Chapo Trap House - 464 - Live MAS (10/19/20)

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

To start off, you know we gotta talk some Toob’. Then it’s on to the resounding victory of Evo Morales and Luis Arce’s MAS party in the do-over Bolivian election following last year’s coup. This dovetails nicely into a story about Trump blowing off the intelligence briefings for milkshakes, which brings us to wonder what horrors might return to the intelligence agencies under a slightly-more-competant Biden administration. Finally we take a look at California’s prop 22, regarding classifying gig-based workers as employees. Let’s get one last big push for Nithya Raman for LA City Council: https://www.nithyaforthecity.com/

see I think the thing with the tube and thing is I think it really does matter whether he was hard or not you know because I mean if he was if he was if he was just jacking it like that's yeah insane and he probably wanted to be seen but I think if it was his tube it was soft I think pipe is hard I think I think that's the designation I think that's the preferred medical term so I want I want him to be soft both because I think hard is obviously rude and also because I want the New York Post to run something about Tubin's tube this is one occasion where you definitely do want him to have done a no-growth and like

his excuse there's no details on it either that's what I need to know more if you're a New Yorker staffer please contact us we need to know about Tubin's tube I am reminded of the philosopher Jay Rock from Sunnyville Trailer Park but it could happen to you because it happened to me the other thing that I find credible about his excuse is that he said I thought I had the video muted which is such like a boomer fucking like how do I PDF you know yeah he had his audio muted he was just like well time to whip it out well like what I totally believe that that's plausible you know like I'm gonna argue Tubin's case even

though I don't like him think he's a bad guy to argue his case I don't think he was jerking off because if you're gonna jerk off you're not gonna do it like looking at your colleague like first of all there are probably 10 people on that zoom call and you really have to isolate whatever woman you want to jerk off to and she's not like wearing like her tits aren't out she's not like you with your dick out well I mean there is a kind of public masturbator that just actually likes the crowd but I don't think that's his thing I think he's an old man that walks around naked in his yeah apartment and he could not open PDF

council council council calls to the witness stand himself in a tender of a gym that a lot of old men go to yes it is that it's the old Jewish guy thing of like they love being nude they love how long their balls are they ever a big dude you're been like a like like yeah like a YMCA or the YJCA whatever it is it like it's the old guys there they they need to they can't just have walk out of the tower with a shirt with like you know a towel around their waist they got this on their shoulders they can't just put their underwear on under the towel they want everyone to know and see how long their balls are I've heard of

this phenomenon I've also heard the one leg up on the bench airing it out which to me just seems rude yeah well like I know it's a locker room but like you know don't air them out like that's like hanging your laundry you know that always that always made me curious as a long-time gym attender to see that because it's like well like like you know they say if you aggressively draw your hair it's bad for it and like do you risk tearing the sack like an older sack if you like towel dry it I mean like it doesn't end of your life it's like crepe paper you have to be very careful it is it does feel nice to air drive

versus a towel of course but but like I don't want to stay in the locker room like I want to get out of there yeah I want to go I want to get out yeah I want to get on with my day but I guess when you're old you know like don't have really have work to do you're probably avoiding you know your way who's poisoning you or you're poisoning her also I got to say putting your putting your putting your foot up on the on the bench I mean like that's also sort of an invitation to show hole too I mean yeah they love everyone to see their asshole and they love they love having like a weird stain from not wiping that's

like permanently now part of their skin when I close my eyes I just see like old man balls and hole and I wouldn't have it any other way now you say Felix it'd be hard to like jack off on a zoom call because you have to focus in but what if one of the members of the zoom call was David Remnick and he was like you know sort of charming you with his wit and erudition how could you yeah no yeah I would probably have it out but um I mean it's possible the man is a compulsive masturbator but I think we'd like to be fair we've we've heard some things about Jeffrey Tubin you know just you just Google his name in this

regard well he's part of no condom gang yes exactly he is a king condomless king Felix is on a is on a group text with him on the condom boys group text yeah I am mr. Tubin's lawyer for the law for the law firm of cream pie and associates this may change Tubin's this may change Tubin's opinion about Snowden though because yeah yeah because he was like he was like a big like we need to execute Edward Snowden yeah fuck Snowden guy and it's like well like the NSA is probably like this is not the first time a bunch of people have seen your cock flopping around on the zoom call yeah the NSA has probably

looked through his webcam before Snowden has excellent obsec he would never hop on the zoom call unless he was in like a hermetically sealed box or something some Faraday cage before he jacks off yeah no I do the tape thing over my I mean it's it's insane but I fear the unblinking eye of my webcam I don't really do it because it's like what are you gonna see my cans my look my not my not my tits exactly I don't like I I like very rarely have my dick out because I think it like I don't know it doesn't feel good to have it like dangling around like I like it like restraint I like wearing like tightries that like like holster

the dick to the leg you like to feel cradles yeah yeah I have like a dismemberment fear like a logical dismemberment fear like I have a huge fear of having my dick cut off I think that's castration fear and it's trauma from when it happened before he's yeah it's true he's him he's him and I are victims of tragic that's right yeah they're coming for the they're coming for the rest of it but it's like I have I've broken like three or four French presses just knocking them off counters by accident with your dick no no no that would be a horny of a horny professor just knocking over all the Bunsen

burners with his boat well like I there are like permanent like bloodstains on my floor just from like knocking over a glass thing and stepping on it and it's like you're not that much farther away from like I don't know if I had like a big knife fall on the floor and I try to cut my dick off so like I like I'm trying to like really not accidentally cut my dick off you know Felix Felix there's good news to you there is there there is a device it's sort of like um it's a protection it's like a sort of extra protection for your dick and balls it's a little cage you can lock them in yeah yeah okay all right yeah

