Fourth Reich Archaeology - #100 - Keeping it 100

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Is this real? Our podcast, our humble lil’ spare-time project, has hit 100 episodes. We’re amazed that two guys with no budget and zero experience could earn the support of so many listeners. In this episode, we pause to reflect and celebrate. But it is not all fun and games. No, as our long-time listeners will already know full well, there is a great degree of urgency driving our mission over here. We are on the precipice of the last best chance for free-thinking, freedom-seeking human beings to turn the tide against our venal, corrupt, and blood thirsty overlords.  In short, yer boyz got no time to stop and smell the roses. So we take this momentous occasion as an opportunity to revisit some of our foundational principles. The familiar concepts that make up our Fourth Reich Archaeology thesis. Consider this a crash course on the spectacle, the ruling class’s uniparty system, and the US-led global capitalist order’s reliance on the myths of meritocracy, morality, democracy, justice, freedom, and all the lofty and empty ideals that serve as the driving force behind the defense of  Western liberal democracy.  We end this episode by taking a moment to reflect on what each and every one of us can and should do to move towards a better future. Seriously, folks, we are blown away by the positive response. Your encouragement to “keep on digging” warms us to the bone. Thank you for being part of the first 100, and here’s to many more!  Stick around until the end for another banger track from our very own Don (@angletonorchids). Patreon: www.patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeologyEmail: [e-mail]

Hello, please leave a message after the tone. Hello, Dick, and hello, Don. This is President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. I'm calling you from beyond those great Grand Rapids in the sky, or indeed the Grand Rapids flowing down the river sticks beneath the earth, as it were. I am calling you on the occasion, of your 100th episode or broadcast or transmission or whatever you will to congratulate you and to apologize to your listeners and indeed to the world upon consuming your materials and listening to the ways in which you have described the errors of my ways when I was in a position of leadership and trust.

Well, I can only reflect back now and think that it was all a mistake. It was a mistake to entrust your names' sakes. Cheney and Rumsfeld with such great power. It was a mistake to put old George Bush in charge of the national intelligence. Indeed, it was a mistake to view this American experiment as anything but a mistake in its own right. For you cannot bring freedom and democracy upon the back of slavery and genocide, and being dead, I now understand that to be true. Well, the demons are a-callin, boys. I wish you all success in episodes 101 through 199

and beyond that as well. And Betty, Betty, I never stopped loving you, as I said in life. I am beholden to no man and to only one woman. This is Gerald Ford, signing off. as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine.

Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses, masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources. We found no evidence of conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission, the science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to acquire information which showed that there were two wars going on. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more easy victims of a big lie than a small.

For example, we're the CIA. Now, he has a mile. He knows so long this is to die. Freedom can never be secure. It usually takes a national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers.

You've got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. I'm Dick. And I'm Don. Welcome listener. Welcome to a very special, a very emotional episode for us, for your boys here. We are keeping at 100.

We are celebrating today our 100th episode. And while we're not going to scream. rimp on content, we do want to just take a moment to reflect and to look ahead at what's coming down the pike and at all that we have left in our wake over these last almost two years over which we've been doing this podcast. It has truly been a remarkable experience for both of us. And really, that is all thanks to you, listener. So, before, we get into it, as always, we want to thank our patrons, we want to thank our non-patrons who tune in week after week and engage with our content. You know, while we do appreciate monetary

contributions, while those are important to giving us the fuel to keep this going and to really build up that old nest egg, if and when we either lose or leave. our day jobs, we also understand that it is not in everyone's budget to support our project, and it does not diminish your status as real friends and real supporters in our eyes if you're not providing that financial support. We are so grateful that you've joined us and that you are helping us to spread the word the only real way there is for content like this, and that is, of course, word of mouth. So let everybody know on the internet through your social media, boost us. We are at forthright pod on Twitter and Instagram. And of course, most importantly,

in real life, as we'll kind of talk about at the conclusion of this episode, that's where the real magic happens in this planet earth of ours. All of the synchronicities, all of the signs, all of the eerie and spooky coincidences that we come upon in our lives, they tell us that indeed there are steps to take towards a better world. And that is why we do what we do. That is the goal here. Of course, the impetus for getting this whole thing started was the magic of friendship and, of course, just the random and uncontrollable magnetism of this planet and between its inhabitants is what brought your boys Dick and Don together. Been friends for over a decade at this point and we love each other very much of course and that is the glue that keeps this thing

