Chapo Trap House - 482 - War is Over, Troops are Staying (12/21/20)

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

We all take our vaccine suppositories, discuss the stimulus, and talk Obama’s year-end TV list. But, most importantly, the Reading Series is back! We take a look at a recent New York Times op-ed that uses the Iliad to ask you to gently close your eyes and forget about all these pesky forever wars we seem to be embroiled in.

I We are back it's a choppo once again, it's me Matt and Felix coming to you on this Monday and Let's see the vaccines you guys got the vaccine yet I mean it is a little known thing people are trying to sort of keep it under wraps But podcasters actually get the vaccine before the elderly or frontline medical workers. Yep. I got the suppository That's not standard or in fact recommended, but I insisted I had to suck it out of Joe Biden's dick But it was worth it Just a couple hours ago, I watched on live TV as Biden got a vaccine

Well, and he also by the way, he had nipples protruding. It was very disrespectful. He was wearing like a kind of a tight Black shirt and the nips were on appearance and I gotta say you know Joe's brain is clearly cottage cheese But he does not have those like pasty fish-belly old man what arms that you that you know, for example Trump has He's actually got some muscle definition We had a surprisingly fruit for 78 year old man. Well, Joe. Yeah, Joe was an athlete like as a boy He was like, um, he probably like, you know audition for the Black Sox Whatever a baseball addition is, you know, you know, you fill it in at home. I don't really care after Yeah, after he got the thing he thanked dr. Salk for his amazing invention. Yeah

Keep eight men out. I want to I want to bring them in Jack. I said, yeah, Biden He was yeah, he was an athletic young man I mean he famously like one of those fights at the segregated swimming pool You did see his nipples a lot in the god my dad could drive a car video God come on dad Yeah, like I think we all remember his nips in there. Oh, but but Uh, yeah, no, like I think that's honestly one of the reasons he won is because he's yes Yeah, he's like an old piece of shit that like his body isn't fully disgusting and that's like aspirational to no I mean, he's he's like, you know for a guy of his age like he's he's pretty handsome

And I like remember we talked about like the god my dad could drive a car video and like looking back on it Like that's when we all should have known that he was going to win the presidency is because like, you know He just he looks good, you know, he looks good in that car with those sunglasses on Yeah, he looks yeah, like they say in baseball. He looks good being helped off a bus Contrast with Trump is serious because Trump Trump is a very wet old man. He's a wet soggy Garbage bag of an old man and there is that's not aesthetically pleasing another way of sort of a An old man who kind of dries out into like hickory the way that biden has yes Um, I do like the idea that like, okay, so he's getting injected on tv

We're seeing a lot of these congress people getting injected including people like joni Ernst who Spent most much of this year telling people that doctors were lying About people dying from covet to quote get more money And now she's she's cashing out in the the t-virus or whatever I mean like I just like the idea that it's like that movie interspace and like martin short is getting injected into Joe biden's bloodstream and just that's what's making him talk funny Yeah, or it's actually Dennis quade getting injected into biden's bloodstream. Sorry. Sorry there to my interspace What the fuck dude? Joe gante is gonna kick your ass

Joe i'm sorry. I actually think it's like myself. I actually think it's like osmosis jones A more a more timely reference. Yeah. Yeah the zoomers in the audience I have great friends with the black community. I'm the first white boy to ever get a black guy injected into me, man Well, I mean I I did see something and like they sort of these like Uh, like tranches of like, you know, who gets the vaccine first or whatever. There was that like new york times thing to just like You know figure out where you are in line and I think I'm like, you know Me personally I'm like, you know around 320 million in line. I think that's about my number Which is okay for me because that'll that'll give me a lot of time to like really suss out like whether this is turning people into

Mutants or not. Yeah I didn't notice some real Like short-term impact studies just in terms of watching people either start having things fall off of them or not Um, no, but I did see like something in like uh, so it's sort of like, you know, who gets it first Obviously the elderly are most at risk, but then there's you know, obviously frontline medical workers Probably the most important But uh, not in the very very very first tier of like most essential workers But in the second I did see a breakdown of it and it did include financial workers

Like bankers and stockbrokers and stuff like that Which is like they work at the money store New people work at the money store and then I think Ken Klippenstein posted something about that showed that like northrop grumman executives were also Getting like sort of slid in there as there's a there's a medical that there's like a hospital or or a medical facility in california where uh, all of the Executives who were not even coming into work and we're working remotely We're going to get it as part as because the algorithm Determined that that was who should get it. Uh, and before people who actually had to work with patients

I think that algorithm was just like, uh, you know rank plus salary. Well. Yeah, there we go Uh, the vaccine is coming, you know, I mean like we just got to hold on just a little. Oh, wait Well, I'm sorry. What's that by god? Is that is that the uk variants coming through with a 70 percent higher contagious rate? Oh lord. Oh lord. Okay. I just cancel your plans for 2021. Let's we're staying in again um, yeah, well, uh The other thing I just want to say like it Resurrect guards like, you know, these this vaccine trickling out and trickling into the veins of some of our most wonderful elected representatives is uh,

I saw a lot of people getting mad this week because there is all these like photos about life in china now and like they're fucking loving it They're having a great time party, baby. They're fucking they're they're at raves. They're eating in restaurants They're fucking they're having a great time soup is back on the menu People are super pissed about it because they're like, oh like they're they're fucking they're rubbing it in our faces or like, you know That this is an authoritarian country or whatever and it's just like Well, first of all, uh, they have every right to fucking spike it in our faces Even if like you believe that they created this specifically for you know, the purposes of if so it's like, hey You did it. Congratulations. It works. The plan went off flawlessly. Yeah. I mean like

Could you imagine America ever pulling that like we definitely want to do that to people? But like I don't think we couldn't get it together We would put like heather britch in charge of inventing the wuhan virus that kills people And it just like it wouldn't work It would only work on like welsh people Uh, and it was about seven trillion dollars. Yeah Yeah, I mean, but like I just like there's a certain strain of like commentary on that where they're like, uh, well, yes, uh China did, you know, uh

See see a nation of about a billion people through this lockdown and have you know, pretty much gone back to normal But uh, they're an authoritarian state and I'm like, well, okay First of all, if you're defending democracy like you're not doing the best job by making Harrison with America But second of all like America is if you're not wealthy already an insanely authoritarian country But you have none of the benefits of like, yeah All we get is the authoritarian tyrannical power being used to like, I don't know help anyone or like, I don't know just If not help anyone just

Make sure shit runs okay And like things are and and you get and but so much of the authoritarianism it gets to be offloaded onto your boss or some Shit, so it doesn't count Yeah, it's just like I mean if if that's I mean I would just like I would like one authoritarianism please Yeah, I will give up the right to post pictures of uh president g looking like Winnie the Pooh I mean, that's fine. I don't really I don't feel the need to do that I don't care to do it I would like to go into a public building and not worry that I was gonna fucking have some sort of horrifying disease come

Yeah No, yeah every like every like uh thing people post about china like I always think about when Dennis Ross the repellent uh career-long diplomat and paid saudi asset Who uh, you know worked for the clinton state department among other things? Uh a guy asked him a pointed question about the war in yemen at a public library in kansas city He just had the guy dragged off but it's like no. Yeah, this is just like if you're the wrong guy You just get you get completely fucking railed in this country I mean American freedom of speech is like one of the only really great things we have going compared to a lot of other places

but it's You know terms and conditions may apply. Yeah, seriously void void. We're prohibited and uh God god like I mean what is freedom? But you know being able to go to a pool party without dying Like they can do in china now literally in wuhan in the epicenter And the thing about like getting mad at china Like this is all playing into the hands of everyone in charge because that's the next play You could already see it forming up in the media sphere the next play is yeah, everything is shitty

