Chapo Trap House - 606 - Eldenphant Ring (2/28/22)

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

We begin and end this episode with more discussion on Ukraine, what we got wrong, where it goes from here, and the media response to it. But in the middle we talk about an elephant we met and a delightful Bavarian town we passed through in northern Georgia, so, trying to lighten it up a little. Thanks to Emma and Shannon for hooking us up here in Atl!

I Tell him so I have to do you guys not a call the front No, what are you gonna do? Yeah, I need a plunge Clogging the toilet I will like okay out of all the places to clog a toilet like you wouldn't think was it here No, you know no like do they take big duties or not? American South and you'd think I might see this is Atlanta though. This is like the sophisticated cosmopolitan southern city if we were in say Mobile, Alabama Okay, the throat of a toilet anywhere in Mississippi or Alabama is like like the size of a trash can

It's like the Holland Tunnel. Yeah, they gotta give you a lot of space gonna take doodoo's of all sizes All right. Well, figure it out after this anyway, so there's war in Europe First time in 25 years. Yeah, it's popping off guys. Yeah, history history Happening history seems to keep happening and it's happening more and more the most important part about it though the thing that we can't forget is that We were wrong about food invading and that's the real tragedy is that we got owned like I'm glad We didn't like completely commit to it But yeah, holy shit the dumbest move he could have made and added adding probably at least 15 years of zombie consensus to NATO

Making everyone loves L Disney. Just a huge fuck up massive when when it When it was like, oh, he's just going into DPR It was like the only people who are gonna talk about that and like get mad about it are You know people who have had nine unpaid internships at different think tanks and they'll do a sanction That doesn't really mean anything and it'll be done But he oh boy did he step in he decided to be legends He decided to say what about what's the point of having this stupid army that we've been spending all this money on

If we're not gonna do something with it. You guys should I'm a check out. I'm actually I'm working on a piece for the Atlantic Council That's called Putin in goblin mode for real. Yeah. Yeah, I mean like it's you know He took his breakup with Kanye pretty hard. So it's understandable. Well, I mean, yeah, it's uh Wait, it's like they're shelling Kiev right now. Like they're hitting with missiles like the whole fucking country is I'm seeing online. It looks like a lot of those the Four four popo goblins are trying to pull up and gazi now. They're saying like there's a column headed towards Kiev What are we gonna do? This is this is the time we have to do something and we have to do something, right?

They're hoping that people will sign on to a no fly zone one of the most brilliantly named things Yeah history of the evil American foreign policy consensus I mean people who know what this is know this would basically mean a full-out hot war between the United States and Russia I mean, we mean that we would be on the hook for any escalation. Yeah happens after that talking about it's just a zone I Declaring a zone. What's it? There's what does that have to do with fighting? You just say yo, you can't fly there Yeah, it's like the door you can't go into the airport. You're like, hey, that's a no walk zone

You're like, oh, sorry. Oh, he's only yeah, I don't understand what the big deal is But I mean jokes on us because this is they got what they wanted. This is exactly what they want Oh my god, oh god. Yeah, everyone. No, it's just um, like look I mean like, you know, if the people of Ukraine like having your country invaded by Russia and like, you know Like this is there's there's no justification for this at all. I mean, this is I mean like it is very cheeky of Putin to say Like we must denazify Ukraine. I mean, you don't be fucking Nazis are in Russia Well, I mean, I love that because it's like oh, they have a version of we're protecting women's rights in Afghanistan Everyone has every everyone has something like that. But um, I mean, I guess like that, you know

Like it's like the the foreign policy the the foreign policy goals Like they're they're loving this but like cuz I cuz you know, they've been saying for years like, you know Oh, like it's not a good thing if like America isn't a hegemon anymore But like I mean this history is happening and it does seem to be this crack-up of you know Like a unipolar world and what that really means is that other countries like not America can do the shit that we've been right Yeah, but this really does feel like to me like the Iraq war and the reason I thought That it wasn't gonna happen is just because I was still under the idiotic delusion that we're still in a space where everyone understands that only America gets to act like that like that that the whole point of

You know the post-soviet world order is that America is the country that gets to exercise unilateral military discretion everyone else has to triangulate off of what they will allow and what we're seeing is that you know It might look one way and when you're just inside your American bubble But outside of it people are making different conclusions and they're going like look I honestly think like for a lot of these countries like Putin and Russian Everywhere else increasingly like things get worse conditions

deteriorate holds on power become more more perilous and the rationale Changes and you get to a point where in your own mind or like in the minds of you know your top leaders or Advisors, it's more dangerous to keep obeying Washington to try to break out and see what you can do and basically try to call the bluffs and also find out just how how Resilient you are more than anything to the financial Blowback that is going to come from. Yeah, that's the real They cut up some

Russian banks from the Swift banking system from the Swift like intercontinental payment system But they have to keep some on because Europeans still have to pay for their gas, right? What is interesting and You know right now it looks like oh my god This is the worst possible thing they could have done because in this moment apps are fucking Absolutely, this is the dumbest fucking thing that could have done at the same time in 2012 about it looked like how the fuck is Assad gonna hold on right five years from now Maybe there's like a successful transition It would take like a generation to transition away from like the use of the US dollar internationally

Probably 40 50 years maybe but if this causes something where China and Russia are like less dependent than US dollars I mean Russia fucking has to be yeah, but it causes something throughout the world where people are like Oh, they can just they can just totally shut you out this way Um, I mean is way easier said than done and that'll be interesting to see in the next decade I know another thing in terms of like the economic price. That's going to be enacted on on Russia. I saw just something before we start recording today is that um Switzerland Swiss banks have cut off Russian citizens from like the other Accounts but like they like they're cutting off all banking to Russia right now. I'm like that's you know, that's that that's everyone's favorite

Yeah, exactly and in terms of like I it's it's it's almost impossible to tell at least from my perspective Cuz like and I'm not I'm not an expert but like certainly following the news or following things on Twitter like what's actually going on in Ukraine and like and Like you know how successful or how bogged down like Russia may be I mean like there's always videos of like basically teenage Russian soldiers who were just lost in the Ukrainian countryside Just being told like go home asshole. Yeah, what the fuck are you doing here? But you know, I mean like seems like they made like a very rapid advancement Now there's some speculation about whether they're being bogged down or not and we were talking about this last night