together and you all are agglomerated around this nucleus of friendship like so many electrons in the cloud so thank you thank you thank you we do it for you with you and we look forward to doing it for such, such a longer time in the future. Here's a hundred, but, you know, I mean, I'm thinking we're not stopping maybe till a thousand until we don't want to do it anymore, really. And there are so many little side projects in the works that we hope to, indeed, one day, dedicate even more time, even more energy to get the message out to a broader and broader audience. So thanks again, you know, 100 is a big milestone. I think that something like

must put us in the 0.01 percentile of podcast longevity by reaching this milestone. And We are absolutely not planning to pump the brakes anytime soon. Yeah, anytime soon. That's right. I think one of the things that came to mind when you were talking was the episode numbering convention that we use. I'm sure many of you out there have picked up on it. We're using a three-digit numbering convention.

And we started that like around episode 20 or 30. And at the time, it was sort of like a flex that we were going to get all the way through. to episode 100. And here we are at episode 100. And that numbering convention will make plenty of sense for the next 899 episodes. So at least that many episodes in the future. And like you said, Don, this is a friendship podcast. I am doing this first and foremost because you are my friend and I like talking to you. And one day a few years ago, you decided to hit me up and say, hey, you know, those phone calls that we have every couple of days, we should probably put those online because I think there are people out there who would not only find them informative,

because that is one of our foundational principles here, that is to inform, right? We think it's very important to be versed in history, to be versed in the goings-on in politics and in the economy, not only to inform, but also to entertain, we think that the medium of podcasts, it's a very interesting medium, but I think that more often than not, and this is no shade to all the other podcasts out there because I love listening to a podcast, probably a little less than you do. I think you listen to many more podcasts than I do. There are a lot of podcasts out there that usually have a very superficial take or are often doing some simple regurgitation of the facts.

And we are trying to do much more than that. We are trying to inform and entertain and probably not the other way around. Because it is important to be versed in all of this stuff. And as you say, like, I don't see any end in sight. I could do this every week because there's really, the way we've set ourselves up, I don't know if the listener. is picked up on it. Our thesis is so all-encompassing that we can take moments where we focus on specific events, specific historical events and specific things, but really it could take us anywhere, right?

I think one of the jokes I had early, early on is like, yeah, we started with Jerry World, but like Jerry World can get us all the way through to the modern day, right? Because you have all of these connections to people who are still active in the political seen today that it's almost like six degrees of separation or whatever that can somehow tie back to our very first subject, our very first object of study, President Gerald Ford, the accidental president. But I think we have, we've got a long way to go, but I think first it will do us well to maybe take stock of how far we've come. What about that? Yeah. And I think this is something that, you know, it's not to flex, it's not to brag. It's really to widen our eyes

and to let you all know what we see in the numbers a little bit because certainly when we started this thing off, you know, the expectations were zero. Like you said, it was just like, hey, you know, maybe we should try to record these chats that we're having and see if other people are down with it, see if people like it. And, you know, here we are 100 episodes in. We have gone from zero Spotify followers to almost 7,000 Spotify followers, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. 7,000 Spotify followers. I will say also something like 10,000 weekly listens, right? On average, we're getting on any given week, something like 10, 10,000 listens, which is nuts.

It just goes to show that those people that have followed, it puts us up in the rankings. It makes it all the more important. So if you're not a follower, even if you don't use Spotify, you know, add your little digital fingerprint to the scale there and help us climb and get boosted because there, I don't think that the teal verse i don't think the paypal mafia is going to be putting its finger on the scale in our favor and uh it's pretty astounding that um that so many of you have helped us out in that respect and that has amounted to well over half a million listens we are coming up on 580,000 total listens, total times that people have hit play on one of our episodes, and those people

are spread across some 92 countries across the world, all over the world. And the one that really tickles me the most is that behind, you know, your classic English-speaking nations at the top of the list. You got the U.S. obviously at number one, and Canada and the UK. But number five on the list, wouldn't you know it, is the Germans. So special shout out to our German listeners. We hear from several of you regularly, and we really are tickled by that fact and, you know, glad that you all, having emerged from a Reich. of your own, can tune in and listen to how the torch has been passed. Just really quickly, we were talking about rankings, and I don't really care about the rankings,