China's fault because you know if you're democrats you can't really blame the republicans anymore So it's gonna have to be china and of course the republicans already started off by Uh blaming china in order to offload their own responsibility So there's going to be a bipartisan consensus that the one target that you can uh, you can blame everything for is china Which also goes to benefit the long-term strategy of the defense establishment, which is looking for a new Reason for being because the whole war on terror thing is running out of gas And a new brinksmanship with china is going to be it Yeah, and like yeah, you you brought up the uh, the the g is uh, winnie the po which uh, marsha blackburn

That awful woman from tennessee posted and she was like, you know in china You would be arrested for this and like this is why they're bad or whatever I just like to point out that like marsha blackburn like sponsored a bill to make Desicciting the american flag like a felony or something. Yeah, and then like when she was giving some like talk like her In front of google she like asked personally whether an employee who criticized her on twitter was like wasn't fired for being mean to her or something like that Yeah, it's just they had the comforts of living in a free country Yeah, you get to be you're free to say anything and then you're free to be fired and uh, never work again. That's freedom, baby No, but the like china is bad because they censor their tv and films

Which you know, we don't do here. There's no censorship on disney plus or hulu or any that any of that They're not just rapidly recutting everything and uh, no one owns any physical media It's not just that you you're censored by disney Well, as long as we're bringing up the entertainment industry, I wanted to segue into the the other the other big news of the week Which is uh, this sort of uh, the the stimulus bill the sort of covet relief thing It's now sort of uh in the in the you know after months and months is in the final stages of being negotiated into like a bill That could be voted on up or down Uh, the new york time says it's it's good enough

Folks it's it's good enough never mind then but uh, there are some goodies in here like i mean there's just like You know like off the bed like there's just a couple things here like uh, it does provide like an extension in uh, like unemployment insurance and then there's like uh, let's see here unemployment in america Stimulus checks are about a fifth of a total bill If you're unemployed, you get an extra $1300 a month through mid march There's $300 billion in ppp loans And like payroll support for small businesses But keep in mind the things that aren't in it and like you know to to get rid of the awful gop liability shield

Uh, there will be no retroactive unemployment insurance. Uh, there will not be uh checks for immigrants or adult dependents There will not be any direct aid for state or local governments or hazard pay for essential workers And uh, there's a couple other things that I think of note that were snuck into like any of these big spending bills It's always just a grab bag of like people filling out their personal little like lobbying ticket items And you brought up, uh, you brought up streaming services in the entertainment industry In the covet 19 stimulus bill, uh, there is something that would make illegal streaming a felony I'm just going to read here. This is from the this is from the hollywood reporter here. It says uh The clamor of the american people for this has has grown too strong to to ignore any longer

It says you're providing relief by direct assistance and loans to struggling individuals and businesses hit hard by covet 19 Has been a priority for federal lawmakers this past month But a gigantic spending bill also has become an opportunity to smuggle in some other line items including those of special interest interest to the entertainment community Perhaps most surprisingly A polishing age of consent According to the text of the bill being circulated illegal streaming for commercial profit could become a felony It's been less than two weeks since senator tom tillis released his proposal to increase the penalties for those who would dare stream unlicensed work

Uh, this time tillis's attempt was winning better reviews for narrowly narrowly Tarling tailoring the provisions toward commercial operators rather than users. Okay. Thank god That said it had a very little time to circulate before evidently becoming part of the spending passage if passed Illegal streaming of works or music of movies and music could carry up to 10 years in jail That's not the only copyright change. The spending bill also appears to adopt a long discuss plan to create a small claims adjudication system within the u.s. Copyright office Gonna have fucking judge judy in there sentencing people to leavenworth for fucking streaming duolipa songs that is

Oh, that's I mean, I love I expected that to be from like One of one of the nw one of david gethans Representatives like I expected that to be from adam shit or any of those guys But yeah, one of those hollywood got a file guys from tom tillis Like tom tillis this thing is like that. He's a fucking caroline is shit kicker and easy He's just like he's just making more money for jeffrey catzenberg, but no the populism. They're gonna fight Yeah, no hollywood guys. Yeah, there's a realignment happening now and you yeah, you have to you have to vote republican or you hate workers I do like I do like the idea that you get here's your six hundred dollars

And here is a star chamber Where if if you do the wrong uh download you will go to jail I'll be the first man to die by trial by combat because they streamed a meatloaf song on a russian website Objects in the rear view me Up here closer than they are. That's a copyrighted video. I'm sorry. Yeah, I know I did that as an active protest You're going to prison right now this this line item um I think it's funny though because it's like okay now it's been winnowed down to like just the actual the actual check the actual cash in hand

Is now six hundred dollars, which is half of the 1200 dollars that was currently it was being talked about before the election And you know the democrats did tank that on purpose to deny trumps. Nancy Pelosi admitted it Yeah, it's actually they openly admitted that now of course now they're like you should be happy with the six hundred dollars And then they're gonna say oh, well, we would have liked to give you 1200 dollars But uh, it was more important that trump not be president. Well, okay Well, you can't fucking complain about how paltry it is now or like tell people it's good enough when you were actively involved in fucking cutting that that number in half for people I think it's gonna be great when people who aren't politically obsessed psychos

Uh notice that under trump they got 1200 dollars and under biden they got six Yeah, that's that's literally the opposite of politics what you're doing. Congratulations. Well, I mean like I said like like I said I it's sort of been it become a punchline now that the new york time says, you know, like the stimulus bill is is good enough And you know, is it better than doing absolutely nothing like prop? I guess maybe probably not politically I mean just in terms of like some meager relief. I suppose something's better than nothing, but in the long run Uh, it's exactly like the fucking the last bailouts to get us out of an economic crisis No, normal person or like average certainly not working person is gonna fucking is still going to be in a fucking vice They spent nine months having like, you know, no or work or paltry work or you know

Uh, facing eviction or whatever and then like whatever they're going to get now is just going to be Just enough to pretend in the media like they've done something But not but designed to be as baffling as possible because like the key thing here with any of these You know at a time when like even people like Larry Summers are saying we need like direct stimulus of the economy, right? So they keep it from fucking crashing is that they have to make it like as complicated and like paltry Enough that like they just don't want people realizing that the government just directly giving people money Yeah, not only stimulates the economy, but like actually like works the first the first stimulus check What the first stimulus bill the CARES Act was just a giant giant giant

Pile of fucking made money that they just gave to the richest people in this country Just numbers on made up numbers on a ledger beep boop here. You have this money now Uh, there were checks for regular people and that's what a pair according to you know, like Ron Johnson is going to destroy the fucking Oh the deficit. Oh, no. Oh the deficit is going to get us But and not just that just pure huge pool of money Just like in 2008 to the richest people in the country if people really realize that they'd know they could give that They could do that to regular people They could redirect that money downward to the demand side and it would actually be effective as a

Economic stimulus and it would be good politics, but it would also take the fucking boot off of people's necks And if the boots off your neck, why are you going to drive for uber? Why are you going to work at a fucking amazon? Fulfillment center. Why would you do that if you had any breathing room at all? And so they cannot allow it and that like some some Politicians or like economists are actually quite open in saying that like a problem with things like stimulus is that it won't Like we need people scared enough to go back to work Yeah, and like there's a sort of a disciplinary function of like keeping this as meager as possible

The whole thing is that the only way to understand the fucking economy in general is this is a disciplinary mechanism for people That's why yeah, people engage with the fucking economy And keep them working for it and like man like a pert example is like the obama like bail out in 2008 because like you know You know like like the pod johns or people involved in that administration will always say like yes We did give a trillion dollars to To banks and wall street with absolutely no strings attached But you know if we didn't the economy would have just collapsed and shit itself outside and like inside out And you know, they're they're not wrong about that like they did

The economy desperately needed like a huge infusion of of of money to like so with to not collapse But what they neglect from saying is that they could have used that exact same amount of trillions of dollars and just short out Homeowners directly rather than the banks who gave them these fucking loans. Yeah, it burst the whole fucking thing in the first place If they just made everyone whole and just said bloop we're wiping it all out at the level of the people who held these fucking mortgages Like they're not not the banks who issued the loans that caused this house to collapse You know not the banks who issued the loans that caused this housing bubble Which blew up the fucking economy the same effect of showing up the economy would have been achieved But like it would have done something good for people instead of just like you know