I know that all right let's move on before we before we are just the people everyone out there would like to talk Felix Chastity fetish is just going insane right now and I don't want to be more fodder it's not a fetish for me it's like I think it's just like I need to do it it's what's it's a good investment it's just like you keep your valuables in a safe place mm-hmm it's a safe deposit box yep all right well let's uh should we clap in and kick off the show for real all right so I would like to kick off officially the show um it's me will we got Felix Matt and Amber here I like to kick off officially

the show by saying this the people of Bolivia may not be Dave Navarro but they will be living moss yes that's right folks you are all examples of the live moss mentality I'm talking about the uh I don't know landslide election results from Bolivia and in the fake do-over election that they had to do after deposing Evo Morales in a coup wouldn't you know it his party just fucking won the election by about 20 points yeah no I just want to say real quick we we got to mention this at the top of the the show because I think it's probably the most important news story in the world right now but tomorrow I will be

conducting an interview with an independent journalist in Bolivia about the recent election and everything that's led up to it and what may happen now but we couldn't get them on today as you might imagine he's probably pretty busy but look forward to later in the week a extra bonus episode where I will be talking to a journalist who knows what he's talking about on this matter but before then oh guys what are you what are your just your reactions to this fairly phenomenal victory by the MAS party in the Bolivian elections and I should say elections in quotation marks because there was no reason to have this

election in the first place because it just replicated the results of the one that they canceled the last time and if anything went even further to make MAS even more popular. MAS won by a bigger margin than they did last time I saw a lot of crybabies both trying to pretend that they were you know just sort of lightly taking it all in or actually openly commiserating about it getting mad at Camacho the far-right candidate who they believe acted as a spoiler but those Prius Bolivars but he did not Camacho did not act as a spoiler because MAS passed the 50% threshold yes they would have won an

outright victory even if the Czech Nazi vote was fully consolidated and not only that but this is this is the election took place after Jeanine Annez she dropped out her like the interim president that the crazy broad who just like brought a Bible into the presidential fucking the Bolivian White House and just said that she was the president of the country she dropped out of contention because like the the people opposed to MAS realized that like she was gonna be the one to split the vote between like the center-right party and her you know Christian Theocratic Party so when that happened I was a

little bit nervous but like man what a resounding victory for fucking Moss in that country yeah unalloyed good news for the first time in a long time and I guess we'll we'll see what happens yeah I know I'm gonna be their last attempt oh god yeah I mean look what they did look what they did like look at everything that had to happen to get to this point so it's a little hard to say like oh what what good news or whatever but the thing I've been noticing from like the the globe emoji sicko set is that they're using evidence that like their coup attempt failed to justify saying that it was never a coup in the

first place and they were like oh looks like it was just a free and fair election all the crybabies didn't know what they were talking about and it's just like just because it didn't work doesn't mean there was a fucking coup and the fact that they had these free and fair elections are only the result of a mass popular and militant popular movement of MAS supporters labor unions and fucking social movements in that country many of whom were killed by the interim government to get to this point so it's just like oh it didn't work out I guess guess it was always a free and fair democracy and that what you know oh

what do you left he's crying about like they conceded power what's the problem it's like well Aval Morales left fucking power after being deposed unfairly so what is that you said they you were saying he was a fucking dictator so what does that mean yeah it all it also means that they can't make the argument that Trump is a unique fascist and used to browbeat everyone anymore because didn't he just voluntarily let his party lose during the midterms yeah what matters here is is that they tried so hard the coup government to delay the election to to disqualify MAS for being able to actually run in it use every

procedural trick to try to essentially test how far they could go in establishing this new rule how much respect resistance they were gonna get and at every level they've hit so much fucking resistance including like short lived you know general strikes and and and occupations blocking major highways and reducing any kind of economic activity in the whole fucking capital meant that they were essentially forced to hold an election and that's the really the good news of you know of the of the whole thing is knowing that there's still enough juice you know in those in those organizations in that

like heavily unionized working class that they're able to make that sort of assertion and the cynical response can be well you know but clearly the coup itself had the purpose even if they weren't able to get rid of MAS they were able to put a scare into MAS to ensure that when MAS comes back it'll be disciplined and we'll be able to be more tractable because it knows how far things can go and the thing is that's probably true to an extent I mean if they'd really wanted to not have an election they could have just risked just massacres and see what happened so they clearly felt like they had a

little bit of leeway there but as he said what's gonna determine how goodness news is is how what happens now like how do popular movements that got MAS back into power respond to MAS in power and the inevitable US led attempt to overthrow them or have them compromise away from representing the Bolivian people the interim government before this election they delayed the election day several times they closed down polling you know voting locations on in the rural parts of the country so that like thousands of people are waiting in line and a move that may sound familiar to anyone here in America but they

tried to go ahead with this election by some but they initially tried to ban voting in the country's largest region that was the like stronghold of M and they tried to ban MAS as a political party from standing in the election before this free and fair election so I mean keep that in mind it is kind of unfair for them to vote because there's so many of them yeah there's there's more of them it's kind of cheating I mean that is the approach to like this this new you know the ruling classes here it's like as the veneer of democracy you know gets thinner like you're tolerance for popular participation wanes because it's