I feel like you said like I look I don't know if it's going like good or bad for the Ukrainians who are resisting this this this invasion But like it does seem weird that we've already seen like two or three major just straight-up lies about like this Just straight up like the the the ghost of Kiev Yeah, the Snake Island incident It's just it seems like there's a lot of like because though obviously like the whole media is you know rooting for Ukraine and Zelensky and it's sort of like I mean, how could you blame them in this situation like this? but I mean there does seem to be like a lot of like a lot of it like there's a lot of sustained efforts like keep morale up and

You know people getting very angry when like, you know That those narratives come into question. It is pretty wild how This is you know a full blanket at the first European war in the social media era and Somehow that makes it absolutely impossible to figure out what the fuck is going on. No, yeah I mean MGS to it is the deluge The deluge of too much information. Yeah, that will confuse you rather than censorship. Yeah, I mean It's I feel like in the first two weeks of a war especially you can not really evince anything just from being on Twitter Telegram or fucking anything. I could not tell you I could not tell you I I

Could tell you that I it's probably not an amazing sign when they're letting prisoners out if they have military experience and giving everyone Guns and I don't think that leads anything like a last great and long run Yeah, but again, how who the fuck knows at the end of the day. I'm just another asshole We're absolutely just some assholes on here, right? We don't we don't know and we didn't think what this would happen So what did we know? Yeah exactly like we're in yeah, we're in we're at the moment It seems like yeah, like Trump was the real like opening of the seal where something is on the horizon Something is like a possibility But you just assume things work a certain way and you're not gonna be disabused of it until

Something just breaks through that perimeter and and you couldn't you couldn't really have been asked to expect to want to assimilate like the real possibility of it just because from your vantage point It seemed like things had to be much more rotten than they appeared as you know Relatively comfortable Americans and it turns out at every level you put a little pressure on and all the struts just snap like fucking Toothpicks. Yeah. Well, I mean who not like who not maybe Putin Everyone yelled at this woman But I thought this was as good a theory as any that Putin has long COVID or is convinced himself He has long

If he has long COVID or yes, he's like got some yellow pop wallpaper situation It's living in the Kremlin alone and like talking to guys across 500 foot long table And he's like just going nuts and he presses the button and we get nuked COVID doomsayers vindicated Yeah, Eric Fingleding and Fingleding Anybody who's been yelling about pandemics for the last two years. Everyone's been yelling at us for going on tour Correct. You're right. It was COVID ended up being a huge deal Yeah, dr. Fingleding. We hope that you are the Lord humongous Of the new future

He's going to enforce COVID-zero by any means necessary. I I love Putin being like personal COVID school is so funny Yeah, it's you they're coming into our country to make us gay and if you know where to N95s you're killing people The guy we've been looking for the Prince who is promised. Yeah, that's why he invaded Ukraine They're mask regimens and vaccination rates were too low. That was it's a really good post about that, too Yeah, no, it is we should have learned our lesson from 2016 Yeah, that the the impossible will happen and you will be left holding your dick Yeah, I mean my main reason is to to have resisted the

Claims that Russia's gonna invade one. I assumed. Yeah, that like Putin was a rational actor And it because it's not it seemed like a very reckless and bad idea to do but once again Who knows how fucking bad it is in Russia? Who knows how barely held together his coalition oligarchs is You know, he very well could be acting what he thinks of his in a rational way A lot of a lot of guys are snaking him. Yeah people are People are making cryptic cryptic posts. They're sort of subbing each other Yeah, everyone's favorite guy olig drapina is Speaking out

Who right who knows the internal calculus that went into this something we cannot see but the reason I thought he wouldn't do it is Because the fucking government kept telling yeah, yeah And I was like, I'm not gonna fucking believe you because if it doesn't happen then I look like a fucking douchebag Right, I would rather be wrong not believing you then look like I'm eating a birdseed out of your I mean yeah, like it's usually like all things being equal on betting against what the US State Department is telling you They're just choosing the exact opposite you rarely go wrong with that Let's let's not forget. They told us that a microwave gun gave them

It's like Putin is going to invade Ukraine also, he's cooking our organs with long-distance microwaves. Yeah, come on now He's giving us tactical stomach aches. Okay, what if that turned out to be completely true? Well, you know what like I wouldn't feel bad about that because like being being that wrong about something like that because I've said like I hope it's true. Yeah I wasn't hoping that Russia was going to invade Ukraine I do hope that the microwave weapon is true that they are giving State Department spooks Headaches, I mean it does make you wonder if they do have it. Why aren't they deploying it in Ukraine? Like why aren't they circling Kiev with it? And then like making doing like the brown note and making everybody shit their pants with

Simultaneous microwaves, so yeah, who knows it seems like in the first two days this caught everyone sort of off balance and Off balance both in like what the what the push in Western media would be but also for China Because right when this happened China was kind of like what the fuck. Yeah, are you see? Are you serious? Are you serious and now now, you know, things are coalescing The Chinese media is more now like hey, they have to do this. This is like yeah, this is what it is I mean if you're China you want to protect a country like Russia's ability to exercise its own Discretion of this kind of way so that you can do that too, right cuz like the alternative really is like the alternative that

The offer that the West had to Russia really was we're just going to suffocate you and there's nothing you can do about it Like and then with that on the table that you know, why wouldn't you eventually just flip it over, right, right? And it's I it's completely irresponsible to talk about this without talking about both the 90s and Eastward NATO expansion. Yeah, no, actually, you know, it's irresponsible to talk about right now because now is not look We can we can we can we can we can all delineate like exactly what role the like America and NATO has played in all this But not now not now not when the consequences of those actions There are so many things like I mean just like just just just observing the news right now Like I've largely been mostly trying to avoid it because there are so many things that are just I think intentionally designed to drive you insane

Like for instance, Condoleezza rice on Fox News today saying look when you invade a sovereign country, that's a war crime. Yeah Oh really condo Thanks for that and it just you know, we talked a little bit about the show last night But it's just like the brigades of fucking like amateur fucking War wanks who are fucking all like chiming in with their fucking suggestions on how to how to do guerrilla war Against like a Russian army. They're like, yeah, you know learn from our experience in Iraq Like, you know, these tanks like they can they can bog you down in an urban environment Just like replace the road signs and make them drive down streets with the

