DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Why Capitalism and Democracy Don't Mix | DeProgram with Jamarl Thomas and Robby West

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

"DeProgram" co-hosts Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas host a birthday Q&A that covers capitalism’s inherent incompatibility with democracy due to money in politics, the reasons for Nixon’s gold standard exit in 1973 and inflation as a hidden tax, war lies from Lincoln to Trump, and a lack of consequences for warmongers. They discuss oligarchy versus republic, the need for public consent for wars, the Red Power Movement , post-scarcity utopias versus endless greed, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Stargate as empire metaphors, Trump’s Canada demands, and Google’s map changes (Lake America) as tacit U.S. policy endorsement.

Long time to see. Hey, Jamal, disappeared. That's adoying and weird. Hey, Robbie. He'll be back. He'll be back. He was right here. This is D. Program. And thanks very much for tuning into the Q&A show. It's Monday, August 31st, 2026. It's Jamaral Thomas's birthday. So, maybe he's out celebrating, but I think he's going to just come back. And he will. So it's the Q&A show. So what that means is, Obviously, you have cues. We have A's. If you have a question, comment, insult, whatever, random thing you want to talk about.

This is the hour to do it. We do this Mondays and Wednesdays at 12 noon, Eastern Time. And we always love to banter and bandy about with you guys. And we appreciate your support. As always, please keep those Rumble Rants and YouTube chats coming in. Super chats coming in. By the way, we really, really, really, really need you to subscribe to the show. So please go ahead and do that.

If you subscribe on, if you subscribe on YouTube, it's five bucks a month gets you some exclusive content. Ten bucks gets you outro thank you. And 20 bucks a month gets you access to the free, well, not free, to the exclusive live chat, Not recorded. Well, it's recorded, but it's not like sent out with just hanging out with J.T. and Robbie and myself and just shooting the shit about anything and everything. It's even more free form than this thing on the last one, which was Thursday. There was a dude riding around what looked like a city in Russia, but I don't know where he was.

No, he was. He was dangerous. Not the United States, I would say. And he was wearing a mask. He was wearing a helmet. Helmet. He looked like... Yeah, the helmino.

He looked like a bug. He's like Ryan through the city listening to the show. Yeah. At high speeds, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other fella, he was on,

God bless him, he kept having internet issues. He kept dropping off, freezing. It was weird. He did his best. He did. It's true. And hopefully he'll get his signal

working soon. So, yeah, anyway. All right, so let's go ahead and do some questions, comments, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can direct them to all three of us and either any two of us or one of us. So here we, what do we got first, Robbie? First one is my faves. What type of economy is compatible with democracy? What type of government is compatible with capitalism?

Both together are like oil and water. That's just government is great for capital. That's true. And the communist or socialist government is great for democracy. Yeah. Do you want to explain why? Well, I mean, let's go with the socialist government. I mean, if you're looking for a government of the people, the proletariat, rulership of the proletariat, well, by definition, you're talking about rulership of the proletariat. You're talking about rulership of the public. And I don't mean like this kind of Stalin-esque top-down, you know, I don't mean that. I mean like,

what socialism is actually supposed to be, if that makes sense. Yeah. And you can say it's theoretical, true, fair enough. But you are talking about a mass of people that are engaged into the political process that is altering, uh, itself depending upon the needs of that major population, as opposed to having 1% or 2% of the population owning 50% of the wealth. That's not that's a seat, right? Um, if you want that money, you got to get it from somewhere.

And the idea of having somebody hoard it to the point of, 500 billion trillion dollar man. All of this stuff is nonsense. You can't have both. You can't have the system where the needs of the population are being served and Elon Musk gets his trillion dollars. You got to choose one. You got to choose one. Well, and I think it comes down to money in politics, right? So you can't remove money from politics unless you remove money from society. And you can't remove money from society, at least as an unequal thing. Like, let's just say everybody more or less has greater equality than we, a lot more than we do now, then if people are contributing to campaigns, you know, which they will

be because money or brought, although, or they're, you know, buying influence through bribes or whatever, they're going to, those people are going to have kind of roughly the same level of influence. But if you have Elon Musk, and it's basically $1.00. one vote. Well, he's got a trillion dollars and he's got a trillion votes. And so that's the problem, right? It's like when people say, well, you just take money out of politics, but they don't want to touch the capitalist system. Well, that's nonsense. I mean, you can't do that. The capitalist, as long as capitalism is here in anything

approaching its present form, you know, your money will be in politics. The money will have a disproportionate effort to purchase influence that will come at the expense of the great majority of the American people. And by the way, it's rational for them to do it. Like, if I have a $10 million and I know I can pay politicians, why wouldn't I pay politicians to get the things that I want that makes me richer and protects my work? You'd be stupid not to. Yeah, it would be stupid not to.

I mean, the catch, and your point is at, if you're having this real democracy, and I mean, in a real sense of the schoolboy terms, sense of the work, where the representatives are honest, the representatives are working for the interests of their particular area, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have the tsunami of money on the outside of it. How do you think your little democracy is going to say? It's not going to fare well. Those people are going to be bribed. Those people are going to be bought.

And more importantly, even if you put a shield around it, that money will be doing any and everything in his power about hook about crook to invade that political process. to grease hands in order to get money back into politics. And even if it's indirect, right? Let's like, for example, in France, they do a pretty good job of limiting campaign contributions by corporate donors. But do you think that if the president of Renault calls up Emmanuel Macron that he doesn't get his calls returned?