the only thing that could genuinely hurt you and like this honestly should be the fact that this election went forward and the fact that MAS won and is going to take power again should really put some fucking hold water on the embers of any delusions in America that we're gonna see some sort of coup after the November election I'm sorry if they couldn't pull that off here I just don't buy that we can pull it that they would pull it off here unless there's so little concern about any popular response if they were to do it that they could pull it off and then you got to ask yourself is that the country you live in I don't

know I'd be interested in knowing more because Bolivia is weird I mean we talk about like indigenous populations like being you know sort of political demographies in all sorts of countries but really most of the time they are not so separate as they are in Bolivia I mean they have like something like over over a third of the population is like indigenous and a lot of them like still live traditional lifestyles and they still have indigenous movements of like very large numbers of people and they even though like poverty has been sort of closed up or not closed up but they're narrowing the poverty and

inequality numbers and have been since like for a long time like they haven't been industrializing quickly so this is still like a country that isn't really industrialized that still has like like a meaningful like labor movement and still has like people living pretty traditionally in the middle of nowhere which is hurting a lot of cats like that's really really difficult I don't know it just seems really interesting because it's like not necessarily like even other countries like around it like we tend to like collapse all of the Latin American countries but Bolivia is like weird yeah Avo actually came from

that like Avo is indigenous he came from a cocoa farmers union that way like it's sort of got its start in anti imperialist politics against the sort of like American led anti cocoa campaign it is yeah it's very different to electoral left movements that we find familiar but yeah I don't I don't know what lessons we could quite take from their success and incorporated here but it is I mean it's an amazing story and very atypical I mean I think I mean it's exceptional even for the region I think the main takeaway is that actually banks are good and winners have them well you know Avo amazing guy winning smile great

hairline great hairline starts like an inch above his eyebrows okay I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm yeah I'm I I'm still young man I'm gonna have to get treatments for mine Avo not the case Avo great hairline on one side Yasha mount awful hairline on the other side like oh god that's true yeah his hairline runs on the version of Chad that they're just from sites I think this this is hairline run on lithium or something because it's receiving a dramatic rate and I checked his account today he hasn't tweeted at all about this but in case you forgot Yasha was one of these fucking dipshits yeah the founder of the new

persuasion blog and podcast was one of the the loudest voices on sort of like the American capitalist press of like the Atlantic and the economist or whatever assuring everyone that what happened last year was definitely not a coup but in fact a victory for democracy and the Bolivian people except now that it failed like it's like clearly it's neither of those things it was clearly just a glitch in the machinations it's the most like I wasn't trying that time but also I wouldn't have been trying because that would be wrong like it's just it's the most trying to have it both ways thing yeah it's

if the equivalent would be like if people who supported that idiotic coup attempt in Venezuela were like the fucking like these like wannabe mercenaries got caught by fishermen like if they would defend themselves by saying well that wasn't a coup attempt because our guys got caught if it was a coup you'd know it was a coup yeah it was a coup it would have worked and even then they would say it's not a coup it was actually a democratic revolution of you know people and principles over a tyrant yeah it's the most I can dunk when no one is looking kind of loser talk here's something very perverse about

yasha moot that I did not know did you know he's a kraut from krautland he's yeah yeah he's a German who emigrated and got citizenship here fuck off yeah why would you come here you had it so much better a like to leave a jerk like we were in Germany it's not perfect but like Jesus Christ he left the land of funky beats if you're a guy like mount like it's like you've had somebody ruling Europe with an iron fist with your exact ideology and you leave there so you can write shitty articles about the Portland mayoral election why well actually let the promise land I I do know why Felix so Yasha's Jewish and I

think his family like relocate like I don't they made it out but he wrote a big long thing about how he felt like a stranger in Germany which is insane because like the phylo semitism of like post like Holocaust Germany is actually weird like Felix basically got carried around on on one of those pal and Quinn things like we're in Berlin like so he said he felt like outside and I could see them being weird about it because they are you know cab drivers will be like we're so sorry about the Holocaust you're like I'm just trying to get to Alexanderplatz yeah well like if you can't make any friends as a Jewish like

market urbanist centrist yeah in Germany that's their dream there you are supposed to be their king buddy I just like he could have had it he could have had a decent career doing the exact same thing and believing all the same bullshit that he does in Germany and have like probably had a better life but because it's Germany and like you know no one would be telling him to shut the fuck up when he shares his cretinist thoughts and like that's the juice that gives him attention and a career in America which is really what counts you know like you can't you can't be a celebrity in Europe you know you got to

come to America yeah it's for him to be told to shut up in Germany they would have to bring me in like Frank Benton jelly's brother Angela Merkel like the Nevada senator being like I've long had good relations with the Jewish people they're a hard-working industrious very good with money but I won't hold it against them yeah but Yasha has the weird hairline too because and I figured it out it's because it doesn't go in at the sides the way it's it's a it's a steadily receding straight line so it starts like a normal hairline but like on top of his head it's very confusing it looks

tauntsorted in some way yeah but you know I mean if you look at his I mean he's doing Yasha level Avi fraud and I think he needs to be brought up in charges I mean for a lot for a lot of reasons but you know that being chief among them anyway though I mean there's a just just that just that we I will be talking a lot more you know intelligently about Bolivia with someone who you know is from there and has been doing very good reporting on on Maas and and the movements supporting this this big victory and but also I mean just I'm interested to hear what people think comes next because I mean obviously this

is this is good news on its face but I mean like does anyone doubt like what this what what what what the conference rooms at Langley the Virginia I have on their whiteboard right now because I mean I shut her to think yeah yeah right now congratulations Joe Biden on your big victory I can't I can't wait to I can't wait to see Joe Biden's like Mr. Burns attempts to do this once he's in there where yet where's Patista man yeah did you know these are I did not as the 430 auto gyro to Prussia left man oh man I shouldn't have said that letter

