries.

[128] But America will never allow that because you'll end up with the Kurds being a proxy state to Turkey.

[129] will end up being the Shia majority in the South being a proxy state of Iran.

[130] Saudi Arabia will never allow that because they're our ally.

[131] Iran, which is our natural ally for the wrong reasons, but they are our natural ally.

[132] The U .S. will never allow that either.

[133] So the workable solution is three different states, but America is never going to allow that that happens.

[134] So this is a massive shitstorm.

[135] A huge shit storm.

[136] Did you see the recent interview with Dick Cheney where he said that his number one regret was that he didn't invade Iran at the same time as Iraq?

[137] That motherfucker is made out of pure evil.

[138] They need to scrape that guy and put him in a test tube and find out.

[139] He might not even be human.

[140] I think he's part, you know, Sif.

[141] He's a demon.

[142] He's a demon.

[143] I mean, when he didn't have a heartbeat, remember that?

[144] Yeah, yeah.

[145] When he had that fake heart, you know, artificial heart that was keeping him from having a heartbeat.

[146] He had no pulse.

[147] Isn't that in the Bible somewhere?

[148] I mean, I guarantee you there's a religious.

[149] text somewhere about a war monger, someone who brings death and destruction through the land, he has no pulse, his heart beateth not.

[150] I mean, that was a Goliath, I think.

[151] A guy who deferred from the Vietnam War, five times, five times, yeah, five times, was never drafted, figured out a way to weasel his way out of the system, got to a position where he runs a company that what they profit off of is rebuilding things that the military blows up.

[152] They get these giant contracts to rebuild places that the United States military blows up.

[153] And then he becomes the vice -fucking president of the United States and starts blowing shit up.

[154] And then they start making money.

[155] And he starts making money from the company that he used to be a part of.

[156] Pure evil.

[157] It's unbelievable.

[158] And this is something I write about a lot is, you know, America, what America is today is a corporate totalitarian state.

[159] And how the difference is a great book by, you know, Democracy Incorporated by Sheldon Wallen, who was a Harvard, or I think may still be a Harvard professor.

[160] And he says in the classical totalitarian state, something like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, you have a charismatic figure at the top.

[161] And it's where, in a classical totalitarian state, it's where politics trumps economics.

[162] In inverted totalitarianism, like we have United States, economics, trumps politics.

[163] Now, everything has been sold to the highest bitter in this country.

[164] So corporations run anything, And you've touched on such a good point with Halliburton.

[165] Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars and so forth, I'm a huge fan of.

[166] He spoke in a length how at the height of our occupation in Afghanistan, we had a total of 250 ,000 men on the ground in Afghanistan.

[167] Only something like 45 ,000 Americans, 45 % of that footprint was actual American military force.

[168] The rest are corporate contractors, whether it's for food delivery.

[169] where it's for arms supplying, medical or whatever, or infrastructure rebuilding.

[170] So when you have corporations who profit from war and you have a political class in Washington who only is totally 100 % beholden to these corporations, we now live in a country where wars are for profit.

[171] That's how, and we'll make our decisions based on what's profitable and not in the interest of national security or the American population.

[172] The wars are for profit and also the wars become a business.

[173] that you can't, you can't just end.

[174] You can't just end that business because then you take people out of work.

[175] I've heard that argued about the war on drugs.

[176] It's one of the best arguments about the reason why there's so many lobbyists against legalizing marijuana.

[177] When you look at the actual health risks of marijuana being so minimal and the actual medical benefits that you have for people that have cancer and AIDS, there's so many different ways you can use it.

[178] Like the idea that this isn't something that someone's decided to like, hey, well, we can use this for people and people can benefit.

[179] Why isn't it?

[180] Well, one of the big ones is because there's a whole business and arresting people and prisoning people, making sure that prison guards stay working, making sure that prisons stay filled, making sure that sheriffs, they need a certain amount of sheriffs, need a certain amount of deputies.

[181] Like, there's a whole business behind that.

[182] And people have to recognize that when you change a law, sort of just like what's going on in Iraq right now, where there's this giant void when we pulled out of Iraq, if you just cut the ties on all these laws and say, look, this is all legal now, All you guys that were arresting people for all this shit, you're going to have to find some new shit to do.

[183] There's going to be a mad scramble, and they're going to have to figure out some new way to profit.

[184] Well, that's the situation that we're in right now with war.

[185] The amount of money that's coming in from war is staggering.

[186] The percentage of our economy that's dedicated just to war is substantial.

[187] It's far greater than many, many other things that would be very important.

[188] inner city restoration, you know, education, public education.

[189] I mean, the amount of money that's being spent on tanks and missiles and fucking just feeding troops and sending people over there and then contractors like Halliburton that are fixed.

[190] This is the just amazing amounts of money that's flowing back and forth.

[191] And to cut that off, it's like you've got so much momentum and entropy.

[192] It's like, how do you stop that?

[193] Well, I mean, you've just talked about, you talk about our incarceration problem or our prison problem this country.

[194] again, that's another part of the corporate totalitarian state.

[195] Now, you take a poor person, a poor black guy on the streets.

[196] What is he worth to the corporations?

[197] He has no money.

[198] He's not going to spend his money at Walmart or Macy's or whatever.

[199] He has nothing.

[200] But to put that poor black minority person into a prison, all of a sudden these private prison organizations will make $50 ,000 per year out of taxpayer money for him being in prison for a nonviolent crime.

[201] So when we're trying to dismantle and find solutions, you've got, that's the kind of headwinds that you're running against.

[202] There's too much influence to the corporations over the political structure.

[203] We can have these conversations all day, right?

[204] Yeah.

[205] But what possible solutions can be offered?

[206] C .J. Wutherman, if you were the president in the United States, you can't be and weren't born here.

[207] You got a weird accent.

[208] It was good enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger for California.

[209] Well, it's probably good enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger before he fucked his maid to be the president.

[210] She wasn't even hot.

[211] God, man. He's an animal.

[212] He's just one of those guys.

[213] He's just one of those guys.

[214] He's a chick around him.

[215] He'll fuck her.

[216] But I think if you had, you know, if you had a position where they said, look, man, you seem like a reasonable guy, you've written some great books, run this thing.

[217] Well, I mean, the solution for America and this stops me from getting booked on a lot of shows is the solution is socialism.

[218] I mean, and you said it.

[219] You said it.

[220] You said the bad word, bro.

[221] The fuck, you're trying to take everybody's money.

[222] It's like saying the C word.

[223] Redistribution of wealth.

[224] I know.

[225] Envy of the rich.

[226] that's all that sort of stuff.

[227] But, you know, Americans, you know, nowhere in the Western world is the socialism or is the S word more, you know, associated with demagoguery than here.

[228] I mean, you say socialism and American thinks of Stalinist, Russia, or East Germany.

[229] When I hear the word socialism, I think of the country I'm from Australia, or I think of Canada to a lesser extent, and I think of all of Western Europe.

[230] Socialism doesn't mean the absence of capitalism.

[231] It means where, you know, basic human rights are catered for in a structure which is paid for by the rich and the corporations.

[232] What we have in America is, you know, you've got corporations paying the lowest tax contribution to the federal government in U .S. history.

[233] Republicans will defend it and say, oh, but our corporate tax rate is 35%.

[234] It is that on paper.

[235] The effective rate, after all the loopholes, after all the deductions, all the loopholes have actually been written in Washington by these pro -corporate lobbyists, the effective rate is 12%, which makes it the lowest amongst all OECD countries.

[236] And that's the reason why America doesn't have nice things, like bridges, high stuff.

[237] That's why we can't have nice things.

[238] Like, you know, high -speed rail.

[239] I mean, you know, look, America today looks like a third world country.

[240] I've spent 10 years of my life in Indonesia, the last 10 years before I moved here.

[241] America basically looks like Bangladesh with white people.

[242] You know, it really does.

[243] Nothing works.

[244] Our high schools are falling apart.

[245] Our rail is running off its tracks.

[246] Our bridges are collapsing in the water below them.

[247] Not one U .S. city is ranked in the top 20 most livable cities in the world.

[248] Not one U .S. airport is ranked in the top 100 airports in the world.

[249] And that's because we're...

[250] Is that true?

[251] Yeah, that's true.

[252] And it's because we have no...

[253] We've starved the federal government the revenue it needs to build a happy society.

[254] You go to Europe, and I'm always staggered by my hardcore conservative friends, or debates I have online or in interviews on radio panels and so forth.

[255] And, you know, I hear conservatives come back from Europe and get, God, I had a lovely holiday.

[256] It's so nice there.

[257] you'd just see no poverty.

[258] The public transport work, you know, works like, you know, can set your watch to it, you know, and, you go, well, you know, you wonder why?

[259] Because they have a state where corporations are paying their fair share.

[260] In Germany, which hit, you know, economic hard times at the same time we did in 2008, their economy is booming because they have a good blend of social democracy and capitalism.

[261] They made a law in Germany where if you have a company of more than 50 employees, at least 50 percent of your board, must be represented by the working force.

[262] So the working force, 50 % of your board.

[263] Must be elected by 50 % of the labor force in that company.

[264] Oh, okay.

[265] So the folks that work, whatever you make, a long line, they have a vote.

[266] So half of them have to be elected by those people, so they have to represent the needs and wants of the people that work for that company.

[267] Exactly.

[268] That's fascinating.

[269] And Germany's booming.

[270] It hasn't stifle of Germany's birth.

[271] But the opposite of the American way at the moment is still trickle -down, And you look at Kansas, Kansas, which is basically a laboratory for Tea Party, hardcore conservative thinking.

[272] They put the most aggressive tax cuts on the rich that we've seen in the last 20 or 30 years, total reaganomics in 2010, now got a $338 million budget, you know, a blowout.

[273] And now we can have to cut education and services to the poor and safety wealth net, because they've got this budget hole that they can't explain.

[274] Now, I'll tell you how you fucking explain it.

[275] You just took a massive cut to the rich in corporations and nothing comes back for it.

[276] Well, there is definitely a real problem in America with when you were talking about the corporations paying a small amount of taxes and then you look at like the infrastructure.

[277] The infrastructures, there's some shaky spots in this country, especially like New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge just had a giant collapse recently.

[278] You see that?

[279] Yeah.

[280] There's some big chunk of it just fell down.

[281] Like, yeah, you got to fix that fucking thing, man. Like how much, where's all that money going?

[282] especially when you consider like in New York they they have to pay tolls everywhere like every time you go somewhere what is it like seven bucks or nine bucks yeah I think we looked up as like seven fifty eight seven five seven dollars and fifty cents I mean that's that's lunch somewhere and you got to pay that every time you drive across a spot and you and I have to pay for that or the people in the middle class in New Jersey have to pay for that and that's because the wealthy aren't paying their share of taxes in that state so the middle class the ones who get lumped with a tax bill isn't it fascinating that when you start talking about this kind of stuff, you start talking about socialism, that the rich pay their share, the big resistance seems to come from a lot of poor conservative people.

[283] When the big resistance to socialism comes from these people that, I don't know if it's like they have this idea in their hand that one day they're going to be prosperous, so they don't want you mucket it up for their chances.

[284] Yeah.

[285] But I've found this quite fascinating that one of the big resistances to the ideas of communism or the ideas of socialism.

[286] And these are just ideas, just bringing them up.

[287] But a knee -jerk reaction comes from the lower middle -class or middle -class conservative folks.

[288] Yeah, I mean, what John Steinbeck said at best, he said, you know, Americans are temporarily embarrassed millionaires in waiting.

[289] That's hilarious.

[290] That's hilarious.

[291] Everyone in this country thinks we're going to be rich.

[292] You know, that's that individual ruggedism, which Americans believe in and it's very hard to break that.

[293] You've got the working class in these red belt states which are voting for a party which exclusively is only benefiting the top 1%.

[294] You've got, I mean, how does a poor person in say Mississippi or Alabama pull the lever for the Republican Party who has blocked the expansion of Medicaid, basically block the expansion of universal healthcare one of the biggest predicators of poverty is your access to healthcare.

[295] If you don't have it, you're destined for poverty.

[296] And they vote against that, only because they say Jesus a few times before they go to the polls, and hallelujah.

[297] You know, you're just wanting yourself a vote.

[298] And a lot of folks don't realize that that all started with Reagan.

[299] Reagan changed politics in America with his embracing of the religious right and using them as a political base, as a base of people you can guarantee you're going to vote for you if you start talking Jesus.

[300] Yeah.

[301] I mean, Reagan morally and financially banked up this country.

[302] Not only did he bankedroped his country with trickle -down economics fiscally, but he also...

[303] He also banked up this country because he taught Americans a whole generation of Americans how to hate the poor.

[304] And that's where we are today.

[305] That's why it's so easy for people on the right to cut veterans benefits, cut food stamps and so forth because it comes down to that Christian, you know, welfare, that prosperity theology.

[306] If you're rich, even though Jesus was a Marxist before Marxism had a name, If it rich, it means Jesus has bestowed great wealth on you because you're honorable and you're your payous.

[307] But if you're poor, it means you must be a sinner.

[308] And if we're of the blacks and Hispanics are poor, it means Jesus hates them.

[309] So be damned with him.

[310] What about poor white people?

[311] Jesus loves them.

[312] He loves them, but they still need to fend for themselves.

[313] Because ironically, they get their philosophy from Iron Rand, who is an atheist.

[314] Oh, Iron Rand.

[315] That's a hilarious one.

[316] The Iron Rand one is a really interesting one because that's one that the libertarians seem to cling to and the pull them up by your bootstraps, pull themselves up by their bootstraps attitude that, you know.

[317] It's easy to think like Iron Rann if you're born into a privileged white neighborhood area and go, everyone's got an equal shot.

[318] What are you talking about?

[319] Yeah, I love Canada.

[320] And any ideas that anybody has against what you're talking about, like socialized medicine, it's not the best in Canada.

[321] Like, I have friends that live up there.

[322] And they say, like, they've hurt their knee and had to wait 10 months to get a surgery.

[323] And that sucks.

[324] That's not cool.

[325] But they're nice as fuck.

[326] They're educated as fuck.

[327] Education is free.

[328] You get good universities all over the country that are pretty much commensurate.

[329] So you don't have this thing where you have to fly all the way to New York to go to NYU or go to Boulder to go to...

[330] You know, you can go to a neighborhood university and you're going to get an excellent education.

[331] It's a different sort of an environment up there.

[332] Well, and that's a problem because we've capitalized and privatized the education system to hear such a degree.

[333] I mean, if you get a degree in Australia, whether it's Macquarie University or Sydney University or University of New South Wales, an MBA at one of those schools is exactly same as an MBA than one of those schools.

[334] Here, you know, not only does an MBA matter, but also then it has to be from the right school.

[335] So an MBA from Harvard or an Ivy League school is Trump's an MBA from University of San Diego or something like.

[336] like that and that shouldn't be the way and in fact what that does it still keeps propelling that plutocracy because there was a study done that at least for every student at Harvard each student in Harvard has at least one parent earning at least $400 ,000 per year so we're still you know with the capitalization of everything we're forming a system where we have you know they're very wealthy at the top and we have everybody struggling at the bottom that the elitism involved in education is really fascinating to me today especially because there's so much access to information so many books so much online so much to read and just you can get so much access to information that would you know a long time ago the difference between going to Harvard and going to san diego state was pretty gigantic but with what you have access to today the average person has access to the exact same information that they're teaching at any school anywhere yeah but i had a conversation with a friend of mine and uh he was wrong about something and I brought up this woman who had, you know, she had went to the University of Mississippi, but she went there and this was her major, like this thing that we were talking about.

[337] And he goes, well, this guy went to Yale.

[338] You know, I go, but he didn't even go to Yale for that.

[339] He went to Yale for something else, and he's 80.

[340] Okay, so he went to Yale in, like, the 1960s.

[341] Who knows what the fuck they were teaching back then?

[342] Like, what are you talking about, man?

[343] You know, like, but his first initial reaction was, look, she went to the University of Mississippi.

[344] He went to Yale.

[345] I'm like, oh, that's hilarious.

[346] But that is the way we think in this country.

[347] It is.

[348] And also, not only is the way we think, but, you know, these kids that are going to MIT or Harvard or Yale, well, it's the networks they take with them.

[349] So when the jobs are available, you know, the only growth area that we have in this country is the technology jobs, but that's such an insular job market where only the networks, the alumni from these prestigious schools get to really apply from it.

[350] All the kids working at Google, they all want today's, you know, fancy schools that could be afforded by their wealthy parents.

[351] Yeah, that's kind of creepy.

[352] That, that, the elitism of months education, I think, is kind of creepy.

[353] And it's also creepy that you, you wind up having these, like, skull and bones type organizations where all these people inside these, you know, George Bush.

[354] Yeah, these fraternities and John Kerry, you know, they, they get into these fraternistic groups, these, you know, very insulated groups, and they, they feed off of each other.

[355] and they, you know, they become very nepotistic, and they help each other in business, and they form these little teams together.

[356] I found it in sitcoms.

[357] In sitcoms, it was fascinating that a lot of the writers had went to Harvard.

[358] They worked for the Lampoon, and, like, they would recruit other guys from Harvard.

[359] And those were the guys that they wanted to hire as writers.

[360] And I was like, that is really fascinating.

[361] Like, you guys all went to this little club together, so, you know, you're feeding off each other.

[362] Yeah, and then meanwhile, I get in front of the camera and say, I did it all myself.

[363] I'm self -made, you know, so.

[364] At this point, there is no self -made, you know.

[365] Yeah.

[366] There's, we, I, one of the things that Obama made a critical blunder with was this whole, you didn't do that yourself.

[367] You didn't build that.

[368] Yeah, if you made your own business, you didn't build that.

[369] I thought it was a huge blunder because instead of celebrating, you know, someone who does innovate and create their own business and get out there and do it, instead of, you know, saying this is a great thing and more people can do this and more people can contribute, Instead, he kind of focused on the negative aspect of it.

[370] Instead of saying something along the lines of, I think it could have, look, I couldn't imagine what the workload of a guy like Obama is.

[371] You know, how much time does he have to actually consider every chess move that he makes, everything that he says, how it's going to be interpreted, how it's going to be twisted and turned.

[372] But that was a big blunder, because it seemed like an obvious checkmate move.

[373] He was actually that the year didn't build, it was taken a little bit out of context because the full transcripts, of that he muddled the punchline basically he was channeling elizabeth warren who had given a speech earlier on that and basically saying you know the universities which taught those kids you didn't build that the roads which you're taking the trucks on and using transport to deliver your goods to market you didn't build that um and the bridges and so forth and he met he messed up the execution of the point and then it was caught on basically meant every entrepreneur in america you didn't built your business, but that certainly wasn't the message.