I mean, he still wields influence and power and money because it's like, I control all these jobs. You know, what me, if I close down some factories, you know, people in your political party will lose their seats. You know, so you're still those, even if you take money directly out of politics, it's still very indirectly involved in politics. So socialism, I think capitalism, I think capitalism is incompatible with democracy. Yeah, I think it is. And I know the rich people like to make this argument that these things are synonymous. Nonsense. That is propaganda that is being put out in order to give this kind of capitalistic triumphalism nonsense. They think it's that way because they are the ones with the money. It's that. Like anytime you hear politicians

making speeches and everything else and they're talking about the we, the imperial we, as if it's referring to everybody, nonsense. That stuff is being cut for its audience. And its audience are basically other people who are like them. A bunch of rich people who are listening to that speech, thinking to themselves, okay, this is to us. It's not to the rest of it. And when Jinn-Saki makes this argument that, you know, our values are not without costs,

who is she talking about? These aren't my values that allow the country to go and, you know, and they will overthrow a government in order to kind of be a stalking horse for U.S. influence. I'm saying, you're right. I think these things are incompatible. I mean, if when they make this argument of, for example, when police are protecting capital, who has the capital? When police are, you know, yeah, you're going to make an argument that police care about order. But if somebody can buy it area and draw a line around it and say, anybody who comes here, I'm going to call the cops and I'm going to beat the hell out of them, okay, who is going to have most of that land, who's going to have the most of those resources that need to be protected, that stuff is specific and oriented around people with,

this is a great country if you are rich. They all are if you're, if you're, I mean, Somalia is a great country if you're rich. Yeah, China does this better. They chop hits. Right. It's kind of like, well, that's the thing, right? That's the Chinese and Russian model, particularly, you know, under Putin, the market, it's been like, okay, we allow wealth and we allow great power, but we will use the violence of the state if necessary. to ensure that you don't ever forget that the government is paramount and that corporate power is always important, but secondary.

Subordinate to government power, agreed. They just look better. And by the way, this is not me saying, I want everything of the Chinese system. That's not what I'm saying that. I'm saying this idea of the state trying to protect itself from corporate influence, as opposed to the state just kind of accepting corporate influence.

as a basis of operation. Those are two very different models. True. Yeah. China would ride the bull. But it would chop the head off of any fight and they'd get out of line. Right. Right.

It's kind of like, you can do a lot. It's like, but ultimately, don't forget who's in charge. I mean, there's a White House tape that was released very late. Like, I think this was in the 90s. And I thought it was amazing. It was Richard Nixon talking to, to one of the big CEOs of a Fortune 500 company. I want to say GE, but I could be totally have forgotten.

But it doesn't really matter. And this is when Nixon imposed wage and price controls in order to try to control inflation, which was a very socialistic, planned economy kind of move. And because there was a lot of price gouging and profit taking from these companies. And the companies were obviously furious because their profits were deeply impacted.

So he's on the phone with this CEO, and the CEO is like, now Dick, you know, the boys, we are not happy about what you weren't doing. And he's like, no, you listen to me, you son of a bitch. I am the motherfucking president of the United States of fucking America. And if I want during this conversation to send troops over there to kill you, I will I run the country You don't

Fuck off And I remember thinking This is probably the last time That an American president stood up to corporate power There's a whole Conspiracy theory Probably not true

That Watergate was kind of a setup And it was the company He's getting even with tricky dick For wage and price controls Because they thought he'd move too far to the left By the way, Israel too. I don't know if you remember, Nixon was the last president who made the, they asked Nixon about Israelis. And Nixon, very casually, who seemed to exude the presidency at that point, meaning he internalized the power of the presidency.

He was like, look, he says, there is a lot of Israelis who come over here or Jews who believe that what's best for America, what's best for Israel, are connected to one another. This is not always true. And the president of the United States needs to be able to set a demarcation point between what is in the interests of Israel versus what is in the interest of America. I'm an American president. I look out for America interests. I was like, holy shit. I saw that. It was like, wow.

Yeah. Just wow. So here's my question. It was also EPA, also the president that did, what is it called? What is it? I wanted a reverse income. this is Nixon, Republican. This is when they accepted a new deal.

So here's my question for both of y'all. And Ted, I mean, you probably, you remember it. Why is it that Nixon blew up the dollar? I mean, to me, that seems like the biggest thing that he made. He made. He destroyed the dollar. He blew up the dollar. And ultimately, that's what caused the price fixing and stuff.

because at that point, our currency was no longer fixed to a commodity. It was based on trust, it became purely fiat. Right, but we didn't have to gold. Like, meaning Nixon real as we didn't have to go to match what the dollar was at the point. And his way out of it was, well, let's just take us off the gold standard. Meaning, if I don't have the money in the bank to back up the actual currency, and I know I don't have the money in the bank to back up the currency to say that we're on the gold standard. If we have that amount of gold in the bank in order to balance out the amount of dollars.

Okay, then what do you do when these two things are out of whack? You can get more gold or you can say, F it. Well, at that point, what you would do is that you had nationalized the defense industries and take that and take that gold back. That's what you do. I mean, if you sacrifice, no, listen, if you sacrifice your currency, I mean, that's foundational to everything else. That's the mistake that he made. Commonet.

I don't think honestly, I don't think he, given where things were at the time, had a choice. I mean, to go off. I mean, first of all, I mean, sure, yeah, you can nationalize the defense industry. That's something we should be doing anyway. But, you know, I mean, look, this was, you have to remember where we were in 1973. We had just lost the Vietnam War. The Cold War had a tremendous impact on our gold reserves because the United States, people don't know this. We used to buy a lot of gold from Russia and the Soviet Union because they had massive gold mining operation.