Sidewalks can't support them and they'll end up in the sewer and they're like driving through the country like Clark Griswold You can disable a tank with a with a with a with a water balloon filled with paint I just like it's just like I mean look like obviously like there's a natural inclination to Feel feel some sort of solidarity or admiration for like the people who are having their country invaded and they're resisting it By any means they can but it's just there's something ghoulish about people in America who are like rooting for a situation in which Like what like they want they want Kiev to be like what Baghdad was for ten years Like it's just well, I mean they may get their wish regardless of how the push goes because I mean there has been a massive inflow of weapons into the country

Weapons have been given out pretty freely one thing that you will not see a lot of on CNN is that there are Very unfortunately like firefights between irregulars and military and police in Ukraine It is a really shitty chaotic situation and obviously the onus falls on Russia for invading, but did they're they're going to be Massive consequences for this even if this ends God willing tomorrow There will be massive consequences in Ukraine DPR for a long fucking time as a result of this well I think that the tide is gonna turn around Ukraine's way soon if it hasn't already because Apparently there there's talk of some sort of international volunteer brigade people in the West just going They've said that they're gonna waive visa requirements for people want to fight and I really do think Joe Biden international

Yes, this is this is the branded international This is the chance for everybody who spent the Trump years Nashing their teeth and foaming of the mouth about Russia and what they did to our country if you really believe that this you can Literally get payback. Do you think that like sci-fi writer is named like at whiskey fuckery are gonna sign off I mean if they're serious about their posts, they should do it. Yeah We need to see Chuck Windig on the front lines I think Chuck Windig could be like an enemy at the gates take a figure. Yeah, this it'll be just like when during World War two when

Franco did not want to join the access and he had all these really fervent Philanthropist youth who really wanted to fight the Soviets He just formed a division of them and sent them to do the Eastern Front to freeze to death outside of Leningrad I was a division as well. We could do that with like the most the color. They were at the end the most annoying Brandon Posters available put them out there. Yeah, those stupid kids Yeah, they certainly were the blue division when all He has like another thing to talk about it's like, okay, because you know Trump was at CPAC Yeah, I was it's like CPACs going on right now and like it's sort of like it's a hard line for them to tell here

Because Trump is like, you know, he's like mr. Prudin is a very crafty guy He's I understand them say I understand him more than anyone else And and then he did say and I think I mean for those he's right for the wrong reasons But I when he said that like, you know, there was no Russian invasion when I was president I mean, it's like I mean can't argue with that I mean your cheat you are cheating when you only do one term, but Brandon has only done one term It's true the first term Brandon had an Obama had to wait for the second term for them to invade Crimea And it was second term at the end of second term of Bush when they invaded Georgia

Yeah, back before everyone was on the internet and McCain could go. Hey, everyone's a Georgian and everyone was like no We're not that was see that is very funny because that was like the the first real flex of military muscle by Putin in the face of America's You know hegemony and no one really gave a shit because we didn't have for one reason We did not have social media yet the way that we do now. It was just like we're Georgia. What? What? There's a country called Georgia at that and then we all forgot about it, but that's not gonna happen now It's already it's now now half of this country's decided that we're hashtag where all Ukrainians now

Even though they could not literally couldn't fight it on a map. No, you know one was into this country before that That's what I hit. These are this is reminds me of when the Sixers Or not that this is the Eagles Everyone people who live on the opposite side of the country are like Oh, I'm I'm I'm epic in Philadelphia. Go go Eagles and it's like you're not even you've never even been You ain't never had a frickin you ain't ever had one of those never ate horse manure on horse manure Yeah, you've never go gone into a dumpster jacuzzi like they do in Philadelphia summer I've never eaten a racist cheesesteak in your life. Yeah

Love it. No, I was gonna say like just in terms of like Trump and it's just like, you know He's he's sort of playing footsie with it I mean, I I still think he's gonna run again in 2024 and he was he said he was he said he's like what I mean We're gonna do it a third time. I went twice gonna win the third time gonna do it a third time But Matt looks I think you said the other day is like like as is these sort of like Crises, you know capitalism and just like the global order begins to crack and just sort of fall apart We said is like every kind of like developed country will eventually have their own Trump style leader. Yeah When it where all of the institutional structures that support someone's ambition and that inform their understanding of like

Best interests and self-interest are gonna fall away and it's just just a giant ball of ego for total personal rule exercising control and I think like Putin's kind of has turned into that like by being in charge for so long. He's detached really from reality and now He's making he's making moves and I think yeah, everyone's gonna do it so far And it'll be interesting to see what happens with the president g if he is like continues to resist that personification of power and like keeps building up like the party is like a meaningful

Structure of rule or whether or not if that's not viable in the long term. Who knows I think yeah, the future is I'm trying to predict the immediate future. I can see sort of a A future for Zelinsky where you know, hopefully this ends very soon But after it ends Inside Ukraine, it's a very different situation than Americans comfortably watching where it's like. Oh, yeah You were down to 20% approval ratings for a reason before this and When people stop paying attention, you know, he loses the next election. I Think things generally get worse

Russia and maybe some other countries start moving. I mean Russia is moving off the dollar by force but maybe people really start looking at how easy it is to Get completely obliterated by sanctions in that way What do you guys know that nothing nothing good from the massive and unaccountable flow of weapons from the West into Ukraine Zelinsky is removed from power. He could come to America and do US dancing with the stars Oh, yeah, I think he'd be the only person that have been on two different versions of it I mean like I was gonna say like what do you guys make of? Like Zelinsky cuz like he is now like the most celebrated figure in the world right now

Like everybody's rooting for him. Everyone is, you know, loudening his bravery for staying in the country Like even after I think America gave him the opportunity to you know, flee Yeah, so one Ukrainian Jew gets celebrated for never leaving his house, but another gets pillory for But yeah, I mean, he certainly has a career in this country if you have to leave the country or gets a depose or whatever But yeah, like I'd like he he's the hero of the world right now. Absolutely We're just like it just like and I think it's just cuz like at least I'm in terms of America Like the way like Americans think about this in the way like he's being portrayed in the media It just seems to be like whatever whatever you make of his heroism like put that aside like in terms like this

That's for Ukrainian concerns, but for America, it does seem to be this way where it's just like we need a heroic figure We need a hero Like to provide an example of like what we what we like the values that we hold up is like what what makes like a great leader Someone rising to the occasion because we don't we've just been chasing that in this country We we yeah, we're holding out for a hero. We need the streetwise Hercules and Zalinsky right now is just like like it's what it's what everyone wishes the president were like, right? You know like no matter whether it's true or not or whatever like all that you know This is this is not like about reality