Like it's like like matt said people who are not politically weirdos who just yeah, yeah Just a correction though tarp was bush obama did vote for it and most democrats did support it but I mean another great example is the obama stimulus which was a huge bill and A huge portion of that money was doled out through tax cuts It was sort of a precursor to what we saw at the tarp back how democrats are going to do stimulus There is going to be it's just basically a slush fund It's a slush fund where everyone from paramount pictures to rathion can find enough enough legal loopholes to

get No no interest loans to get massive tax credits to get That basically a completely legal tax shelters that make up the majority of the cost of the bill And very little actual cash is given to people Uh, speaking of that there is another there is another line item in the coronavirus stimulus, uh That says that if you own a racehorse, you get a tax break. There's a tax write-off for owning a racehorse in there And as long as we're talking about a slush fund the new covid relief bill the covid stimulus bill To provide relief to people in america for this pandemic and quarantine and its economic and social and medical effects

Also includes half a billion dollars in foreign aid to israel That is earmarked for them to help build their iron dome missile defense program Half a billion dollars for israel and the covid I mean talk about talk about disciplinary um You know six hundred dollars in and of itself. It is a fuck you it's a bigger fuck you than zero dollars because it's like Yeah, no, this is the limit of what you're getting. This is this is after all of the process both parties working This is what you get nothing else is possible by and the evidence is this is what it is

Because the system produced it but this is real thing I mean, this is you also kind of got to believe it's disciplinary though because after years of just telling you Jeremy Corbett is a jew hater Nancy Pelosi going out of her way to talk about how she was meeting with Former jewish members of labor to talk about how anti-semitic the party is After all this after every democrat just kneeling before aback every year and pledging their fealty They're putting this in the bill after having you know giving you a meats test at twelve hundred dollars and then just Barely barely shaking the last piss out of their cock six hundred dollars into your mouth

You know the iron dome money that israel doesn't even need This is specifically just to make you crazy Move Move Well, it's also to make sure that if we do go to war with Iran that israel will be covered Uh, apparently the also in the stimulus is money to put a consulate in tebet so that we can uh, Heighten the the contradictions there and uh and further our diplomatic efforts at raising some sort of conflict with china

So that's cool. I have to say there is no bigger fucking cuck right now Than the american who bitches about china all day You are the biggest fucking loser in the world if you do that Yeah, china made us china made us ship that all of our industry to them. Yeah, they made us do that Yeah, they really twisted our arm there. Yeah, like jesus christ if you yeah if you spend all day like You know making reddit memes about g and shit. It's like you're a fucking loser They wiped you out. They wiped this fucking country out our leaders did and this is all you can fucking talk about You don't give a shit. You don't give a shit. This is just a fucking coping mechanism mechanism

You have you see the ascendant world power and you just have to believe that they're worse than america Anything bad they do is just identical to america's imperial behavior. It's the biggest fucking you're doing like john noonan's fucking job for him What a fucking loser thing to do Yeah, you're basically you might as well just have all of your Bank memes just have like cia in the in the corner of them little watermark Mitch mcconnell can like go to coldstone creamery and get like infant fetus soft serve No problem. No one yells at him. He's fine. He's safe No, what like nancy nancy polosi could get her like eighth tit job at age 98

No one fucking cares, but all you bitch about is china god. What a fucking loser you'd have to be well It's got to be someone's fault and like I said like this, you know, it was like It was a 300 a week unemployment insurance $600 personal check and then like an assortment of you know billions for things like you know you know schools and ppp and 13 billion dollars for quote hunger and food and things like that I mean, it's enough that they can point at it and be like what 13 billion dollars. We're spending it on food We're feeding the hungry

But we all know that like I mean like if if this were serious There wouldn't be half a billion dollars in there for fucking israel, right? Right, right and and like and like and it's just like if you if you complain about it It's just you know, you're like, oh like oh nothing's ever good enough for you Or like wouldn't you rather have like, you know something instead of nothing? It's just it's the same old shit Or yeah, or it's like, oh, well, why aren't you mad at mitch mcconnell? Well, why can't you win more fucking seats? You're talking about how you have to do all this to win seats and you can't fucking do it

That's because the country is too racist The country is too overwhelmed with with theanderthals and you have to speak very softly and very politely to them to keep them From going mad and mauling you and if that's like well, if that's the case then why what am I supposed to be? And if I'm supposed to believe science and know the reality of the trajectory that we're on as a planet And you're telling me that well This is politics It cannot be any other way and these outcomes are the best outcomes we can hope for Why the shit are you so invested in me rooting for the democrats then when you are basically telling me that no

Yeah, doom is the only option. It's doom. You're doomed. Okay. Well then my god, let me enjoy that Let me enjoy my fucking black pill instead of telling me no you're still even though we're doomed Even though the ship is going to slam into the side of a fucking mountain You still have to care about how many fucking debt receipts the pit the democrats pick up in a fucking special election in georgia um along those lines though I mean, I would like to transition into the the last days of uh trump and the glorious mind palace that's being created to Accommodate that reality But like another thing is like, you know

There were news reports this week that like he was in the oval office like sincerely proposing the idea of Michael Flynn instituting martial law to like redo the vote in america, which apparently was Shot down even among his Loyal advisors like that was always a thing. It's like as soon as he says do something like, okay That's not gonna happen and then he's like, okay fine. Yeah, he just ends up like he has on everything else And it's also like Michael Flynn is not gonna he doesn't you know, it's bad when you're like Oh, this guy doesn't even have the charisma of a franco

Michael Flynn is never gonna be the fucking military dictator ever I heard him I heard him on a qanon podcast I heard some clips of him on a punon podcast and he was just he sounded like Fucking adam 22. He's like, we're gonna get the digital warriors out there And we just need to keep posting and keep knowing the truth and putting the truth out and the digital army is gonna Yeah, this this guy, uh, this guy is our uh, fucking Caesar. No question Yeah, do you know what Michael Flynn's job in the army was he wasn't like a battlefield commander

He literally sat in air conditioned office and connected like pieces of yarn on a corkboard. That's what he was good at It's all branding. It's all branding with all our boy our board Derek Davidson though I think I think had the good point about this because you know people people bring this up and they're like, well Yeah, I mean it may not it may not be a real thing because no one's gonna do it And they may the people doing it are lazy and like not even serious about the shit They say they want to do But you know, it's it sets up this like thing where like the next person

You know like the republicans like if they think they can get away with something They'll do it no matter what or how egregious or bad it is which is like, you know, yeah, of course I mean bush v gore already happened like that was a thing like the thing that you're talking about already happened in Florida in 2000 like they did that shit in full view of everyone and everyone pretty much accepted it But the thing is now if like the new standard is like we know that republicans are going to cheat and like break any law Norm precedent whatsoever to like steal a president steal any election, but a presidential election Especially like do you think that like if everyone just accepts that fat Then the results of that in our current political system will be yet again another disciplinary function for democratic voters

Not republican ones It will not be caused to discipline the republican party or their voters for their behavior All you can do is tell people you got to keep voting for us And that's all you can do that's all this could ever redound to is to tell you Everyone got everyone got on the same page and just like we're like, yes, we recognize like it's it's not funny Like it may appear funny on the surface But this is setting up a horrible precedent of which like, you know Elections are only legitimate until after the republicans have exhausted every crackpot lawsuit that they have to steal

Just just blatantly overturned millions of people's votes. That's fine But the next fucking like the next statement like the where that will lead people is like Well, that's just another reason that you have to always vote for the democrats because it because we have to win so big Every time that like it just precludes them All of their hijinks and shenanigans, which means like, okay Also, don't primary any vulnerable democrat because you know we there are all the more important now because it just gives them this bigger Fucking like like buttress against against like there are any pressure from their own ranks What's funny about that though is that if you take the logic seriously of we had a close call here