And it was a great way for the Soviets to get hard currency for their reserves and for international trade. But because of the proxy war going on in the Soviet Union, I mean, sorry, in Vietnam. And, you know, basically, and the Cold War hawks were so pissed off like you can't do business with Russia anymore. We turned, we stopped buying gold. So that's one of the reasons we ran out. Also, inflation was going crazy. So the dollar was getting devalued, right? Another reason it was hard to fix on the gold standard.

And finally, the Vietnam War was leaving the United States with massive amounts of debt that were never going to possibly ever be repaid. And so, like, you have to go off the gold standard if you're going to start printing. money like a drunken sailor. So there was a lot of reasons that Nixon, and like Nixon knew he had Watergate, he was already kind of like, he'd been shived by himself. And he was kind of like, okay, I can't be bothered. I can't have the money men up my ass. I've got to like just, they've been pressuring for this for years.

They wanted us to become a big debtor country. And they got their way. I think it's just, this is where I don't understand. People keep equating inflation with rising prices. Those are not the same thing. Rising prices are a symptom of inflation. The definition of inflation is the expansion of the money supply. And that was the definition for the last two thousand years.

The definition is really just rising prices. It's not. You can have inflation in a country with a fixed money supply. Look at the classic definition of inflation. There are two very different things. Prices rise and fall. They don't inflate. That's what the...

What do you think? the outcome of that is meaning have you seen a country with inflation without rising prices no because as you create inflation you destroy the purchasing power of the currency in circulation so that's that's the that's right that's why sand is cheap the more of something that you have the less value it has now inflation is good for the people up there at the top because they're the closest to the to the federal reserve tit that's creating that that's creating that wealth that you can then turn right around into buying assets. That's where we are right now.

The point that I'm trying to make is, and again, fact check me on this. Look at the Webster Dictionary from the 1800s about the definition of inflation. And you're right, but the definition, we're not in the 19th. We're not in the 1800s anymore. I understand that. But the reason, I'm saying that the reason why they changed the reason that they changed the definition of the word is because inflation now is nothing more than a hidden. tax on every single person.

That is the point. Is the government trying to pass the blame from their incompetence and their failed monetary policy by creating debt? And they're trying to masquerade that as something that is the evil, it's the evil business is doing. It's not evil businesses doing this time. Listen, I'm not fan of a big business. I don't like them.

But this, this is a problem that is owned exclusively by the state. Only the state can create money. out of thin air. And as you do that, you create inflation. Listen, governments can pay their bills one of three ways. Taxation, that's the honest way. Number two, which is buying bonds, which is basically you are selling debt. Which I hate. I vote against all bond issues. And then number three, and the worst way is inflation because you are then borrowing

against future generations aren't even born yet. Yeah, but inflation is also, not all bad from a government debt point of view, right? If you borrow $100 million at, you know, today and then like you pay it back five years from now when that $100 million is only worth net present value, $50 million, you know, you've just got, you just got $50 million of free money. Yeah, but you've rent every other American who has to buy stuff. Exactly. And we're $40 trillion in debt now. Yeah. We also. By the way, we're more for the debt than we pay for our military budget. People need to realize that money, that currency is foundational to everything else.

True. Nothing. I can give you a minimum wage about $300. But if your purchasing power is next to nothing, who the hell cares? That's why, no, your house, for those of you who own houses, the reason why your house is going up in value, isn't because your house is getting more money. It's because the dollars of circulation are worth less. you're not making anything else.

That's the point. And until people figure this out, nothing else matters. When Trump first got in office and he started having an economic war and you can see the dollar value ticked less and less and less and less. And Liss Trust, if you remember, when she was giving her speech, her economic speech, and the value of the pound just went down for every syllable that came out of her.

I don't know if you saw it was a wild thing. It's like it depreciated as she. she was speaking. Like people hilarious. Yeah. I mean, this was the one

who they said was going to last, I mean, the head of cabbage lasts that longer than less trust. But no, Robbie, you're right.

I mean, you're not wrong. It's, I mean, it is an increase in prices. It is a tax on what everybody does. Like,

when I have to go to the store, for example, you get a, I don't know, a whopper and a chicken sandwich. That's like 20 bucks. That's ridiculous. It used to me like eight.

Like, meaning I am old enough because today is my birthday. I'm 49. nearly half a century to remember when those prices were radically different and so much cheap even within my lifetime no you're not wrong the greatest thing Andrew Jackson ever did was killing the bank of the united states and i wish we were able to that again because it broke the back of the bank of the united states yeah well it should have drove would draw Wilson crazy but he accepted i mean per the constitution

only Congress can create money and then pay its value. I mean, the idea that we have to pay tax on our own money is outrageous. Like, meaning you have a Federal Reserve that is making bucks as opposed to the government making greenbacks. And our argument is, well, the government can't be trusted with money. Okay, but nothing has changed. The only difference is we're paying. No.

Like tax on money that could have just been bringing backs without tax. It's like outrageous. It's like we're 40. trillion dollars in debt. What do you think would have been different? Well, we could have been $80 trillion in debt. Okay. True. We're supposed to love the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve needs to be audited. Every bit as much as the military needs to be audited in earnest. Let's do a question. What else you got? Me. Oh, you mean, Robbie? Yeah. Robbie. Oh, sorry. Lagging there. So next up is, hold on. So Dead Bean Club, thank you for the $30.