This is about like what we project like our our fantasy of sort of like a heroic leader like you know fighting with his soldiers or whatever Because the characters that we've had running this country are just like this does anyone think that they would like not you know I like not save their own answer I could see I could see Brandon like mr. Magooing his way through an act of war zone Yes, it's sort of like what he walks up and like a steel girder falls and he walks up it Peter Todd is the other direction and falls into a pit Yeah, I mean Trump like no way Obama nope no

No, George W. Bush, maybe probably not now Bill Clinton. Nope HW HW might get the chopper. Yes, but just it just because it's an opportunity to kill somebody, right? Well, that's the thing is that he like he would probably he would be doing like hey Where do I like unleash the biological weapons? Like can I can I be in charge of turning this bigot on? Yeah Going all the way back to Reagan Reagan first four years absolutely not He's an actor Reagan after about 85. He does not know where he is and he thinks he's in a movie. So yes and Carter I can see him doing it. Maybe yeah But that doesn't seem like the kind of move like the chump move

Getting your ass shot for no good reason that you know, but I'm sure like you guys seen that thing I was like I forget like who is the author of this but it was like contrasting Zelinsky and Bernie And it was like which type of Jew are you? Yeah, it was it was stop anti-semitism So it was like yeah, like the the heroic kind or the or the evil miser Looking solid and the guy who's mad that his in-app Starbucks coupons did not work today All right, enough about Ukraine. We were wrong. You were right Please celebrate that fact. I hope it makes you feel good But okay, let's let's let's switch gears for a second. Let's talk about what we've been up to on tour

Let's talk about what we were up to today. Yes, because okay We're in Atlanta right now doing the hotel room episode. We're in Atlanta But we just spent the whole day at the Atlanta Zoo So we've got some got some animal facts and animal reporting for you It's you know, maybe maybe just like sort of a cleans your palate from the the grim the grim state of affairs in the world today But I first of all I want to shout out of print of the show Emma at Hyena's and Jin on Twitter She works at the Atlanta Zoo. She came to the show last night and there's a sort of escorted us around the zoo today Including arranging an elephant encounter for us. So all of us this afternoon. We got to meet Kelly the elephant

Boys folks Kelly. She's being recognized more and more. She's an amazing creature. We love her trunk trunk game out Kelly incredibly charismatic Just just an amazing elephant. What can you say? Well, yeah, no, it's like we were like we were inside the elephant building and you know Kelly They have they're like they have their big indoor paddock and you know Kelly was you know We were separated by like like you know, I don't know about like like five yards like she's behind bars We couldn't have like a we're gonna have like a truly VIP elephant experience where we could like, you know You know ride her touch her things like that

You know, but for obvious or insurance reasons that was not allowed I'm pretty sure they let you do that and the like the UAE well Um, we did get to get to we got to feed Kelly though And I just looked for the my need me oppressions about being that close to an animal as majestic as you know Like a full-grown female African elephants The first thing I would notice about them other eyelashes are so big Oh my goodness, they have these huge eyelashes and like they're they're very bushy like huge long

Like sort of a spindly fibrous eyebrows, but but her eyes were so we're very human look, you know Yeah, yeah, no, we've talked about it before but they Elephants are weird because when you look at them and you get a full Appreciation of their size. It's like an alien creature. Yeah, it's hard for your brain to conceive of a mammal that big But in their aura and their attitudes and how they act and their eyelashes incredibly human Yeah, we got to yeah We got to like just sort of hand her lettuce and like the elephant's trunks are so cool They have such like one of the animal facts that one of the keepers told us is an elephant has

More muscles in their trunk than the entire human body does. Yep And they like and they can pick up like she said that they could they've picked up skittles off the floor Yeah, I think you can pick up a dime. Yeah off the floor with one of those trunks It's not just for you know, like some big, you know sack of sack of apples or lettuce or whatever she at one point She like blue water out of it. Oh, yeah, that's a crop Like with suction just held a ball. That was incredible. She palmed a basketball with her trunk Yeah, like the cool thing you notice about the zoo when you go there when it isn't especially crowded and it's optimal conditions Is that a lot of animals if they're being kept in good conditions is these animals were they had a lot of space and

Enrichment that they kind of enjoy performing for people in the right circumstances. This was up for I mean, who knows But yeah, we're all just deciding that she had a good time Well, I think I mean they as Emma told us They are freely able to quit in the middle of that and Kelly did not yeah, but I'm thinking also the orangutans Oh, yeah, they were wonderful. My favorite of the large of the apes Yeah, and they really they brought it. I every gotta say it was like it was very Unusual I think part of it Emma said is that we it's that the temperature most people including myself I've ever been to the zoo you go during the summer and it's really hot most the animals are like fuck this

They're not moving around but it's it's like it was a crisp like 60 degrees today Yeah, so that means that they're out there spunky We saw it like basically everything we every animal we saw it was like moving around These orangutans were like using the using the ropes Walking right up to us. Just giving us giving us a Deeply humane appraisal and probably

Secretly making fun of us. I have to assume. Yeah, probably Well, it's like when you when you make eye contact with like a great ape like that you can't help it like sort of feel that the Intelligence working in their minds and it's a real question of like, you know, who's who's watching it like, you know Who's who's really? Yeah, exactly orangutans are incredibly intelligent. I will say that they have an aptitude for taking human objects and using them the right way They display a very human like curiosity around other animals and even other apes they are When people when there's a law given in any type of conservancy

They'll let orangutans hang out with them because they're both like they're both brachyating apes and The orangutans aren't especially like Prickish or territorial and they'll get fascinated by the law givens and go What's what's going on with this guy? We saw we saw the lemurs who were incredible as always The lemurs are great. They had like several different lemur species in one enclosure and they were all getting along very well It's it's a if the lemurs could do it folks maybe we can that is something cool that Emma told us was that the

The first ring-tailed lemur that was introduced acted as a diplomat between the ring-tailed and the more The panda-like pattern. Yeah, I forgot their name the panda itself incredible the panda. Okay, this is the best Like the length of zoo is one of three zoos in America that has pandas We saw a bunch of them like usually we just see one of their very very sedentary and I think people People like pandas so much because they're they're they're such goofballs and I think people read I mean at least I certainly do I See a lot of myself. I just like their laziness and their goofiness. Yeah, they're they're silly They're they'd like to be silly and we saw this one guy who was like most of the most the pandas were just like statues Just absolutely like you're not paying me enough to get me to move but like yeah, like you said Matt