If it had been a little closer, they would have stolen it And then then we would have trump in there again the logic of that is It take it like take it seriously and honestly Like in broad strokes, that's probably true. Like you said Bush v gore set the standard like when people say, uh, well, yeah Okay, he didn't he's not able to steal it now But if it had come down to one vote and they'd gone into the court they might have flipped it's like, yeah, we know that That's just bush versus gore. That's not a coup. That's not some destruction of the system

That's going to like bring us into a new world and like it's a it's a revealing of like the machinery of Of fascism we would just go on because we've already done that what they're talking about is that Uh, if it got to a real contest between, you know power That the republicans have the will within their party and the hands on enough Mechanisms of power to just abrogate an election That's true. But what that means is that the democrats And the electoral strategy that they endorse and that their media apparatus insists on to all of their voters Uh is

It cannot work Because what because when you say, oh my god, how are we going to deal with these huge problems? We have how are we going to deal with climate change? How are we going to deal with health care? How are we going to deal with you go people? People just being immiserated and they say give it time. We're going to build a coalition. We're going to do this But if we got to a point where there was ever any real change on the ballot What they're saying is that the republicans would just cancel the election or or nullify the results But they have nothing else as an answer to that but keep voting democratic

That's it. So you so you're saying that your strategy your approach to politics is Neutered before you even begin. They cannot get there if they were to somehow get there because obviously we know they don't want to It's all a scam. They're shining on their rube followers to try to keep them supporting the status quo But even if it worked the way that the podjohns imagine it once you get to that final contest The republicans had just switched to say no, we're changing the rules And what are you going to do about it at that point vote is a joke and it's all you have I know but like to Derek's point though that I want to say though is like the answer to like people whether you're on Whether you're a republican who's like banging your head into the wall being like, you know, mr. Trump

They're stealing it. Like why can't you why can't you stop the steal? We all know you won like, you know Do the thing we want you to do, you know declare martial law point yourself president for life They keep saying they keep demanding that he crossed the rubicon. It's like it's become like a cue It's become a cue phrase like it's become it's become no, but it's become a cue phrase. They're like mr. Trump sir You must cross the rubicon to save the republic and it's just like could could the defenders of western civilization I don't know maybe know anything about western civilization Like crossing the rubicon is what Caesar did to end the roman republic not fucking save it or maybe they're aware of that No, they're aware of it. I think a lot of them are they they have they have realized that democracy

In america is fraudulent because it's captured by this cabal and therefore any if it was abrogated It would not be like some violation of america's principles because we don't have a democracy and of course they are correct about that That that is the that is the true thing that undergirds like this reactionary hostility to america's democratic system But everything else that's on top of it is of course, you know, just compounding absurdities paranoia and racism and stuff But like at least they have come to the conclusion at least they know that this isn't a fucking democracy Which is more than could be said for the vast majority of democratic voters. Well, yeah But I mean the differences the differences those they don't want it to be a democracy Well, yeah, of course not it can't be a democracy because they yeah

Because they understand that they're like 10 of the country that would like to happily kill like another 70 percent And then like rule over who's ever left. That's true of some of them but honestly I have some sympathy for just Like I watch fucking biden get the vaccine and then look at the camera and say you guys take it. It's good for you Don't worry about it. And I I how do you feel like these institutions are representative of anything worth saving? And like what what comes next is obviously the question, but my god I just wish more people had got got to that point at least somehow

Just finally to get to Derek's point. There's a roundabout way of saying like whether you are a democrat or a republican I think the thing that people are having the hardest time sort of understanding about like, you know Why isn't trump saving democracy? Or why is he doing this to begin with is that there is nobody In power at like an institutional level in this country be at the military the courts or even standard politicians themselves who would be willing to do what was necessary to give this election to trump over the difference between trump and joe biden Because they know it's like it's not the stakes are fucking low

Like why would you need to do like like essentially cancel? Officially openly cancel american democracy to stop joe biden from becoming president Yeah, you'd have to believe that there is that there is any real difference at the top of the pedophile elite and that is the the basis of so much of the delusion is the idea that there are good people That the republicans or even a part of the republican party represents some force for good in this country or in the world I mean, yeah, all like all all the all this shit where it's like, yeah No, there there is a like all the q shit and like all What I guess like just mainstream maga shit is now it's like yeah correctly assessing

There's a deep state and then thinking that like the undertaker will stop it It's like yeah, it's a combination of being right and then being the stupidest fucking person in the world But I mean, I guess that's better than not being right at all I guess I don't know. Yeah, like the the the whole crossing the rubicon thing and the whole like q mythos is is Always been deeply funny to me that like the idea that trump isn't just like another Figurehead or another flavor that the deep state gives you Like that he's caesar is so fucking funny

That he sees her caesar had come back from decades of military campaigns. Where did trump? What's trump's gall like new york fashion week? Like it's just so fucking pathetic it's berson getterix's oscar party is no longer hot It's just so pathetic that would be our caesar. It's so fucking depressing well, um I do want to talk about like that like the sort of mind palace being created by the last days of trump because Like I said, you know, we said, you know say what you will about them But the stories that they come up with are way more entertaining than the alternative

Way more entertaining and I'd like to talk first about the uh, were you guys aware that um, the 50 000 chinese troops attempted to invade america Crossing the main border from canada. I gotta say I remember thinking that the shootout at the server farm in frankfurt was funny, but 50 000 chinese troops getting killed with a bunker buster in main That's that's next level. There was there was one f-15 fighter that that crashed and killed its pilot in michigan And then they were like that's that is evidence of like a new uh, like it's like a new battle of britain like a Fucking aerial dogfights against like the chinese air force or something But another my favorite element to this story Was that all 50 000 chinese troops were killed with a single bunker buster bomb because they were all in the same bunker

Waiting to just like get the go order or whatever. They really took that racist chinese fire drill joke seriously Um, but I mean like bad planning on their part. You don't you don't keep all your troops in one bunker Yeah, very especially when your enemy has a thing called a bunker buster It's a very densely wooded area. You spread them out. This is you know gorilla warfare 101 My favorite thing about it is like there are definitely cute people who like live in main and believe this and it's like Well, I didn't hear this happen, but I also like didn't have work today So like I probably would have seen it on my drive over, but yeah, it definitely happened like a mile from my house It's just you know, like I said, it's it's a great story and you may be wondering like, you know

If if the u.s. military stopped a 50 000 of 50 000 strong forests of chinese soldiers from invading america Like What's like why cover it up? I mean wouldn't you want to tell people about that? I mean what to what benefit would you? This continued secrecy. I mean no point in parsing that further But the other thing I've really been enjoying following on twitter and I think like slate.com wrote about it is like there's this whole phenomenon now of People who bet on the outcome of this presidential election It's sort of like overseas like offshore like fucking bookmakers or whatever who took and I read this in the slate article

They took there was more action on this presidential election than there was on the Super Bowl last year It was the most it was the biggest online betting event in world history And of course all of the money was on trump to win because you know like the it had like okay odds You know like biden was the favorite and of course like for trump supporters It's like they're rooting for their team and there's also this added element where they think that like odds makers Are like the true objective like like factual reporting on an outcome of the likelihood of a certain outcome and that like like like

As opposed to the media or their family or just like data in life So the odds that trump's getting in a betting parlor is how he's really doing exactly and then like uh, you know like so like And just recently because you know this thing had been dragged out Like when the electoral college certified biden as the the winner of the electoral college These these these gambling shops they closed the line on it and they're leaving it like People were still policing bets on trump in like fucking December can you imagine being like a bookie sitting like some fucking like uh, you're you're in like a uh, you're in like a uh a server farm on an oil rig in the middle of the Atlantic and you're just like