Elon isn't even close to the top 10 wealthiest in the world. They use him as a scapegoat because he's public. The majority of the wealth is private entities, but no one hears about it. So not a comment, but not a question, but definitely a comment. Well, that comment is right. Oh, 100%. Remember it. One of the weirdest things in the world was the election with Hillary Clinton, Sanders,

Bloomberg, etc. And what was wild about that election was the billionaires came out of the shadows to get into the political process, which was usually, it's like usually you have your front people to do that. You don't do that. You don't want to take the slings and arrows. You want your front person who is randau politician to come out and say nice things to the audience and make the deal with a billionaire. Bloomberg came out in order to fight for the billionaire class and got even alive.

And the funny thing me was, what did you think was going to happen? Did you really think that the public was going to be like, yeah, pro-billionaire in this anti-establishment time period? The whole thing with Elon Musk, again, is a bit weird. Bezos, these people have came out of the shadows in a way that wasn't entirely true a while ago. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just a different generation. I mean, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty fucking crazy. There's, and the idea that there's going to, you know, I don't know if we'll ever have another Warren Buffett where it's like,

I just want to live modestly, even though I'm worth billions, you know, I don't think, I mean, I don't think they're like that anymore. There's like no point to it. That's not how they are. Yeah. Yeah. And then Ronda Kula, he comes in with a comment over on YouTube. Good thing we are a republic then. You know, kind of talking about the, how you all talking about democracies earlier. Of course, I don't, I don't think we are a republic anymore. We are, we are the closest thing to a bought democracy as you can possibly get.

There's a separation of powers. It's an oligarchy. It's just that person. Yeah. I mean, they don't use the term, but it's, that's what it is. The rich is. They've come up with a capitalist country. any capitalist country depends upon who has capital.

They are the ones with capital, hence they control the country. I mean, it's in the bricks. I don't even know why this was, you know, like the moment that you say you have to capitalist country, you have an alter. I don't believe in this nonsense. You have a capitalist country and a democracy, do you? I mean, I think the fact that it's a republic doesn't save anything. I mean, okay, so the only actually, what the truth is, democracy might be more impervious to the corruption of capital. than a republic. Because with a republic, you only have to buy 454 congressmen. You don't have to buy

330 million Americans. True. But can you ever really see a situation with 320 million Americans are voting on legislation and voting on this and voting on that? I don't see it. No, no. But I mean, yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing is the country is probably too big to be a democracy. I mean, there's just too many things going on. I do think it would be nice if we could figure out some category of stuff that should be voted on. Maybe we say it's constitutional questions. I think for sure war and peace should always be voted upon

by the American people. Anything really big. I don't know about the war peace part. And maybe this makes you a hypocrite. I mean, there are time where the country needs to go to war. Sure. But then yes, you should get the consent of the people because they're the ones who are sitting their sons to go fight it.

You're not going to win if you don't have the consent of the people. I mean, the United States history, the last 100 years is proof of that, right? Like, you know, literally our success in combat is directly related to the amount of sustained public support for each war. World War II, the Good War, people, they agreed with it, they committed to it, they volunteered for it. There was a draft, yes, but the people who were drafts, for the most part, we're okay with going. I mean, you know, this war, probably the least popular war of the last 100 years, the Iran War.

It's like, we're going to, we've all, we lost within a month. Okay. So like this is, I think it's directly related. If you don't have sustained public support to get you through the body count, the body bags coming home, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the effect on living standards and so on, and the other things, the bridges that don't get built,

the tunnels that don't get dug. I think that you're not going to win your war. You might as well, like, get the approval of the people anyway. No, I do get that, but there's no consequence. I mean, as you pointed out, the bridges that don't get built, the roads that don't, we spent $10,000 to $10,000, just in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Yeah.

And I would wager to you that the public at the time probably did support Bush's war, because Bush had like an ungodly amount of percentage. It was only when Bush lost that war. That it became, you know, clear like, oh, my God, he's etched up the Middle East. I would say this is plain. Well, he had, he did have a 91% approval rating. Exactly.

In the days after 9-11, right? And when, and certainly like 70% or, you know, approval rating when he invaded Iraq. But, but I mean, I guess the thing here is that's a big asterisk. right because they lied right so if you sell it based right but if you sell it like okay like in a way Trump Trump lied of course but he's like we're trying to prevent you know Iran from building a nuclear weapon so what's the lie the lie is that they want to right but he's not saying they have one and it's aiming it's coming for us I mean Bush claimed that Bush was like they have WMDs they're going to be, you know, what are we going to do? Wait for the mushroom cloud as Hillary

Clinton who said that. You know, it, I'm not, oh, Connoisseurice. I'm not waiting for the mushroom cloud over New York. Trump likes the same argument. Trump argues that if it wasn't to his invasion, Iran would have destroyed the Middle East and used the nuke. It's nonsense. But it, but the thing is with Trump, I mean, again, it's all bullshit. As we've talked about many times and we reeled many times. It will again. But part of the reason that the American people didn't go along for this particular ride is, first of all, they were conned in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and they know it, and they remember it. But also, the lie wasn't very appealing. It was kind of like, well,

if we don't do anything right now, at some point, years from now, Iran might do something. It doesn't get people very excited. It's why we don't care about climate change. Well, the thing is, all governments lie. Like, for example, Abraham Lincoln, you know, everyone remembers that Fort Sumter is where the war between the states started. But nobody remembers why. The government of South Carolina made very clear, we will not fire on Fort Sumter unless you try to reinforce the fort. Lincoln wanted the South to fire the first shot. So what did he do?