[374] But even saying it in that fashion, saying you didn't make those roads, duh, yeah, duh, yeah, everybody knows that, man. Like, why concentrate on that?

[375] Why not say, but, you know, you did a great thing.

[376] You created your own business.

[377] But in order for that business to prosper, we need the infrastructure that all of us are contributing to.

[378] We need the educational system that is going to bring up the new workers that are going to be a part of your company.

[379] We need the roads.

[380] are going to try we need all these things we all work together but you you understand that Joe and you know because you're literate on politics but people like libertarians and these crazy right when Republicans they don't understand that they think these bridges and roads and infrastructure comes from thin air they believe that you know actually libertarian they believe the tax rate should be almost zero you know and the corporations will provide everything my only problem with taxes is that I feel like most people that are in positions of government like I just feel like the system that we have currently set up is so inherently flawed that throwing more money on it is just going to make a larger bureaucracy, going to make more jobs, more regulations, more people, and that whole system that sort of feeds off of the money, like we were talking about with private prisons or we were talking about with prison guards and keeping drugs illegal in order to feed this machine.

[381] When you make the business of government larger and larger, I don't necessarily think that's the best way to fix the problems that we have.

[382] I don't necessarily think that I've had this argument with friends that are very liberal, that we just need higher tax rates.

[383] And I'm like, no, then you're going to have more government.

[384] And I don't think more government is the answer.

[385] I don't think more regulations, more people, more things, more forms you have to fill out, more people that are in some strange office somewhere that have to justify their existence.

[386] I don't necessarily think that's the answer.

[387] I think it has to be some sort of a top -down organization, reorganization of the very structure that this society operates under.

[388] Because right now it's this foundation of this unfixable bullshit.

[389] It's so flawed that just throwing money at it is like putting gum on a breaking dam.

[390] It's like you need more than that.

[391] You need some sort of a comprehensive philosophy.

[392] designed to reconstruct this whole situation from the bottom, up, from the top down, the whole thing.

[393] Exactly.

[394] And, you know, I would argue that, you know, the way you rebuilt the economy is the opposite of every conservative politics or economics.

[395] How do you build economy?

[396] And I'm not an economist, but I listened very intuitively to people like, you know, Robert Reich or Jared Bernstein or Paul Krugman, guys who are Nobel laureate, you know, economists in their own right.

[397] And the reason the American economy isn't growing, despite the fact that we have record numbers on Wall Street, despite the fact that the official unemployment rate is falling.

[398] The unemployment rating is falling, but not with jobs that pay well.

[399] It's always these service paid jobs and so forth.

[400] What's happening is we're not having shared prosperity.

[401] You know, we have the minimum wage level, which is below the 1969 level.

[402] The middle class income has stagnated and has fallen since 1979.

[403] So while you have corporations today sitting on record three trillion dollar profit, that productivity isn't being shared with the American worker.

[404] And when it isn't being shared with the American worker, we live in a consumer economy now.

[405] We no longer make stuff.

[406] Our economy is basically financial services and military.

[407] So when it comes to financial services, instead of making products, we make stuff up.

[408] So if we have a consumer economy and we recognize that, then the middle class and the working class needs more to spend.

[409] And the only way you can do that is you lessen the tax burden at the bottom and you increase the tax burden at the top.

[410] So consumers have more to spend.

[411] And the only reason these corporations, despite their record profits, aren't hiring, is because there's no consumer demand.

[412] What do you say to the argument that the corporations shouldn't have to pay profits because they're not people?

[413] The idea that they shouldn't have to pay taxes, that the people in the corporation pay taxes.

[414] So the corporations themselves, should not have to pay taxes.

[415] Yeah, that's, I mean, that's just absurd.

[416] I mean, these corporations benefit from our airports, our bridges, our roads, our transport, you name our rail networks, interstate highway systems, you know, R &D technology, you name it.

[417] But the people that are in the corporation already do pay taxes.

[418] I'm going all Peter Schiff on you right now.

[419] Right?

[420] I see where you're going.

[421] The people that are in, the corporation is just a group of people.

[422] Now, if all the group of people, all pay taxes, the idea that.

[423] that the corporation itself, this unit has to pay taxes on top of that, isn't that sort of justifying this notion that a corporation is a person, that a corporation is like an individual, which is one of the things that they've used to justify corporations being able to contribute vast sums of money to political campaigns, that a corporation, like the Supreme Court has ruled this, that a corporation can sort of act as an individual in that regard.

[424] I mean, we need to move away from that.

[425] That whole line of thinking.

[426] I mean, this Supreme Court is, you know, basically radicals in robes.

[427] And, you know, since Reagan, I mean, you know, it's been a conservative -dominated court for the last three decades.

[428] I mean, we haven't had a liberal judge appointed to the bench since LBJ.

[429] Who is the guy that's in the Supreme Court that said that pedophilia, that, no, having sex with a man is just like having sex with no different than having sex with an animal?

[430] Yeah, not Alito, the other guy, the big fat guy.

[431] Scalia?

[432] Scalia.

[433] What the fuck, man. You're a Supreme Court judge.

[434] It's like, he said, what did he say that if a man wants to have sex with a man, what's to stop him from one and have sex with an animal?

[435] Is that next?

[436] That's exactly what I said.

[437] Whoa, son, for real.

[438] I mean, you don't think that people are gay?

[439] I mean, you don't think that people are born.

[440] I mean, do you know anybody?

[441] Like, how could you say that?

[442] I mean, I've got a lot of gay friends on that.

[443] I know that sounds like, you know, one of his guys says he got a lot of black friends.

[444] And right before a good black joke.

[445] But I do have a lot of gay friends, and I've been to very gay parties, and I can tell you straight up that not one of my gay friends has said, man, I just pounded some ass, and I can't wait to pound your dog.

[446] There's the next logical step.

[447] Well, there's no denying that there are certain people that are fucked up, and they do have sex with animals.

[448] But, you know, that...

[449] I was young.

[450] I'm not sure if that's the same.

[451] And I don't think that you should be.

[452] allowed to be a fucking Supreme Court judge, if those are the sort of connections that you're making.

[453] I mean, the five conservative judges on their Supreme Court are all Catholics.

[454] I mean, that's fine.

[455] I've got no problem with that.

[456] But that means that...

[457] I got a problem with it.

[458] The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, but you've basically got five out of the nine representatives on that bench who appealed to a higher authority, which is the Vatican and the Pope.

[459] So, I mean, remember when JFK, I mean, you and I probably too young for...

[460] Definitely too young when JFK was elected, But when JFK's campaign in 1960, the biggest issue against him was the fact he was a Catholic because Americans were worried that he would have to answer to somebody outside of the United States.

[461] And, well, we have that situation today, but no one seems to want to talk about it.

[462] Yeah, that is a fascinating thing that at one point in time that was a detriment that him being a Catholic was thought to be like a knock.

[463] Meanwhile, we almost had a fucking Mormon in the president.

[464] And no one wanted to talk.

[465] Mitt Romney said, my Mormonism is off the table.

[466] And the media went, oh, okay.

[467] How the fuck is your Mormonism off the table?

[468] Why didn't one person in the media say, do you still believe that in the Mormon heaven, black people will be your servants?

[469] I mean, why isn't that a valid question?

[470] Do you still believe that you get your own planet when you die?

[471] Yeah, and do you believe Jesus, when he inevitably returns, it'll be to Missouri?

[472] Yeah, and do you believe that the American Indians were actually the lost tribe of Israel?

[473] There's a lot.

[474] Why didn't anyone ask you that?

[475] Because he said it's off the table.

[476] Do you believe that Joseph Smith, who was a fucking con man convicted fraud yeah who found golden tablets at the age of 14 but they mysteriously disappeared because the angels took them away yeah I would have been happy if Joseph Miff was convicted for you know convicted for having sex with an animal or stealing something but he was convicted for fraud the very thing that he's trying to defraud the American public with so and it's really funny that the Mormon church this the sect of the Mormon church that Romney was involved with was so radical that they moved to Mexico in the 1800s in order to keep having sex with multiple women.

[477] They wanted to have multiple brides.

[478] Like, you know, the United States said, hey, like, you can't marry fucking 20 chicks.

[479] Cut the shit.

[480] And so they go, fuck you, man, we're going to Mexico.

[481] And they went to Mexico back when it didn't matter.

[482] Because it didn't matter.

[483] The difference in the United States and Mexico before there was cars, wasn't that great.

[484] You know, Mexico was like Arizona.

[485] Just get down there.

[486] It's no big deal.

[487] We'll be in Mexico.

[488] We'll see you over there.

[489] You want to come visit us, get on a horse.

[490] You know, but then all of a sudden, at some point in time, like America became America and Mexico became what it is today and like, these fuckers are still over there.

[491] People don't really, the Romney Church, they still, they're still over there.

[492] Romney's dad was born in Mexico.

[493] That's why he couldn't be a president.

[494] And no one asked for a Romney's birth certificate.

[495] It's off the table.

[496] It's off the table.

[497] My Mormonism, my faith is off the table.

[498] When my dad was born, untouchable.

[499] Five guys in the Supreme Court Catholic and the head Catholic guy who I like, I like this new pope.

[500] I think if you wanted to have a pope, This guy is the best you could hope for.

[501] He has a very conservative chair that he sits in.

[502] He got rid of that crazy throne.

[503] He doesn't drive the Pope -Mobile anymore.

[504] He said, look, in my age, I have very little to lose.

[505] If someone wants to take me out, here I am.

[506] And he also said that he believes that 2 % of Catholic priests are gay or pedophiles.

[507] But he hasn't interviewed the other 98 % yet.

[508] But how crazy is that?

[509] Two percent are pedophiles, right?

[510] Yeah.

[511] Well, I mean, I'm with you.

[512] I actually wrote a piece for Salon on the new Pope.

[513] And that I wasn't my headline, but the headline Salon put was the lesson atheists can learn from Pope Francis.

[514] And I mean, he's very progressive.

[515] I like the fact that he's denounced trickle -down economics.

[516] He's called it an abject failure.

[517] He's talked about the poverty.

[518] This is inflicted upon all countries around the world.

[519] He's talked about the failure of globalization and so forth.

[520] Yeah, I think, you know, we still have to remember that he hasn't, you know, denounced you know bigotry against gays I mean you know and so forth he hasn't and he's still he's just starting on their their child rape factor but yeah I mean there's certainly good points to be spoken about when it comes with Pope Francis certainly better than the the former Nazi who moved pedophiles around to different churches because he bust him giving head jobs to boys he was the worst he was the worst pope ever he was the scariest guy ever folks who don't know Pope Benedict the guy who was before Pope Francis was involved in a case where he moved a child molester who would actively target deaf kids and then he moved him and the guy molested a hundred more deaf kids after he moved him.

[521] I mean, this guy was just a predator.

[522] Yeah, it's an evil fuck.

[523] And the, you know, Pope Benedict, they've kind of cooled down off of what, you know, what charges people were rallying against him but they wanted to charge him with crimes against humanity.

[524] I mean, they wanted the Vatican itself is, the way the Vatican works is it's its own state correct?

[525] Like, they have their own Created by Mussolini.

[526] Damn, what that's the last bastion of fascism in Europe.

[527] They also own a gay bathhouse.

[528] You know that?

[529] There's a gay bathhouse that's owned, yeah.

[530] That's not Beliscarini's bathhouse, is it?

[531] Well, I'll pull it up.

[532] Hold on a second.

[533] Gay bathhouse Vatican.

[534] There was a big controversy.

[535] This is back when Homeboy was still the Pope.

[536] Right.

[537] Yeah, the Vatican plays landlords to Europe's biggest gay bathhouse.

[538] The Catholic Church paid $30 million to acquire a building that houses a senior cardinal, drum roll, and a huge gay sauna.

[539] This is on salon.

[540] You don't have pictures downloaded, do you?

[541] No, but I have that picture.

[542] That guy's awesome.

[543] God.

[544] Rat Singer.

[545] Rat Singer when he used to have that crazy golden throne.

[546] He looked like something right out of the fucking Lord of the Rings.

[547] I mean, he really did, right?

[548] With his conch.

[549] God, he's so sick looking.

[550] What an evil fuck, that guy.

[551] Yeah.

[552] There's another great.

[553] picture.

[554] I don't know if you've ever seen it of him.

[555] He's sitting there on his crazy throne and they had these gymnastics guys do some sort of crazy gymnastics demonstration in front of him with their little tights on.

[556] And he's sitting there watching this.

[557] I'm like, this, all the shit that this guy's accused with, you would think that he would want to be as far away from young men in tights as humanly possible.

[558] His PR consultant needs to be fired.

[559] Oh, they're so lost and dark and creepy and trying to adjust for all the years and years of evil that the Catholic Church is committed.

[560] What I like about the Catholic Church, and what you've got to say about is Pope Francis is the fact that it shows you exactly how man -made religion is, because, I mean, Pope Francis is basically coming along.

[561] He's trying to adjust religion to modernity.

[562] So he's basically just making the rules up as he goes to adjust it.

[563] You know, this is like via committee.

[564] Yeah, it's so crazy.

[565] Well, I mean, all of it is that way.

[566] I mean, the whole reason why they had to bring about this idea of purgatory was because they were trying to convert these pagans and like, oh, yeah, well, you know, you guys have the land of fate.

[567] We got something like that.

[568] We have this thing.

[569] If you're not totally good, you go to this place and you're in the kind of a waiting room.

[570] Yeah, same as circumcision.

[571] I mean, we're not trying to sell circumcision.

[572] The Jewish faith, too, which was a, you know, Christianity was rebranded in from, you know, Hebrewism, they go to the Romans, hey, we've got this new religion for you.

[573] The catch is you've got to cut off the tip of your penis.

[574] And the Romans are like, hey, wait, wait, what are you talking about?

[575] Christ.

[576] Yeah, yeah.

[577] Well, it's also the history of all of our major holidays.

[578] I mean, the reason why Christmas is celebrated during the winter solstice.

[579] That was because it was a pagan holiday.

[580] And they're like, what a coincidence.

[581] That's when our baby Jesus was born.

[582] No, no, he wasn't.

[583] If you pay attention to the Bible, he was born in the spring.

[584] It wasn't, it wasn't supposed to be born.

[585] then what are you guys doing you're fucking moving around the dates you guys are assholes they're trying to sell it it's what's it's hard to pay attention to that old shit in the first place because it's so difficult to decipher you're going from language to language and then on top of it you got a bunch of people monkeying with the dates to try to bring in other people you're messing up the whole thing man it just shows you like how ridiculous it is the idea that someone could have said something in stories and songs for a thousand years before they ever figured out how to write and then they started writing things down, and then they translated it from one language to another, back and forth, back and forth, but it's still 100 % correct, and definitely the Word of God.

[586] And you mean, you know, America's the most Western Christian nation on the world, and, you know, something like 85 % of Americans have no idea of that historical context of the Bible, how it came from Greek, and how it was translated by scribes, you know, and so forth.

[587] And these were stories told in the oral tradition, and where the Gospels came from and who they are, who they were, which we don't know.

[588] We, Americans just think that, you know, the Bible came down in perfect form from, you know, fell from the sky, and then, and that was it.

[589] Came from Jesus, and it's a lot of it.

[590] It's about gay folk.

[591] About gay folk and their desire to have sex with animals as well.

[592] Keep it away from my children.

[593] Keep it away from my children.

[594] Yeah, we got a strange world we live in, man. We've got a real strange world we live in when it comes to religion because they focus on certain aspects of the Bible, but ignore some of the most ridiculous ones.

[595] Like, you're not supposed to wear two different types of cloth together.

[596] Like, there's, you're not supposed to eat shellfish.

[597] You know, if you eat shellfish, you're going to hell.

[598] Do you know that?

[599] Yeah.

[600] Yeah, you can't go to red lobster, man. You're going to go to hell.

[601] You can't have a, you can't go to the oyster bar.

[602] You're going to rot in a fucking cave somewhere.

[603] You're a red lobster.

[604] You're fucked.

[605] Yeah, you're fucked.

[606] The whole play.

[607] Red lobster is just like the den of sodomy.

[608] It's a terrible place.

[609] In a matter of fact, it's more hated in the Bible.

[610] It's brought up more often.

[611] Well, it's fun, it was there a Barnard group study which showed, talked about a biblical illiteracy in America.

[612] And 25 % of Americans believe that Jonah Vak was Noah's wife.

[613] And 40 % of Americans believe Sodden Gamora were a married couple.

[614] Oh, God, that's hilarious.

[615] That asked for, you know, anal a little too often.

[616] Well, there's so few people that actually pay attention to the things that are in the Bible.

[617] Like, I have a friend who's pretty religious and he has a religious tattoo.

[618] And I'm like, dude, do you, you got to read the whole book.

[619] you can't you're not supposed to wear a tattoo yeah like you're supposed to have tattoos especially not religious tattoos having a religious tattoo if god does come back he's going to be like man you fucking miss the point totally it's on the same level as homosexuality yeah yeah it's not you're not supposed to get tattooed son okay you're fucking this whole thing up have you ever read or heard of the sacred mushroom in the cross no we haven't the oldest version of the bibles the dead sea scrolls and there was a guy named john marco allegro who was a forget where he went to school, Cambridge or Yale, whatever it was.

[620] He was a well -respected scholar, and he was one of the members that was deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[621] And he was the only one out of the whole group that was an agnostic.

[622] And it was because he was an ordained minister, but during his studies of religion, he realized that it's kind of horseshit.

[623] So he became agnostic, but because he was an ordained minister, he was still allowed to be on this.

[624] It wasn't a vocal agnostic.

[625] studied the Dead Sea Scrolls for over 14 years, and it was his conclusion after 14 years of translations that the entire Bible was a huge misunderstanding, the Christian religion was a huge misunderstanding, and it was really all about religious ceremonies that were based on the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals, and that all these ancient customs were hidden in parables to cover them up and hide them from the Romans.

[626] When they were captured and when they were in prison and killed, they would hire, they would cover up their ancient traditions of these consumptions of psychedelic mushrooms and these religious ecstasy that they, the religious ecstasy that they would achieve from eating these mushrooms.

[627] Yep.

[628] It was a fascinating, fascinating book.

[629] Well, I guess that lends to, what I say, you know, the book of Revelation is, you know, a cryptology book that's written in code to protect it from being interpreted by the Romans.

[630] Yeah.

[631] Yeah.

[632] He went to Oxford.

[633] That's where he went.

[634] He studied Hebrew dialects and it was a scholar of ancient languages and he wrote this book and it was very quickly bought up by the Catholic Church.

[635] The only way to get this book is you got to get an old copy of it.

[636] But in the 1970s when the book came out was very, very controversial.