Like that's what I would be like. I was like, you know a Billy Pilgrim and yeah in slaughterhouse 5 That's why pandas are very relatable. Like what would you do? You would just? Find a way to minimize exertion at all spectrum But there's one dude who was like doing that like these circles He's doing laughs. We saw him do a somersault. Yep And then he would just like kind of post up in the corner and show his balls to everybody He ruled he was great. And there were frickin tight alliance three Like full-grown adult lions with the main and everything and they all just like showed up and they were just standing there

All like I've been a role looking at us. The big cats were very gregarious Yes, the be all big cats were ready to show out. Yeah, they were all like they were all up in a grill Which is another thing that is not always You can't always count on when you go. You know, we had we had like just perfect unobstructed views of some of the stuff Like, you know the the top tier the the money-makers friend easy You got your pandas gorillas orangutans lions tigers your carousel elephant the charismatic megafauna the top earners Yeah, the more the this is the Cadillac of animals Yeah, and it was a perfect day perfect day at the zoo. Yeah, you said there were also a ton of gorillas

I had no idea they had like a whole yeah, they had the largest collection of gorillas in America here at the Atlanta Zoo Yeah, and Thankfully like at first it was a family And it was a bunch of juveniles including a really cute little two-year-old guy But like the silverback was off and you couldn't really see too much but then there's another enclosure with two two silverbacks and Thankfully got to like just get the full look at their incredible masses. They're astounding just they're so caked Yeah, it's like they only they've only done deadlifts for 30 years

Yeah, you just look at the powerful haunches of a gorilla and you just got a respect and totally vegan Yeah, it's true. Vegan gains are possible. Yeah, they um, I mean their their treat Is tree bark. Yes, they love tree bark apparently. That's their big thing. Yeah, we saw so an older silverback because the The retired silverbacks they have a separate enclosure We saw one of those big caked up gorillas walk away and it was almost like this a tree branch that he brought with him was his jewel Yep, I just selected Felix was like, yep. Yep, you get me. Yeah, I um, I also do not want the smaller animals to go and heralded The meerkats delightful always a delight little buddies just zipping around was was the one that was like a cryptid It was like a crossing a copy bar and like a jackrabbit. Oh, yeah, that's wild. Yes, it's South American

Rodin's and it does it looks like a scaled-down capybara with bunny ears And it looked yeah, nothing I'd seen before very cool Oh, and then also the the great hornbills the big orange peaks and Emma told us that Sometimes they will eat squirrels. Yeah squirrels like that You know, they're just you know, just regular Georgia squirrels They wander into the wrong enclosure and like all of a sudden this fucking orange face dinosaur It just squallows. Yes. It's this giant blackbird with a like a three-pronged Orange beak that's like it's enormous. Yeah, it's huge

And you can just imagine some poor schmuck squirrel getting eaten and just like I didn't have that on my bingo card Mondays, am I right? You know, you start out winning the squirrel lottery being in a state like Georgia Yeah, there's tons of fried doughs and treats to pick up off the ground And then you just you have to get greedy and wander in to be killed by a by a three-tier build That is not native This I was not I'm not that's not fair I don't need to be prepared for this motherfucker like going out here going out of your house in the fucking

Velociraptor just jumps on you. Yeah, there was there's another thing we did on the way into Georgia though That was very cool. I think Chris is the one who found out about this town that we went to Shout out to other friend of the show Shannon Stritches from Atlanta. We also hung out with her I had no idea about this. There's town north of Atlanta in like the in the gold Hills that called Helen that is a like a German village. It's like designed to look like an alpine sort of Bavarian town and They really go for it. Like they got a little square. They've got a beer hall They've got all the buildings with like the half timbers and stuff and we were like, yeah

This is pretty cool. And you know, we had some sausage. It was great We're like, how does this happen? And then my girlfriend Amber looked it up and it turns out that in 1968 After the logging that had sort of kept the town going Dried up. They just had a town meeting and they're like, well, what are we gonna do? And somebody's just like, let's just make it German Let's just let's and then people will come and see it and I gotta say it seems to be working because like it was what like a Sunday or something. Yeah, like in the like in February and it was fucking packed and the loving it and these were not these were not Crowd Americans, we know that we said every white American is a crowd No, these people had the Marjorie Taylor green phenotype a lot of them

These were the least German Americans and they were coming out because anyone can enjoy being German. It's true It's true. That's always been true. It's true. How can you not? How can you get mad at these people? You know, they made mistakes. So has everyone else. Yeah, but how many other cultures have giant fucking pretzels And like compete on how large of a beer they can give you these are all and have later hosts Some of the most comfortable clothing on earth. I I really want some man There was one dude who had like a really good set And I was like, you know how long I've been trying to get Catherine to dress like a Bar wench

Like the St. Pauli girl. Yeah, I will say that Germany is the only foreign country I've been to where they serve a marathon portions. That's true. Yes. That's the other thing if you're an American This is Germany is not gonna skip on you. You're not gonna get like three slivers of Hamon like in Spain or something or like a little a little Crockett of French onion soup. You're gonna get a fucking a pretzel the size of a car steering wheel And and then yeah, like just a coiled Sausage that takes up an entire frisbee great time. And yeah, I think more towns should do this They should just because there's not there is an absolute limitless number of American towns whose economic engine has

Shuttered to a halt just decide to become another country. Yeah, it's Usually when that happens usually when they're like, oh, we we moved our rubber band factory to like a country that doesn't have a flag They're like, oh, oh, we should we should take all the money We're gonna give to the hospital and give it to uber So they put an office here. Yeah, and that's you know, that's like Pittsburgh. That's a lot of places what you really should do is Make just become a theme town for just throw a dart at a map because you don't have to be that thing No, you can turn Altoona, Pennsylvania into little Indonesia That would all of you can be Pennsylvania Dutch and none of your Indonesian. You still do it if you you know read a few books

It's connected in New York. We're Lisbon now. Yeah We're we're a Portugal style town. I mean my god, I've wanted to see Balinese authentic Balinese puppetry my entire life I'm not going to Sumatra get out of here, but Yeah, yeah, Pennsylvania. That's doable stocked in California. Why cannot not why can it not become Hokkaido? California We'll had a great idea for like a major Yeah, like a town so like you like a major restoration era Japan Um, that's well, I'll just say I'm a Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. Yeah