A huffing computer duster and just watching these bets come in for an election that already happened Yeah, just you just got to be like hell. Yeah, hell. Yeah, but the the funniest part though Is that like these these these people are all furious because they're like don't these gambling Don't these gambling institutions know what we do that it was stolen and this is not a legitimate election And that like, you know, but you know, they'll eventually come around when all of their angry Betters like sort of do a like a betting strike against them. It's just like do you think that these people are like Unfamiliar with dealing with losers who were demanding their money back over over a fucking bad bet I mean like this is all they fucking do the idea of a betting strike is

deeply funny to me though like just the idea of like someone who never wins being like Uh, yeah, like placing bets so often that like a strike is a legitimate threat. Like they don't give a shit And they're like most of these people are probably gonna keep betting with these websites I would wager that. Well, no one does. No one ever does anything in America So like people aren't even gonna do a gambling boycott and like and you get like people were finding it on twitter Like there's these like semi-big accounts that we're telling all of their followers in the lead up to the election Place whatever money you have on trump because it's a deadlock It's easy money and also it's sort of like you're showing out for the faithful

And now like their followers are really mad at them and now asking for their money back from them And not the betting parlors because they feel fucking betrayed or like it's just they they can't process it They like they're like this this isn't fair the wager I placed with a fucking like that You know a gambling a gambling company that is you know, like Matt said Like, you know for tax and legal purposes Actually located on a barge somewhere in the south pacific is not going to honor What you know, they're gonna honor this obviously fraudulent election And it's just like it's interesting to me because I like I like the idea of like betting

Being like the like if the gambling parlors were the people to be like, uh, yeah We're actually we're paying out for trump because this was a stolen election like that would like that That's an objective record of like if anything like they needed a biden win bad to not lose their shirts So if anything, I'm sure these gambling companies probably stole the election for biden To prevent losing billions of dollars, you know, I'm going with that. I'm I'm going I'm gonna I'm gonna get The cue key and I'm gonna put that out there. Yeah. Well bookies, uh one illinois for kennedy. So what do you know? true So, yeah, that's uh all good stuff. Um

I guess like uh going back over to the the other side of politics the other the other fun thing this week was uh Everyone's doing their their end year end lists, you know, the best The best podcast the best movies the best albums the best stand-up specials of the year, uh, you know There were no movies this year. Yeah, I mean there's no movies about this year pickings, but you know The one that really matters, of course is obama's end of year picks because you know people people are waiting on those And you know, he's he's always a good bellwether for you know, what is what is the correct? Uh, correct opinion about art and culture But it's it's like especially funny this year because he's been doing this for a while now and people are always thirsty as hell for it

And people are like, oh, they're all surprised like oh obama like parasite. Oh cool. I like that movie too But how did he miss the class war elements of that movie? Doesn't he understand he's the bad guy and people were doing that this year with the boys the boys Uh, let me be clear. Uh, uh, I think homelander. I think for folks like me He's uh, he's a role model because uh, I'm evil and there was all these people that were sort of dumbfounded that like How could obama like the boys like doesn't he understand that he's the bad guy and it's just like no He like he understands that he gets it in exactly the same way you did

He gets parasite in exactly the same way you did it's just he doesn't care and art doesn't work like that It's like an art does art is not hypnot. It's like hypnotism It can't it can't change someone's essential moral worldview like through because they saw a fucking movie It has to though The the only way to to make sense of the emotional investment people have in their stories is if The stuff you watch Changes your fundamental like behavior outlook and everything if it doesn't then why the hell do you care so much? And so it has to and so obama he can he must not get it

He must be looking at it like through a camera obscura to miss all of the Incendiary anti corporate and anti neoliberalism to be found on amazon's the boy Yeah, obama obama is not smart enough to To read preachers not the way I do. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's a comic book of all time obama obama obama could obama could never read penny arcade Yeah, garth garth ennis is a writer known for his very subtle satire You know, it's you can easily go under your radar if you're not as attuned to you know Culture and politics as we are how did how did obama watch ava?

How did obama watch cowboy bebop? How did obama miss the anti corporate elements of its soon a miko? Yeah, it's like at every step of it's like you you think yourself watching this stuff Well, I could never do it obama does after watching all of these Just entertainments that that give me moral instruction. Well. Yeah, but you're also not in a position to do any of those things If you were you would have all all that brain power that allows you to suss out the subtle Themes in these these works is also able to go to work to justify your place in the position of power And yeah, no

I mean it's just people's reaction to that is like or like other people who are like, you know Thrilled that obama listened to the same norah jones album that they did Or like seemingly like perplexed that he could watch a film like parasite and like oh like wait I like that movie obama liked it like oh What accounts for that? Am I missing something? Is he missing something? It's just like It's just it's just the perfect representation of something that's been sort of a hobby horse of ours for a while now that like Like culture has totally totally subsumed politics or people like there is nothing There is no politics outside of culture anymore

Yeah, and like it's like like that is the realm in which like you demonstrate Your political behavior and like this idea that we expect art that we that we even should expect art to like change people's hearts or something And that's not to say like to shit on art or anything because I think it's very important and can have a very Profound effect on like, you know in your imagination and just like your ability to to exist in this world and to like You know the possibility is that your own imagination can create for yourself, right? But like this idea that like it is a moral like like the purpose of art Is to create better people and a better like country and like better citizens or that like or that art It should be able to fundamentally alter

Like the the either the politics or like the personality of the people who consume it or like that it even should Is just staggering to me like it's just that's like the opposite of art Like like you cannot create art with like that goal in mind because then you're not then you're not doing art Then it's not art. No, you're doing you're doing bad propaganda. You're not even doing propaganda on behalf of of Of like a insurgent movement or or even like a totalitarian regime that you have, you know Winston Smith like invested with godlike power. You're just Fucking parrot it. You're just you're just you end up just reproducing the values of of a absolutely like

exhausted status quo But then you're able to like pick one or two elements within that status quo for a critique that that valid That doesn't do anything to undermine in the mind of anybody who watches it any real fundamental You know architecture of their consent mechanism All it does is make you feel like you're doing something important and it makes the people watching it feel like they're watching something important I mean, I think I think hypnotism is like the good analogy here Like people think that art should work like people think hypnotism works We're like, oh like they get you on stage and they sort of like the lights go down and they lull you into a certain state

And it can change your behavior and oh you say or do something embarrassing and the crowd laughs at you But like believe me they've tried the ci in the kgb have tried to do this You cannot hypnotize someone to do something that they would morally abhor In in a conscious waking state. It can't be fucking done and art doesn't function in the same In that way either How so yeah, so obama did watch the boys. He liked it for all the same reasons you did He understands it exactly in the same way you do and it doesn't matter to him nor should it Nor fucking should it and no one should be fucking surprised by that either

How was obama able to listen to the same american idiot that I did? How did obama Enjoy m&m's mosh and then his wife shared that popper with george bush How did that happen? I remember when mosh came out. I thought it was gonna Uh, I thought it was gonna get pushed out of office. Oh, me too. Me too. I was like, there's no way, dude I had a little I watched that video. I got a little tear. I like this is gonna do it yeah, uh

Mosh and uh farenheit my mom I watched farenheit 9 11 with my mom and we were like he's gonna lose I mean and this is not the even should on parasite or the boys both of which I very much enjoy I know I like I like I like I love everything I just mentioned But it's like yeah, no art doesn't if you like sincerely believed the rock war was a good idea Like yeah, mosh isn't gonna change your mind. Yeah, you're just a piece of shit um likewise like if you If you have good beliefs like and you listen to toby keith it's not gonna change your heart Yeah, unless unless you're a fucking idiot and in that in that case like

Uh, uh fucking like the hum of your refrigerator would convince you that we should invade libya So I mean so who gives a shit people talk about how like yes, but like the sum total of all these uh media properties is to You know reinforce certain uh structures. Yeah, of course they do Though shit you're you're literally describing culture like but that does not that doesn't change like the fact that the individual response to this stuff In fact, it insists that the individual response to this stuff should be aesthetic in its Focus because it can't be anything other than part and parcel of a broader like neoliberal superstructure So at least fucking just enjoy it for god's sakes. Yeah, um And uh, we're not hypocritical for talking about the west wing because the west wing is bad

