Show Notes
Have you seen the burning buildings in France? How does it make you feel? I know how certain people want you to feel. They want you to think that the barbaric hordes are storming the gates of western civilization and that they want to destroy everything you hold beautiful and sacred. France today. America tomorrow. The burning of the the town hall in Limoges is the most powerful image to come out of the unrest in France. A fiery blaze of an historic stone building and the crashing of its clock tower is held up and all the people who love things good and beautiful mourn. Now, I don’t think it’s the proper thing to burn. It’s bad PR for a movement that isn’t senseless violence, as much as they want you to believe that. They don’t tell you that it’s not as historic as you think. The building is 143 years old, which by European architectural standards is quite young. it was built to look old. but i did not mourn this building. Nor did I mourn the arson at Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s vacation home, weeks later. People will say it was a beautiful building with great vistas and a nice cafe! It’s historic! You burned down Hitler’s airbnb! What did he ever do to you! It’s funny the things we choose to shed tears of and get all indignant and protective over. I’m trying to think of what the American equivalent might be. If i had to pick one in the news right now, it’s the Cheesecake Factory. That is our Limoges. That is our Eagle’s Nest. If you’re not familiar with the discourse, at a recent rally, Obama made a decent joke. I didn’t think he was making fun of Cheesecake Factory, but conservative operatives took it as an opportunity to yelp and claim that Obama was ridiculing the average American who thinks that Cheesecake Factory is a nice place. Now, ive never been to a cheesecake factory. I thought it was a place that sold cheesecakes. Stranger places have stayed in business, but it’s considered to be a modestly fancy place to take your family out for massive caloric meals. Now every conservative poster is taking pictures outside the restaurant and saying this place is great! The liberals are out of touch with our eating establishments and therefore our culture. This makes the Cheesecake Factory our cultural monument. Americans get mad when you make fun of their consumer choices, because America is a culture of consumption. It’s like when a trans person enjoys their bud light. It is blasphemy to us because we identify with what we buy. It’s like when an Iranian cleric said their was no equivalent to the murder of Suleimani, “Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob? They don't have any heroes.” So what we choose to mourn says a lot about us. I will not mourn brick and mortar. I will, however, mourn the ancient olive trees that the Israeli occupying forces destroy on a daily basis. Some of these trees are more than a thousand years old and have been tended too by the Palestinian people before France even had stone buildings. One of these trees is worth more than every town hall in all of Europe. So spare me those crocodile tears about a building you've never seen or would never care to learn about until someone tells you to be sad about it. So what is really going on in France. To help us understand, reporter Marlon Ettinger, who is on the ground in Paris explains.
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The most important first amendment issue of our time is Shrek’s penis. Back in June, Ohio journalists and friend of the show DJ Byrnes was arrested for sending a picture of Shrek’s penis to the fourth most powerful republican in the Ohio state legislature. If you want to listen to the whole story, go back a few weeks and listen, but to summarize it, he was unjustly arrested for a misdemeanor. What happened to him is unheard of. Earlier this month, DJ went to court. It seemed like an open and shut case of first amendment rights. The Ohio jury thought otherwise. It’s not their fault. The judge (who flew up from the free state of florida to oversee the case for some reason) instructed DJ’s lawyers that the first amendment did not apply and were not permitted to even utter the constitutional right as a part of their defense. DJ was found guilty of “telecommuncations harassment” and ordered to pay a fine of $200 plus court costs. His lawyers cost 1200 hour plus whatever other expenses the court deemed necessary. Now, this might seem silly, and it is. I watched the trial and having Shrek’s green penis on a powerpoint was very funny. But it is also alarming. This sets a worrying precedent—not that unsolicited dick pics are now illegal, which silver lining I guess right ladies?—but that the power of the court can be wielded in such a petty and unlawful way. DJ plans to appeal, and must certainly will win. The plaintiff actually committed witness tampering after the trial, which for some reason the judge also chose to not punish. There is a chance that this could go to the Supreme Court. Inshallah. This is charade is to punish DJ for his good work. I’m a big fan of what he does, and corrupt Ohioan politicians hate for it in turn. DJ is at the Ohio capital statehouse every day to hold what he calls those sweaty perverts, accountable for their wrongdoings and lies. DJ must not be silenced. It was actually DJ that broke the Vivek Ramasaway ad using his opponents estranged mother. We need more DJs. So pay close attention to this case and follow his work over at The Rooster.