The one thing that the government of South Carolina said, you cannot do, we'll just try to send more troops to close the port. there you go William no Woodrow Wilson the Lusitania the Germans sunk that ship

and the Germans said it was violating the blockade that yes it was but it was but it was carrying arms which it was

the Germans were 100% correct to send that ship to the bottom was the lie that Wilson sold these Germans these crowds did this we have to defend our free

from over there by the we have to defend democracy by supporting the British empire by lines

to the American people about us illegally trying to arm a monarchy that has controlled has controlled

40% of the country because they're in the bunch of the crowds the public agreed on

all of these wars that's perfectly my point right like you can goose a public up for all sorts

of stuff Trump is just in confidence and they can steal with those wars despite the fact that they were lied into those wars and agreed with those wars. But here's the problem, though. First and Second World War is considered good wars.

Right. Fair enough. But here's the difference, though, is that when the truth gets out, like what happened. Well, the World War I was not really considered a good war. No, it was a disaster. And the thing, that's what that's why, I mean, that's why the anti-interventionist wing, the isolationists,

the like to call them, was so strong because America lost hundreds of thousands of men fighting a European war for Europeans or monarchists and we're supposed to be Republicans. They're smaller. And that's why there's such a pushback about, from another intervention because the government got caught lying. So in order to have, so in order to have consent, a government can't keep lying to its people. Otherwise, you never have that consent.

Yes, it can. But then you never. Look, the United States lied for the war in Iraq. We spent at least $10 trillion under the Bush administration. And again, if you're spending that much money, you should have flying cars, you should have goaded streets, you should have a base on the moon, you should have all sorts of stuff.

We don't have those things because we decided to spend all that money on war. What were the consequences? Zero, none, not a single consequence. When Obama gets in, Obama continues drone wars, And he does the surge, as it was called the surge. Obama's doing the surge. And it's okay because he's a black president.

Everyone's forgotten. Everybody's forgotten. Meaning, not only did they lie for the first war, they continued to lie. The numbers that Obama was putting out for the war were so dodgy that one of the press people was like, we have no idea what's true because Obama's just gaining the numbers. And of course, the Syrian thing,

well, Obama spent billions of dollars to overthrow another government, not to mention Libya, meaning nothing stopped. any of these presidents from continuously lying over and over and over again. And now that Trump is coming to office, he's decided to attack Iran. Will there be consequences for Trump doing that? No. Does everybody believe Trump is lying? Yes.

There are some consequences. I mean, he's going to get more of a shalacking in the midterms than he otherwise. There's always going to get a shalacking. But that's over a bit more. But to put it more. I'm trying to make the point that that's not sufficient. What? There's not a dime's worth the difference in the Democrats and Republicans. Who cares what color jersey that they're wearing?

Seriously, what difference does it make? Nothing changes. Yours is John McCain. I couldn't agree more. You know I agree. And here we are from a $2 donation from Bark Bark Wood Bark. What are your thoughts on the red power movement? I don't know what that is.

Red power. I don't know what that is. Native Americans uprising? What is that? It was. It was the 1960s and 70s social and protest movement. Yeah,

led by Native Americans first. Yeah. Oh, seriously. Okay, well, I want my land. It was like black power, but it was red power, yeah. Yeah, my grandfather was certain. I don't have any land to give you, J.T.

If I did, I would give you a part of your reservation here on my ranch in Montana that would be my neighbor place, sip six together. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Tax free,

I will pay my reparations. my brother in Christ has another color. Well, wait, that's a different reparations. That's the Native Americans. I'm taking the Cherokee part of my ancestry and for that one. It doesn't matter.

Well, there's no Cherokee's up here. Wait, wait. You want to double dip? That's your story? I would totally blind in both ways by the Native Americans and by African-Americans' people. You got doubly screwed.

I got double-s screwed. Or did you just get, you got half a screwed of each but total was one. Yes. for something. I want a little bit of both. Schrodinger's cat. Robbie always looks like he's up to something dubious.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. No, I'm always a freaking. You still have a fucking shifting. You have a shifty expression. It's true. You have sneaky eyes.

I'm always thinking. I'm always thinking. What is he doing? I'm always thinking. Isn't he sneaky looking? I don't think he's sneaky looking. I don't think he looks like Robbie. Macadent.

Robbie talking about the Federal Reserve, the conversation we just had that the analogy doesn't doesn't really work with the us dollar when the u.s. can prep money and other countries buy it yes because we have the reason i mean that's why that that's why what trump is doing by trying to de all rise the world is so retarded through sanctions right now we're writing hot checks and the rest the world has to cover them when we're no longer the reserve currency the gig is up yeah yeah but for the me but the dance goes on in the meantime right yep and uh dead mean club i don't think i don't think i I read this one already.

May I did. $20. $100% of robbery on this one. The Fed Balance sheet size is a better measure of inflation than CPI. They always lie and manipulate CPI and PPI by choosing what they put into the calculation. 100%. They count of the stuff that you don't need to live and the stuff that you do need to live, oh, that doesn't matter.

That just gets factored in. It's insane. The Roseroy. Let's put in lamp shades. There's our CPI. Look at it. It's just so low. Okay.

Okay. And Dead Mean Club with another $20 donation, J.T. Happy birthday. Thank you, Dead Mean. I appreciate that. Thank you. And Peter over on Rumble, the $2. Robbie, you did a new reference.