If you have that but I'm at like that one specifically that's a guaranteed money maker Like if you if you really committed to you know, we're a town organ A paper and wood only fuck the fire codes Oh dueling is legal in one part of the town you can like soar duel someone I would love man like how many fucking I would go. Yeah, exactly. How many other? enthusiastic weebos would make a fucking beeline to an American Japanese town if I had a girlfriend I would take her there. Absolutely. I'd break up with her there It'd be like you have to find your own way home. Yeah, I mean most towns already do that in like miniature where

Every city has at least one Attempt to do like an Irish pub, but yeah, why not make the entire town out of the Irish pub? Well, I think it's like it can't be Irish or Italian because there's too much of that going on in America That's true. We don't want to encourage. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, we don't want to create some sort of little up a little mecca for all of the most Spurriously ethnic Americans to show up and cry about like conflicts. They have nothing to do with or pretend They're in the mafia or something. Okay. Yeah, like German like like New Jersey basically is that that entire state is like your Irish or Italian You already have you covered if this happens if we get this negative externality

Well, I think that Israel is probably still gonna try to buy its white people from Russia You know it's walking in the media not with standing But if it you know if it goes further if it goes further sideways and they're like we're done We're boycotting buying white people from Russia to win our demographic war if you are too enthusiastic in one of these towns You are sent to Israel to be white And then we could have like a little French village And it would it would the the gimmick there would be that you were allowed to just like throw things at everyone who lived there Like the locals would wear like berets and they would drive around on like bikes with a baguette and the thing and the rule is like

You come into town you get like a big bag of rotten fruit or whatever and you can just pelt them with it And you can get out your weird Hatred of French people that you know what is it? What is that? What is that to also the townspeople? They pay for Okay, yeah, it's basically like the guy Coney Island who like would come out just get shot with paintballs. Yeah, the great thing is Because you don't have to limit this to a present day version of that country. You can do any period in history Yeah, it's non-stop. That's if you want to go to like the Austro-Hungarian Empire town Yes, you can go now in let's just another shitty town in Northern California. I would like Austro-Hungarian that'd be good Fresno

Yeah, Fresno is not the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yeah, everywhere where Dan Quinn has like challenged someone to a race in a parking lot Yeah, you can do like there should be I feel like upstate New York could handle the Troubles In town, yeah, but then I'm gonna go for me. I'm sorry. It's a troubled enough up there Fucking seven days. Yeah All right, well to close out today's episode, I thought we'd maybe go back to the Ukraine Check in on on someone who's He's an he's an all-star when it comes to foreign policy thinking Economic thinking I'm talking about a no opinion. No opinion. Yeah, he has a sub-stack now and let's just check in on him

He was okay I'm choosing him because he was the one who was saying on Twitter that like This is World War three like this is exactly like, you know, like this is Hitler 2.0 And then people were like, well, you know, he was like, you know I want to contribute any way I can and then someone was like you could, you know, yeah Join the army join the army like apparently they are taking volunteers now And this is perfect because everyone has a chance to put up or shut up if they want and you know And then he his attitude with his answer was like I have various health problems

But I could I could learn to fly a drone. I'm very good with engineering and like, you know I could be an attache to an officer I Could chill I could go I could vibe I could I could stay in the corner so that I wasn't at an active hindrance I think anyone could be an attache to an officer if they really want that does really sound like a not a very difficult gig Yeah, I could follow anyone around if my mind was really set on it If I was committed to the cause I could absolutely just stand one foot step behind someone while they sat in a meeting If you need someone to spill seven up zero on a console

I mean, I definitely do think that he would not be terribly useful on the front lines Like at a certain point, you know, just having the gun is is not that helpful if he doesn't know how to use it Well, he's you know, he's he's waiting the war of ideas and here on substack It's he writes is a moment of clarity the Russian invasion of Ukraine should wake us up Would you okay check this out this essay begins with a quote. You're never gonna guess who it's from Uh, Churchill close George Orwell. Oh fuck. God damn. It's all sleeping the deep sleep of England from which I sometimes fear that We shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs George Orwell's homage to Catalonia Okay, so it begins a few events create as much moral clarity as the unprovoked brutal invasion of a peaceful nation by a militaristic empire

I mean, yeah, if you're not if you don't like them. I mean, what does he think about when is the Palestinians try to resist a fucking invasion? What is he does is that a Moment of total moral clarity or is it just more complicated stuff that you can't really Yeah, good guys bad guys out of I says, uh, it's the backdrop of the driving But it's the backdrop or the driving conflict of so many of our stories Star Wars Casablanca Lord of the Rings the sound of music. Yes Precisely because it creates heroes and villains so easily and automatically on one side the haughty iron fisted dictator with his legions of destruction On the other side children hiding underground while their parents make a desperate stand to protect their homeland

Is he talking about Ukraine or Lord of the Rings right now? It's all basically the same thing I think that's the pitch here. Yeah, is that like you don't actually have to consider any of the real world? implications or shadings just pick your favorite television or the literary Fantasy world and just live there. I am more captivated by a certain Norwegian musicians insistence that the Pope is the real-life Sauron The story of Russia's invasion of Ukraine fits that archetype perfectly

Ukraine wasn't threatening Russia in any way Ukraine never fired a shot into their neighbor even though that neighbor had already carved off pieces of their country in 2004 and subjected them to a grinding eight-year war Putin simply declared that Ukraine is historically part of Russia and sent in his troops soon Russian missiles were blasting practically every city in Ukraine Russian tanks were rolling into Ukrainian cities and Ukrainian children were hiding in bomb shelters Ukraine's military despite their greater numbers is Desperately overmatched with practically no long-range weapons capable of silencing Russia's barrage of rocket artillery cruise missiles and ballistic missiles But they're still fighting hard

Holding out on some fronts and winning a few battles even as Russians push deeper into the country and shell the capital ferociously The Ukrainian resistance will probably forever be symbolized by the defenders of Snake Island who when ordered to surrender But real by a Russian warship Russian warship go fuck yourself and died to the last no they did not the audio of this exchange is here Okay, enjoy that fake thing that didn't happen It turns out the people who derisively predicted that Ukraine would simply fold Understood very little about that country or its people Unlike me unlike me. Yeah Meanwhile morale seems to not be particularly high on the Russian side the leader of a Russian tactical unit that surrendered to the