they'll be they'll be halfway through a coop they'll be halfway through taking the ballast and aiming artillery on protesters and then you'll just hear over let's we're speaker oh man I shouldn't have done that sorry and then the military just retreats it's actually a very good segue because I have a very funny article about Joe Biden and the CIA some courtesy of Politico yesterday headline here Biden would revamp fraying Intel community intelligence intelligence has become a political weapon under Trump the Democratic nominees advisors say

when is intelligence been anything other than a political weapon ever yeah yeah it's just like the way the way Democrats love to talk about the intelligence community and they've been doing ever since the Bush administration because they had to have some way to justify the fact that the CIA completely went along with all that weapons of mass destruction bullshit is like they talk about the politices like intelligence being politicized like right the like the the act of creating intelligence for a government is anything other than political and they think like the CIA just creates objective research and

facts about the world and they give it to the executive branch to be like here's what you need to know sir make your decision and not the exact other way around like they're just taking notes like like carry at the spy it's just their observers they're just adorable little girls you know it's exactly the same way that they view the Supreme Court yes they view both of these things as somehow institutions that stand outside of the political order and that is the fundamental liberal insanity and it makes sense that they view these things that way when they are so transparently not I would add on top of

that I would add on top of that the kind of conspiracy-minded approach that they have to these things I was talking about this yesterday with Felix with Josh and Dave but remember when the big bomb shell the latest bomb shell there's one every two weeks and it doesn't matter at all if not weekly was that Trump had been quote targeting black voters which made it sound like there was like a little red scope dot on their heads what he had been doing is called campaigning you're describing campaigning and going after specific demographics trying to get some to vote some not to vote some to vote for you some to just get so bored

and frustrated and fed up with everything that they don't bother like that's literally campaigning and Democrats doing literally anything whether it's gathering intelligence or running a campaign or you know having a making a Supreme Court decision it's not political when they're doing it but it's very it's a political conspiracy when the Republicans are doing it it's completely insane it's like just they won't admit what actual politics is which is a battle using the tools that we have made for ourselves some of which are inherently evil and some of which are just fucking politics well I mean just

back to this political article the headline Biden would revamp fraying intel community and I have no doubt that that's true and in fact I think that will be one of the only things a Biden administration will actually get done oh yeah yeah is a great institution revamp the CIA but the article begins with this like how like new staplers new staplers less accountability but no no here here's what they're talking about in terms of revamping what they mean is is morale at Langley so the article begins with this hysterical anecdote more hang in there kitten posters President Donald Trump was in

the middle of receiving a highly classified briefing on Afghanistan at his New Jersey golf club when he suddenly craved a malted milkshake just okay first of all receiving highly classified intelligence briefings at his New Jersey golf club as funny enough as it is but friends whom amongst us has not just been zoned out in some boring fucking meeting or really at any point in your life and not wanted a delicious malted milkshake they're great the dairy block over here in the Midwest is already salivating I want to read into this deeper he's trying to capture the Biden magic true yeah this

is his way of getting in his head this is his way of walking a mile and other man's moccasins I would take Biden takes medicinal milkshakes for his I think I think this was years ago though this was before the campaign really heated up so it just says here so he's getting an intelligence briefing from the CIA and he goes does anyone want a malt he asked the senior defense and intelligence officials gathered around him an August group that included the head of the CIA special activities center which is responsible for covert operations and paramilitary operations we have the best malts you have to try them Trump

insistent order fried order fries so I can eat them I just love that he's sitting there with that the head of the CIA special activities branch you know read assassination and genocide division and then he's like if you get a malt and then you get the fries dip the fries in the ball it's a little treat not many people know about that in fact they're not very talking about it until Trump did it so he's sitting in a room with like possibly like the most evil members of like the American deep state and intelligence community like guys who these these guys are way further up the ladder than that asshole is with

Warren and Doris who's just like hey everybody I I work very closely with Columbia's special forces during operations in that country and it just yeah yeah the Colombian special forces good guys but so he pauses whatever bullshit fucking like they're probably trying to get him to do a coup in a country and then he's just like you got to try our milkshakes they're the best so listen to this yeah Trump insisted as he beckoned a waiter into the room where code word classified intelligence was being discussed the malt episode which took place a few months after Trump took office in 2017 became legendary inside

the CIA said three former officials that just happened the mall tour though God wow they went from some guy like in a bar in northern Virginia talking about he's how he suffocated patrice lamungba with a laundry bag and now you got these guys going and then he ordered a malted milkshake so it goes here it was seen as an early harbinger of Trump's disinterest in intelligence which would later be borne out by the new president's notorious resistance to reading his classified daily briefing known as the PDB and his impatience with the briefers current and former officials said but when initially seemed like

mere boredom which demoralized intelligence officials but could potentially but because could potentially be managed by including pictures and charts and briefings to hold the president's attention later morphed into something the officials saw as more sinister an interest in wielding intelligence as a political cudgel whether selectively declassified by spy chiefs he installed for their loyalty or obscured from congressional and public scrutiny if it conflicted with his preferred narrative intelligence became just another weapon in the president's arsenal wow the CIA

was just like wait a second this guy's gonna hold back classified information from Congress if it suits his agenda I've never been more demoralized hmm how okay how would you were you Joe Biden raise morale in in the deep state intelligence services I think for me I'm gonna go ahead and say hallmark holiday like a secretary's day they get flowers they get little they get little funny cards you know it's the little things they matter yeah James Jesus Engelton day everyone comes to the office and laying in wacky costume yeah yeah everyone gives each other like that soda but it says poison on it and has a