It sucks. It's not good to watch if they made a show that was as good as the sopranos But the point was like you need to do like I mean you have to do Kamala Harris's like student loan thing where they give uh, Like low interest loans to people who gentrified their neighborhood or something. I'd be like fine. That's good There's tons of like machema one of the greatest writers ever. I don't agree with them I don't I think No, yeah, it's uh, no And avatar avatar is a great movie because it's a great movie and it just happens to have perfect politics Yeah, it's like you can use that as a way to talk about it. But if there's no

like like talking about the art the the the politics of art is useful as a rhetorical practice but as a uh as the idea that there's like an intrinsicness Or that there is a transformative power within art is is it's it's something that we essentially Uh, we have to assume is there to justify our investment in it because most of the time We're not watching stuff or listening to stuff or reading stuff. That's really that good And we fill in the gap where you know The art should be with the politics of it and then that makes us feel validated for watching it or listening to it Or reading it and not the actual, you know heart that went into it

I mean, you know, we said we said it before but it's just like people like now more than ever are placing this This undue burden on on art of any kind because politics has never been further from their grasp Like the the ability to actually change our society or help people or you know, I don't know Bring justice to the you know, many issues that screamingly require it Is now been offloaded onto uh tv shows and movies and video games because like it it seems like that's the realm in which We can assert ourselves and I think another thing that's going on here is that if you were you know Consider yourself on the left in america in 2020 You know not everyone but I'm going to say like a good chance that most of you

Came from a liberal background and if you grew up in a liberal background Like you grew up believing and like understanding and perhaps correctly that like the arts Were hegemonically on your side And like and and like that that was the sort of vein Through which like good people and good things are like achieved in american culture not politics You know like that every every musician, you know, who's against the vietnam war Or you know every every movie with like a sort of uh, like a do-gooder liberal message It's just we sort of you sort of imbibe that and I get like I said not incorrectly because

overwhelmingly the cultural industry is made by other liberals And with sort of like with that Person that imaginary person in mind when they when they make their whatever they're doing So like I so like when art cuts against that or like art At you know expresses a right-wing point of view then like people feels like just sort of like intensely betrayed by that Or they feel like that that's like sort of cheating or that's unfair or something Or but like also it's dangerous. It's yeah It's just the expectation that like the arts are like uniformly on your side, which is like

Again, not wrong, but it's just like well, they're not really on your side They're making fucking money. They're there to make money for giant corporations. Yeah Yeah, if they didn't make money, they wouldn't be there You know, it's like creative people tend to have more liberal politics than you know reactionary ones like that's broadly true I would say But I mean again, like it just I hate it because it is it is anti-political and it's fucking killing art like what it's really creating is like a art that is created by And consumed by philistines entirely top to bottom like a vertical integration of pure philisanism

So that art itself like the its actual power and use to our culture Which I do think is important is getting worse every fucking day because Both the people consuming it and writing about it and creating it Like I said are are just vertically integrated philistines top to bottom who like are the least capable of understanding or creating good art Yeah, but they're able to check the light boxes politically because that's way easier And and and companies are willing to side off on that as the new rubric and the new way to get to guaranteed audience Because it's much easier. It's much easier to quantify. Oh, this needs about 24 percent more intersectionality You can do that. You can't do give this make this 24 percent better

Nobody knows how to do that All right. Well, I want to I want to switch into the final thing our reading series But I want to wait till Phil gets back because this is this is right up. Oh, yeah So finally to wrap things up here We're talking about how we were talking earlier about how like art cannot fundamentally change the heart of an evil Or a good person like one way or the other But as long as you're talking about people whose hearts will absolutely never ever change no matter what I'd like to talk about the people who carry out the grand designs of american empire overseas

And bring you the long awaited return of the choppo reading series because I know I don't even done that in a while but I found that I saw this new york times op-ed this week and it was it Screamed out at me in a way that like very few things have in a recent note And I'm just going to read here the headline and the sub headline This is by Elliott Ackerman and it just says in his bio here Mr. Ackerman is a former marine and intelligence officer who served five tours of duty in iraq and afghanistan headline the afghan war is over did anyone notice Subhead the troops are staying but we can declare an end to our forever war

So there you go. The afghan war is over the troops are staying. I am kissing the first nurse. I see Hey Who's coming to time square with me? We did it boys Long story Best off the old hands. Yeah, you're welcome afghans Okay, do you remember like I mean long time fans of the reading series will note that like one of the things that I've noticed Or like when these little sort of like drinking games are just like, you know Do a shot every time this turns up and like this usually isn't like really shitty like national review writers

They will always begin their interminably stupid and grade school level fucking essay by referencing a great book or author Let's see how this guy begins. He goes. I first read the iliad in high school. That's the first I first read the iliad in high school Uh, he goes the translation my teacher handed out had a single photograph on the cover American gi's on d-day storming out of a landing craft onto omaha beach What fucking addition to that both the iliad had that on the cover that is That's the greatest generation Edition that had the tom brokaw introduction. Oh, that's so stupid

To god tom brokaw needs to be executed for being annoying Tom brokaw has like a twitter account now where he's like, uh, do you uh, what's the tree sis? Oh god, I need you to be executed by military tribunal for doing that. Stop it So he goes here Many years later after having fought in two wars of my own That image has come to resonate in a new way if the iliad served as ur text for ancient greek wars Alexander the great for example is said to have slept with a copy beneath his pillow went on campaign

Oh, thanks for that that little that little fucking gem from the historical record. This is really informing what a what a fucking smart guy you are He goes, then world war two has served a similar function in our society framing our expectations of war becoming our american iliad We still expect to be the good guys We expect to be there to be beginning a middle and an end and we expect that the war is over when the troops come home okay Uh as soon as you're talking about like world war two is the ur text for how all americans understand Other wars like I think I would say that that's a hundred percent true, but not in the way that this guy imagines It's the ur text for our understanding of wars and like it's the

That and like the revolutionary war in the civil war are like basically the only wars that are taught in school Because world war two is if you're talking about examples of wars that america's fought against other countries It is literally the only example of a war. We fought that is even halfway justified or Or one of the only ones that's both justified and we had a decisive victory like You know we weren't really in the right in korea and it really can't be said that we won Definitely didn't win vietnam like what are you going to teach granada and panama? That both you know for how small the wars were for how much we you know rolled those two small armies

We committed a ton of war crimes that you just never hear about you never fucking hear about The gulf war that's briefly taught like some ap classes, but they never teach you about the highway of death or american war crimes So all right this guy's going on he goes it but that's final expectation That a war is over only when all the troops come home has never really held true Not in world war two and not today among the myriad challenges inherited by the incoming biden administration Will not only will be not only ending our nation's longest ever war in afghanistan But also clearly defining what ending a war actually means the new president will be handed a less than durable piece Negotiated by the trump administration with the taliban as well as recent significant troop reductions

And one of the greatest trials joe biden will face in public Not only expecting our soldiers back But also conditioned to believe that wars are only over when all troops return If the goal is reducing all troop levels in afghanistan to zero We're ensuring that the war will drag on for years to come enshrining its status not only as america's longest war But truly as america's forever war well good thing that's not happening He goes which returns us to the iliad to the importance of narratives We apply to war and to our long-held misconceptions about homecomings

There are nearly 40,000 troops garrison in western europe their presence to secure a generation's old peace in the countries where world World war two was fought we also stationed nearly 30,000 troops in south korea in a decades long effort to ensure stability in the region Despite episodic violence and metaphorical saber rattling No one would argue that these wars are ongoing and most can see that our presence has provided a much valued source of regional stability That has made both the world and america safer. Oh and more prosperous. That's what absolutely That's why no one wants like everyone in the korean peninsula just wants us fucking gone Because of how much peace we're providing. That's what yeah, that's why we're stationed everywhere to ensure peace It's not that it's just a fucking protection racket