Ukrainians protested. We didn't want to kill anyone Russia still has an overwhelming advantage in long-range weaponry, armor, airpower, and manpower But this thing isn't over yet I will give him that the morale of the Russians is probably low mainly because they're Russian Yeah, I mean, I've never seen a joyful Russian in my life. Yeah, like There's not a lot of W's going around being a Russian in the modern era Yeah, when Fedor a million ankle would win open weight and heavyweight tournaments and pride to fighting championships It looked like he he someone had told him. Oh, you're on your tenth sandwich punch card He just won like half a million dollars

Out here in the wider world though The Russian invasion is sparking a needed moment of clarity for the last two decades We've been sleepwalking through various dreams of our own creation Willfully blind to the dangers that we're gathering out in the real world It's time for those dreams to end now The alarm clock is ringing the series of great power wars that began with World War one in 1914 and ended with the armistice in Korea in 1952 represented a flood of blood

Unprecedented in human history, but for more than a half a century after that nightmare ended American and Soviet power and after 1991 just American power stabilized international borders legitimate Legitimize the rights of small countries and generally suppressed major interstate conflict that long piece is some historians call it Created the space for global trade investment and migration to flourish Creating an economic boom that benefited first the developed nations and after 1990 or so the developing nations as well That long piece was dealt a critical blow in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq on flimsy pretenses Oops, uh, it wasn't wasn't flimsy pretenses. It was entirely fictitious pretenses that was known to everyone Of consequence at the time. I mean the people making the decision to go to war as well as you know, anyone with half a fucking brain

Unlike the Vietnam War. Okay. This is this is this is the money graph here Okay, unlike the Vietnam War in which we intervened in a civil war or the Afghanistan War in which we had Retralliated for an attack on our soil the Iraq war was undertaken with only a fig leaf of non-proliferation Supported by obviously flimsy intelligence as an excuse what unlike the Vietnam War. No, no, yeah Golf of Tonkin that that was another thing. That was just as real as the Snake Island deal Hundreds of thousands died most of them innocence in the US reputation as a guarantor of international peace and stability was grievously wounded No, we were the militaristic Empire Iraq. These are the ones cowering in bomb shelters indeed, but the US didn't conquer Iraq Iraq is an independent country more closely allied with the US's main regional rival or on

Putin's because we fucked it up because we did a bad job of the thing we were trying to do Yeah, we haven't worry. We made up for it with a certain enthusiastic volunteer group later. Yeah one with You know world historic cutting-edge branding Putin seizure and annexation of Crimea in 2014 was different because it represented a great power Using its military might to add to its territory I mean also like they literally are right next to each other, you know And like Crimea was only part of Ukraine for like 50 years and like they're historically like deeply connected It's as opposed to us just going halfway around the fucking world to blow up Iraq

He goes we would never do something like go into Mexico like yeah But it says it represented a great power using its military might to add to its territory Something even the USSR hadn't done since World War two. I mean I could think of one example of a country using its military might to add To its territory. It just happens to have a special relationship with this country Yeah Still not that many died in the conquest of Crimea more died in the war started by the Russian supported separatist movement in the Donbass But at least that had the fig leaf of Civil War. He goes back to these goddamn fig leaf I can't get enough

If you are in a classical painting situation and you need to cover your genitals find me a better leaf The Russian invasion of Ukraine is different both quantitatively and qualitatively It represents a great power simply declaring that a weaker country has no sovereignty and invading it is based on nothing more than Irredentism and dictatorial pick Whether or not Putin disclares any additional pieces of Ukraine to be part of the Russian Federation The norm that kept the wet the peace since World War two the idea that great powers are guarantors of the inviolability of weaker countries borders Is no longer a universal norm and the invasion also shows that although America can presumably still defend its treaty allies It does not have the power to prevent other great powers from having their way with weaker countries within their sphere of influence

The law of the jungle is returned and the strong will dominate the weak if they see fit This will have several ripple effects first. It will dramatically increase the incentives for nuclear nuclear proliferation Recall that Ukraine gave up its nukes in 1994 and returned for a worthless guarantee of security from the Russian Federation Countries whose terror authority is men of menaced by powerful neighbors Japan South Korea Vietnam and so on will not be thinking very hard about whether to get nukes to their own So the purse the post World War two moment a sort of extended after party for the world to recover from the great catastrophe of the modern age Is now over perhaps it was always destined to end once the generation who lived through it passed on I think they should Give every country a nuke that would certainly create a certain parody literally like one nuke per country

like you're you have seen the United Nations you have one nuclear weapon and They guy your new UN your UN ambassador carries it around with it. Well, okay. Here's what you're doing. I Mean that is literally skull faces solution and Metal Gear Solid 5 and if they had gotten another year to finish that game We might have seen if it worked Here's what here. We're gonna here's where Noah's going in the leftist wake up. Oh No, I hate when I get the business from no opinion The Iraq war was one of the main things that revitalized the American left in the wake of that war They adopted many theories for why wars and conflicts happen. Most of them warmed over Chomsky

I like my colleague by Chomsky on ice Okay And believe that these theories and believe these theories deeply without much hard evidence those theories which blame the American military industrial complex as the source of most In parentheses all question mark wars Seemed to serve well during a time when the post-World War two new norms still held in US power reign supreme and because they subscribed to those theories Many leftist got the Russia-Ukraine conflict very very wrong until the moment Russia recognized the breakaway regions of Donbass Making it a certainty that Russia would invade they treated the whole thing as a show Convinced that Putin was simply posturing they felt safe and flagellating in the US for NATO expansion that happened over a decade ago

But to their credit after the missiles began to fall down on innocent Ukrainian's heads many leftists woke up Matt Taibi for example published a frank mea culpa on his blog Leftist switch streamer Hassan piker did so as well Others haven't apologized but have switched their rhetoric decisively toward condemnation of Russia Meanwhile in the UK Jeremy Corbyn continues to blame the West for the war But his entire party has now abandoned him and then he quotes a tweet from Oz Katarshi This about face has not been universal Jacobin for example continues to blame the US for Putin's aggression and when Bernie Sanders condemned Putin without equivocation