skull and crossbones they're like haha there's fun theme parties you know there's like little rice and little rice Krispies cakes you know rice and Krispy treats what about instead of like spirit week like they have at schools you have gladio week yes I mean like the the theme days would be great and there are like cute office false flags like you eat like you eat somebody's treat out of the break room and then like doctors security cam footage to make it look like you know the office prankster did it you actually did it yeah yeah or you frame up someone you don't like and mail them a secret letter

telling them to kill themselves CIA CIA exactly CIA field day with a false flag football and a three-let race and that means that they are cut off one of your legs and you have to hobble with another person across a finish line no but yeah it's going down in the article first of all look at the end of the day orange man is bad and him being president is very dangerous and just the fact that he doesn't give a shit about it what any of these equally evil people have to say is good in one sense because this genuinely should be the attitude of every president is like just throw these presidential daily briefings in

the fucking trash because they're worthless like I mean you're I there you're they're either trying to actively work you and propagandize to you or you're in on the con it's like you know look to your right look to your left you can't find the sucker it's you in this case Trump is the sucker but like his essential disinterest and laziness is sort of an inoculation against that that being said like this is I fully expect Biden to follow through on this and only this campaign promise and what they want is it says quoting here it says this will be the most important things a Biden presidency would need to

do and that I want to do immediately said Tony Blinken who served as deputy deputy secretary of state and deputy national security advisor under Barack Obama and is a top advisor to the Biden campaign I know from several conversations with him about this that he has a deep concern about what has been done to the I see these last several years in terms of politicization and repairing that starts at the top with the president Blinken recalled Biden telling him in February 2017 shortly after leaving office that the thing he missed most about being vice president was receiving the PDB every morning well I like it

too yeah whose favorite part of school wasn't homework but yeah I mean I guess like this you know should Trump lose this election I mean like this is one of the things that will miss about him is him demoralizing the intelligence community with his antics yeah I don't want him to get sad I'm so sorry you guys we should you know what I'd say next month you guys how about all of the psyops that we do on behalf of the intelligence department to sheepdog revolutionaries away from the left into the Democratic Party how about we just do it for free yeah yeah it's good to give back yeah cuz really we're in it

for the love of the game I mean more than anything it's a good job of the intelligence community we love them and they love us so much we share big malts with them oh we love to sit in the booth yes it's the little things and just the thought of these these absolute monsters just being like just grinding their teeth down to the gums because when they're trying to like you know like that they're trying to show him a big map with every arrow pointed at Tehran or something and then he's just like who wants a salad where a pimp where a pumpkin is carved to look like a jack-o'-lantern and you eat the cheese

out of the jack-o'-lantern we have them here they're wonderful that really does sound like something they would have you know what I mean though but like a Trump is a dangerous lunatic but like his attitude towards this bullshit is the correct one you shouldn't have these meetings they're all they are all literally trying to lie to you and control to you yeah and then like artificially narrow the parameters of what is like conceivable action you can take on like an international scale or the actual deep state yeah yeah the genuine real for real not joking cheap state not Nellie or her lovely husband

Bruce I would you know what though they like this is this is actually something that it's not that I think it's that Trump is a less damaging on the ledger force than say like a right-wing Democrat I'm just saying there are perks and there is there is like you know there's no way to perform this kind of cost-benefit analysis where it's like well is a you know interference in Venezuela worth the more rapid degradation of what little social welfare we have like it's not I mean those are things you can't really compare but I will say that I and I odds are Biden's gonna win I will miss

feeling more secure about like what like evil black ops shit we're probably not doing just because just because it like a Trump would say that's a bad deal that's a bad deal how does that benefit at us you know I mean to be to be fair Trump has like greatly expanded the number of like covert ops and like civilian deaths that have happened you know under even Obama but I like you know like any Republican president would have done that I just like knowing that would have done that that's largely an automatic and because of the because of Democrats have to be muscular now they always ramp up and have

to have a new project to show that they're not pussies that they're not pussy-dove peacenicks and they always like at a new project this is not like a moral calculus in terms of like well more or less people being murdered by the US war machine overseas but it's just like I just like knowing that like he can you know insult a five-star general to his face and like make him wear roller skates for his amusement or something like that yes I died like a chump and just like the very least like some fucking like some fucking moron like Joe Biden will just come in there and immediately start kissing their ass

and just hold like a big all-school assembly at Langley and be like you're valuable man we care about you I know it's been tough but you know like you know you know I feel your harm you are seen that is that is an intangible that I actually dread about the Biden presidency is the CIA having self respect back if there's any kind of Americans if there's any body of the American deep state that needs to feel less self-respect and more I mean then being utterly confused by the way things are happening now probably has slowed them down just like their swag must not be restored yeah I you know we started the

show talking about Bolivia and I always think of that awful Chris Murphy tweet storm where he seems like the Trump people are too incompetent to help us knock over Maduro I would hate to see what they do when they have there when they have the spring in their step back yeah I really do not want that we saw it at the beginning of Obama's first term what that looks like I don't want to see it again and yeah no like like well alluded to there have been more civilian casualties there's a looser rule of engagements but it's not like it was just a fucking by-the-book handcuffing of those things under Obama either you know