and I know you don't either, Don, because we're going to be doing this either which way. We are also regularly considered on, I think, Apple podcast, the top 100 history podcast in the United States and in other countries. I've seen us reach as high up as like a top 50 or a top 30 podcast, which that's also nuts. And all of this is especially nuts when you consider that we are just two part timers here. We are just doing this in our spare time on the weekends, in the evenings, out of love, out of devotion to the message and out of devotion to each other and out of devotion to each other. and out of devotion to all of you out there. Yeah, we really do have full-time jobs, and we were just talking before we hit record

that they're both pretty busy at the moment in those full-time jobs, and it is never a burden to sit down and hit record on one of these episodes. It's never a burden to pull out the archives, pull out the books and sit down for the research because as meaningful or not meaningful as we might find our work in the daytime that puts food on the table. At the end of the day, this is soul work that we're trying to do here. And it really is like I hope something that is not a hobby, right?

Like people, you hear a lot about like you have your job and then you have your relationship and then you have your hobbies. And like these are the buckets that the passage of time is dropped into until you meet your maker at the end of your life. And no, sir, this is not a hobby for us. This is advancement of the soul, expression of the soul and work of the heart. because ultimately our time not Dick and Don as human beings on Earth, our time as human beings on Earth collectively in a way that we can exist and express ourselves as human beings may very well be quite limited. And we'll talk a little bit more in a minute about this.

But like, shit is so bleak. The contradictions are so sharp. and the dam has got to break. And every single one of you listening right now, as Huey P. Newton, the great Black Panther called it, right? This is survival pending revolution. We've got to be ready. As Curtis Mayfield said, you know, people get ready.

There is a train, a coming. I got to say, you mentioned that this is a form of expression. for any potential future litigation. I got it. I think it's a good opportunity to say, this is not a business. We are not doing this as a side hustle. We're not doing this as some way to moonlight and get some money

because it is at bottom a form of expression, and I'm going to say a form of political expression and a form of protected speech. So anyone out there that's listening to this, getting ready to do any kind of, kind of litigation against us. I want you to hear it now loud and clear. We are engaging in protected conduct.

That's right. And, you know, at least today, now this is certainly subject to change, given who's in charge, given the absolute removal of the guardrails and the gloves from the fascist beast controlling this country, who knows what tomorrow will bring. But for now, you know, it's all the more important to take shelter in that old slave-promoting document known as the United States Constitution and wave it in the face of those who claim to be so pro-America. And to that end, right, like the money that we are receiving from our patrons, that is what we like to consider, the rainy day fund. We use that to up our equipment,

these editing software. It's very expensive, you know, microphones. By the time I pay all my scientists, all my people in my research department lab coats, it's a wash. We want to bring you the best of the best, both in form and in content. And this, like I said, any day, we could be cast asunder and have to jump into that lifeboat that you all are constructing for us,

plank by plank. Potential future litigation fund also, right? Okay, so let's just get into it. This episode's not going to be all self-congratulatory listener. Don't you worry. We're not here just to pat each other on our backs. We're going to get to the basics in this episode. We're going to bring it back to the very first episode we ever did and cover our, what we've been calling our foundational principles, maybe visit some of our foundational points, and discuss some of the things that we are seeing that sort of fall under these broad categories.

And so we'll take a little bit of time going over each of these. And the regular listener will already be thinking about these things. You know, we're going to cover the issue of the spectacle, the, the issue of the uniparty, the tragedy of the modern uniparty system, the tragedy of the powers that be basically taking control of our government. And we are going to talk about how our excavation over the past year and change has really sought to point the finger and has sought really to, point the finger and has sought really to, like I said earlier, develop the language and help people get versed in this shit because it is all about educating yourself before you can even make a change. And I do agree with you there, Don, that we are coming up in a moment in time in our history where really the only way we can make

a change will be through radical change because this voting shit doesn't seem to be working very well. and we are going to need some sort of major systemic shift from what we are prioritizing today. And I'm not sure how we get there, but I know that the first step is certainly education, certainly becoming wise, wisening up to the cold, hard truths of our history. And so we're going to do that sort of round robin style as we've been doing in some of our more recent episodes by Cuff. some of these foundational principles, these first principles. But before we get to all of that, I don't know if you've mentioned yet, we do have an email account. Forthrightpod at gmail.com.