[637] Now a guy named Jan Irvin has republished it through his family.

[638] He got permission to do it.

[639] Fascinating, fascinating book.

[640] There's also another book that he wrote that, He wrote a second book because the first book got bought out.

[641] The second book was the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth.

[642] And it was very, very controversial because of the fact that this guy was extremely educated and agnostic, very intelligent, very well respected.

[643] And rock -solid credentials.

[644] Like, you couldn't deny the things that he was saying.

[645] Those are the people that read his work.

[646] A lot of his strange conclusions were undeniably bizarre in the context of religion.

[647] Like, he traced back the word Christ to an ancient Sumerian word that meant a mushroom covered in God's semen, and that they believed that when it rained, this is, you know, you're talking six, 10 ,000 years ago, when it rained that was God coming on the earth and that these mushrooms that would appear out of nowhere underneath, it's really crazy because it was, it's all based on just a massive bucaki party.

[648] Yes, a giant bucocchi party of magic mushrooms.

[649] But it's a long story to get into.

[650] I've discussed it on this podcast before.

[651] The people that are listening right now and probably moaning, like, not again.

[652] But it's also connected to the ancient story of Santa Claus and Christmas because these mushrooms.

[653] Santa Claus is coming.

[654] Santa Claus is coming to town.

[655] These mushrooms have a micro -Raisal relationship with carniferous trees.

[656] So, like, you would find them underneath pine trees, which is where, you know, people always have pine trees as these Christmas trees, you know, fir trees, whatever.

[657] And these red and white mushrooms look like.

[658] like Santa Claus.

[659] You ever seen the Aminita Muscaria mushroom?

[660] Do you know what it is?

[661] No. The Aminita Muscaria mushroom is fucking Santa Claus.

[662] I mean...

[663] That's extraordinary.

[664] Yeah.

[665] It's...

[666] This is what it looks like.

[667] And all the ancient images of Christmas, cards, old Christmas cards.

[668] Jamie, see if you can find some old Christmas cards.

[669] They all used to have pictures of these mushrooms.

[670] There was elves and these mushrooms.

[671] And by the way, take mushrooms, It does happen, okay?

[672] It's fascinating that these mushrooms are connected to, and also the colors of the mushrooms are exactly the colors of Santa Claus, the red and white.

[673] The fact that you hang these stockings by the fireplace, like, why you have red and white stockings?

[674] What the fuck is that?

[675] Because that's how they dry out these mushrooms.

[676] The way they would dry out these mushrooms by hanging them over the fire.

[677] So these red and white mushrooms were representative.

[678] Look at this.

[679] These photos, see them up there?

[680] Those are all ancient Christmas cards.

[681] See the amnita muscaria mushroom appears over and over and over again, and all of these, it's kind of been lost.

[682] The symbology has been lost.

[683] But that is the same mushroom that's on the cover of the sacred mushroom and the cross.

[684] If you pull that up, Jamie, the book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, the John Marco Allegro book, it's all about this psychedelic mushroom, the Amnita Muscario, which is a very confusing mushroom because it apparently varies geographically.

[685] It varies genetically.

[686] That's the book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.

[687] same mushroom oh that's a must radio yeah I'm gonna go out of that and just an incredible sort of a connection but it totally makes sense if you think about it you're living 10 ,000 plus years ago you find these psychedelic mushrooms you eat them you have these intense religious ecstasy experiences and then the Romans are coming you fucking you you hide the stories you you come up with these parables that you can disguise the stories and the apple of Adam and Eve supposedly was this amnita muscaria mushroom.

[688] That is the word apple.

[689] There's very many translations for the word apple, but one of them is red, the color red, and the idea of the eating of the red, meaning the eating of this mushroom, this red mushroom.

[690] Oh, man, that's extraordinary.

[691] They were tripping balls, bro.

[692] They were all tripping balls and trying to write things down.

[693] And then along the way, it got, Keep my children away from the gays!

[694] And what is it that kept them from, you know, the original message?

[695] most likely is the absence of these psychedelic experiences, these ego -dissolving experiences, which are just forbidden from, you know, I mean, if you look at the modern Christians, I mean, what's the one thing that they keep the children away from the drugs, the drugs, the evil marijuana and all the things that are ruining our youth?

[696] No, what's ruining your youth is ignorance as to what you're teaching in the very first place.

[697] Like, what are the roots of what you're actually saying?

[698] Yeah.

[699] So few of them actually even know it.

[700] Oh, yeah, historical and contextual understanding of, the religion is so poor.

[701] It's so hard too.

[702] Yeah.

[703] I mean, a guy like Allegro, a guy studying this book for 14 years, that's the big thing is that's the oldest version of the Bible we know of.

[704] That's the oldest version of the Bible that's in Aramaic as well.

[705] So it's trying to add that to what people have just decided is the New Testament, which we all know was, was concocted by Constantine.

[706] They took a bunch of bishops and they threw some shit out and put some shit in.

[707] In the fourth century, well after Jesus and clearly the hand of man involved, clearly.

[708] And that always blows Christians away when you speak to him.

[709] And they believe that Matthew, Mark and Luke and John were eyewitnesses to Jesus' life.

[710] But Mark was the first gospel to write, and he wrote a good 40 to 50 years after Jesus had passed away.

[711] Matthew and Luke copied from Mark but used their own respective external sources 70 years after Jesus had passed away.

[712] and John wrote his gospel 100 years after the death of Jesus.

[713] So, you know, these stories were campfire stories passed down.

[714] And when you, it's interesting, one of my books, Jesus lied he was only human.

[715] I take the New Testament.

[716] And normally when you read the New Testament, you'll read, you know, Matthew, you read Mark and you read Matthew and then you read Luke and you're John.

[717] And if you hear what each of the Gospels has to write about each of the key moments in Jesus' life, wherever it's his birth, his baptism, you know, his ministry, his trust.

[718] Riley's execution, they kind of sound almost the same.

[719] But if you just focus on one story in Matthew, let's say it's his baptism.

[720] And then one story, and then on baptism in Luke, and then baptism Mark and so forth, you see how wildly these stories differ, you know, which almost have no resemblance at all when it comes to the facts and so forth.

[721] Not only that, that's a long fucking time ago.

[722] The idea that you're going to take anything from 2 ,000 years ago.

[723] and it's going to make any sense whatsoever in 2014.

[724] Just piecing it together, the idea that that's the foundation of the very structure of your society.

[725] That's the foundation of your ideology.

[726] That's the foundation of your morals.

[727] It's all based on this 2 ,000 -plus -year -old garbled shit and not based on what we know today, the experiences that we have today, what we know today about values and ethics and communication and the blowback of negative behavior that we're not trying to formulate our own new guidelines for life that we're all basing this on don't eat clams and don't get tattooed and don't fuck guys like all this crazy shit that's old as fuck and it was based on nonsense.

[728] You know, it's quite amazing the hold that it has today.

[729] And I think one of the best examples of one of the major problems that we have as a culture, and that's our fear.

[730] Our fear, our fear of the unknown, our fear of death, our fear of, you know, that we're not living our lives the wrong way.

[731] So if we have one particular ideology that we follow, anybody that follows another ideology is immediately attacked.

[732] And that goes for the people that are religious.

[733] Also, it goes to the people that are on the left, that attack without doubt anything that's on the right.

[734] It goes for the people that are on the right that attack anything that's on the right.

[735] left.

[736] It goes for fucking Yankees fans that hate the Dodgers.

[737] It goes for people who like Max, you know, those fucking PC guys are assholes.

[738] Like, we're weird with that.

[739] We don't, we want our choice to be the correct choice.

[740] We want our life.

[741] Exactly.

[742] And America is now, and polls will show this, America is more polarized today than it was on the eve of the Civil War.

[743] And whilst, was 20 or 30 years ago, we kind of all got our news from the same source.

[744] You know, there was CNN or wherever.

[745] Now, you know, the liberal camp and the conservative camp get their news from their own camps.

[746] It becomes an endless feedback loop of confirmation bias.

[747] And, you know, opposing forts and opposing opinions are taking no consideration.

[748] And that's why, you know, these political parties now, more so on the Republican side and more party of this Tea Party side, they've become a cult.

[749] They demand ideological purity.

[750] And if you're not ideological pure, I mean, Eric Cantor, their, you know, their majority representative in the house, was thrown out for not being conservative enough.

[751] Eric Cantor, not being conservative enough enough.

[752] What was it that he wasn't being conservative enough on?

[753] Immigration was the big thing.

[754] But, you know, I think Virginia's borders are well secured.

[755] That's a hike.

[756] It's a fucking hike from Mexico.

[757] Yeah.

[758] Why are you going to Virginia?

[759] What is so attractive?

[760] Yeah, we need a bigger build of war in the South Virginia.

[761] I like girls with that certain accent.

[762] Yeah, build a wall around Virginia.

[763] That's hilarious.

[764] Well, the immigration thing is one of the best examples of how this country is fucking crazy and insane is because it's a country that was founded by immigrants.

[765] So this idea that we're going to keep all the immigrants out of a country that was found by immigrants is holy shit crazy.

[766] I mean, that is not only that, it's evil.

[767] You've got a bunch of people that are living below you in the South that are in a third world country that's connected.

[768] Like, it's an artificial boundary created by man. It's not like it's across an ocean.

[769] Like, you have to get in a plane to get to Australia.

[770] Like, that's separate from America.

[771] And you guys are closer to us than Mexico.

[772] We're more concerned with the Australians than we are with the Mexicans.

[773] I mean, Mexicans are involved in some brutal fucking drug wars.

[774] They have terrible crime.

[775] They have terrible corruption.

[776] Mexico City is one of the most polluted cities on the planet as far as air pollution.

[777] It's terrifying that this is all right next to us, and these people are trying to flee to get out of this to get a better life.

[778] And we're like, fuck you, this is America.

[779] You can't even come over here.

[780] I know, I like how irony is lost on the right.

[781] I was watching a Sean Hannity piece, and he's talking about his immigration crisis.

[782] And he's got a headline to his piece was, trouble in the heartland, or defending the heart, sorry, it was defending the heartland.

[783] And the graphic he had for defending the heartland was a statue of liberty.

[784] I mean, which was a gift from France and promotes immigration.

[785] That is hilarious.

[786] That is hilarious.

[787] What's the writing on the Statue of Liberty?

[788] Sent us your poor huddled masses yearning debris three.

[789] Oh, God.

[790] And what gets me is the lack of introspection or navel gazing when it comes to this.

[791] It's our policies which have caused, these are really.

[792] refugees, they're not immigrants.

[793] These are refugees fleeing intolerable violent circumstances inflicted upon by policies, not only our draconian drug laws, rather, but also, you know, free trade.

[794] NAFTA, again, signed to law by Bill Clinton, displaced three to four million Mexican farmers alone by allowing American agribusiness to go down there, build up their monstrosity, you know, industrial farming complexes.

[795] to oversupply the market because of economy of scales with cheap food and cheap fruit and projects, sends these Mexicans off their farms, sends them into the urban areas, and then the only profitable business is drug running, and then with America's appetite for drugs like cocaine, which come from South America, you know, at a historical low, they're fighting over and for a smaller and smaller bit of market share, and that's why they become more violent and more tolerant trying to defend their smaller market share and turf in these places.

[796] So we've created the circumstances down there, and anyone who says, we shouldn't take a kid who travels that far through the desert on their own, they're to people you want.

[797] I mean, and we're not talking big numbers.

[798] We're talking 40 ,000.

[799] We've got a population of 350 million.

[800] If we can't take 40 ,000 kids who bust their nut to get across this in, you know, in hospitable terrain to make it in this country, well, give me them any day over somebody, you know, some white Confederate in the deep south.

[801] Yeah, well, you know, we're going to take them.

[802] America back.

[803] South's going to rise again.

[804] South's going to rise again.

[805] It's amazing, too, that they, you know, that Confederate flag thing, that's a fascinating one.

[806] The Confederate flag was representative of so many things to them and, you know, is pride, Southern pride, and all these different things.

[807] Maybe you guys should come up with a new flag.

[808] Like, maybe come up with one that doesn't have a swastika on it, you know?

[809] It's essentially what it's like for black people.

[810] That's what I like it so much.

[811] Because you imagine driving around if you're, you know, know, if somehow or another, you know, you find yourself in the deep south and you're a black person, you drive it around and you see these rebel flags everywhere, you would think of that a lot like a Jew would look at a swastika.

[812] I understand that the swastika meant a lot more than that.

[813] And at one point in time, it was actually like a symbol of prosperity and like this national pride.

[814] Yeah, I mean, the swastika at one point time was like, it was like this ancient symbol, maybe it was reversed, but it was used.

[815] It was stolen from the Hindus.

[816] Yeah, in certain types of martial arts.

[817] It was like old versions of karate.

[818] They had these swastikers.

[819] There's a Hindu temple that's near my house that I visited and they have a big sign up explaining why there's swastikas everywhere.

[820] Yeah.

[821] Well, we lived in Bali, Indonesia for a decade and when you drive around Bali, you see all these Hindu temples everywhere with a swastika, but it's actually in reverse.

[822] Right.

[823] But yeah, I mean, everything is, you know, mythologies are always borrowed and know, ideologies always borrowed from elsewhere and, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's fascinating that they cling to that goddamn flag.

[824] I get you like being from the South.

[825] That's cool.

[826] Well, the South has never gotten over losing the Civil War.

[827] They never, they're the worst runners up in, you know, in the history of sports, you know, and they'll never get over.

[828] You look at the Republican Party today, uh, you know, most, because the Republican Party is so monolithic, uh, such has a, a, um, monolithic control of the south, that affords the sovereign representation, the Republican Party in the most senior positions, you know, Eric Cantor's from Virginia, you know, Marco Rubio, you know, Mitch McConnell, you go down the line, they're all sovereigns.

[829] And, you know, the whole policy of blocking Obama is built around obstruction, nullification, and, you know, and that drives, you know, the thrust and parry of who they are as far as a reactionary party.

[830] It's also something that unites them, you know, unites them in this, this group that they have, you know, well, Southern pride, I'm a Southern boy, you Southern boy, I'm a Southern boy as well.

[831] Yeah.

[832] You know, this, this group, this is their own version of skull and bones, you know.

[833] Yeah, and when they say tack your country back, well, well, to where?

[834] And I'll leave us say to the pre -Civil War days, but they won't say that in public.

[835] But then what they want to take America back to is the 50s.

[836] That's their idea of the ideal America.

[837] But that was the era of big federal government with the FDR's New Deal and so far.

[838] off.

[839] Yeah.

[840] So, and that's when they had it good, when liberalism was on the march in America.

[841] Isn't that something that people always do, though?

[842] Don't they always, like, long for some day, long time ago when things made sense, you know?

[843] They long for, yeah, they have this nostalgia for the archaic.

[844] It's very common, right?

[845] Yeah.

[846] And oftentimes, like, ridiculously so.

[847] Like, I used to date this girl.

[848] She used to talk about, like, high school, about this amazing, like, high school was amazing.

[849] We were all young and free.

[850] I'm like, bitch you had zits everybody was mad at everybody like come on yeah you tell me 50 you got finger bang once and everybody got told the school about it yeah you didn't have bills back then must have been awesome come on you were living with your mom like fucking sucked yeah get out of here like you can't think like that like enjoy this moment this this moment is the best moment human beings have ever achieved i believe right now this is the greatest time to be alive the world has ever known yeah it's fraught with peril and all fucked up and economically completely out of whack but I still think this is the best time ever because information is being exchanged at a freer pace it's being exchanged at a faster pace it's being exchanged amongst people that have never been able to communicate before by translation software by just the fact that you have this internet that's allowing people to send messages and exchange information and ideas and communicate back and forth and influence each other in a way that's never been available before to anyone ever in the history of the human race.

[851] And if there's one thing that has separated us from the other animals in the world, it's our ability to communicate with each other.

[852] Well, our ability to communicate has never been better than it is right now.

[853] And I think there's a change that I've seen in my lifetime where people are moving towards more progressive ideas.

[854] I think a lot of this resistance that you're getting from this conservative party is this, you know, battening down the hatchet.

[855] is in trying to avoid this inevitable change.

[856] And I think this change, a lot of it comes from that, from this exchange of information, from understanding each other better.

[857] Well, I think we're seeing the death throws of that white minority politics in America.

[858] And as, and what we're going to see more dangerously is America, you know, it's the browning of America by year 2050.

[859] Browning?

[860] Yeah.

[861] By year 2050.

[862] Fear of a black planet.

[863] Is that what you're saying?

[864] Talking some Chuck D type shit here, man. The browning.

[865] Can you say brown?

[866] You allowed to say browning.

[867] I think so.

[868] You can't say, you can't say colored people, but you all have to say brownies?

[869] I don't say brownies.

[870] Brownies.

[871] Why is it brownie bad, but blacks?

[872] No, that's not bad thing.

[873] You can't say blacks.

[874] You can't say blacks.

[875] You can say black people, but you can't say black.

[876] I'm Australian.

[877] I don't know what I'm allowed to say.

[878] I don't know either.

[879] It changes all the time.

[880] But I mean, the browning of America by 2050, you know, the whites would be a minority in this country.

[881] In 2012, actually, that was the first year where white babies were.

[882] a less number, you know, we're outnumbered by black and brown bravy.

[883] So as we become browner, this white minority politic, this reactionary movement is going to become more aggressive, more frustrated because they don't feel like they have representation.

[884] And where terrorism starts, terrorism is a reactionary response to political weakness or political impotency.

[885] And we saw the shooters in Las Vegas, those two white extremists who shot those two police officers and the Walmart worker.

[886] If you read their manifesto, that's what the Tea Party manifesto...

[887] Which guys are these?

[888] Is this in the recent thing?

[889] Yeah, four weeks ago, six weeks ago.

[890] They walked into a pizzeria, shot two cops to death.

[891] In Vegas?

[892] Yeah, in Vegas.

[893] They had their Batman and Robin masks on, and then they shot themselves.

[894] I didn't even hear about this one.

[895] Yeah, really, yeah.

[896] No, it was national news.

[897] There's too many of those goddamn things.

[898] You're watching too much of that wrestling stuff.

[899] That's what it is.

[900] Too much of that wrestling stuff.

[901] I didn't even hear about that one, but what was their manifesto?

[902] Well, the manifesto was basically that, you know, whites are losing, white Christians are losing representation.

[903] America's been taken over by brown liberals, progressive, feminists, and so forth.

[904] So we're going to dress like Batman and shoot white folks.

[905] Yeah, we're going to take it out on cops and a Walmart worker and end up shooting themselves.

[906] But we're going to see more and more of this.

[907] And actually, New York Times had a great piece on it, the rise of hate or the data of hate.