did it your way you frame it is exactly right Felix though it's about these people individually and their courtears in the National Security Press and the you know media overall they I don't want them to be able to lie to themselves about the nobility of their work or what they actually do or like their actual function in the world and in our state is and like this idea is like we were subjected to like so much propaganda about the CIA during the Obama years with shows like Homeland or Zero Dark Thirty we're like coming out of Bush years like people were just like oh are you guys like the torturers don't you

just like disappear people into like dungeons to like pull their fingernails out but then no like then they there's like a huge and I think totally concerted effort to use like the Hollywood and like TV shows to rebrand themselves as sort of like liberal defense like journalists basically what like what movies and TV did to the journalism profession the CIA did for themselves there now they're like we're flawed we're a little bit fucked up but basically like we're public servants who care about the truth the facts and we're also epic girl bosses yeah I'm silly I'm silly I'm inspiring I get mine I've

killed thousands I sell cocaine I think I think their restless sleep is ultimately kind of cold comfort but all we can sort of do now is enjoy our glee but I don't know I also think I just remember those you know if Hillary was president now we'd be at brunch t-shirts and I'm like yeah but like we'd also probably be in Venezuela like I really do think like there is a more the long game sort of you know a Democrat project of deposing democratically election elected leaders is more effective under under like it is it is an amber actually it's also more imperative for a Democratic administration to remove any counter

examples like neoliberal liberal capitalist parties because it legitimizes them exactly like the fact that Bolivia was a functioning country that reduced poverty redistributed wealth while growing and like you know growing the Bolivian economy is an example that cannot be allowed to be maintained that's what like Kissinger said explicitly about Aayinde in Chile he said the the danger with Aayinde is not that he's putting people in gulags is that he isn't and he was democratically elected and popular and that's why he's got to go so for the Democrats even worse because it's like they did so much with

so little and so with our extreme glut of wealth and the disparity in this country it seems even more absurd when you see the improvements in this tiny country were like 40% of people are like indigenous literal peasants if I can point to one one of the only good things Obama did in his second term he seemed less engaged from the idea of actively removing government of a more active American imperial posture in the first term there was a lot of that Nicaragua, Libya, just God knows what else and then in the second term he seemed far less interested in that and from everyone's accounting of it it

seems to be that Obama was the only sort of bulwark against the active machinations yeah with Biden who knows who knows he was he helped with the whip up support for the Iraq war he was apparently a voice in favor of intervention in that second Obama term so we'll see I mean his cabinet gives us no comfort the people around him give me no comfort I mean I literally have no idea but I will say that the actual chaos of Trump is a strange kind of comfort because it does really gum up the works the one the one thing that I think is working in the favor of good is that Americans seem to have lost their

appetite for foreign intervention but who knows who knows what a democratic propaganda machine for that will look like I think it's gonna be a lot I think it's gonna be a lot of are you invalidating the voices of the you know descendants of Czech Nazis in this country yeah see that and I could see like like them bringing back the kind of you know crowdsource you know war consensus model where they they have all of these focus groups and and they try and like they develop like I mean you saw it in advice and I think people haven't talked about that as that aspect of it as much as you would as or as

influential as it was but the amount of like marketing research that they did to be able to sell what was ultimately an incredibly unpopular war to people I mean they really it's horrifically impressive and I think that they would return to that as Bush chief of as Bush's chief of staff Andy Cards said of the Iraq war you don't roll out a new product in August yeah no I mean yeah to be clear here there are two the the American political system is two imperial parties both selling slightly different brands imperialism in the Republican one depending on what flavor of Republican you get you get more

active invasions and occupations or you just get chaotic disinterest and you know a higher degree of civilian casualties well the existing operations that would have happened with any president and in the Democratic one we'll see I think what the Democrats have in store is very evil I did to your point Felix like a Republican administration just like won't need to justify it as much because if they decide to overthrow a country I mean Trump has really cracked the dam in that they'll just say hey they have lithium we want or that's our oil and we're gonna have a victory what the Democrats will do especially when

it comes to popular movements and like democratically elected governments and countries that you know we wish were you know in our pocket I think they will do a mirror image of the argument Republicans make to justify the Electoral College where it'll just be like yeah like just a pure vote based tally of like who gets to lead these countries is actually marginalizing the minority populations of those countries i.e. wealthy people it's othering them and like you know we need to like you know we need to make it a little bit more fair so that these groups are not you know marginalized or silenced and that

their voices are heard the last acceptable prejudice is that of against the elites we're we've fallen a very far far away since the 70s where it was a more mainstream position to demand abolishment the CIA in any like realistic left electoral platform I would like to see something about in common understandable language that everyone can access about imperial pullback about getting rid of some of these intelligence apparatuses of maybe outright destroying some I would really like to see that just coming years it wouldn't be that hard of it wouldn't be that big of a lift too because it just you

simply like they exist because based on the popular perception that like the CIA is there to work in the darkness to keep us safe and if we just simply acknowledge that that's not what they do they don't need the world they've made they've made America even individual American lives but mostly the rest of the planet a fantastically more violent and dangerous place to live tell the average American every time that you have to fly from like fucking Louisville to new Bismarck why are they blasting your bodies with x-rays why are they groping your kids why are they digging through all your possessions yeah it's

the same security theater it's they tell you it's because the world is unsafe it's unsafe for us because we have to be involved in fucking everything I think that you want to live this life that's actually the challenge because one of the more difficult things now is that it's left less visible whereas you know you know the ground troop wars it was just so much easier to be like bring our boys home what are we doing yeah but the airport thing is actually a very good point Felix because like I think everyone has had an incident where they watched someone like lift an ancient old man out of their fucking like wheelchair