And Don, maybe you want to shout out to all of the, or maybe some of the lovely people who write in regularly. And some of the people who repeatedly call us on our hotline that we also have that's available only to our Patriot. on family. Before we get into all of this, maybe you want to take a moment and do some blessings out to those folks? Yeah. You know, just we do respond or attempt to respond to all correspondence. And I think we're probably about 90%. Maybe recently given the convergence of busyness on all fronts it becomes a little bit challenging at times but we'll get around to it but the people that week after week are really digging in that are really sharing their own perspectives we want you to feel seen we want you to know that we appreciate you so wanted to just give a little bit of a

shout out and if you're not you know don't feel badly if you're not um on this list here but First, obviously, we want to shout out every single guest that's ever come on the pod. You know who you are. We love you so much. We're so appreciative of your time and of your participation in our content. Every single one of our guests is a very valuable contributor to the discourse. There is not a dud among them. We're so grateful for them, and we won't list them all out by name.

if you've not listened to our interviews, those are really some of our finest work. And likewise, every single podcaster out there who has had us, either Don or I or both of us, out to be on their show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. And those frequent callers, let's say, we want to just say, hey, we hear you, we see you, and we appreciate you. So, Emmy, for example, we want to say what's up. Isaac, the poet and scholar, your work is incredible and you're going to make a difference, brother. Keep it up and we can't wait to see where it takes you. Sarah from South Australia.

You know, I won't do an impression. I won't do the accent right now. but know that we love your voice mails and they're both informative and entertaining to us. Everybody that called in for our Patreon call-in special, and we're going to be doing another one of those coming right up. I also want to say, happy birthday to Moira C. I want to say that med school ain't got shit on you. you are going to knock that out of the park and we're going to have a noided doctor taking care of the people out there and certainly making the world a better place.

Could go on and on and on, but we'd fill the whole hour if we did. We love you. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. It really like I am almost getting forklempt to borrow the Yiddish expression here. because truly, like, we open up your emails, we open up your messages, your DMs, whatever. And it is, it's emotional for me, certainly to see, you know, I just never thought that we'd be able to reach so many people.

And to those of our guests who are lined up for future episodes as well, can't wait to have you on. It's going to be a lot of fun. Don't want to spoil any surprises, but I will spoil one surprise by saying that I was privileged and honored to conduct an interview recently with the living legend, Douglas Valentine, author of The Phoenix Program, and that is going to be posted simultaneously with this episode, first for our patrons only. Yes, it will be on the free feed eventually, but if you want that right away head on over and sign up a little incentive for you all douglas valentine obviously

just incredible insights to share from a life of exposing the actual people that have participated in propping up and prolonging and promulgating the fourth rike so that was that was truly in inspirational conversation for me and I hope for the listeners as well. So go over and check that out. But it's not all praise, right? Because, you know, we should just take a moment and say, you know, it's not, we're not so glad and cheery about everything because I want to take a moment and say a very big fuck you to all the AI chatbots and all the PR corporate PR agents that flood our inbox trying to get onto our show, trying to get their clients onto our show, having clearly never listened to a single episode. So, fuck you. Please don't do that. Please don't write us anymore.

Please stop inundating us with this bullshit. And I think with that, let's just get digging. I'm going to tell you fascists. And you're going to. You may be surprised, but the people of this world, well, we're getting organized. You're bound to lose, you fascist, bound to lose. All you fascist bound to lose. I said, all you fascist bound to lose. Yes, sir, all you fascist, you race, hatred, greed and lies, You're watching that you got to go.

Are you fascists and your Nazis? Well, here's a thing or two you should know. You're bound to lose. Oh, you fascists, are bound to lose. We people of every color. We're standing side by side. We're marching to stop, you fascists, and to honor those who died.