[908] and the explosion of right -wing militia groups in this country is threatening.

[909] And the more they feel that they're the minority, and the more they start losing national elections, let's face it, the Republican Party is not going to win a presidential election for the next 20 years.

[910] In every demographic where every demographic in America, the Democrats are gaining market share.

[911] In every demographic in America, which is shrinking, the Republicans are gaining market share.

[912] So they're not going to win president elections.

[913] And that's why they're focused on gerrymandering these districts voter suppression.

[914] So trying to win that state level now.

[915] Is there a benefit other than socially?

[916] I do believe there's a social benefit to having liberals in office.

[917] I do believe that one thing that I think that Obama has done, I think there's a social benefit to having a guy like that in office.

[918] Well, there's a social benefit as long.

[919] Well, look, I'm critical of Obama because he's governed like a Clinton.

[920] He hasn't governed as a liberal at all.

[921] Name a liberal policy he's implemented.

[922] Obamacare, that was far from a liberal policy.

[923] A liberal policy, when they had unilateral control of the Senate and Congress, should have been universal health care.

[924] But he didn't even fight for universal health care, even though he campaigned for that.

[925] I would argue we haven't had a liberal president since Nixon.

[926] And Nixon didn't implement liberal policies because he was liberal or had a conscience or was moral.

[927] he was the last US president to be scared by liberals and there's a great story with Nixon when he's at the height of the anti -war movement and he's in the Oval Office and he has Henry Kissinger standing next to him and it's on the Nixon tapes and he turns to Henry Kissinger and says and all the White House is lined up with all these yellow buses of all the anti -war protesters and Nixon turns the Kissinger and says holy fuck man they're really going to storm the White House and take me drag me out this he really believed that and that's what you want the White House to feel like.

[928] You want the White House to feel like they're afraid of the people.

[929] You want politics and politicians in Washington to feel like they're afraid.

[930] And the problem is they're not afraid of the liberal class.

[931] And liberal class is dead.

[932] And they underscore that point is the popularity of Hillary Clinton.

[933] Hillary Clinton is just a brand.

[934] She stands for nothing.

[935] In 2008, she ran on no platform other than she was Hillary Clinton.

[936] She's going to run on the same platform because they believe they're not going to be against a once -in -a -lifetime candidate like they had in Barack Obama.

[937] So she's not going to stand for progress.

[938] Progressive of liberalism.

[939] Liberalism, there is no such thing in liberalism in America.

[940] There's no one fighting for universal health care.

[941] There's no one fighting for free education or anything like that or higher taxes on corporations and the rich.

[942] I mean, this is, you know, we live in an area where conservative politics trumps.

[943] Is there also a bottleneck in the two -party system, which is essentially what we have?

[944] I mean, you could say that there's a green party.

[945] You could say that there's a libertarian party all you want, but the reality is they don't get included into the debates.

[946] As soon as the debates get heavy, I mean, what they did to marginalize Ron Paul, who is a Republican, shows you what they do to anybody who doesn't play ball.

[947] I mean, what you saw, like, you would see him placing in polls, like, second and third, and they would ignore him and concentrate on who was fourth and fifth.

[948] I mean, that was what they did in the media to marginalize that guy, effectively to do so.

[949] What, isn't that the bottleneck?

[950] The bottleneck is that corporations are sponsoring these people.

[951] Corporations are sponsoring their campaigns, paying for their campaigns.

[952] Yeah.

[953] Massive donations.

[954] And then they have this agenda once they get into place to help these corporations that paid for them to get in there in the first place.

[955] Is that?

[956] That's the problem.

[957] You've hit a nail on the head.

[958] And the problem is, I don't say the problem as being the two -party system.

[959] I mean, in most Western democracies, you have a two -party system, Australia, the UK, and so forth.

[960] The problem is, but in Australia and the UK, you have public financing of elections.

[961] Here, it's the opposite.

[962] So our voices don't get heard.

[963] we don't you know politicians don't come out to visit you and I to come and visit and do these $30 ,000 per plate dinners and they listen to the 50 odd thousand lobbyists which in Washington and are paying their campaign finance so you know where there was 32 ,000 only a mere 32000 donors in the in the 2012 elections represented more to 99 % of all political donations in that campaign cycle so 0 .01 % of the population is don't only 99 % of the the campaign finance studies, two political parties.

[964] Until you get rid of that, you're going to have two political parties which represent the interests of corporations and not of the working or the middle class.

[965] Those numbers are crazy.

[966] Stop and think about that.

[967] I mean, everybody's fixated on the 1 % in this country, the 1%.

[968] It's 0 .01%.

[969] That's madness.

[970] That's madness.

[971] All the money's coming from them.

[972] Yep, that's it.

[973] I mean, so our $50 donation, who gives a fuck?

[974] Is there anybody that you see on the horizon?

[975] Is there any movement, any humans that you see that are really trying to implement some sort of a change that you think have a chance?

[976] Two.

[977] Well, two, but only one has a chance.

[978] Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

[979] If Elizabeth Warren wins, if Elizabeth Warren runs, she beats Hillary.

[980] And I'll tell you why.

[981] In 2008, it was a referendum on Iraq.

[982] Hillary Clinton, And the only, if Hillary Clinton had not voted for Iraq, she would have been a nominee, and she would be the president right now.

[983] The referendum in the Democratic primary selection in this cycle will be income inequality.

[984] On that, she will lose to Elizabeth Warren because of her associations to Wall Street, her husband's record in not being a progressive.

[985] Elizabeth Warren is a champion for the middle class, a champion for the working class.

[986] She wants to dismantle Wall Street.

[987] She wants to dismantle these financial debt products, which have, wrecked havoc on the American population, and these laws and regulations haven't been changed since we had the crash in 2008.

[988] We now stand on the precipice of repeating what happened on 2008.

[989] Nothing has changed, and she wants to fight for these causes, which will, you know, end the rigging of the game, so to speak.

[990] Bernie Sanders, I like him as well, but he has no chance in a national electorate.

[991] Elizabeth Warren could win the DNC nomination and also become president.

[992] Why does Bernie Sanders have no chance, and how do you think a woman's going to be president?

[993] Well, because, number one, Democrats yearn for a historic candidate, a woman.

[994] They already tried a black guy.

[995] Didn't work out so well.

[996] Let's go with a chick.

[997] Yeah, so we want another piece of historic moment.

[998] All the white men are all fucking around, their wives and shit.

[999] I want to catch those bitches as soon as they run for president.

[1000] They're all weiner in.

[1001] Yeah.

[1002] And Sanders, well, Sanders is too much of an open -shirted socialist.

[1003] identifies him a socialist and so I think the media and the Republican Party will be it'll be too easy for them to slay him with the S word whereas Elizabeth Warren has never mentioned the S word and is more of a populace than a socialist.

[1004] The S word.

[1005] The S word, is that unsurmountable?

[1006] I mean, is it possible that what you were talking about before that if you look at what's happening in Europe and you look at the benefits of socialism as far as Canada and some other countries, Australia, socialized medicine, socialized education.

[1007] Is it possible that that can be discussed in some sort of a way that's not going to knee -jerk turn people off in America?

[1008] Well, the problem is that you have a failed media class because the media class won't report the facts.

[1009] The media class, you know, a Republican gets on TV and says there's no such thing as gravity.

[1010] Then CNN says, well, we need to get a Democrat to speak and Democrat says gravity is real.

[1011] CNN says, look, Democrats and Republicans are fighting again.

[1012] You know, so you'll never have an honest fact -banks argument, and you'll never have the facts which are discussed.

[1013] Social democracies work.

[1014] Germany and these Western European countries have far less social income inequality than we do.

[1015] They also have happier people than we do.

[1016] On their World Happiness Index, the top 15 countries are all social democracies.

[1017] America rates is the richest country on the planet, it rates 17th on the World Happiness Index.

[1018] We rank behind Mexico.

[1019] So it won't be long before they build a wall down there to keep us out.

[1020] But that doesn't even make any sense.

[1021] If all the Mexicans are trying to get over here, but we're not as happy as them, that doesn't make any sense.

[1022] What is the world, what's the World Happiness Index?

[1023] And how's that even, no one's talked to me. Nobody interviewed me. I asked me. I'm not buying it.

[1024] You look pretty happy.

[1025] I'm a very happy person.

[1026] I don't get it.

[1027] Yeah.

[1028] Well, the World Happiness Index is measured on some metrics such as pollution, access to health care, access to education, gender equality, income and quality, pollution, crime rates, teen pregnancy, and so forth.

[1029] And Mexico is better than America?

[1030] We rank behind Mexico on the world.

[1031] Someone is not doing a good job in America because most of the places that I see look a lot better than the places in Mexico.

[1032] That shit doesn't make any sense.

[1033] Man, you're in Woodland Hills here.

[1034] Canoga Park specifically.

[1035] But I don't think that there's any, I don't.

[1036] think there's any way that you can like qualify like a whole nation like that though you know what I'm saying like I don't think there's any way that you can say like hey this is a happier country this is a ha because you know you kind of you start statistic mining in that way like America's the least happy the least this but we're also the most innovative we create more things we have more art more music more pop culture more comedy more movies so many things come out of America because of this turmoil and this crazy fucked up sort of a way we live, it also lends itself to creativity.

[1037] It lends itself to the distribution of media.

[1038] You know, we have more shit that comes out of here good or bad.

[1039] I'm not saying that all of it's great, but a lot of influence comes out of this one spot.

[1040] Absolutely.

[1041] I mean, you know, whenever I speak, I try not to come across as the typical American basher.

[1042] Too late.

[1043] Too late.

[1044] This is why Pierce Morgan lost his job.

[1045] Oh, that guy was a shit.

[1046] That's why he lost his job.

[1047] Yeah, so he should never got that job in the first place.

[1048] He was involved in fucking tapping into people's phones, asshole.

[1049] Too true.

[1050] I was up him for that so many times and I went to getting a notice.

[1051] But the, uh, look, I'm, look, I've, I'm obsessed with America and always have been.

[1052] My friends in high school would, uh, always criticize me for being a wannabe American.

[1053] The reason I moved here is because I am in love of America.

[1054] And I, and who loves America more than, you know, an immigrant who wants to come here and help make things better.

[1055] I still believe in America.

[1056] But we're doing things the wrong way.

[1057] Are you a citizen?

[1058] No, no, I'm still a resident.

[1059] I haven't made for a...

[1060] Oh, talking shit.

[1061] You're not even one of us.

[1062] I can't vote yet.

[1063] Hmm, you can't even vote.

[1064] So if you become a citizen, you can vote, but you'll never be able to be president.

[1065] I can be governor of California.

[1066] Isn't that weird?

[1067] Yeah.

[1068] That's weird.

[1069] I'm sorry.

[1070] This idea is based on the notion that someone is going to be groomed by Al Qaeda to come over here and be one of them white -skinned terrorists.

[1071] Yeah.

[1072] And me living in the world's most populous Muslim country for 10 years won't help my resume either when I run for office.

[1073] At all, right?

[1074] Manchuria and Canada.

[1075] Jesus Christ, you probably don't even know you're a commie.

[1076] You probably don't even know you over here to fuck up our freedom.

[1077] Yeah, there's a red in a bed.

[1078] Jesus Christ.

[1079] You don't even know, man. I'm a sleeper cell.

[1080] Why is it that America produces so much, like, as far as creativity, so much innovation, so much technological innovation, so much creativity, so many good things come out of this place as well?

[1081] Oh, well, you know, America is a great country.

[1082] I think, you know, the U .S. has produced a litany of good things.

[1083] It's contribution to the world culturally is, you know, you can't argue against it.

[1084] But my point is that it benefits so few.

[1085] And if you look at the new economy, inverted economies, you know, as far as the technology, you know, these Facebook producers.

[1086] And these, you know, what was that, WhatsApp just sold for how many billions of dollars, 15 billion dollars?

[1087] They've got a workforce of like 25 people.

[1088] 25 people benefit out of the sale of that.

[1089] So in the things that we're producing now, no longer have any social capital.

[1090] We're not producing great products which can be exported to the world.

[1091] Our technology has been bought out by the military industrial complex.

[1092] Most of the R &D and technological research done in this country is to the benefit of figuring how we can kill people better, you know, in other countries.

[1093] Is that really true?

[1094] Yeah, it is.

[1095] Absolutely true.

[1096] How much of it is done on electric cars, how much of it is done on electronics and cell phones?

[1097] Well, look at the electric car and that's a great point.

[1098] I mean, Tesla, you see plenty of them around in these rich white neighborhoods and certainly where I'm from in Laguna Beach.

[1099] You see a ton of them.

[1100] They're a ton of them.

[1101] They're the new Toyota.

[1102] You fucked up.

[1103] You said where you're from.

[1104] I know.

[1105] I never tell people where I'm from.

[1106] God damn it up.

[1107] I said Newport Beach.

[1108] No, you didn't.

[1109] You fucked up.

[1110] Can we edit this?

[1111] Nope.

[1112] Too late.

[1113] It's live.

[1114] It's live.

[1115] Is this really live?

[1116] Yeah.

[1117] Yeah, it's a lot.

[1118] Oh, God damn it.

[1119] I said Maguna Beach.

[1120] Nope, you didn't.

[1121] Can't deny it.

[1122] We gave up two things.

[1123] Canoga Park and Laguna Beach were fucked.

[1124] Oh, my God.

[1125] I'm going to be hearing Al -Aqba, but in the conservative way.

[1126] So you look at the opposition to Tesla.

[1127] I mean, if it wasn't for big oil and so we'd have the electric car years ago.

[1128] And Elon Musk has spoken at great length of the opposition he's faced and bringing the electric car to market.

[1129] So, yeah, we're producing great things, but, you know, the corporate totalitarian state, big oil, and these kind of interests will always trump.

[1130] Look what's happening.

[1131] Look at all these states which have posed Tesla, you know, New Jersey, for example, Wisconsin.

[1132] Yeah, Chris Christie, man. Texas, you know.

[1133] What, what is that guy all about?

[1134] Eating.

[1135] Donny Moore, he's getting slim and ready for 2016.

[1136] They're going to fucking wheel him out there as a cannon fodder.

[1137] Yeah, what do you call those motorized two -wheel things?

[1138] A guy's such a goofball.

[1139] He's done.

[1140] He doesn't have a worry about Christie anymore.

[1141] He's not a candidate.

[1142] He's not?

[1143] He's given up?

[1144] Well, he hasn't given up, but all the big money has moved away from him because politically he's dead in water.

[1145] Because these lawsuits are going to follow him well into the 2016 election cycle.

[1146] With the bridge?

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] Is that just the bridge thing?

[1149] What's the bridge thing?

[1150] But it's the whole culture of intimidation, that whole New Jersey Soprano -like atmosphere, which turns off women and independent and minority voters.

[1151] Plus it's fat.

[1152] Did we mention that already?

[1153] Yeah, fat acceptance, people, step aside because you're being silly, okay?

[1154] I don't accept smokers either.

[1155] Smoking acceptance, I think, is equally stupid.

[1156] There's a dumb habit.

[1157] So is being morbidly obese.

[1158] It's a dumb thing to do.

[1159] Well, I've got no problem with immorbitally obese if you're poor, because the poor in this country can't afford to be skinny.

[1160] But if you're rich and white like Christy is, Well, you have no excuse of being a fatty.

[1161] That is true to a certain extent, but still, it means overeating.

[1162] That is a personal choice, even if you're poor.

[1163] If you're getting bad food, that's one thing.

[1164] Bad nutrition is another thing, but the overabundance of this bad nutrition is just simply gluttony.

[1165] Man, look, if you're a family of four and you've got husband and wife on a minimum wage, let's call it, you're netting $400 a week.

[1166] You still got to pay rent.

[1167] You still got to pay the car.

[1168] You can either go to Trader Joe's and buy $15 pun of broccoli and some potatoes.

[1169] or you go to Wendy's and you feed the whole family for four.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] You know, that's...

[1172] That is fucked.

[1173] But the reason they're fat is not because they're barely getting by with that food.

[1174] It's because they're eating more of it than they need to.

[1175] Yeah.

[1176] You know, it sucks that they're getting bad food for sure.

[1177] It sucks that it's so expensive to eat healthy.

[1178] Those are absolutes.

[1179] Yeah, yeah.

[1180] Hey, I am with you.

[1181] I'm a fattest like you are.

[1182] I'm a fattest.

[1183] I'm sorry.

[1184] Sorry, fat people.

[1185] I have really good friends that are fat as fuck.

[1186] It's not that I hate.

[1187] It's just that...

[1188] there is a certain reality to being morbidly obese.

[1189] I don't think you're helping people with this idea, this notion of fat acceptance.

[1190] And I think this is the broad end of the spectrum when it comes to these new ideas that I think where people are becoming more progressive and more sensitive and more open -minded.

[1191] I think there's great things to that.

[1192] But I think there's also things like fat acceptance where it gets to a point, well, like, listen, stop.

[1193] I got in trouble on Twitter a couple of years ago for tweeting.

[1194] I'm the Rosa Park of not giving up my seat on the bus for fat people.

[1195] You got in trouble for that?

[1196] I don't know why.

[1197] Was a fat person trying to take your seat on the bus?

[1198] Did that really happen?

[1199] No, it didn't really happen.

[1200] So you just cave it up?

[1201] You're just fucking around, being mean to fat people?

[1202] Yeah, just being an asshole.

[1203] Listen, that feeling of shame, this idea of fat shaming, people don't like that, but that feeling of shame, the negative feeling is a feeling of social failure.

[1204] And that feeling of social failure, that ostracized feeling, the only benefit of that, it's not, you know, it's not good to be cruel.

[1205] But the only benefit of that to the person who receives it is that it'll motivate them to lose weight.

[1206] That's just a fact.

[1207] And fat acceptance, that means you're happy the way you are, you're good the way you are.

[1208] No, you're going to die quick.

[1209] Your fucking heart is pumping through sludge, all right?

[1210] You need to eat some vegetables, you fuck.

[1211] Jesus Christ.

[1212] You've never messed up over Chloe Kardashian?

[1213] Is Chloe Kardashian the big one?