or I remember once seeing this couple with like an infant like a fresh baby you know where they're not even cute yet they're like oh there's no waxy yeah yeah and they took they the kid was sleeping and that's so important for a baby that age and the parents just look exhausted they clearly just had it I bet this woman still had fucking a pieziotomy stitches that's how fresh this baby was and they pick the fucking TSA agents pick up this infant to make sure there are no like bombs under it insane behavior up this baby and these exhausted people they're confused to they don't speak English they don't know what's

going on they're exhausted they're alarmed why is this stranger in a uniform touching their baby who they probably just got to sleep like everyone if they actually take a moment to think about it is horrified by that kind of security state atmosphere the problem is with that though is that a lot of younger people don't remember anything different and then a lot of Americans don't fly but I think entering into this conversation with things that people actually experienced and see is going to be a little bit easier because so much of this stuff is now way more invisible it's not it's not body bags coming home

for Vietnam it's it's yeah yeah the problem with the security state and the accepted standard of American security theater is sort of a mere image of why universal programs are good these are bad for the reasons that universal programs are good if people like Amber just said they grow up they don't know anything but yeah say universal health care socialized medicine it's harder to take it away from them because they can't imagine a world without it if you just come into this world and your accepted standard is that some fucking drooling authoritarian is going to fill up your genitals and dig through your

shit you can't imagine a world without it that's just what it's supposed to be you can't imagine a world that isn't constantly a war with your country because your country is fucking everywhere because that's always what it's been yeah well I'd like to shift gears just a little bit as long as you're talking about things that you see everywhere and if you are a listener of this show in the state of California here's something you've been seeing everywhere the relentless yes on 22 propaganda that has been inundating your state for months and months now but I just want to talk a little bit about

this this prop 22 issue that's going on in California right now and I've heard from multiple people that you cannot turn on the TV or listen to the radio anywhere in California without being hit with a blitz of these like baffling and intentionally obfuscatory yes on 22 ads so much so that apparently I saw a screenshot of this this is true Uber drivers in California before they can get a new like like ride or fare or whatever are prompted with a screen on their phone that says yes on 22 or okay so to get a new fare they have to either click okay or yes on 22 and then uber makes that seem that like well all our

drivers support yes on 22 now if you're not aware of what prop 22 is it's essentially it's a ballot writers to though I'm sorry I have to add this writers to ask you if you request a ride will you vote yes on 22 and that's what you have to do to get a ride if you say they're trying to get you like to get muscle memory you get in the booth you just go oh shit yeah yeah now it's like so prop 22 is another one of these like just asinine ballot measure is where it's like I don't know why America's largest state is run in this fashion we're just every fucking idiot gets to like vote on these ballot measures that

like if you went into the voting booth without any prior knowledge and just tried to read or understand what you were voting on it would be virtually impossible like if you read the text of it it's just like would you like a world in which gig economy and workers are not yet but also possibly made have a better life that will never happen to have been the thing that you maybe want it's just like this this total deluge of like passive voice and weirdly worded things to give you a negative yeah a lot of double negatives to give you the impression that like this is a a ballot measure that will support the people

working in the gig economy when it is in fact the exact opposite of that I mean it is a ballot measure that would allow companies like uber lift instacart whatever like any of these gig economy delivery or ride share companies the ability to permanently like never classify the people who work for them as employees and as such never like you know just keep them in a precarious contractor status without any ability for them to advocate for themselves I mean I have you guys just been following this prop 22 thing at all yeah so I'm I you know I'm of two minds about this because when I did I did a series of like

talks on labor with like you know union leaders and stuff and one of them was with the head of like the New York City cab union and everything and one of them was specifically with like a labor lawyer and we were looking at like okay well there are a few different approaches to this and they always sort of like balance each other one is like the legalistic view where it's like you're fighting for protectionist labor law but the problem is it becomes this chicken and egg thing where it's like well you need a powerful union and unified workers movement first to get that and to get that which does shore up the power

of the already powerful it's very confusing to figure out which which thing has to come first or whatever and like ultimately it's gone both directions historically like labor law has given unions a leg up when they were sort of ascendant but maybe not super strong but also labor law protections have proven to not been not be a very good bulwark at all sometimes so it's like do we turn to the law or do we turn to organizing and it's obviously it's not an either or a thing like one hand washes the other but this is one situation where I actually am very sympathetic to the kind of legalistic approach one because

it's it's a weird fucking moment and because of like pandemic economics in this in the in the way like everything has shifted towards gig economy and these are workers that are weirdly in a you know really like uniquely like I don't want to say powerful but a potentially advantageous position like I think actually getting qualified as employees would be a great foot in the door I mean I think like just the fact that they're fighting it so hard does actually indicate that they know that there's potential yeah I mean I get like emails with like videos they pick a lot of older people who can't work

consistently when I saw there was like this very old man who was like a you know I have a medical condition and I can't work regularly so Uber works really well for me and what he meant is that he wanted like a flexible schedule yes yeah exactly but also like you should be retired first of all you're so old you should just be receiving a pension like you should just be taken care of like it's just the standards are so and God knows what kind of a bonus he got for appearing in the commercial or maybe he really believes that I don't know I have no idea but like again like you said the idea that you should vote

on all of these details when we don't have the means by which to like educate every Californian on what prop 22 actually is and like Uber and Grubhub and all of these companies have so many resources to spread disinformation and to mislead and misrepresent what this law actually is I know for a fact there are people who think prop 22 is actually a worker-friendly piece of legislation if you if you look at any of the like the campaign literature about prop 22 it is all in the language of prop 22 why you should why you support prop 22 it protects the ability of app-based drivers to choose independent work it