I love the idea that yet our 30,000 troops in germany is what's keeping that government in power Yeah, no, european peace is not it's not just shared economic interest and the cost of the The greatest war in human history. It's us. It's a gi drunk driving to m&m's relapse And running over three guys in later hosen It's like it's it's so fucking did you see that thing today about how the pacific islanders are finally going to be given medicaid because We gave them also we gave them radiation poisoning and cancers and all these things Because we blew up about a thousand age bombs

Nukes in their home in their home this place on the other side of the world that we decided was our home now We used to just as a staging ground for weapons that should not exist We gave these people fucking illnesses they had never had before and then we said hey We'll give you shitty fucking medicaid and then during the 96 welfare reform act It's just wipe that out. They said it was an accident. Sure. And then now 25 years later. They're finally giving it back. That's yeah That's what all no Imperialism is just it's going to someone's home and making their life worse in ways that they never fucking imagine It's uh, you're not ensuring peace and then 70 years later allow them to claim medicaid benefits for the fucking like

Generational cancers and diseases caused by the like I said several hundred age bombs exploded in that part of the fucking planet Yeah, that that's what our business is our business is not This is the most not only is it wrong. It's just so fucking pompous It's so fucking pop it if a war broke out in western europe between like yeah, germany and france right now What do you think the u.s. Military would do they'd be making ticktocks and then getting fucking obliterated by gladio era d.b. Crockett's stashes But also I like this idea that like oh Hey, we stationed all these troops in germany after world war two even though the war I mean no one would say that that war is over

It's like well. Yeah, all when we did that, uh, like the nazis didn't can still control like 30 of the country Well, we know we put them back in charge. That's why that's true Yeah, that's also fine. Yes, you're right Because we just said here you're in charge now Whereas we overthrew the taliban and we won't let them back in charge. Yeah, it's just it's just unlucky that No, taliban guy knows how to build a new type of rocket or uh, we we don't need them yet to torture people No, you're right. I guess that was the wrong and that was a wrong example because it turns out they yeah They were still controlling half of the country. It was just called west germany. Yeah

Same thing in japan same thing fucking everywhere after world war two Yeah, we just we took the the defeated militarists and fascists and we just changed their job titles That was pretty easy. The troops are just there to fucking pad the books But uh, I love this idea that like yeah, our presence has proved a much valued source of regional stability Yeah, we all remember that famous part in the ilead where homer wrote uh, uh sing to me muse of the rage of achilles and how it provided much needed regional stability and the For the city of troi and the surrounding city states it goes on here It says booty judge writes an op-ed in the new york times about the case shitting in troi

Helen has a glamour that's you know launched a thousand ships Um, she says here it goes on. He says obviously afghanistan today is more volatile than western europe or east Asia a little bit Okay, he could argue that just a little bit, but us troops stationed in country have remained relatively safe in recent years Four men died in afghanistan this year, but in 2020 many more service members died in training accidents at camp pendleton alone How are they gonna talk about training? Yeah, no, he said they don't matter. They don't matter died in afghanistan Oh, yeah, american troops aren't being killed in afghanistan at like a Decent clip anymore, but you can bet everyone else there is being killed by them

Uh, I mean like we know or death squads that we train. Oh, yeah, exactly Yeah, no they left out of this fucking articles like the same fucking week the intercept has a new Fucking like expose about in afghanistan cia trained and back death squads killing a schoolhouse full of children Just stacking up their bodies and dumping them in a ditch as the part of a like a broader strategy of going into religious schools Just shooting the fucking students as a way to prevent the Taliban from recruiting Can't can't recruit any kids if they're dead and so it's like yeah like hey You will be able to say from the american point of view if we do just have a couple of bases full of Fully protected americans who mostly sit on the computer all day and there's a fucking tgi fridays in the mess hall

Yeah, the the war is over from us not for afghanistan Which is not the same thing you can say for fucking germany He goes on he said afghanistan in 2009 is not afghanistan in 2020 where once we were fighting to win a war Today we are fighting to sustain a tenuous peace Does this asshole think that this this fucking line of bullshit is novel or new at all? I heard this shit about the iraq war in 2007 when the surge was fucking happening Like oh no, we're no longer fighting a war where we're helping to prop up our democratic government or to maintain the peace This is it goes on to say this is a distinction. Mr. Biden should make to all americans

That means assuming conditions on the ground remain stable decoupling the phrases us troops in afghanistan from the us war in afghanistan Gee, thanks marine intelligence officer. I'll be doing that myself I'll just go ahead and decouple the phrase us troops killing people and death squads in afghanistan Or training death squads to kill schoolchildren in afghanistan from the thought of us war in general And because yeah, I know it's different. It's it's totally different. They're doing the uh, regional stability Regional stability. We got to keep having that we can oh and also and also untrammeled access to 90% of the world's heroin supply Oh, shit. Yeah, that that whole thing. Yeah, that wasn't really a big part of germany was making sure that we had all the fucking heroin We could traffic he should emphasize how our presence in afghanistan stabilizes the region

Stabilizes the region Stabilizes the region. I remember this shit back during the fucking height of the iraq war When people or when people would talk about how Iran needs to be confronted because they're destabilizing the region Who the fuck on earth has destabilized more regions than the u.s. Military Just being there it destabilizes the fucking region We love doing that. We love stabilizing It's it's it's why we do this shit because if things were stable they might be able to for

There might be able to be like non-american centers of like political and economic power It could like run counter to our desires. That's not gonna happen. That's the entire game That's the entire game american empire is a protection racket the entire game is No one could be self-sufficient or anything. No, that they should have to be a client They need to drop this fucking prick in afghanistan with just his copy of the iliad There's nothing like more. Hey, yeah, regional stability Uh folks you've ever been to like a bar or a restaurant and they sit you at one of those shitty small two-person tables But it's like all totally unbalanced and it's all just like like shaking back and forth and things like that

And then sometimes the waiter will come over and he'll just put a little wedge under one of the legs And then you're like ah stability that's what the u.s. Military is doing in afghanistan Yep, we're like, uh, yeah the little match book underneath the uh wobbly table at the bar He should also then explain the conditions for our forces in afghanistan have changed over the years That the work these troops are doing is different than the aggressive combat operations that characterized their presence a decade ago Thus announcing what so many already know for us the war has all but ended again like for the people in afghan Like people who live in afghanistan. This is totally out of this equation here He goes the bidens are a military family bo biden's military service and his deployment to iraq has been a fundamental part of the family's story

The president elect most likely understands that the psychology of a forever war is a fraught one Particularly for veterans and their families who have struggled for closure with a conflict that always simmers on low boil in the background Not only of their lives, but in american life writ large. Oh, yeah Not only in their lives, but in the lives of their children who are now joining up and being sent to afghanistan He goes unlike veterans of world war two who are welcome home with ticker tape parades or even those of the vietnam war When stomach churning images of saigon's evacuation at least gave them a moment to pause and declare the nightmare over Veterans of our generations wars have had no such closure Mr. Briden ran on a platform of unity asserting that this was a time to heal our country

Perhaps in the opening days of administration He might pause and focus on the healing of veterans as a first step to a broader national healing No, yeah, that is the thing we don't talk about in politics enough is veterans No one talks about them. That's right, man. Part of that healing will be reframing the war in afghanistan. I love to reframe Reframing the war in afghanistan. That means welcoming our veterans home from okay. First of all, you said at the very beginning They're not coming home. Yeah. Yeah A good number of them are still going to be there for the next hundred years doing christ knows what like I said Operating drones facilitating the shipment of tons of opium into european and american markets to fund, you know

Play off the books black ops to the cia and christ knows who else He goes here Yeah, they're staying but we need to welcome the veterans home for some This has been a decades-long odyssey. Oh, there you go another homer reference. Yeah, i'm a smart guy Not only of service in our forever wars, but as veterans of wars that have simply refused to end It's time to tell veterans that it's over that they and we no longer need to live in a state of perpetual war For service members still deploying through afghanistan. It's time to clarify that they are no longer prosecuting a war But advancing a peace and who knows if handled correctly