[1214] but she's barely big you know what I mean if you talk about that's not fat I don't call her fat she's gonna be a big girl yeah yeah but you know who's that woman who's the McCarthy girl who's on all those movies now no no Jenny Jenny's the hot one Melissa Melissa oh yeah Melissa McChy she's the enormous one that everybody loves she's America look at her she's all chubby and everything but all friendly and wacky poor gal she's gonna fucking die she's her heart is not gonna keep beating if you do that it's not gonna last those really big fat ones they never hit 60 they just don't they never make it don't have a heart attack in Disneyland Isle yeah exactly with a churro in each hand two fisting fucking with one of those hats on soda or a backpack like one of those camel backpacks A freedom with fucking mountain doing it Yeah look there's a lot of bad things To the American diet that's for fuck sure And a lot of it is do you ever watch a documentary King Corn No god damn amazing when you the depth that the corn industry and the corn lobby and the corn there's these people that have grown corn and that this subsidization subsidization is that a word yeah subsidizing by the American government yep the corn and corn syrup like this this this this how much of this is involved in our food and our diet it's amazing so it's in our bread yeah they have corn syrup and people's fucking sodas and they're this they're that and there was a thing about um uh it was a lawsuit about mexico um trying to force out um uh corn syrup because they were trying to force them to use corn syrup and their production of coca cola and so they resisted it and then they were sued and just the whole thing is just corn is a wacky fucking plant man well i mean and in fact it's so pervasive because there's no coincidence at Iowa is the first stop on the both parties nomination process.

[1215] That's where they spend all the time, you know.

[1216] Yeah, isn't that crazy?

[1217] Carpet bagging.

[1218] No, no coincidence whatsoever.

[1219] Yeah.

[1220] But for anybody who wants, I mean, I'm not going to go into depth about it because we've talked about this before, but please watch the documentary King Corn if you get a chance.

[1221] It's food ink is another good one.

[1222] That's a scary one.

[1223] Yeah, that'll shy you away from fast food.

[1224] I, you know, I've taken a lot of heat about this subject of minimum wage.

[1225] by a bunch of people that think that folks who work in fast food or folks who work in entry -level jobs should not get paid $15 an hour.

[1226] That's the number that I always throw around.

[1227] I'm like, you can't live off of less than $15 an hour, man. You just can't.

[1228] $15 an hour.

[1229] You can pay your rent.

[1230] You can get something to eat, and it's still not a lot of money.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] And if you run a company that can't afford to pay your workers $15 an hour, it means you're making too much, either you personally are making too much money, you're not giving the workers enough, or something's happening.

[1233] You're not profitable.

[1234] You need less workers.

[1235] you're not you're not your your system is not efficient there's got to be some way that you can pay if if someone works for you all day and they get paid less than a survival wage you essentially have slaves well this is what the problem is and and you know and i kept coming back to this point in america we have socialism for the corporations but we have capitalism for the rest of us so you take walmart or bank of america they pay their workers so little that we have to subsidize them with food assistance housing assistance and so forth every war mark The four Walmart heirs own more than the combined bottom 40 % of Americans, yet are allowed to pay their workers so little that the average taxpayer, the average Walmart employee costs the average taxpayer in this country $1 ,300 per year in Texas.

[1236] So you and I are funding the workforce for a ridiculously fucking wealthy bunch of individuals that can afford to pay their employees more.

[1237] That's incredible.

[1238] So that's socialism for them and capitalism for the rest of us.

[1239] Hit me with those numbers again.

[1240] The most wealthy people of Walmart.

[1241] And they inherited their wealth.

[1242] They did not build that.

[1243] Motherfuckers, they did not build that.

[1244] They did not build that.

[1245] So the four Walmart airs own more than the bottom 42 % combined in this country.

[1246] The four Walmart heirs, four people, earn more money per year than the bottom 42 % of the entire country?

[1247] Yep.

[1248] And Google it.

[1249] I can't.

[1250] I'll throw up on my keyboard.

[1251] That's incredible.

[1252] That's it.

[1253] So all we have to do is kidnap the four Walmart errors.

[1254] Take all of their money.

[1255] Redistribute it to the bottom 42%.

[1256] We've essentially cured poverty.

[1257] You and I. With four people.

[1258] High five.

[1259] That's a new Melissa McCarthy movie.

[1260] Melissa McCarthy, she fucking gets a mouthful of donuts.

[1261] She gets a good sugar rush and she runs out and kidnaps the wall.

[1262] And she lets them see the errors of their ways.

[1263] And they wind up working in the end of the movie.

[1264] They're happy.

[1265] and they're working in, like, Costa Rica, like, fucking saving people from hurricanes or some shit.

[1266] Yeah.

[1267] That's a crazy statistic.

[1268] And with all that wealth, you and I are paying for each $1 ,300 per year to Walmart to subsidize their workforce.

[1269] Four people.

[1270] Mm -hmm.

[1271] That's incredible.

[1272] Yep.

[1273] Yeah.

[1274] That's incredible.

[1275] Well, the Coke brothers combine, the two Koch brothers own more than that.

[1276] I think it's, you'll have them, Google, but it's around about the bottom 50%.

[1277] Two guys own more than the bottom 50 % of this country.

[1278] Okay, so we got an issue.

[1279] We got six people.

[1280] We kidnap six people.

[1281] We take their money.

[1282] You're leaving at the torturing part.

[1283] But we don't have the torture them.

[1284] We just kill them.

[1285] I don't mean that.

[1286] Don't put me on a list.

[1287] But if those people, just those people's wealth, six people, you said 50 % and 42%.

[1288] But that's not combined.

[1289] No, no, not combined.

[1290] Equal.

[1291] Separate.

[1292] You got to separate them.

[1293] Right.

[1294] But equal.

[1295] But how does that work then?

[1296] Because that means like if the combined 42%, but then you also have the combined 50%.

[1297] What the fuck is that?

[1298] You can't add them together.

[1299] Why can't you add them together?

[1300] Because you're still working from the same number.

[1301] So the combined wealth of the Koch brothers is more than the bottom roughly 50 % of the nation.

[1302] But the combined wealth of the Walmart airs.

[1303] So you're working from a fixed number.

[1304] So if you had them both the getter, it's not like, you know, the six of them own 92%.

[1305] Right.

[1306] They don't own 92%, but they own double 42%.

[1307] Yeah.

[1308] So what is that?

[1309] How does that creep it up to six?

[1310] 60 %?

[1311] What does it creep it up to?

[1312] I think I told you at the beginning I'm not an economist.

[1313] Well, I'm dumb as fuck, so we're screwed.

[1314] Not only I'm not an economist, I'm not good at counting shit.

[1315] So if you think about that, though, just the fact that the four people from Walmart and the two Koch brothers, just those six people are, what is the total money, the total amount of money that those guys have?

[1316] Well, I know, the Koch brothers are worth a combined about $55 billion.

[1317] And most of their money is on, is from, uh, Speculation, not from hiring people or building stuff.

[1318] Most of it is from oil speculation.

[1319] So stock market stuff, which has no social value.

[1320] Money fuckery.

[1321] Yeah, money fuckery.

[1322] That's really what it is, right?

[1323] That's what Paul Krugman said.

[1324] We've gone from a country made stuff to a country to make stuff up.

[1325] You ever hear what Putin said about the United States is before the crash?

[1326] He said, I don't understand the United States economy.

[1327] It seems that they just buy and sell each other's houses.

[1328] He was right.

[1329] Yeah.

[1330] I mean, it was all before the shit hit the fan.

[1331] It's all these wacky financial instruments.

[1332] You know, moving numbers on a screen.

[1333] How can that be fixed, though?

[1334] I mean, first of all, the only way to fix the Koch brothers situation is, I mean, is there's no way, right?

[1335] I mean, you would have to...

[1336] Well, you have to end, you know, yeah, you'd have to end all speculation.

[1337] But, you know, Robert Reich, who speaks about this extensively, is you have a trading tax.

[1338] At the moment, these guys can trade minor pips, every pip of a scream, you know, to the three decimal places, whether it's on currency, whether it's on gas.

[1339] And when you're moving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, One pip is a ton of money, but there's no, there should be a trading tax on each one of these trades because there's volume of trade, these volume of money benefits society in no measurable mean.

[1340] God damn, man. What a weird world we live in when that's real.

[1341] These are the numbers that Jamie just threw up here.

[1342] The collective wealth of the six richest Walton's rose from 73 billion to 90 billion, why the wealth of the average American declined from 126 ,000 to 77 ,000, 13 million Americans have negative net worth.

[1343] That's a crazy thing.

[1344] I was exactly right.

[1345] Since warm my heads now have more wealth than the bottom 42%.

[1346] God.

[1347] I don't just make numbers up.

[1348] I didn't think you did.

[1349] I didn't even check.

[1350] I thought you were telling the truth for sure.

[1351] There was a recent article that I brought up a yesterday's podcast that Michael Schumer wrote, The Scientific American that was torn apart about the myth of financial inequality.

[1352] It's like one of the dumbest articles I've ever written.

[1353] The way I know whether something's dumb is if I think it's dumb, I can see the logical fallacies in your argument about finance.

[1354] Yeah.

[1355] I mean, it was just, but what is that coming from?

[1356] What is this like, everything's fine?

[1357] There's everything's fine thing where people want to sort of manipulate statistics and look at things from sort of a rose -colored glasses point of view.

[1358] What's that from?

[1359] What causes people?

[1360] Because people have no experience to what the real, what is happening in America.

[1361] You know, I live, I'm not going to say to a name of a town that I already said to not live in.

[1362] You live in a nice spot.

[1363] In the area I live in is, you know, I'm going to guess 90 % white and wealthy to, moderately wealthy to wealthy.

[1364] And they have no clue what's happening in, you know, these Rust Belt states, you know, through the northwest, which are particularly the basis of manufacturing.

[1365] I mean, these are economies which have been absolutely destroyed through globalization.

[1366] There is no economic recovery.

[1367] You know, despite, you spoke with us before, despite the Dow record highs and despite the unemployment, employment number happening, we're not going to get these jobs back because we now have the Walmart business model is the model that the rest of the corporate world in this country emulates.

[1368] In the 18th century, it was the Pennsylvania railroad country.

[1369] In the 20th century, it was IBM.

[1370] Today, it's Walmart.

[1371] So what Walmart does with, it makes cities bid against each other to get tax breaks to move it.

[1372] So they're going to say, hey, we're going to put a store in your place.

[1373] They get two cities a bit against it.

[1374] So it becomes a race to the bottom as far as corporate subsidies and welfare.

[1375] Every time a Walmart store opens, every time Walmart employs a new employee, 1 .4 American workers is displaced.

[1376] Now, their control of the American economy, the retail economy is so dominant that they have such control over their suppliers.

[1377] Procumin at Walmart, they demand a 5 % reduction of their suppliers every year.

[1378] If you can't reduce your costs to Walmart by 5 % every year, and then we'll fuck off goodbye.

[1379] So after about 5 % years of doing this where you've cut 5%, 5%, eventually Walmart says to their suppliers, well, you need to move the China.

[1380] And if you don't move, and if you move to China, we'll help you set up.

[1381] If you don't move the China, we do no business no longer.

[1382] And that's happened with countless number of companies.

[1383] Companies like Rubber Made, a great American company, which had a workforce in hundreds of thousands of people in the 70s and the 80s, you know, almost no longer exists in that form anymore because they couldn't, you know, initially they didn't move China, but they have now.

[1384] So this globalization is free trade.

[1385] It's not benefiting anyone.

[1386] And that's the model that we operate under.

[1387] Is there a way to stuff?

[1388] First of all, there was a number that you threw out that I get confused about.

[1389] You said for every time a Walmart opens 1 .4 Americans are misplaced?

[1390] It's displaced.

[1391] What is it?

[1392] 1 .4?

[1393] What is it?

[1394] It's one person?

[1395] Well, so every time a Walmart employs a person, 1 .4 Americans loses a job elsewhere.

[1396] Every time they employ one person, 1 .4.

[1397] So for every one person they employ more than one.

[1398] That kind of makes sense.

[1399] And the mom and pop store, the death of the mom and pop store has been really criticized both by people that are against Walmart, but also people that they're saying, you know, why don't you shop and vote with your dollar?

[1400] Like if you appreciate mom and pop stores and they cost five more dollars when you go in there, just go.

[1401] Pay them the five more dollars.

[1402] Do you understand how Walmart is making things so cheap?

[1403] Do you understand that the people that work there, with the number that you threw around, that for every Walmart worker we pay, what was the amount of money that every person has to pay in tax dollars for $1 ,300?

[1404] If those things were just made more clear and people voted with their dollar more, do you think it's possible that something like Walmart can slowly die away, that these monolithic corporations that have this massive control over economies?

[1405] But Walmart destroys communities to such an extent that people in these communities can only afford to shop at Walmart and becomes his vicious cycle.

[1406] So it's, you know, unless you put in policies which regulate trade and protect the working class, particularly the class, you're not going to solve the problem.

[1407] So.

[1408] And this is another great sort of hypocrisy is how, for example, a Republican Party presents itself as the party of small business.

[1409] because it's a nice nostalgic picture that draws it that's painted in people's mind.

[1410] They picture of Mar and Parr, small business operation, you know, on Main Street in Middle America.

[1411] But name a single policy that the Republican Party have helped small businesses with.

[1412] Have they, as the Republican Party protected the Mar and Parr operation from these monopolies, these monopolies, do they give the same tax breaks that they do, these corporate subsidies they do to these big organizations to drown the business?

[1413] No, they haven't.

[1414] you know the republican parties and looks up the small business at all in this country and and uh yeah and that's just the way it is i mean there's no one's fighting against that there's not that's not like a big rallying cry of neither democrats nor the republicans this is not something that anybody's bringing up no and and that comes to political ignorance and political ignorance born from our either our education system or the fact that the mainstream media um only reports titillating you know issues you know we're still talking about flight missing mh370 or and Nicole Smith's deaf.

[1415] You know, it's a focus on celebrity and trivia rather than on real issues.

[1416] There's no Walter Cronkites in the news anymore.

[1417] That is true.

[1418] There's no real news anymore.

[1419] There's television programs that highlight, their entertainment programs that highlight things they think people are going to be interested in.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] But they don't have a desire for journalism.

[1422] Well, they don't.

[1423] And it's corporate control media.

[1424] How many places, you know, how many venues on corporate own media do you think I'm going to get booked when I talk about the corporate totalitarian state?

[1425] Not a lot.

[1426] Your show.

[1427] You can come back for sure.

[1428] Do you get chills down your spine when you see things like what's going on with Edward Snowden, when you see what's going on with Julian Assange, when people do expose some really horrific things that our government's involved with, the underpinnings of our society itself, the mechanism involved in what's turning the wheels of the military industrial complex.

[1429] When that gets exposed, and you see, like, some court just upheld.

[1430] the arrest warrant against Julian Assange.

[1431] For what?

[1432] For having sex with a woman, supposedly, or whatever the fuck they...

[1433] I mean, it's one of the most dubious and questionable charges of all time that's involved in an international incident.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] I mean, is there ever been a more transparent situation when someone, they're going after someone and pretending it's something else?

[1436] I mean, it's always dangerous grounds to, I guess, to trivialize any rape charge, but you're dead right.

[1437] But it's not even a rape charge.

[1438] Yeah, I mean...

[1439] If it was rape?

[1440] So, yeah, the circumstances which I've read are so fishy and dubious, as you've said.

[1441] But, you know, I, the one of the most frustrating things is we would be more, the American population certainly would be more angry about the NSA overreach if there was a Republican in an office.

[1442] The fact that it's a barmer in office has placated, you know, Democrats in the liberal class.

[1443] I just think, oh, well, if Obama is happy with it, it must mean it's okay.

[1444] I guess it's not too bad.

[1445] Yeah.

[1446] And also part of the problem is with, you know, the millennial population, it's, you know, it's, hey, hey, look at me, you know, so we've come such a, hey, look at me, you know, Instagram, selfies, Facebook accounts, Twitter.

[1447] And the more, they think the more exposure, the better.

[1448] So when they talk about, you know, being watched, well, they like being watched.

[1449] There is that thing, though, that it, if it was a Republican that was in office and you were dealing with this.

[1450] SA leak where you find out that they're downloading every fucking email you have, every phone call you make is being recorded, people would be up in arms.

[1451] But because of the fact that it's a Democrat, the very same people who would be up in arms are sort of letting it slide in a way.

[1452] Yeah.

[1453] Partisanship.

[1454] It is.

[1455] And that's how, you know, coming back to what I said earlier, you know, we're living in the most polarized moment in American history and we only see things and issues through the lens of our political parties.

[1456] You know, we've, we've deeply entrenched in our own camps and we only listen to the talking heads who feed red meat to our respective camps.

[1457] We're goofy as fuck in other words.

[1458] Yeah, not too many conservative, not too many Tea Party voters read my pieces, you know, in Salon.

[1459] No, yeah, Salon, you can be, well, if they do read it, they read it to get angry before they go out to the rifle range and fucking shoot pumpkins with Obama's picture pasted on it, you know.

[1460] God damn it.

[1461] Did you hear what he said about Jesus?

[1462] You're, you know, you're actively trying to piss them off with your titles of your books, right?

[1463] I think so.

[1464] I think so.

[1465] Crucifying America.

[1466] Atheist can't be Republicans.

[1467] God hates you, hating back.

[1468] Yeah, all those.

[1469] Yeah, I just got an email yesterday saying, God doesn't hate you.

[1470] Everybody else does.

[1471] Oh, how rude.

[1472] God loves you, but I hate you.

[1473] Is that what they're saying?

[1474] Yeah, pretty much.

[1475] Well, then you're not a child of God.

[1476] Who the fuck are you?

[1477] You're not doing it right, right?

[1478] They're not.

[1479] They're doing it wrong.

[1480] You can't, you can't just run around saying that God doesn't hate you, but I do.

[1481] Exactly.

[1482] If you know that, if you know God doesn't, you're supposed to love them then.

[1483] Is that what they're supposed to do?

[1484] Turn their other cheek?

[1485] Yeah, I don't see much forgiveness.

[1486] I'm not copy much forgiveness at all.

[1487] Have you ever met a real Christian like that?

[1488] Like, forgives you for your...

[1489] Yeah, yeah.

[1490] Actually, you know, I have a lot of friends who are Christians and there's something...

[1491] Do you really?

[1492] Yeah, I do.

[1493] You've said this twice.

[1494] Yeah.

[1495] You said, I have a lot of friends you're Christian.

[1496] You said a lot of friends who are right -wing Republicans.

[1497] A lot of gay friends.

[1498] I said that as well.

[1499] Do you really have these friends?

[1500] No, I just make it up.

[1501] I knew it.

[1502] To be honest, be honest, I think there's seven billion people in the world.

[1503] I really only know four of them.

[1504] Really well, right?

[1505] Yeah, exactly.

[1506] But I do.

[1507] I mean, actually, it's funny, Mormons, and I had this conversation with a friend the other day, every Mormon I've met is actually super nice.

[1508] You know, actually, one of the hottest Mormons on the planet is Abby Huntsman.

[1509] You know, John Huntsman's daughter, she's on MSNBC.

[1510] Oh, my God, and I do have a little crush on her, but...

[1511] Do you?