provides drivers new benefits and protections it saves hundreds of thousands of jobs it preserves food and grocery delivery and rideshare services that millions rely on it implements strong new public safety protections and it's all it's all couched in this language of like the freedom of the individual driver or delivery person to you know work their own schedule sort of make the job whatever they want and like just be free to essentially not have a salary or benefits of any kind and to be like instantly disposable and yeah yeah instantly disposable and to essentially not receive the kind of

legal designation that would allow them to ford institutions like unions like it's literally it keeps them from again like you can't rely entirely on laws obviously like laws especially labor laws especially in a country that is actually 50 little countries aren't the best protection for this sort of thing but California is a huge fucking state and right now drivers delivery people like these people are in a weirdly advantageous position actually putting them in the same basket legally speaking is a great position for bargaining negotiate negotiations and organizing so I really really hope people see through

this and I really really hope that and without and like obviously the people who are support a no one 22 do not have anything like even a fraction of the resources that uber alone has thrown at them right I mean they've dedicated billions of dollars to a a massive propaganda campaign that I think has been very effective at using the language of like workers rights and freedom and you know you know protecting jobs to hoodwink people into thinking that this is a some sort of favor that these companies are doing for the people who drive and deliver food for them and you know I mean it's

just I mean it would take a huge amount of like public education to and like you know advertising quite frankly to move the needle on that because like I said if you go in and just read the ballot initiative it would be very easy to be tricked into thinking that you are supporting gig economy and workers by voting for this measure and I mean again like to your earlier point Amber I mean like the simplest case to make is if this were really about helping their their drivers like why would uber and these companies be spending billions to stop to pass this amendment right out of the cut out of the kindness of their

hearts you should be questioning that but I do think people are I mean like middle-class liberals anyway I do think they have a weird thing with like tech where they think it's like the nice the nice capitalist I think I really yeah you're right think that you're definitely right I think yeah like hey these are the guys who work turtle necks and quarter zip fleeces you know they're not like chill they're not wearing some pinstripe suit like a square they let me bring my dog to work it's awesome yeah I mean I think we need like a prop 22 for the CIA you know just let them make their own schedules have soft serve ice

cream and the in the cafeteria things like that ping-pong table and the torture dungeon you know you don't ever have to go home you don't have to go home plan some shitty fucking sober been Virginia or Maryland you can just stay in that Langley building all day having fun with your friends actually the open office plan it would be maybe the most radical thing because then they could never keep secrets like everyone could see everyone else's work and someone be zooming by on a little you know zip scooter or whatever and it's like oh there's no such thing as confidential anymore so I better not do anything too

evil because literally everyone can see it or you know I mean you can't be tubing like tubing you know in the open office plan got to keep that tube in your pants you know and then if they if we do if we pass prop 22 for the CIA I mean like they can have their dicks out in the office place they have the freedom to do that now prop 20 tubing all right well we're almost done for today show but I think I should just get one more California based plug in here and that is for Nithya Raman for LA City Council if you are in LA I know you've and you're listening to this show I know you've heard us interview her twice but I

just want to bring this up once again because the election is a very soon she has a extremely good chance of beating David Ryu the incumbent and I just want to note that Nithya was just endorsed by Bernie Sanders and shortly following that endorsement her opponent Ryu has been endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton has decided she came in from the woods remember that remember when she went to the woods well she's like oh god this really does tell you oh yeah City Council in LA really is wildly overpowered like when they were building the Sim City they fucked up the sliders on how

powerful city councilmen are individually so she's actually coming like ridiculously to close to threatening power as you can see from people like Hillary Clinton and fucking Nancy Pelosi weighing in on this shit just parachuting in to endorse her opponent I mean they're doing such a good job of supporting female candidates and you know because you know men how about no how about no more male politicians oh except for this one I love though that apparently Josh Rolls was telling you this apparently like Ryu retweeted his endorsement from Hillary Clinton and it got like 28 which is she is an

influencer she has the opposite of every intended effect it's just she just everything she touched turns to death it's amazing that's the least relevant person on earth which is more than anything how you know Trump has kind of lost it because he keeps trying to make Hillary yeah yeah we all just want to pretend like she didn't happen and you're going back to it that well is dry and the Q people think she's been dead for four years David David Ryu's most recent tweet from two days ago one retweet one like eight replies you got that you got that Hillary curse man you got it on you you got the stake he's

got the Hillary stake well I mean this is this is this is very good news for I think a very very worthy candidate in Dithya Raman if you haven't listened to my our interviews with her check it out but if you are in LA and in her districts I or just I cannot recommend voting for her enough she can win and like I said just if you need any other nudge in the right direction Hillary Clinton endorsed her opponent so what else do you need to know about her you don't don't even look at her website or issues page or anything like the ultimate counter indicator yeah exactly and you know and and you know if you're not in

her district now would be a good time to donate some money to that campaign I have we will have the donation link I would really really like to see Nithya Raman win this race and she definitely can with your help and the chop oh bump so I would just like to leave you with that once again one more final boost for our girl Nithya Raman for LA City Council so I think that about does it for today's episode guys cheers we'll talk to you guys soon bye bye check this shit out oh come on check it out the situation broke out when I spoke too much but reached in my drawers pulled out my pot let's open the

drive petroleum jelly start to think about Donna and Nikki my mind I was hitting it we was almost there then the door bus don't want to fuck my mom's there what don't disrespect jro see it could happen to you