You're bound to lose. You fascist bound to lose. And we're going to lose. to this battle even though you've got your precious gun and we'll end your lies and hatred by the time this battle's won. I said all you fuss is bound. Okay, so let's start with maybe some of the predictions that we made from day one or very early on in our show. And I think before I hand it off, I think one that I want to call out is that very early on when we were discussing the ongoing Amor-Israeli genocide, what we're calling the worst display of most egregious violence against innocent lives,

I think we were at a point where we were like, okay, this is going to happen, this is happening. And at some point down the line, the United States will throw the current. current Israeli administration, namely Benjamin Netanyahu, under the bus. And I just want to say, I think we're seeing that happen in real time right now, right? Most recently the very highly publicized phone call that Donald Trump gave BB and said, you know, people don't even like you anymore because of this. Yeah, they don't like you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. No, I mean, the thing is, is once you get your lens right, everything comes into clarity and you can see things very clearly like that Trump is a pathological narcissist and will always, always blame all of his problems, all of the problems that could potentially be attributed to his conduct onto other people. And of course, it is an easy, easy scapegoat. I mean, scapegoat is not the right word, because of course, Bibi Netanyahu, a world-class genocider who belongs, you know, on the end of a rope, really, if we follow the Nuremberg

principles. Guy needs a wooden stake in his heart, you know, Count Dracula looking motherfuckers. It's seriously, seriously, an evil, evil human being if you could even call him a human being at all. But yeah, it was obvious that Trump would at least attempt. And we'll see. Like, it's really TBD if that's going to happen or not. Because another thing that we said in episode one, before Trump was even elected, which we also

predicted, you know, from the jump that he was definitely going to win that election, is that Donald Trump is the king of crime. And this is the time for crime. Why is it the time for crime? Because just like in Russia, in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union was in a state of collapse, when it had the rug pulled from underneath it. You know, it was once a global superpower, and it became really a mafiacracy in many ways when it was sold for parts. You know, it was scrapped down to the bare elements

and basically plundered by a class of criminals. and that inevitably is what is happening to the dying empire known as the United States of America. Whether or not you like it, whether or not you believe in the goodness of its stated mission on earth or its myths, I should say it's mythical stated mission because, of course, the democratizing mission of the United States has never been a reality. has always resided in the realm of mythology. But its days as a global empire, as a global hegemon, are obviously numbered. The jig is up, the music is going to stop,

and these absolute crooks who know that, to be a fact, are, you know, shooting people in the game of music, chairs so that they will occupy all the chairs themselves and then break the chairs up into parts and sell them for the highest possible price. I mean, it is a looting of the resources of empire in real time by this criminal class that's in charge. And to reflect that dynamic of dying empire, there is no other figurehead that would be more suitable than somebody like Donald Trump, who, you know, more than a person at this point is a brand, is it just a name, just like his buildings? You know, he's not a builder really and hasn't been for many, many decades. He is just

a stamp. He sells naming rights to convey a false. idea of what luxury and good living is. And that microcosm of the American Empire is really almost poetic, if you think about it. And so I think that not only the fact that Trump was going to win the presidency as a felon that he was convicted, remember of no fewer than 34 felonies before his installation into the presidency, there's just nobody else that could meet the moment like he can and keep everyone entertained and keep everyone on the edge of their seat as to what will happen next because, you know, like any good mafia boss, he thrives on unpredictability. He's really not even a politician so much as just a mafioso carnival barker.

Right. Not so much keep everyone entertained, but keep everyone distracted, right? Keep everyone razzled and dazzled so that he can continue to pursue his dastardly goals. But what you said really, it made me think of, I mean, not to bring Netanyahu up again,

but this move that these guys are now doing where in order to avoid accountability and being brought to justice. They want to just keep power, right? So, like, Bibi, I think has an election coming up in October. One of the things that a lot of folks are talking about is, like, well, if he loses, there's a very high likelihood that he will be prosecuted by in his home country. And so it's like now more than ever, we're entering a phase of history where our leaders

are seeking power, not to help. others not to be public servants and maybe not even to accumulate wealth, but mainly to stay out of the big house. Yeah. And not just, you know, what might derogatorily be described as tin pot dictators or, you know, we're not buying into the old, there's that great, I can't remember the author of the tweet was, but you see it like screenshot it and posted all the time. that it says like Americans doing the most American thing ever. And then the reaction, what are we? A bunch of Asians?