It might be the first step in ending our perpetual wars at home too. Yeah, you see that you see this This just clause that I have filled with tiny skeletons and trapper keepers with pastitude phrases written on them That was part of the piece I secured It's just like it's just the fact that this guy Is yeah, he's he's a shitty novelist But a former marine intelligence officer officer who's giving given is just like the new york times It's like piping him in to just let you know just decouple in your mind War in afghanistan from anything the u.s. Military is doing there because it's not a war anymore

And we can all just say the forever wars are over and I like when he says earlier that like, you know For veterans and their families like or you know, but the bidens understand that forever wars are very fraught It's like yeah, no shit. They understand that they're fucking Like they're checking account for what they're able to like spend in terms of political goodwill in the american public on These forever wars is rapidly running out. So they need to it's time to reframe It's time to reframe these forever wars. They're not forever wars. They're forever pieces now I have to say how is this not as fascist is like the tomcat not better anything else that like people complain about the new york times This is like as offensive as anything I've ever heard like this is fucking disgusting

Yeah, I mean because like afghanistan has been a fucking charnel house ever since we got there. We've never stabilized shit It's horrifyingly violence. It's we've been The troops have been coming home in general, but uh civilian deaths through droning and fucking Death squads are on their eyes and the pitch here is we do that forever The only difference is you just literally don't think about it anymore. Yeah, that's it. Yeah This is yeah, I mean the new york times fucking repulses may be on belief And this is one of the most repulsive things I've ever seen

Them run in the past five years But I'm sure they run things like this all the time because this is no, this is this is their mo They're this is the same people that had judy reared and just a fucking out now Just maniacs Zionists running their fucking Jerusalem desk like no, this is who they are It's keep the war forever, but either feel bad about it Or uh, just don't think about it. No, like this is like this is an explicit call You know from a guy who I'm sure is not like some sort of fucking like like right wing coffee company troop Like this guy is like, you know, like a like a novelist troop

He's he probably went to a fuck he probably went to some fucking ivy league school as well Oh, sure, but he's pitching it to like an audience of like, yeah, like not fucking like, you know, uh, yahoo's bang for more, you know blood and Conquest overseas he's just saying look the war is over sleep now And just in in the headline just say the war is over the troops are staying And then and then spend and then spend all those paragraphs trying to like just sort of like Just lull you into this sense that you can hold those two ideas in your head at the same time And not fucking like just catch on fire like a robot that's been told some sort of

Logical loop that's going to make them explode or something There we go. Like I said, uh, these people's hearts will never change. The american empire will never change The only way out is to completely dismantle it bring all the troops home from everywhere Not just afghanistan, but germany and korea too. Yeah, guess what nobody fucking wants us there in those countries either Yeah, the yeah, there's no better way of life for giving anyone I mean, maybe we'll give you medicaid After fucking 70 years Yeah, figure crossed hold off. Yeah. Yeah, you can get yeah, but uh, no, yeah

No one wants. I mean it's just like it's time to it's time to it's time to go home You don't get to stop thinking about it And then when he said like the afghanistan of 2009 is not the same as the afghanistan of 2020 Well, it's like the media of fucking propaganda is exactly the same because like I said like I was going insane reading this Because it was like these are all the hack neoconservative arguments. I read when the iraq war started going bad It's the exact same fucking thing and this idea just the idea of like regional stability that that's what that's what the american empire does That's what that's what it provides for the people of the world and hey, you know You may want to bring the troops home, but you know, just think how unstable things would be if they weren't there

It's just like at no point does anyone bother to fucking ask the question Uh, meet like that. We are the cause of all this violence and instability and like, you know, if we were so concerned about this We would just simply stop doing our own crimes and not worry about like theoretical imaginary ones that could happen In some fucking alternate future you say that but do you really want americans? uh america's heroine users to have the money that they're buying heroine with go to chinese intelligence and not american intelligence I don't think so sir. Yeah heaven forbid Do you think guys you think it's a coincidence that there was like a huge spike in heroine use in america right after the vietnam war And then coincidentally right around the time that america got involved in afghanistan and in both places

Uh, both first the golden triangle and then afghanistan uh Poppy production spiked dramatically skyrocketed by like thousands of percent. Yeah, you know the you know the worst thing about buying heroine Your dealer always wants to read some shitty op that he wrote Yeah, I hate I hate going to cop a bag of scag and you have to spend 20 minutes listening to the author of uh I forgot whatever his novel is called. Yeah, you have to listen to this bullshit Yeah, he shows you his copy of the iliad. Everyone hates that with their dealer. Yeah, he starts It's like here you got to read the first chapter of my new book the damascus sanction

No matt actually, you know his next book is called 2034 and it's like a like a speculative future history. Oh hell. Yeah Uh, I've been uh, I've been there are two ideas. I've been laughing at recently. Um, one is it has nothing to do with this It's just the idea of a predatory, uh gay Chelsea art dealer But like uh, this guy in hillbilly ology hits his head working in the mines and comes out thinking that he's that guy Even though he's let never left like kentucky and he's just uh, he's just like walking around and he's like I heard stan cherris daughter bit the farm Um, makes it makes makes sense because she's a cow

Oh, i'm such a bitch Oh, oh, where'd you go honey fasa? Oh, yeah, you put on a big show with your crop tops But you're afraid of putting out because what your goyle friends might say And he's just he's just a guy who's worked in the mines for like 50 years and they're like Yeah, no, he just he hit his head and he's thought he's he's a guy named lou perltsman He's an 83 years old and lives in chelsea Uh, so that just doing that voice and hurting my throat has been making me laugh And then the other thing that's uh, i've been enjoying is thinking of the shittiest speculative fiction books ever

And uh, one of them is my idea for a book about if tom dashill won his reelection in 2002 And writing a 900 page speculative fiction book about that Well, this is elliot ackerman who is the author of the novel red dress in black and white and the fourth That's awesome man 2034 2034 elliot ackerman I thought I felt like 2034 years went by reading it Guys guys, I know this isn't a depressing episode. Um But try doing that voice for your friends and family or even just for yourself during the holiday season. It's really fun

Uh, you know, if you're 83 years old cry becoming that guy, yeah, let's do it What else you got going on become disgusting making so that your skin looks like a lazed potato chip Uh, it's just yeah, just be be a bitch I would say that that's good advice for everyone, uh in america and everyone listening for 2020 Uh, be disgusting. Yeah, be gross as hell be gross. Just like it. Just just get gross with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah What else you got going on? Oh boy when I burp I still taste poppers I Everyone loves Lou Perlzman the

Most iconic new character people are some people keep saying it. They're saying it more and more You hear I hear it big guys big guys come up to me tears in their eyes. They say I love this character so much Yeah, loop 2021 2021 will be the year of uh, just dynamite comedy character Lou Perlzman Yeah, Lou Perlzman. Uh, he's in the next marvel movie Oh T'challa, I'd eat you up, but I'm off of carbs Disgusting he's awful. He's a bad guy, but I feel like everyone has a little Lou Perlzman in them Everyone wants to see him. Everyone is secretly hoping for it. Yeah. All right gang. Well, let's uh

That does it for today We'll be back on thursday for patrons only are long awaited now two years in the making. Yes Halloween, no christmas special. Halloween. Yes the christmas special We're doing it again. We're doing we're doing a christmas special For uh on thursday. We're all very excited. It's gonna be great So this is this is a boarded last year because we didn't give ourselves enough time to write the fucking thing But uh, you know, thankfully we had to go to the stupid uk to try to save it from itself that worked out great Uh, probably made things worse from no question. No question. We did win our writing though. I will say that that's cool

Bro, whatever the fuck they call them. Yeah, the the shire We were racing. We were soldiers of fortune. We got in trouble, but we sure got around. There are turns I think I see him peeling out of the dark. I think he's like behind me now when he's gaining ground But it was long ago and it was far away. Oh god, it seems so very far And if life is just a highway then the soul is just a car And objects in the review mirror, they appear closer than they are And objects in the review mirror, they appear closer than they are