The social media manipulation in Brazil is severe. Meta has already been caught altering its algorithm to suppress Lula and bolster Bolsonaro. WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, is installed on 98 percent of all phones in Brazil. I know Americans don’t use it much, so we don’t understand the significance of this kind of social media hegemony, but it informs much of the Brazilian populatoin. The US has vested interest in a Bolsonaro victory. . Brazil has many resources that the US and it’s tech oligarchs would love to dig up for pennies on the dollar. Bolsonaro would happily let the rapacious US interests do whatever they want to the land. Whatever happens come Sunday, Meta must be destroyed. Social media must be smashed into a thousand pieces and scattered to the wind. To talk about the state of Brazil, its elections, how Bolsonaro is both like Trump and Not, and why Glenn Greenwald is a lying fraudster, I’m joined by Brian Mier. Brian has lived in Brazil for the last 30 years is a reporter for TeleSur.
Mind control is nothing new. Ever hear of a little movie called The Odyssey? Well, there's a scene where these Sirens sing and get into Odysseus's head and make him act all weird. They burned witches at the stake for entering the minds of good Christian men and women making them too horny. Gothic fiction told many stories of nefarious hypnosis and induced trance states. But mind control ceased to be a fantastical metaphor since WW2 when it was very seriously studied and experimented. Still, today’s sloppy conspiracists love to use it to explain history. What’s so appealing about mind control is that it can explain any behavior. It’s a Deus ex Machina that can help paper over any gaps in a theory that would be otherwise unsatisfactory. And what could be more sinister than taking control of someone's most fundamental part of the self? But the Candace’s and Alex Jones’s have done a serious disservice to a very real study of the mind and human behavior. MKUltra is real, but it’s not what you think it is. Today’s guest, Robert Skvarla, tells us about his years long investigation into the history of MKUltra and how we got from fake pigeons to IQ mind control. Make sure you subscribe to Robert’s new Substack, NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY If you are upset with the Ellison’s takeover of American media, supporting independent researchers like Robert is your best legal and nonviolent course of action. The best way to kill (metaphorically) Bari Weiss is to give money to Robert and support his deeply researched and well written work.
From blood libel to trans panics to jenkem, the innocence of children has always been an effective political tool. I remember when cable news would try to scare parents about Halloween and made up stories about sickos putting razor blades in snickers bars. But today's fears are much more depraved. Adults harbor hyper sexual fantasies about children being sodomized and how they can be heroes and put an end to this crime. What made America fantasize about the pedophile? Was it a reaction to the sexual liberation revolution? Was it Epstein? Was it Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator? Is it sublimated guilt? To figure it out I’m joined by Jake Rhodes of Pendejo Time. We talk about this unsavory cultural phenomena and review the new Robert Pattinson movie PRIMETIME, which people wrongly claim absolves child predators and demonizes Chris Hansen. Enjoy!
True crime is bad for you. On tonight's episode Brother Isaac talks about a true crime series that investigates true crime itself. The HBO documentary is called A Killer Story, and the star of the show, Joe Sexton, gives us a behind the scenes look at the mini-series Joe is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who spent many years and the New York Times and ProPublica. A Killer Story tells the story of a double homicide in Kansas and two local true crime obsessives who dedicate their lives to overturning a murder conviction. The show is critical of the true crime genre, and as Joe will explain, was originally intended to be even more critical of one of the premier true crime shows, CBS’s 48 hours, but was thwarted by media monopolization.