Sand is not cheap anymore because the bet sand from making concrete has been mostly mined away. Sure. Yeah, it's weird how, like, stuff that we take for great. granted ends up, you know, becoming scarce at some point, right? Like, I remember my father, he used to go to Southern California all the time because of all the defense contractors that are there. And he brought me back like some abalone shells. And he just stopped at some roadside beach hut to eat abalone off the side of the street.

They used to fry him up. And like, now there ain't no abalone, right? Like, basically- What is that baloney? What is abalone? What is abalone? Abolony. I don't know. Abolone is like a, it's sort of like a giant, like a giant, like, what are those things called? Like a barnacle? It's like a barnacle type thing, but it's big. It's like, you know, like maybe six to eight to nine inches across. It's red, has a couple of holes in the top. When you turn it over, Abiloni, you can make like sort of jewelry out of it. It's sort of like agony colored. And the, the, the jewel, abalone is actually like expensive and hard to get now because it was. still plentiful. People were just throwing out zillions of the shells. Now they're all fucking

extinct. All the abalone, you know, the pollutions killed them all and we overfished them. It's okay. We're all going to go extinct at some point. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely possible. So I see, dusk burn. I agree. Question. Do each of you agree that the nerdocracy pulled their dollars? We could have a post-scarcity Star Trek utopia. Did he say the nerdocracy? He did. Oh, man, that is going to be a fight. I just think that's going to be a fight.

I don't think that's going to be, look, I don't think there are some people, Mark Frost, as we were talking about Mark Frost, he really likes this Schupertinarian. That's what he calls himself a Schupertinarian. But that is a black economist that makes the argument that capitalism is going to become so productive that people are going to just end up in socialism because capitalism. this is going to produce so much. And I used to always argue with them like, dude, that is not the way people think. Like, meaning the rich, that's not the way the capitalist think.

There is a distance. Let's take it between whites and blacks and we would take it to the economic stuff. Some people in their mind had this idea that, okay, let's say if whites are at 10, blacks are at 3, there's a 7 point difference between where we are in that distribution in society. Okay, then the number gets closer. white's are at 10, blacks are at 7, and it's like, whoa, this is too far. You've come too close. And you can do the same thing to the rich.

It's like part of their issue is the power distribution between where the rich are and where everybody else is. And if you come in a situation we're trying to mind that gap, they're going to feel as if their power has diminished, even if they're still at a three as opposed to six. That's not, they're not going to look at that and think to themselves, great. they're going to look at it affected themselves. My power has been diminished in the society, even though I'm fabulously rich, even though I have money enough for like five lifetimes.

You have gotten closer to me in a way that I don't particularly like. And Lord knows if you're trying to even the bar. That is going to be a fight. I don't think they're just going to acquiesce and accept that. And they always want more. Always. And by the way, we function on scarcity, not abundance.

Like, if you had abundance, then it doesn't matter if Elon Musk is rich. I mean, Jeff Bezos never sits back. Even Warren Buffett, who, let's face it, for him it's just a game because he lives modestly. You know, so it's not like, oh, I want another super yacht or something. It's not just a game. It's literally like you don't see those guys ever say, you know what? I'm good now.

Like the way most people do. Like, you know, like most old musicians are like, you know, I put out 15 albums and, you know, some of them have worth some hits. and I hear them on the radio now and then, and I've had a great career, and I'm kicking back, and I'm just enjoying the stand between my toes. Those guys don't do that. Those guys, they just keep fucking going. It's like that.

I mean, maybe we don't have to call it greed or avarice. I mean, I do, but maybe just call it, like, their lust for money is so, it's bottomless. And there's never, so that's the problem. There's no limit here. You're not going to just transition to the point where, you know, well, the society has now built all the infrastructure, which is kind of a Marxist idea too, right?

Like, you know, you have to have capitalist development. Then you transition to socialism. But Marx was right in that, like, realizing this would not happen organically that you needed the violent uprising of the proletariat to make this happen. Yeah, they're not going to give a bear of cash, nor are they going to, like, you know,

how much do you need more? I just need more. It's like, dude, you're $50 billion. Not enough. It's never enough. I have a question for you, J.T. this is something I've been thinking about since our last Star Trek conversation. Go for it.

Whenever a planet joins the Federation and I have been watching Deep Space Nine's an interesting show. I don't know if I'm sold. I like the shapeshifter. I like the shapeshifter a lot. Otto, is that his name? Otto is good. Oh, he's good. And his character gets far more developed as the show goes on.

True. Because right now he's kind of a piece of cardboard. He's annoying as hell. Even two, you're going to level. Well, also, it's the way they designed his mask with those eyes. It's so the shape of his eyes is irritating. Yeah. So we're really.

Oh, I'm the sad clone. You know, like that. But he becomes far more complicated. The further the show goes on. And there's, God, man, there's a scene with him defending chief that is some of the best. Paltz he lives in a bucket. He also has been a bucket. I mean, as an actor, Odo is.

Otto. Right here. Start for a commission. Yeah. His character gets far more developed the further that show goes on. And it's good. I'm not even going to take it.

It gets better and better with you. Yeah, that's true. But here's my question for you. So first, does the Federation have corporations? And second, if a planet wants to join the Federation, isn't it by definition surrendering its sovereignty to a collective? Yes, it is.

Now, why did you ever do that? But it's kind of like the European Union. There are benefits that you get out of it that is worth following the rules of the Federation, meaning these are our ideals. We accept these ideals as being true. Okay, well, at that point, you're fishing water. You can say you're giving up your sovereignty, but not exactly. I mean, those planets could leave the Federation if they need to.