Some of his anonymous online supporters jump to attack and disavow him for this laudable move But most little work most mostly the roar of Putin's bombs seems to have jolted the left from their sleep in 2022 with the fucking war in Europe happening to be able to fucking find time and space to talk about the bros still some people I guess 2016 will never end like it just dug a groove in their brain that can never be cauterized amazing and you know like I mean I'm sure he's loving this because you know people who didn't expect Russia to invade or Or we're talking about the fact that the United States government and NATO has certainly like escalated this conflict Or let Ukraine down a path that would make a situation like this more likely to happen and are now cheering on

You know like in any violence that ensues a result of this But you know like like I said when you're right nine out of every ten times Look, you know, you're gonna be wrong one out of every ten times and it seems like Noah has spent because you know I think he's about my age. I think he spent his entire life being wrong about everything. Yeah He well, he gets his I guess a little victory lap now I guess the victory lap is that like the invasion happened, but I'm sorry. I don't know how You can make sense of this fucking war without the context of NATO expansion is like the underlying like strategic reality that Putin and everything else is operating it or

to go back before that America and the rest of the West explicitly creating conditions that allowed for a Putin I mean they fucking picked him. Yeah, they were like they need a strongman like we've literally we've gutted their Their entire public sector and sold it off to criminals like what are they gonna have? What what can you have if you've gotten rid of any kind of progressive project nationalism is all that's left And so you need somebody who's going to be that nationalist strongman They just thought that he'd be He would be able to operate as a nationalist strongman like within a greater umbrella of American power

But you know as things get worse That relationship becomes untenable. Yeah, I mean far from waking you up and making you join some broad coalition That's retweeting the you know water balloon full of paint thread They should I guess you know make go you make you go from non-interventionist to full-on isolationist Yeah, just wanting America to be in an autarky because we clearly cannot handle anything. I mean seriously It's like if we can't maintain hegemony for The market and we can't even maintain the supply the precious supply chains that allow for

Us to be you know a consumer Empire you gotta fucking just literally throw up the borders everywhere get rid of don't get rid of the army Just bring them all home and just put them to work at factories and have the military in charge of like reindustrializing America so we can put supply our own stuff because Everything else every other element of like the global order that we're supposed to be quarterbacking is clearly just falling to pieces yeah, no we were given free reign in the heart of our former adversary and we just we caused the We caused ourselves to relive the past 50 years But shittier because this time we didn't have to offer any concessions to people at home

Yes, there was no ideology that was competing against it. Okay, just to close out no opinion here He writes for 40 years in the first half the 20th century Nightmare regimes stormed across the world wreaking devastation on anyone without the strength to resist them But the world came through that crisis and the great powers at the time developed norms that stopped the destruction in the wake of that Great act of responsibility and wisdom the world for 70 years enjoyed the greatest flourishing of prosperity culture and human achievement in all history Now those norms are gone torn up by jealous petty men who never lived to see what a world ruled by the law of the jungle is like We may yet reestablish the norm didn't see that. I'm pretty sure he like He that's when he became Vladimir Putin. Yeah is in the jungle more of a jungle than you will ever see in your life

We may yet reestablish the norms of enviable and valuable borders and the rights of small countries But this will take risk and effort and blood the blood of the Ukrainians now to be the first to be spilled The crisis of the 21st century is upon us and we must go into this crisis with open eyes Discarding the illusions we spun for our own consumption when we took peace for granted We can no longer afford to treat our wealthy liberal society as a fatted calf to be slaughtered and parceled out by faction No, but we kind of we can afford to treat you like that. No, I mean, good luck, man If you're if you if the thing that you're trying to defend is Western consumer capitalism And say this is now what we have to fight for

I'm sorry. That's just not going to work because the whole push there the entire Appeal of that model is that you don't have to fight for it That's like the one thing that makes it appealing is that hey, at least you don't have to worry about, you know Actually being in physical danger. Sure, you know, you are essentially a hamster, you know You have any rig meaningful ability to you know, control the the shape of your life and express yourself and your your You know assert yourself in the world. That's all completely Forced sworn and and you are Channeled into incredibly narrow and increasingly narrow

Consumer choices is your only ability to express yourself, but you're safe. You get to be a safe little veal calf while that's happening Saying yeah, you still are going to live in this liberal consumer this dead Consumer empire, but also you have to what pick up a fucking air 15 and go shoot it out with No one's not gonna do that. He said he wanted to be a drone pilot for Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah taking off from what runway exactly? Yeah, and also the point of this You know last 30 years of the American Empire is specifically you do not have to think about it Yeah, well not last 30 years about last 15 after it became too hard to look at It was able to be kept going by the fact that most Americans do not ever want to think or care about foreign policy

Yes, and that is not going to change and well this way. I I I There there has been some Supposite groundswell of American unity for this great new project of defending our way of life. I Should remind people that you are only seeing people who read the exact same media you do which is an incredibly small group This is still the exact same country where like half of the people here think that Bono was secretly killed in 2019 in a military tribunal It's the exact same place Well, I think Noah like I think he enjoys this this moment of this moment of crisis because I think it allows him to

retrofit essentially like his his political and ideological view of the world which is essentially Socially liberal fiscally conservative. Yeah, and make that seem like it's a dynamic force. That's worth fighting for again Because because you know, I guess like in his case opinion like the alternative is the law of the jungle But like I'm sorry. It's the law of the jungle for every country outside the sphere of the United States Yeah, and it's the law of the jungle because that's what we impose on them Yeah, because you know like that that is that our fatted calf is fat because we create conditions that are the law of the jungle For the rest of the fucking planet, right? It's also the jungle in a lot of places in this country that are cut out of that deal

Yeah, exactly and if people are gonna fight they're gonna be fight for something a lot They're not gonna fight for the fucking at airy liberal fucking non Ideology the the the Imagine non ideology that that no opinions of the world think is worth defending. So like if they need to If you really do think the 21st century is gonna be like this this Red and tooth and claw thing you got to find something worth fighting for because that's just not gonna be it What do you think? What do you think was? Yeah, all right, that'll do it. Yeah, okay. Good. Okay. All right. Well

Um, that does it for today's episode Nashville. We will see you soon. Yeah fingers crossed I Think that's the only target on Russian nuclear weapons. They think that's the heart of American power They have to they have to destroy our strategic of bridesmaids reserves That was our grant is so opera Bastards, yeah, but Nashville will see you soon and I hope to see you at our show. Bye. All right You