[1512] Yeah, yeah.

[1513] You've seen her.

[1514] I might have.

[1515] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1516] Which one is she?

[1517] What's her name?

[1518] Abby Huntsman.

[1519] I don't watch EnmesnBC.

[1520] I try to avoid all mainstream media at this point.

[1521] I get almost all my news from the internet.

[1522] I've kind of completely given up on watching Fox.

[1523] I might watch Fox just for the hot chicks.

[1524] I watch Fox just to see chicks cross and uncrossed their legs back and forth.

[1525] Is this her?

[1526] She's a Mormon?

[1527] Yeah, she is.

[1528] She's beautiful.

[1529] beautiful, but she's a silly bitch.

[1530] There's no doubt about it.

[1531] If you're a Mormon, I don't care.

[1532] You could be a Mooney, you could be a Scientologist.

[1533] It's all the same to me, man. Yeah.

[1534] You're right.

[1535] You know, you could be born a Mormon, you know, you get locked into it.

[1536] I had a neighbor who's a Mormon who's great.

[1537] Yeah.

[1538] Nice guy.

[1539] Super sweet people.

[1540] They're very friendly, very, you know, very warm and compassionate.

[1541] Well, and it's also, too, I like to say, you know, the South, you travel down to the Southern States and individually, nicest people on the planet you know southern hospitality is a real thing but put them all in the room together and you're talking about the biggest bunch of bigoted assholes you know you've ever talk about taking their guns and black men fucking their daughters what not on my watch yeah well i think a lot of that is just again fear ignorance these isolated folks that live in these you know small towns that are separated from the larger cities by vast distances those larger cities mean and, you know, tend to be the centers of diversity.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] Yeah, you're going to have ignorance and fear, a lot of those places.

[1544] But, you know, it's also fed upon by the politicians that are running for office in those very areas.

[1545] Exactly.

[1546] And it's fed upon by this right -wing echo chamber, which constantly keeps them fear of the external enemy, whether that's liberals, whether that's Muslims, wherever it's, you know.

[1547] The echo chamber.

[1548] Yeah, communist.

[1549] But isn't Salon kind of an echo chamber to the left a little bit?

[1550] Yeah, yeah.

[1551] A little bit.

[1552] It's a very friendly audience for the right, too.

[1553] Yeah, very friendly.

[1554] friendly audience to the left.

[1555] I mean, there's certain...

[1556] But we'll see.

[1557] You do have an echo chamber on the left.

[1558] But in the left, echo chamber, facts aren't made up.

[1559] Whereas in that right -wing echo chamber, there's a total disregard for facts.

[1560] Even Romney's head pollster, Neil, and I can't remember his last name, and I guess it doesn't matter.

[1561] But he even said on camera, you know, facts don't matter.

[1562] Whoa.

[1563] You know, in his campaign.

[1564] What?

[1565] Yeah.

[1566] Come on.

[1567] No. I mean, they can say anything.

[1568] Is Romney taking another run on it?

[1569] I think there's a big wing in the establishment wing of the Republican Party that wants him to run.

[1570] I don't think he will, but the establishment is desperate for a candidate because at the moment, Rand Paul is going to be the nomination, and he scares the life out of establishment Republicans because he's not a neocon.

[1571] That's why Dick Cheney's in the media at the moment, the moment trying to water down this isolationist libertarian wing of the Republican Party, because as it stands today, he would be the nominee.

[1572] Rand Paul.

[1573] And what scares people about Rand Paul?

[1574] What should scare people about Ron Paul?

[1575] Well, what scares me?

[1576] You asking me?

[1577] What scares me?

[1578] Well, he's a libertarian for one.

[1579] I think libertarianism is, would only exacerbate the winner -takes -all society that we have at the moment.

[1580] We need to be doing the opposite of that.

[1581] Libertarianism would grant more power to the corporations in this country and less.

[1582] What scares the, their establishment wing the Republican Party is he's an isolationist.

[1583] And so the military industrial complex, and there was a great piece done recently that if Hillary's a nominee and Rand Paul's a nominee, neocons will vote for Hillary.

[1584] You know, neocon Republicans will vote for Hillary.

[1585] What?

[1586] Because she's more hawkish than Rand Paul is.

[1587] Whoa, that would be crazy.

[1588] Could you imagine Dick Cheney advising people to vote for Hillary Clinton over Rand Paul?

[1589] He would.

[1590] Do you imagine a race of Hillary Clinton versus Rand Paul?

[1591] It would be the biggest landslide since LBJ Barry Goldwater in 64.

[1592] Do you think Hillary would win?

[1593] I think Hillary could almost win every state.

[1594] Whoa.

[1595] Yeah, almost win every state if that was the race.

[1596] What do you think would hold people back from voting for Rand Paul?

[1597] Well, his ideas are unproven except for Somalia, number one.

[1598] I think that a lot of things are going to come back to haunt him.

[1599] He doesn't believe in the Civil Rights Act.

[1600] believes that private property trumps everything.

[1601] You know, there's a great video of him.

[1602] He's asked, well, do you believe in the civil rights act?

[1603] Well, I don't know.

[1604] I kind of think it was a good thing, but I also think private property owners and restaurant owners have the right not to serve.

[1605] He didn't use the word blacks, but they have the right not serve black people that don't want to.

[1606] Wow.

[1607] So I, you know, I think he'd be a disastrous candidate.

[1608] Barry Coldwater, the same people who voted for Barry Goldwater, the same people who vote for Rand Paul.

[1609] And we saw what happened to Goldwater.

[1610] America is, that's not where America is.

[1611] America is a center -left country, not a far -right country.

[1612] But people love his dad.

[1613] Huh?

[1614] People love his dad.

[1615] Well, white, well -to -do people loved his dad.

[1616] You know, he's a, but he's a neo -Confederate.

[1617] I mean, you know, and Rand Paul is a neo -confederate.

[1618] I mean, he's the, you know, regularly speaks at sons and confederate meetings.

[1619] I mean, it's all about nullification, states' rights.

[1620] It's, you know, what do you want state?

[1621] What does it state rights means?

[1622] That means these countries, these states can, you know, ban abortion, deny black people the right to, uh, to, to attend restaurants, you know, coloreds only.

[1623] What also means they can allow gay marriage, they can allow people to smoke marijuana, they can allow people to do a lot of things that, you know, the federal government does not allow.

[1624] Yeah.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] So it's not entirely a negative thing, like the idea of states' rights.

[1627] Yeah.

[1628] The non -interventionalist foreign policy.

[1629] Yeah.

[1630] Which is a good film.

[1631] I'm, yeah, I'm for that.

[1632] I think Ron Paul had some very good.

[1633] ideas he's definitely a wacky old dude yeah but who's not you know how many old dudes get stay alive and especially in the world of politics get to be that old and just don't have utter disdain for the established system yeah i mean that there's this whole thing that we've been doing from the beginning of time of profiting off of sending young men to death for things that they don't understand you know sending over them to fight in foreign lands for some cause that they're not going to they don't know what they're doing they're too young they're too young to see the hustle i mean that's that that's the oldest trick in the book as far as like the military and that was one that ron paul stood very firmly against yeah and he was one of the few people that was doing it right or left yeah and i'm with ron paul and ran paul when it comes to the military and i'm with both of them when it comes to the drug end in the drug war but you know thinking that Ron Paul or Ram Paul is good for America because they're anti -drug and anti -war is like thinking a Big Mac is good for you because it has a lettuce and a pickle.

[1634] But what is good for America, though, at this point in time?

[1635] When you, we've clearly established that you've got massive amounts of money that are financing politics.

[1636] What is good for America is what has already worked in the past.

[1637] And what has worked in the past was FDR's New Deal.

[1638] And that is socialism.

[1639] America came out of the gilded age.

[1640] We went into the biggest economic crisis America has ever seen.

[1641] We implemented social reforms, economic reforms, political reforms.

[1642] And from the end of World War II to 1980, we built the great American middle class, where we built the most prosperous middle class the world has ever seen.

[1643] We put a man on the moon.

[1644] We built the interstate highway systems.

[1645] We had the GI Bill.

[1646] We had free education.

[1647] We had access to education.

[1648] We established Medicaid with the great society.

[1649] Happy days, LeVern and Shirley.

[1650] Yeah.

[1651] good shit happened and in in well you know my dad lived in america for 10 years during the 60s his generation during that time just the husband just your dad worked and you still had enough to afford a mortgage and have two cars now both husband and you know you know dad and mother have to work they can barely keep their head above war they're saddled with debt with no way out and that's the world we live we have to go back to uh to that era and we have to put in social economic and political reforms which redistribute the wealth from the top back to the middle.

[1652] Now, how would you do that?

[1653] So if someone came to you, you have all these radical ideas, you've written books about it.

[1654] If someone was running for president, be Elizabeth Warren or whoever it is that reads your stuff, what would you implement?

[1655] I mean, how would you fix this in a reasonable way that makes sense?

[1656] Well, number one is the tax code because, you know, where their denial of tax revenue to the federal government is extremely.

[1657] at the moment.

[1658] That's why, you know, we said earlier, America doesn't have nice things is because corporations are contributing the lowest percentage of the overall revenue to the federal government.

[1659] So, but if you contribute more money, where's that money go?

[1660] And who gets to dictate where that money goes?

[1661] Well, first of all, is you build an infrastructure.

[1662] I mean, infrastructure is falling apart in this country.

[1663] Spending money on, it goes back to Keynesian economics, which has worked in the past and will work again.

[1664] We have to build bridges.

[1665] We have to build highway systems.

[1666] We have to build higher spayed realm.

[1667] That create jobs, and that creates markets.

[1668] in new economies.

[1669] We have to then build up the middle class and the working class with better labor reforms.

[1670] We've gone from, you know, from the moment Reagan destroyed the unions will sack the air traffic controllers in 1981.

[1671] We've gone from America protected by collective bargaining went from something like 35 % to 7 % today.

[1672] In every social democratic country like Australia and Scandinavia and Western Europe, upwards of 85 % of their population, are covered by collective bargaining.

[1673] So the workers have a say or a shared prosperity.

[1674] You know, from 1954 to 1979, their productivity gains were shared equally between corporations and the working class.

[1675] Today, only 12 % of the gains are shared to the working class and middle class.

[1676] So we have to, that comes through the tax code.

[1677] It comes through labor reform, access to health care and education and so forth.

[1678] Do you trust the federal government to do the appropriate things?

[1679] with the new taxes, like say if we did reform the tax code and say if we did change the contributions that corporations are forced to make, do you really trust the government as it's in place right now with all of its glorious incompetence to redistribute that money and do a good job with it?

[1680] Well, it's, you know, it's, you know, people will say, well, you know, government always does a shitty job.

[1681] Corporations, 90 % of corporations fail in their first five years.

[1682] So government is not a perfect, perfect solution or a perfect be all to end all, but there has to be a balance where, you know, and we have that in other countries, where does capital investment, but also public investment.

[1683] And public investment or liberalism, liberalism was never meant to be a left -wing thing.

[1684] Liberalism was always meant to be a countervailing power to capitalism, where capitalism fall short, liberalism was supposed to pick up the slack and protect the downtrodden, the people, the people that capitalism leaves behind.

[1685] And you need public investment to fund those initiatives.

[1686] There's always going to be waste.

[1687] That's just part of the part.

[1688] For every cylindra that you have, you're going to have Tesla.

[1689] You know, and people in the Republican, we like to bash government spending on the failure of cylinder, but they also forget their government funding has made Tesla an enormous success.

[1690] Do you think that a part of what's going on now with the Internet, that this access to information would also deter at least a certain percentage?

[1691] of waste because people would be more responsible for it because it would be more transparent than ever before?

[1692] Well, the stimulus, the stimulus, the stimulus was the greatest public stimulus program in U .S. history since FDR's New Deal, but it was also the most transparent spending of public spending we've ever seen.

[1693] I mean, the federal government put up a website with every vendor and contractor and the details of that available for anyone to see.

[1694] I mean, the waste of that stimulus, which wasn't enough, the size of the stimulus should have been doubled the $800 billion that it was.

[1695] It worked.

[1696] It added two points to GDP, created, you know, X amount of million, public sector, private sector jobs.

[1697] But it was transparent.

[1698] I don't know how much more transparent, but you've never going to eliminate waste totally.

[1699] But the offside to that is, it's filled by a private sector.

[1700] And the alternative is Reagan's Holy Trinity, you know, monopolization, Deregulation and privatization.

[1701] And, you know, there's greater waste there and more crony capitalism than you have on the other side.

[1702] Certainly with deregulation.

[1703] That's scary shit that people would want that.

[1704] I think that would be a good idea.

[1705] There's a reason why regulations are in place is to keep them from running amok with natural human instincts of conquering.

[1706] Natural human instincts of deception.

[1707] You know, these are just natural things that you have to guard against with laws.

[1708] And that's a thing.

[1709] Corporations are not concerned of the common good.

[1710] It's just a profit motive.

[1711] Right.

[1712] And it was...

[1713] Yeah.

[1714] And it was Clinton who deregulated Wall Street with Glass Stegel, and that led to the chain of events which collapsed the entire fucking universe in 2008.

[1715] Dirty Clinton.

[1716] Yeah.

[1717] And we haven't had one except for Dodd Frank, which is a pissy effort to regulate Wall Street.

[1718] We're back to the same place we were leading up to the days of the crash in our way.

[1719] What do you think to people that thought that they should let the banks fail?

[1720] Like, that's the Peter Schiff idea.

[1721] quite a few people.

[1722] Ron Paul believed that as well that don't bail out the banks.

[1723] Yeah, the former Fed chairman, Paul Volcker, believe the same thing.

[1724] What do you think about that?

[1725] Well, you know, in my uninformed opinion, there's this is a great book called The Confidence Men.

[1726] And it's really an insider's account of the Obama White House in the first four years.

[1727] Now, obviously, as he came into office, he was dealing with the biggest economic catastrophe America's seen since the Great Depression.

[1728] and he was listening to all the ideas going forward.

[1729] There was Team A and TB.

[1730] Team B was the likes of Larry Summers and Timothy Gaitner and Paul Rubin, who was a Clintonite.

[1731] And Team A was Paul Volker and so forth.

[1732] Paul Volker and Team A believed in letting him fail, totally get ridding this debt leverage vehicles that have created, there's fictitious wealth and fictitious products.

[1733] In the end, Obama went with Team B, the Larry Summers, who are there, protect who protect the status quo of wall street and you have these wall street bankers like the CEO of bank of america saying thank god you know team b was chosen was uh we've never be back to we were if we had to let wall street fail i don't know enough to be able to give a quantified opinion what today would look like the arguments are you hear well we had to you know prop them up to to avoid an even bigger catastrophe, catastrophe, seem valid as well.

[1734] So, you know, I don't know.

[1735] Do you look at the future of this country and think it's going to work out?

[1736] Or do you look at it and say, I'm going back to Australia in about 10 years when the shit hits the fan?

[1737] I think it's almost too late.

[1738] Too late?

[1739] Yeah.

[1740] I think where we are today, this is what America's going to look like.

[1741] Have you seen the Murphy Elysium with Matt Damon?

[1742] Yes.

[1743] That's what America's going to look like.

[1744] So everyone is going to look like.

[1745] live in a gated community in space so the rich people were retired behind gated communities they'll be able to afford goods and services which the rest can afford and the rest of America is going to live in a crime riddled a society with no public infrastructure and services which you know the rich will have you know there'll be no middle class but don't we have which is what third world countries look like a really rich top and a really poor bottom and nothing in the middle but you're fond of statistics yeah don't we have a lower crime lower murder rates than ever before Murder rates are falling from the height of the 1980s.

[1746] Except Chicago.

[1747] Yeah, they love the shit.

[1748] Chicago's fucking up the whole curve.

[1749] Obama's town, God damn it.

[1750] Yeah, around America's down now.

[1751] People in Chicago, man, don't like Obama.

[1752] It's amazing.

[1753] So black woman in Chicago was in the news the other day saying he's the worst president we've ever had.

[1754] Yeah.

[1755] A black woman.

[1756] Well, worse than Bush.

[1757] Stepping up.

[1758] Worse than Bush.

[1759] Yeah.

[1760] I don't know about all that.

[1761] No, I mean, if you're a whistleblower, he's the worst.

[1762] If you're Snowdy's the worst.

[1763] Yeah.

[1764] But when you see those statistics, those numbers, what makes you think that it's going to get way worse?

[1765] Well, I mean, crime, have you read Freakonomics?

[1766] No. Okay.

[1767] I mean, it's a great book.

[1768] Freeconomics makes a, you know, causation doesn't prove, or correlation doesn't prove causation, but they make a very strong argument that the only reason that violent crime has fallen in this country is because of Roe v. Um, Roe v. Wade abortion, you know, basically destroyed a whole generation of potential criminals.

[1769] Um, you know, because of poorer communities, you know, don't have access to abortion.

[1770] That's so crazy.

[1771] I mean, it's, yeah, it's got racist underpinnings that finding, but.

[1772] In a deep, deep way.

[1773] That's so fucking harsh to get behind.

[1774] But when you look at it scientifically, if you have just data to analyze, it's really, yeah.

[1775] Yeah.

[1776] And, uh, but violence is one is, you know, is one aspect, you know, they really, I mean, And what future is there in America where education becomes unaffordable, where those who graduate are settled with debt that can never get out of, and where housing becomes unaffordable, and where there's no well -paying jobs, where you have stagnant wages, where you have a country where income has been totally redistributed to the world, where the share of income is, you know, it's what the top 1 % used to get 12 % of the income, now the top 1 % get something like 37 % of the income in this country, you know, you're, you're creating this massive underclass with no way out.

[1777] So you're saying we need more abortions?

[1778] That's what I'm hearing.

[1779] Well, some people ask me if I'm, you know, they obviously know I'm liberal.

[1780] They ask me if I'm pro -choice.

[1781] And I say, no, I'm not pro -choice.

[1782] I'm pro -abortion.

[1783] There's a big difference.

[1784] Well, I wish it didn't involve killing a fetus.

[1785] The reality of what an abortion is is something that people don't want to discuss.

[1786] I've had these conversations with people who are liberal.

[1787] Yeah.

[1788] And just when you talk about it flat, objectively, no ideology attached.

[1789] What is going on?

[1790] Well, there's a, there's a person that's growing in a body and we snuff it out.

[1791] And at what point in time, is it okay to snuff it out?

[1792] I hear you.

[1793] I mean, it is that, that's what it is.

[1794] I mean, is it okay, a weekend?

[1795] Yeah, it's a bunch of cells.

[1796] Is it okay six weeks in?

[1797] Things start get squirly.

[1798] They start getting squirley when you see fingers.