Could they? But they get more out of it than from their point of view what they give. We get protection of it. Yeah, there are planets that leave the Federation sometimes. I mean, the Federation of me seems like an empire, just like the Klingons are, just in better marketing. It is with better marketing. That's what it is.

They can say whatever they want. It's just propaganda. People are commenting about my baby Yoda shirt. Kizzy got this for me because she heard us talking about Star Trek. Oh, so she saw this and she realized it was Star Wars. Oh, Robbie, look, I got this for you for the show. Oh, that's so funny. What that is.

Dissie. I would do with the shirt too. I don't have to kissy. Makes you look like a hipster. Yeah. I don't have the hair to be a hipster. Sorry. Does Kizzy watch Star Trek with you?

No. She is not like anything that has mutations or mutants. Like she's never watched the original Starz, the original Ghostbusters. But they never have just different species. It doesn't matter. It's just like, no, can't do it. I can't do it.

Like if she saw auto turn into a puddle of slimes and I'm done. Wow. Well, to be honest. their base state is liquid and they're able to shape into different things. Dude, I'm telling you, by time you get season three, it just goes into infinity. It's so good. I don't think I like, I don't think I like Cisco's son. He's annoying as hell. I love the relationship between Cisco and his son. I'm not a big fan of his son, true.

I love the relationship with him. He's also making friends with that little Frangie kid. Which is kind of fun. Soft with this kid. Like he's, he's a dad to his kid. Cisco's a hard ass. When he's dealing with, he can be a hard ass.

He's dealing with the board. I mean, in fact, when his wife died in a Borg attack that Picard was effectively heading in the board attack. And, you know,

so when he's meeting Baccar for the first time, it's just rage. It's just like, strain, rage. Oh, that's my favorite part so far. Oh, is it? But when he deals with his son, it's so soft. It's so he loves this boy. Because it's guilt because his mom died and, you know, listen, I'm not a psychologist, but I mean, part of me that's got to wonder is this like, that's going to sound, no, this is going to sound masochistic,

maybe. But I mean, the default human position through most of history is that the male defends his family. You mean you're in the front. You mean, misogynistic. Yeah, whatever. So, you know, you're at the front line. You're the one catching the slings in the arrows because you're defending. anything what's behind you. Right. He let, he let his wife go out and fight. He makes it through.

She dies. So, okay. And then her son then has, has to deal with that loss. With his father. Yeah. And so that's why the father then has to be more nurturing because the mom's

not there because she signed up to go fight for this empire and died for absolutely nothing. But she did that for nothing. The board was literally going to destroy Earth. But they defeat them with a computer virus. They basically did what the hell is at the Independence Day is the same thing. Just upload a virus to the mothership. It's a little bit different because Picard was still linked to the board. So it's not like Independence Day when he makes some bullshit program and upload it.

Picard was actually leaked. So it was like meaning Picard was trying to say put him to sleep. Because that was the only thing that was effectively open. that they could get through. Otherwise, they weren't going to destroy Earth. I'm trying to make the point of saying she didn't die for nothing. It was in defense of something precious. And Cisco, I get to sense that he loved his son either way.

I think that's just the way he is with his kid. And I love with her. I hate, look, I'm not a big fan of Jack, of Jake. But I love the relationship between the two over the course of the show. I think Jake has made some pretty silly choices sometimes. But he'd make them because he loved his mom. I don't know, it's complicated. I love their relationship, though.

By the way, your argument is right, though. People have made the point of saying, why the hell are they allowing families on the warships or ships? They shouldn't. Right. Yeah. No. And we have a question from YouTube from Ryan Burton, 1456.

Explain why Joe Kent is still in politics. The money is good. Is that what it is? That's money is good. Yeah, I'll say that. Well, you tell me. No, I don't. I'll go with that.

Yeah, I'll go with that, too. I'm a very sad. I think, by the way, I think the reason that you have to allow families to go on the warships is that they are away for so long. That's why. And keep in mind, they're not warships. The Federation didn't make warships up until the world. Kind of didn't make worships. Yeah, space travel isn't viewed as being as hazardous.

Babylon 5 is my second favorite space show, science 5 show. Babylon 5 is awesome. Love it. Starget SG1, my favorite. That is the gold standard. By the way, you guys, we should talk about V at some point. V is a series. I've been binge watching Stargate, and I've, I love that series. I love that series. Jack, Samantha, Daniel, I mean, tilt. Things work. Like, it just works.

I mean, but here's the thing, though. Obviously, it's propaganda. Of course. The United States of America were running a foreign war against an alien empire. And it's like, okay, obviously this is a problem. You shouldn't be doing it. Right? Yes, they won. You shouldn't be doing that.

But in fairness, they started by accident. I mean, it wasn't on purpose. Well, listen, because they went there, we're going to go explore this other planet. They take this nuclear bomb. I'm going back to the original movie, like the actual Stargate movie. But Rob's like, oh, you've harvested the power of the atom. I'm going to send it back and just send you all, just turn Earth into a ball of plasma. So it wasn't the case that the Abidonians had oil and that they needed to be introduced to democracy.