[1799] You start seeing a head and little feet, it starts having a heartbeat.

[1800] When is it a person?

[1801] It's only a person when it's born.

[1802] Really?

[1803] So a nine month old baby that hasn't been born yet, you can reach in and suck that baby out with a vacuum and that's groovy?

[1804] Man, when is it, when it's viable outside the womb?

[1805] I mean, it's very...

[1806] Well, then you're throwing it, is it viable?

[1807] And then you're adding the rape and the incest part to the equation as well.

[1808] Oh, sure.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] And isn't it one of those things, like many things in this world where there isn't a clean cut black or white?

[1811] There are many, many shades of gray.

[1812] Yeah.

[1813] And I, you know, and I, I'm going to live and I joke about my pro -abortion comment, but the...

[1814] How dare you?

[1815] How dare you joke about something so important?

[1816] Yeah.

[1817] I mean, it's a very emotionally contentious, mind -filled or riddled, you know, issue.

[1818] Well, it's also one that women, you know, rightly so, take umbrage with men being able to decide what they can and can't do with their body.

[1819] I'm not trying to decide, and I'm most certainly in pro -choice as far as how I vote, but when I look at the reality of what an abortion is, it disturbs me. that because of ideology and because of the stance that they take, left or right, that people will argue against the reality of what an abortion is.

[1820] And I think when you do that, you do a disservice to the topic.

[1821] Sure.

[1822] It's a tricky situation.

[1823] You're killing babies.

[1824] It is.

[1825] I mean, there's no way.

[1826] Abortion is a tragedy, no matter which way you cut it.

[1827] And then you then have to deal sensibly with the tragedy that it is.

[1828] Unless you had a one -night stand with a crazy bitch, and she says, don't worry, I'm getting an abortion.

[1829] And then it's...

[1830] Amanda, if you're listening, don't call me. Time to party.

[1831] Yeah.

[1832] I wish there was a better way, you know?

[1833] Wish it was a way that you could immediately, you know, there was really, I have a joke about this, that it should be a better way to make people than sex.

[1834] I mean, at one point in time, maybe that's what the aliens are all about.

[1835] Because when you see the aliens, they're always sexless.

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] They always have these smooth bodies and they have no muscles because they use their brains to move things around.

[1838] Yeah.

[1839] They probably got to a certain point in time and they realized, listen, we're not going to evolve unless we get rid of these animal instincts to breed and conquer and dominate.

[1840] And the only way we're going to move to this really utopian society concept that everybody has, you know, the gradations, the steps away from being an animal, from being a violent predator to being some enlightened being.

[1841] Somewhere along the line, you're going to have to get rid of sex.

[1842] Well, you can ejaculate into a baker, but I mean, I don't mean the brag.

[1843] That's really hard to get it in there.

[1844] I'm saying, you're hitting the walls and stuff.

[1845] Reproduce through genetic manipulation.

[1846] Reproduce through cloning.

[1847] We're already doing that.

[1848] If we could all become eunuchs, I think the world would be a better place.

[1849] I'm not saying that sex is bad.

[1850] Sex is awesome.

[1851] The sexual differences between men and women are a fascinating dynamic that I think fuels, passion, and poetry and life.

[1852] Not poetry.

[1853] I never fucking read poetry.

[1854] I don't know what I'm talking about.

[1855] Art. There's a lot of good to that struggle.

[1856] There's a lot of great things that come out of struggle.

[1857] But there's also the reality that if you had to extrapolate from here forth, from where we are to what we used to be, if you believe in evolution, if you're one of them, if you want to go back to the times where we were fucking living in caves and fighting off T -Rex or whatever the hell was going on, and extrapolate that a thousand years in the future, 10 ,000 years in the future, at some point in time, the elimination of sexual urges might be imperative.

[1858] Yeah.

[1859] I mean, it's our most base surge.

[1860] And, you know, David Suzuki, the environmentalist, said at best, he said, as advances we become technologically.

[1861] And if you look at the infant, we created this information superhighway.

[1862] And we thought this is going to change the world and change the universe.

[1863] Yet 85 % of the content and it was porn.

[1864] Is it 85?

[1865] Is it that high?

[1866] I don't know.

[1867] I might have made another statistic up, but it's high.

[1868] I think it's pretty high.

[1869] We've looked at it before.

[1870] I think there's varying numbers.

[1871] But I think it's...

[1872] I heard that actually the number was, I think it was 65%.

[1873] I think I might have added to it for greater emphasis.

[1874] I thought it was 37.

[1875] Let's find out right now.

[1876] What percentage of the internet is porn?

[1877] Here we go.

[1878] What are you going to say?

[1879] I'll go 60%.

[1880] Okay.

[1881] What of the internet?

[1882] Okay, let's find out here.

[1883] How much of the internet is actually porn on Forbes?

[1884] It says, don't make me click some shit to continue to the next site.

[1885] God damn it.

[1886] Probably a link to Red Shoeve.

[1887] Yeah, probably.

[1888] You porn.

[1889] Not that I know what that is.

[1890] That's a bad problem.

[1891] place um hmm it says okay in 2010 13 % of web searches were for erotic content only 4 % of the top million websites huh so 4 % but there was the volume this fucking they're fucking around what numbers here give me the volume bitches they're not giving me the volume right off the bat that's not this one forbs is hiding information god damn elitists web porn just how much is there 37 percent i was right yeah 37 percent yeah i sure it is 37 percent that was the number 30 seven seven percent of the internet is made of pornographic material man wow still high that's remarkable pretty high yeah nutty according to estimates from uh scandinavian research 90 percent of all the data the human race has ever produced has been generated in the past two years.

[1892] Whoa.

[1893] That's nuts.

[1894] That is fucking banana.

[1895] That's crazier than porn.

[1896] I can't joke off to that.

[1897] 90 % of the data the human race has ever produced has been generated in the past two years.

[1898] Wow.

[1899] How much of that is just bullshit on Twitter and Pinterest?

[1900] I remember reading something like that, something like 80 % of man's knowledge.

[1901] Everything that man knows has been acquired since 1969.

[1902] the year we landed on the moon.

[1903] That's always...

[1904] How could that be possible?

[1905] That's always...

[1906] That's always thrown about.

[1907] How could that be possible when the Bible was 2 ,000 years old?

[1908] You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, son.

[1909] That's weird.

[1910] Everything we know is from 1969 Ford?

[1911] 80 or percent.

[1912] But it's sort of been...

[1913] Yeah, it must be 80 -odd percent.

[1914] That makes sense.

[1915] Because everything is built upon.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] You know, the...

[1918] I mean, you needed the infrastructure of...

[1919] You know, you needed the people to figure out the combustion engine for them to figure out the electric car.

[1920] Well, it was only 100 years before.

[1921] we thought if someone had the flu and meant they were demonically possessed.

[1922] Yeah.

[1923] The numbers are pretty crazy when you look at 90 % of all the data over two years.

[1924] What is it going to be two years from now?

[1925] Then when you look at that exponential increase in technology, I'm hopeful.

[1926] You know, I don't think that your vision of Elysium is going to come to pass.

[1927] But I'm an optimist.

[1928] Are you an optimist or are you a pessimist?

[1929] I, if you ask friends, I'm a glass half full kind of guy.

[1930] And, I mean, I have the advantage of being here.

[1931] And I know when, when things really do it, get to the shit.

[1932] I just get them planning to go back to Australia.

[1933] Where we have universal health care and pensions and social security.

[1934] That's why you can't be president, son of a bitch.

[1935] I'm pessimistic until the liberal class in this country becomes a force again.

[1936] because there is no countervailing power to capital in this country at the moment.

[1937] Until the liberal class becomes a force again.

[1938] What are the detriments, though, of having liberals in control?

[1939] A bunch of pussies, that's what the detriments is the fucking Al -Qaeda is going to come over here and kick our ass.

[1940] A bunch of panty waste running this land.

[1941] Hey, Clinton loved blowing shit up, you know.

[1942] Did he, though?

[1943] He only blew shit up when he got caught getting blow jobs.

[1944] That's what he really like blowing shit up.

[1945] Remember that?

[1946] Oh, yeah.

[1947] Son of a bitch.

[1948] Of all the women he could have had.

[1949] He probably had a lot of them.

[1950] We found out about a mouthy, fat girl.

[1951] In more ways than one.

[1952] I mean, didn't he supposedly bang Elizabeth Hurley?

[1953] Do you see all those photographs that came out recently?

[1954] Oh, really?

[1955] Oh, there's one look of him and her looking at each other.

[1956] You know they fucked.

[1957] You just know they fucked.

[1958] But she's a good girl.

[1959] She's a secret.

[1960] I love her.

[1961] Yeah, well, she's actually engaged to one of Australia's greatest cricketers ever.

[1962] Yeah, Shane Warren.

[1963] How old is she now?

[1964] I'm going to guess he's early 40s.

[1965] Hanging in there, huh?

[1966] Barely.

[1967] Tooth and claw.

[1968] I'd do her.

[1969] Would you really?

[1970] How dare you would do that Mormon broad, too.

[1971] You're just horny, man. God damn it.

[1972] So you, but what are the, what are the negative aspects of liberals taking over?

[1973] Well, you know, nothing is a solution.

[1974] You know, there's no one -size -fits -all, obviously.

[1975] Right.

[1976] And, you know, I think that countries struggle through with trial and error.

[1977] I think that, you know, what's happening in Australia and Germany is not pure liberal societies at all.

[1978] It's a balancing act always between liberalism and capitalism.

[1979] And I think there's countries that juggle the two balls better.

[1980] At the moment, it's so lopsided in the favor of capital.

[1981] Capital Trump's politics.

[1982] You know, from 19, you know, it all started.

[1983] in this country, and not to get too historical, but Justice Powell wrote a memo when Nixon was in the White House and said that the sleeping giant in American politics is the CEO of America.

[1984] And from that point on, that memo turned into the greatest migration of Wall Street lobbyists, well, migration from Wall Street to Washington.

[1985] And today you have something like 50 -odd thousand, you know, lobbyists in Washington who have the years of politicians.

[1986] So liberalism has no chance and again if liberalism had a chance we would have had universal health care when the democrats had unilateral control of congress but we didn't we ended up with a a very capitalistic solution uh to our health care problems but what would fuck up if liberals ran things what would be the real big issue well what fucked up when fDR was in power for all those years yeah but that was so long ago yeah there's a different world that's like talking about a culture that's, you know, aboriginal culture that had some sort of collective government and comparing it to ours.

[1987] Yeah.

[1988] It's so different.

[1989] Some of my friends are aboriginals.

[1990] I'm sure.

[1991] Along with your gay friends, your Christian friends.

[1992] What, I mean, what would be the negative, I mean, would there be any negative, any weakening of this great nation by having, like, a real liberal idealist?

[1993] Yeah.

[1994] Well, I mean, you've got to give it a go, don't you?

[1995] You've got to go back to what's worked, and liberalism has worked.

[1996] It's a proven success.

[1997] You know, free market capitalism hasn't worked in this country.

[1998] We know it to trickle -down economics hasn't worked.

[1999] Again, Kansas, if the need, George Bush came into power.

[2000] Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich three times, created 23 million jobs.

[2001] George Bush, you know, came into power, put in the biggest tax cuts on the wealthy since World War II and had a net loss of one million jobs, not including, even if take.

[2002] taking out the years of the great recession and the great crash at a consideration.

[2003] We see it happening in Kansas.

[2004] That free market capitalism, trickle -down economics, mantra just has been abject failure wherever it's been tried.

[2005] So is liberalism going to be the perfect answer?

[2006] No, but there has to be some measure where the corporate state is put in control.

[2007] But if you did that, liberalism gets into power and then this sort of anti -war sentiment gets firmly put into place.

[2008] what do you do about the vacuum that's created in these 100 different countries where we have military presence?

[2009] FDR was a liberal, and we went into World War II.

[2010] Right, but there was a different world, right?

[2011] I mean, wasn't it a different world?

[2012] Not really.

[2013] I mean, there was no terrorists.

[2014] There was clear enemies.

[2015] We were after the Nazis.

[2016] And, you know, there was sort of a different time.

[2017] Well, more clearly defined.

[2018] The Middle East, there's no problem in the Middle East that's going to be solved with military intervention.

[2019] I mean, Iraq is purely a political situation.

[2020] You're not going to quell the violence by putting...

[2021] Look, we couldn't stop an insurgency in Iraq when we had 150 ,000 troops on the ground.

[2022] Now we're sending 800 military advisors.

[2023] What the fuck's they're going to do?

[2024] So, you know, Syria, you're not going to stop unless, you know, these borders are redrawn.

[2025] So if isolationism, you could argue, well, how's isolation isn't going to hurt when there is no military solution to these geopolitical problems?

[2026] Well, the idea of the military solution is the suppression.

[2027] If we're not solving it, at least we're suppressing the power from gathering steam and forcing, you know, some situation where they could collectively form some large threatening group.

[2028] That we're dissipating that in some sense by our military presence in these countries.

[2029] That our foot on their neck is what keeping them from growing large and then fighting over there so we don't have to fight over here.

[2030] So we're going to have freedom over here.

[2031] I mean, that's the logic behind it, right?

[2032] But we couldn't do with 150 ,000 troops.

[2033] So how many troops do you want to keep in these countries for how long?

[2034] Does it become like an endless occupation in every hotspot around the world?

[2035] Well, I mean, I don't think there's a good idea, but it seems to be what it is.

[2036] Yeah.

[2037] I mean, it seems to be what we're doing.

[2038] Yeah, well, no, I think Obama's, I mean, you look at all the geopolitical issues which have come up in the last few years, everything from Syria to Libya to Russia to now Iraq.

[2039] The Republicans have pleaded Obama to get military involved in all four of these situations.

[2040] Three of those situations aren't even in the news anymore, and we would have had a military force there.

[2041] So, you know, I think the Obama doctrine, for lack of, you know, I know he doesn't like calling the Obama doctrine.

[2042] It's working.

[2043] It's, you know, stand on the sidelines, use proxies, don't put boots on the ground, look for political situations, political avenues, whether it's through sanctions or, pressure on currencies and so forth.

[2044] These things work.

[2045] The reason Russia is withdrawing from the eastern borders of Ukraine is because these sanctions have crippled the oligarchs in Russia and they're in turn putting pressure on Putin to withdraw.

[2046] Has it really worked?

[2047] There's a lot of people that argue it hasn't and that Obama's policies have been disastrous.

[2048] I mean, there was an article in Politico recently.

[2049] I don't know if you read it.

[2050] It was the man who broke the Middle East.

[2051] It was this figure, this picture of a pensive Obama, like looking old as fuck.

[2052] But if anybody's hit the wall, like, aged while they've been in office, that poor bastard.

[2053] Who knows what kind of pressure and stress they must be under to be in that position?

[2054] I mean, I can't even imagine why anybody would want that.

[2055] But this guy, Elliot Abrams, wrote this article about the policies and what it's done to the Middle East and how fucked up things are now.

[2056] A lot of people don't think that the policies work.

[2057] And they think that they've created more problems than they've solved.

[2058] Yeah.

[2059] Well, I mean, how's it?

[2060] I mean, we broke Iraq.

[2061] I mean, the Republicans like to be revisionist at the moment and say that things were all rosy when we've drew in 2008 or is it 2009.

[2062] There was a civil war raging there still.

[2063] You know, last year there was on average 800 to 1 ,000 Iraqis killed in terrorist attacks each month in that place.

[2064] The civil war has been raging.

[2065] Porting military intervention doesn't solve it.

[2066] um we have to we have to even put pressure on the iraqi government on maliki to uh to be more inclusive i mean we fucked the pooch when the day you know i got friends who uh who worked as security contractors friends who work for global corp who were in charge of monitoring the green zone during their early days of the occupation in iraq and they said after after the saddam statue fell in bagdad you could walk freely without a sidearm even anywhere in baghdad in those early days But the minute that Bremner and Coe were debafferized or, you know, sacked the baffirs out of the police force and the military, that created a civil war from that point on.

[2067] Now, we put Maliki in power or we endorse Maliki in the power, and he's just perpetuated that policy of, you know, she is only, and the soon as he's become the underclass.

[2068] So it doesn't matter how many people we put there, it's not going to solve the problem.

[2069] What solves the problem?

[2070] How do we fix the world, dude?

[2071] You know, one of the problems with these conversations, I love these conversations, but I also hate them.

[2072] I love them because they're fascinating, they're stimulating.

[2073] But at a certain point in time, we have them and I go, we're not getting anything done here.

[2074] Nothing's changing.

[2075] We're just mentally masturbating and then leave and it all stays the same.

[2076] Yeah.

[2077] And these intellectual conversations always end up circular ladder.

[2078] I mean, if you're going to ask to be a prick for a minute, I would say the solution is we put in another heavy autocratic regime that suppresses large sediments of population.

[2079] Now, Muslims are going to be sending me death rates now, but that's what America has done.

[2080] If you want peace in the Middle East, then we need to prop up autocratic regimes.

[2081] But why is the Middle East different than any other part of the world?

[2082] Because they're not countries in the way that we think of them as countries, these are artificial countries.

[2083] It's the same reason that Yugoslavia blew up, because we told either the Bosnians and the Croatians and the Serbs, here's your country, pretend to like each other, get along and governs the single country.

[2084] But they're different people.

[2085] Iraq is three different countries under one.

[2086] but we're telling him with British borders to get along nicely and to treat each other equally under a democratic government when in these countries I don't even know what democracy is.

[2087] Can they be taught?

[2088] I mean, wasn't Iraq a real country at one point in time?

[2089] I mean, there's some that argue that Iraq, that Baghdad hasn't been the same since Gingas Khan invaded in the 1 ,200s.

[2090] Yeah.

[2091] That fucked up that.

[2092] I mean, they killed everybody in Baghdad, like 1220 or whatever it was.

[2093] Yeah.

[2094] And that the country is literally never recovered.

[2095] Well, I mean, if you want to end violence here, you just go, you draw a big circle and say, that's Shia -Stan, and you draw another big circle, and you say, that's Sunni -Stan now, getting your corners and stay the fuck there, and that's the end of it.

[2096] Really?

[2097] But then they're going to say, you know, I like it over there.

[2098] Yeah, and then the Saudis are going to go, what, we've got so much money and wealth.

[2099] We don't want to share it with anyone else.

[2100] And the Iranians are going to go, well, we have so much money in wealth.

[2101] We're not going to share it with these poor Shia populations like Syria and, you know, in the south of Iraq.

[2102] I mean, isn't that going to be just another Israel -Palestine type situation, living right next door to people you hate that look exactly like you?

[2103] Yeah, I mean, bottom line, that region is fucked.

[2104] Maybe we should just nuke the whole region put a massive burger king there.