That's not what happened here. Like they were actually exploring. They discovered this hostile alien who possessed this teenage kid. And then this is like, okay, it's time to. delete you because at this point you're a threat and it backfires on it was earth running oh i'm sorry not even earth was america running a war against an alien empire without telling the rest of the world that they were doing so is target sg1 yes but the original stargate no that's america that that was true that that was that's colonel o'neill

is okay we're going to adapt improvise and overcome and i'm going to nuke you which is awesome out that America was running a foreign war against an alien civilization that could have turned Earth into a ball of flames on a Tuesday. That's what I'm saying. I mean, listen, the last couple of episodes here on season one, one where that senator voted to shut down the Stargate program and then like they violated the orders. I'm not going to spoil it. People haven't seen it. If you haven't seen Stargate SG1, we're not sponsored by them, wish there got to be good. Y'all go watch it. It was awesome.

And I think the one thing is that's really nice. about Stargate is that in a way it does show the cost of war because characters that you're invested in, characters that you like die. And that's something that doesn't ever happen in MASH, for example. And we get traumatized. Yeah. I mean, Samantha was traumatized by what spit or whatever the hell of his name is. Well, that and also that little girl they rescue. What was that little girl's name? The one they rescued from the planet. The one with the telekinetic powers. I know you're talking about that was a doctor's order, right? Yeah. the doctor to get the road at something.

Yeah. Yeah, well, because she had like basically like a 50 ton kiloton alien nuclear bomb in her chest. And she was ordered to take her down to a mountain silo and just let it go off there. She was ordered to leave. And she was like, no, I'm going to die here with her. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a real human element to it.

Well, and they start from scratch. That's the other part. Like it's not like this, you know, superpower NATO organization. They saw from zero and they blew up. I'm sorry. We're talking about things. Any more questions? I can talk about this.

Guys, guys, yeah, we have a paid one. We haven't answered. McCadden, what do you guys think of Trump's trade demands on Canada? He seems to think there are U.S. province already. Happy birthday, J.T. Thank you, man. I think Canada's going to tell Trump fuck off and I think they're going to stay with it. I think it's about sovereignty at this point from the Canadian perspective.

And I think Trump's too far. Well, over on truth social or lives social, live social is a lot of they call it. They're talking about Trump should rename Canada dry, the ginger ale to America dry, and all this other stuff. By the way, what do you guys think about the fact that Google, like they like supinely, you know, changed officially on Google Maps? A little. Lake Ontario to Lake America and previously the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. But only in the U.S. Yeah, only the U.S. edition.

And I know their policy is like, well, we just basically go with what each country says and then we do it that way. I mean, I get it. It sort of solves it, like avoids them having to adjudicate these things. But it really also seems like they're endorsing. I mean, it comes up as a tacit endorsement. And let's be honest, Google is an American company. And other countries don't know that. They should.

American company American security architecture and so yeah it's an international conglomerate there's nothing American about it you mean Google yeah Google is age 2 in California

you disagree with that your age you can be wherever but that doesn't mean that you are an American company I mean the policy security wise especially with the integration between Google and the American security state they will affect that policy

throughout the world like meaning Google is not. If you were in Sudan and Google is in Sudan, I guarantee you that Google is going to be affecting American policy Sudan. You can say it's an agglomerate. It may be true, but I'm saying they're integrated into the American security state. They also integrated to the Israeli security state. So what's the difference? What the difference is, we send Israel billions of dollars. And if the U.S. policy on Israel changes Israel is fuck. That's the difference. It's not the same. It's true in the other direction. I don't know, man I hope you're right I believe that Israel is the Doomberger in this case

I don't believe that I think it's U.S. policy He who owns the banks owns the capitalist system because you control the debt. I don't buy that. No, I have to buy it. No, I accept the argument.

I do accept the argument. I'm not suburbying the argument. I'm just saying Google is integrated with the U.S. security state. It's like Jabezos or Ilomuz, all of these companies are integrated into the U.S. security state. They will affect U.S. policy enacted throughout the globe. For example, YouTube, YouTube would play videos with Ukrainians. They weren't playing videos with Russians. Okay, why? Because they had a bias in regards to the war from the U.S. perspective. They didn't came up. Russian perspective in this. They weren't trying

to be fair. They were trying to be in the U.S. thing. Same thing with Starland. You find all the technology from Starlink and all of these missiles that are effectively trying to hit Russia. Okay, well, is Elon Musk working for America? Yes, he's integrated into the security state. They're going to function based upon, let's say, the dictates of the U.S. security state, regardless of the country that they're working in. You can say that's Israel also.

Fair enough, these things are dovetelling. But I think it's true. I think it's more Western than American. And by Western, I mean, just like the Five Eyes, just the global conglomerate, you know. That's fair. I just I don't I think if there was any conflict between the U.S. interest and five-eye interests

the U.S. will tell five-bis to go suck up you know go side off but agree under the own circumstances totally agree we come to the end unless there is another quick check I think we're

people are asking when JT me and you are going to play next so they've been waiting out for a month they've been waiting enough for a month yeah and I mean And it will happen, but it will. And also, Daniel Coons, 1269, says that would you and J.T. do a co-op campaign on Total War Medieval Kingdom 1212 AD? I don't even know what that is.

I'm assuming that's worth. I don't either. New Rome, a new total war game, I imagine. I mean, that question is more for Ted. I play Siv in general. I haven't played recently, but I play in general. But I'm not going to put Ted on the spot for that question. And I have to go because I have interviewed.

You're good. Bye, y'all. Okay. Be safe. Bye, everyone. Be kind of. Thank you, everybody for the birthday wishes. Bye.

Bye. Bye-bye. Oh, let me just do the outro. Push the button, Ted. There we go. Push the button. We go away now. Move back

Shifting the lines