[2105] I would go with in and out, but I see what you're saying.

[2106] Fuck, man. That's the problem with these conversations.

[2107] They always hit this point where you go, okay, well, what?

[2108] What can be done?

[2109] And the answer is almost always, there's no answer.

[2110] Yeah, and the only answer is us the state of fuck out of error and just put, you know, our ally there is one of the most oppressive autocratic regimes in the world, Saudi Arabia.

[2111] You know, if we don't support them, the price of oil will have oil shock.

[2112] The American economy would be doomed even more.

[2113] I mean, we're sitting on such a precipice of potential disaster.

[2114] It's ridiculous.

[2115] If the price of oil sky rockets, Japan is fucked.

[2116] Japan is so dependent on us, keeping us America keeping the price of oil down because they have no oil of their own.

[2117] I mean, oil goes scouting for the roof.

[2118] I mean, not only we're going to have problems in the Middle East, we're going to have a worldwide catastrophe.

[2119] That's why we need fracking.

[2120] You need to support fracking.

[2121] All these assholes that are worried about their wells getting poised.

[2122] And you go to Walmart, you buy your water like everybody else.

[2123] Do you get any hope at all when you see a situation like what happened with Syria, where the United States at a press conference, Obama got on television, military action against Syria was inevitable everybody just said fuck this the whole country collectively right and left was like get the fuck out of here with this and then it went away yeah it went away I mean do you remember that speech that speech seemed like we were on the verge of war the red line speech yeah and then where where where's a war short attention spans yeah well not just short attention spans but the government recognized that there was a huge resistance yeah that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back that might give birth to not just a Occupy Wall Street, but something global, something where people really did step in and say, you guys are fucking crazy.

[2124] And you guys are making the whole world a dangerous, scary place, and we're not buying it anymore.

[2125] Yeah.

[2126] And also, again, Assad is big of a prick of years.

[2127] Well, what the alternative is could be worse.

[2128] I mean, you've got foreign fighters, Islamist groups that want to turn Syria into a theocracy.

[2129] At least Assad, as bad as he is, as secularist.

[2130] You know, that's, you know.

[2131] What was in Saddam Hussein a secularist?

[2132] And Saddam Hussein was a secularist.

[2133] Baghdad, Iraqi, except for, you know, maybe a few excursions into Kurdistan.

[2134] You know, kind of kept Iraq in check.

[2135] Oh, my God, I'm in trouble for certain.

[2136] You're in big trouble.

[2137] What about the people that lived there and had to deal with his evil fucking serial killer sons?

[2138] Yeah, yeah.

[2139] Wow.

[2140] I mean, you've got deaf squads, you know, going door to door again now, knocking on doors in the Sunni neighborhoods, dragging people out the street and executing them right now.

[2141] I mean, unless you give these separate sex of, Islam, their own countries, unless they can be formed, you're never going to solve the problem.

[2142] Yeah, you will.

[2143] Get rid of religion?

[2144] Mushrooms.

[2145] Get these motherfuckers.

[2146] The same shit they were eaten when they were the sacred mushroom in the cross.

[2147] Just airdrop MDMA.

[2148] Yeah, spray it on them.

[2149] You know what we need?

[2150] For real?

[2151] The problem with, we have such a fast food culture, microwave, instant download society.

[2152] We need like a psychedelic taser.

[2153] You just instantaneously get enlightened.

[2154] Like, we don't have time for you to take a mushroom and be reasonable for an hour and 20 minutes and then get the effects and then sort of contain it.

[2155] We need to just taser people.

[2156] I was like, oh, I was being a dick.

[2157] Just zap them.

[2158] I'm trademarking at the minute I get out of here.

[2159] Psychedelic taser?

[2160] You can.

[2161] I already said it online.

[2162] It's just live, man. Just like Laguna Beach.

[2163] The shit is live.

[2164] What are you talking about?

[2165] I don't know what we're talking about.

[2166] Psychedelic tasers.

[2167] We need to go over there and just tase the shit out of everybody.

[2168] with some sort of a DMT taser.

[2169] Just a quick introduction to God.

[2170] Like, listen.

[2171] Like those Agent Orange Airplanes over Vietnam.

[2172] Just like that fell out.

[2173] Exactly.

[2174] Just fill the skies with enlightenment.

[2175] They did it in Laguna Beach.

[2176] Just finished writing a great book, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

[2177] And how Laguna Beach was the, not that I live there, but how was the center point for all the best Afghan hash into America.

[2178] Really?

[2179] Yeah.

[2180] And they had this big, concert, I think it was in 67, out in the canyon of Laguna Beach, I don't know where that is, but they dropped this cargo plane, flew over this crowd, 20 ,000 people, you know, it was like a grateful dead concert and dropped acid all over the crowd and became like a five -day concert.

[2181] I never knew this history of the city I don't live in.

[2182] Well, you know what?

[2183] That was back when people were experiencing this new psychedelic freedom.

[2184] The word hash is such a strange word too, because hash in a lot of places gets considered as being much more illegal than marijuana, much more...

[2185] I mean, in a lot of countries, in fact, you can get put to death for hash.

[2186] Yeah.

[2187] But all it is is THC.

[2188] All it is...

[2189] It's like cocaine crack, you know.

[2190] Sort of, but not in the effects.

[2191] Have you ever smoke hash?

[2192] It's just a pure version of THC.

[2193] It's just more potent, but it's very similar than the ways to smoking marijuana.

[2194] It's just more powerful.

[2195] That's all it is.

[2196] It doesn't do...

[2197] It's not like heroin.

[2198] It's not like it's, you know, it's not crystal meth or anything crazy.

[2199] It's just hash.

[2200] I got an 18 -year -old son, and, you know, obviously him growing up in Indonesia, which has the lowest tolerance of drug use probably anywhere in the world.

[2201] He's got a friend, actually, who went to jail for, you know, six months, just, you know, he was 16 at the time for just having one joint.

[2202] You can have one joint.

[2203] You can be in jail for 10 years if you're an adult.

[2204] And so all his friends in Indonesia, he went out and got his medical marijuana card.

[2205] You know, one of us, the Green Doctor in Venice Beach got his card, and he puts it on Facebook.

[2206] And he says, I get home delivery with my own.

[2207] weed he said god bless america so uh he sees optimism here what were you doing in indonesia well i i i you know i only meant to live there for a year um and then when you turned into 10 years i had a business in australia which i wanted to go to indonesia uh you know had a bar there at one stage like uh you ran a brothel you went a goddamn brothel in indonesia i didn't want to say a hash bar that's true wow so uh so yeah and then i started writing full time when i in Indonesia, so you're a real international traveler.

[2208] You've seen it from all around.

[2209] Yeah, yeah, kind of.

[2210] Well, what propelled me into writing about religion was I sort of witnessed the O -5 terrorist attack in Bali, twin suicide bombs on Jim Brown Beach.

[2211] We were right there that night.

[2212] And that made me from a journalistic point of view, really wanted to delve into what's in these religious texts, which would make somebody strapped C -4 to themselves and blow themselves a smiverine in front of a crowded, well, within a crowded restaurant, taking women and children with them so uh yeah well you just fucking put a somber note to the end of this podcast you want to talk about weight again no no i mean it really is all about the mechanisms of the human mind right that ideologies can allow people or give people the motivation to do some crazy shit including things of their own selves and not just ideologies that are accepted established ideologies like Islam or christianity but like those those heavens gate guys who cut their balls off and fucking wore purple nikes and waited for the spaceship behind the comet.

[2213] There's something about the human mind that is so easily influenced by an alpha or an idea or a message from a higher power, whatever it is.

[2214] There's something about the human mind that's so easily influenced.

[2215] It's truly a dangerous but malleable thing.

[2216] We want to believe in something hide in ourselves.

[2217] You know, that's human proclivity.

[2218] We want that.

[2219] But why is that?

[2220] Is there something higher than ourselves that we just haven't accessed yet?

[2221] Well, I think our highest sense of consciousness, as you said before, you know, our ego can't let go of the fact that once we're dead, we're dead.

[2222] I don't think our ego can accept the fact that we're really nothing more than a virus.

[2223] We're a bacteria that occupies the planet.

[2224] And I, you know, my, you know, people who do believe, you know, I never, I'm not an evangelical atheist by any means and there's a lot of, a lot of those guys, but I'm not, but I always like, if I'm going to to give some sort of literature other than my own books to uh to someone who's uh religious it's karl sagan's pale blue tot i mean that really puts into perspective you know uh you know the meaningless of uh of the human existence yeah have you ever been to the keck observatory in the big island no i haven't i just got back i've been there once before the time i went before was way better because i this time i went during the super moon and the moon was so big you couldn't see jack shit like you just saw the moon you didn't see any stars but the last time i was I went, the moon was dark.

[2225] Right.

[2226] And you see the entire cosmos.

[2227] It's so fascinating because the Keck Observatory is established in an area of Hawaii that's above the clouds.

[2228] Yep.

[2229] And the Big Island has certain diffused streetlights so it doesn't put up light pollution.

[2230] So when you're up there, you get the full vision of the night sky.

[2231] And it's unbelievably.

[2232] That'd be amazing.

[2233] unbelievably spectacular and also like it's very that word life changing gets used a lot for experiences that people have but my experience the first time i went which is i guess about nine years ago my first time going up there was truly life changing like i looked up there and i saw the stars and i realized like we're on a planet we're in a planet we're flying around in space we're just so preoccupied in our own bullshit that we forget that we're on this planet and how small we are Yeah.

[2234] I think if we could see the stars on a daily basis, I think we would be a different attitude.

[2235] Slowly but surely, I think people would establish a different attitude.

[2236] Just the sheer humility that comes with looking at the stars, just gazing up at that thing.

[2237] You know, and just if you want to look for a greater power, you want to look for a greater thing than us, just the vastness of the infinity that you're looking at is enough.

[2238] Because when it's just black, it's too easy to ignore.

[2239] You look up, you see a couple dots.

[2240] Yeah, well, the moon's out tonight.

[2241] You know, you get back to your house and you watch fucking cardiacians and fall asleep with your socks on like a fucking idiot.

[2242] You know, I mean, it's too easy to do that.

[2243] It's too easy to fall into these traps.

[2244] I think people that are looking for something larger than life itself, it's right above us.

[2245] We're in it.

[2246] It's not even above us.

[2247] It's around us.

[2248] We're floating in it.

[2249] And it's humbling.

[2250] And, you know, it makes your earthly worries seem insignificant and puts things in perspective, I think.

[2251] Well, that was the Reagan speech.

[2252] Remember that Reagan speech?

[2253] We talked about how quickly we would put our differences aside if we were being faced with a threat from another planet.

[2254] Yeah, that's right.

[2255] Yeah, yeah.

[2256] Remember?

[2257] Yeah, yeah.

[2258] Boy, the fucking UFO nuts love that.

[2259] Those UFO nutters, they cling to that one speech by this crazy old man who was probably suffering for dementia.

[2260] Which he was.

[2261] Was he, though?

[2262] In the end he was.

[2263] In the end he was.

[2264] But remember when those Iran -Contra trials were going on?

[2265] And they asked him, yeah, like, did you really sell arms to?

[2266] to Iran and he was like, I don't remember.

[2267] I don't recall.

[2268] Remember that?

[2269] That was what he said.

[2270] I do not recall.

[2271] And they allowed him to get away with it because he was an old man. Yeah.

[2272] That was the strategy.

[2273] Well, you know, his son, Ronald Reagan, same name.

[2274] In his book about his dad, he said, yeah, in the last two years, he was in full mode dementia, you know.

[2275] Probably the CIA.

[2276] CIA, dosed him up with some crazy shit, keep him stupid.

[2277] So I couldn't tell.

[2278] You just start a new conspiracy website somewhere.

[2279] Probably.

[2280] His son's gay too, right?

[2281] He's like a ballet dancer.

[2282] I think so.

[2283] I'm not sure.

[2284] I'm not sure to show.

[2285] It's like a liberal talk show host and stuff.

[2286] Like completely rebelled.

[2287] Yeah.

[2288] Although there's two sons.

[2289] There's one who's the liberal one who's on the talk show.

[2290] And the other one is not.

[2291] He's a right wing loon.

[2292] Oh, the other one that didn't, the right wing loon though didn't know his dad very well.

[2293] No, that's correct.

[2294] Yeah.

[2295] What a mess.

[2296] Trying to fucking recapture the old glory.

[2297] It's so weird.

[2298] when I see people fall in love with the idea of what Ronald Reagan was.

[2299] Like they reminisce about the Reagan administration and what the great president Reagan was.

[2300] I've had these conversations with people.

[2301] I'm like, what the fuck are you even talking about, man?

[2302] Are you like doing a Disney movie of Ronald Reagan?

[2303] The mythology is incredible.

[2304] I mean, he didn't lower taxes on the middle class or the paw or anything like that.

[2305] He only raised taxes on the wealthy and sent the budget, you know, blew out the budget the next year and put the economy into a recession and then had to raise taxes something like four or five times after that.

[2306] So the whole myth of him being a tax cutter and a job creator and so forth, you know, it's all steeped in mythology.

[2307] And the big one, of course.

[2308] His introduction to the political world of the religious right.

[2309] Yeah.

[2310] That was the big one.

[2311] Boy, that was a...

[2312] Well, if it wasn't for them, Jerry Falwell's moral majority, he would never have been president.

[2313] You know, the Christian rights webbed him into power.

[2314] Jerry motherfuck and Falwell.

[2315] Isn't that crazy?

[2316] Yeah.

[2317] But wasn't it like Al Capone that made, who was it that, not it wasn't Al Capone, but who was it that made JFK president?

[2318] It was also the Chicago mob.

[2319] Oh, well, that was the Frank Sinatra connection.

[2320] Rick and Scarfa, whoever the fuck it was.

[2321] Yeah, I mean, there's the mob that apparently wreaks some ballots in the south of Chicago.

[2322] We only love people when they're dead.

[2323] We really do.

[2324] We celebrate them when they're no longer with us.

[2325] That's it.

[2326] America.

[2327] It's America.

[2328] Fuck, yeah.

[2329] When Jimmy Carter dies, he's going to be a goddamn saint.

[2330] Right now, he gets maligned, misunderstood.

[2331] He's probably, in my opinion, the most philosophical and the most interesting former president ever.

[2332] Well, here's something interesting.

[2333] When six months after Jerry Forwell was out of power, his approval rating was 64 % roughly.

[2334] You mean Ronald Reagan?

[2335] No, no, Jerry Falwell is up to power.

[2336] Jimmy Carter.

[2337] Did I say Jerry Falwell?

[2338] Yes, you did.

[2339] What did you put in my coffee?

[2340] I'm sorry, man. I had to dose you up to get the most out of you.

[2341] Yeah, no, when Jimmy Carter's approval rating six months out of office was something like 64%.

[2342] Ronald Reagan's approval rating six months out of office was something like 42%.

[2343] Now, polls aren't everything, but they take a snapshot in time of, you know, the political wins.

[2344] Reagan wasn't a popular president when he left office.

[2345] It was only much later.

[2346] Much later.

[2347] Decades later.

[2348] Decades later.

[2349] After two administrations.

[2350] Yeah.

[2351] And look at, look, what's happening to.

[2352] Bush now, you know, revisionism is glossing over or trying to tarnish the toad that was Bush's legacy now, you know, or the original Bush, which has completely been glossed over.

[2353] Herbert Walker Bush, you never hear a negative thought about that guy.

[2354] No, he's a saint now.

[2355] Yeah, I mean, he's a fucking guy was the head of the CIA.

[2356] Yeah, yeah.

[2357] Jesus Christ, we're weird.

[2358] We're weird when we do that.

[2359] I mean, if you, well, I've had conversations with people about Carter, the weakest president ever in this and I'm like, oh, fucking stop.

[2360] You ever listen to the guy talk?

[2361] He's a very philosophical, introspective guy.

[2362] Probably one of the most open, honest, introspective guys we've ever had as a president.

[2363] But Americans are hostile to intellectuals.

[2364] They like Americans to act on raw emotion and, you know, anger and fury.

[2365] Can we have both?

[2366] Can we have both?

[2367] Yeah, I think Obama's, I think foreign policy -wise, Obama has tried to be circumspective and to think with clarity before he acts.

[2368] Yeah, but this whole NSA thing.

[2369] will be his legacy.

[2370] The Edward Snowden thing will be his legacy.

[2371] The, you know, when you look at the Hope and Change website that they had in place before when Obama was running for president and his established position of assisting whistleblowers who are exposing crimes, and then you look at what he's become, you look at what his legacy is.

[2372] That's, that's really...

[2373] Exactly.

[2374] And I often say when people ask in, you know, interviews or so forth, How do you think Obama will be remembered as a president?

[2375] I always say, he'll just be remembered as slightly better than the alternative.

[2376] That's how his presidency be remembered.

[2377] And with that, we're out of time.

[2378] That was an awesome three hours, man. What's that three hours?

[2379] Fucking flew by.

[2380] Wow, that's incredible.

[2381] That's how it works over here.

[2382] We're going out right into peak hour traffic.

[2383] We dose you up and we send you away.

[2384] I don't think we got anything covered.

[2385] I don't think we figured anything out.

[2386] I don't think we changed.

[2387] But it was a lot of fun.

[2388] Thanks, man. And I really appreciate you.

[2389] And thank you for having me. And please go buy his books.

[2390] They're very highly rated.

[2391] And you can check them out on his website.

[2392] You can check them out on Amazon.

[2393] If you go to C .J. Worleman, that's W .E .R .E .M .A .N. on Twitter.

[2394] If you go to his Twitter link, there's a link to his Amazon page.

[2395] And that Amazon page has Crucifying America on it.

[2396] It also has Atheist Can't Be Republicans.

[2397] God hates you.

[2398] Hate him back.

[2399] Jesus lied.

[2400] only human, all sorts of things to piss off anyone religious in your family, send it to them for Christmas, Hanukkah, your birthday, send people things for your birthday.

[2401] Say, happy birthday to me, go fuck yourself, here's a book, read it.

[2402] It's by C .J. Wurleman.

[2403] You have a website, too?

[2404] Yep, uh, C .J .Worleman .com.

[2405] Thank you very much, man. Thanks, Joe.

[2406] Thanks, Joe.

[2407] Great chat.

[2408] Thanks, mate.

[2409] And, uh, thanks to our sponsors.

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[2412] And thanks all.

[2413] Also to Stamps .com.

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[2419] We'll be back in a little bit with the Fight Companion podcast that will air live that coincides with the Fox Sports One broadcast, which is at...

[2420] 7 o 'clock tonight.

[2421] So until then, much love, big kiss.

[2422] See you soon.