Like we're not comparing this. Right, right. Or like, what is this a banana republic? Right. I'm not saying it like that. What I'm saying is like very seriously just in and of itself. It's disgusting behavior that is objectively true. Like this guy in office right now in the United States.

He became president to avoid facing criminal accountability. And not just him, right? There are public statements from those around him who are like, if he doesn't win, we're fucked. And that's why other people around him, like Stephen Chung, like Stephen Miller, they openly say, you know, this is not about democratic legitimacy. This is about power. He has the power, and don't you doubt it, because if you fuck with him, he will destroy you by use of his control on these mechanisms of power. Like that was what they all said when the Trump administration locked arms with APEC and with Israel to oust, for example, Thomas Massey in the, Republican primary just a few weeks ago.

Like they have, in bringing their criminality to the four, have exposed, and I think this transitions us into sort of our next running theme that has been on our mind since day one, but they have exposed the underlying hypocrisy at the very heart of Western liberal democracy, that for a hundred plus years now, you know, at least, and going back even further, you know, to the very origins of this country built on genocide and slavery, but especially the last hundred years where the notion of democracy has been so just vociferously ad nauseum associated with Western values, with morality in comparison with what was always called godless communism of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and even before the Cold War dating back to the Russian

revolution of 1917. But the fact that it is not a system of dictatorship, a system of authoritarianism that has produced, the most corrupt presidential regime in the history of perhaps the world, and I don't even exaggerate when I say that, it's been liberal democracy that has produced this result, right? Just like Joe Biden won the 2020 election and all of the steel bullshit is fake as hell, Donald Trump won the 2024 election too. That's democracy. It's also bred not just we're not just talking about politics, not just talking about politicians here, but just look at our, look at private industry, right? We are now in the age where one company handles the news and handles retail markets and handles health insurance and handles services to people that were ordinarily reserved for the government.

And this concentration of power, these monopolies that are in existence today, the barons of 100 years ago, never in their wildest dreams could they imagine such a concentration of power and such a concentration of wealth in the private sector, right? When you're thinking about the Carnegie's and the William Randolph Hearsts and all of those folks, those guys have absolutely nothing, not a candle to the flame of the motherfuckers that are out here consolidating capital under their respective organizations. Right. Yeah.

Like none of those guys individually or even collectively were so intertwined. aligned with the entire operation of not just the U.S. economy, but the global economy, as to be too big to fail. And Western, that's Western liberal democracy did that. Western liberal democracy and capitalism allowed that to happen. With the not only acquiescence, but active participation, not just of the fascists, not just of the far right-wing Republicans, but of the bipartisan,

and consensus, because if you look at the graph, right, of the growth of wealth in Silicon Valley, what years did it really, really take off on that upward exponential trajectory? That was, let me be clear, it was me, Barack Hussein Obama. You can read about it on my Epstein-Robinus-shaped. Presidential Library. We, well, we tortured some folks on the south side of the Chicago to make room for it. Yep. It's absolutely a bipartisan project that has, you know, whether it was inevitable or not,

like that's the thing is they all bought in to the notion that it was inevitable and that, hey, we might as well make some bucks on it while it's on the upswing. Rather than trying to impose a democratic check or balance to the unfettered, unregulated growth of these industries, they're just, you know, what's going to happen? This is the advancement of technology. Ultimately, it's, and I have in my consciousness so deeply embedded right, now and a name that we didn't mention in the initial thank yous, but I mean, it stands above and

beyond the field, at least in my consciousness, is my homie Marcus from the return of the repressed and the deep, deep excavation that he has done on scientism as an ideology and as a framework for looking at the world for all of these people, even predating. industrial capitalism in a lot of ways. But believing that technology and that scientific advancement is the end-all and be-all of human civilization has really led us into this cul-de-sac without an exit and without really any way to contend with the amount of power that they have accrued for themselves. Yeah, and it has been able to take off and really, really ratchet up because it is so able to fall back or be built on those notions that we were sort of talking about a little bit earlier of like in the United States, it's a meritocracy.

And it's all about you're letting your talent shine. And people become super wealthy or become super powerful because they deserve it. And if you do good things and create good things, they will become popular because it's good for everybody, right? If you rely on scientific development, technology, things that can help, things that can help lots of people, well, you're going to do great in this country. At the moment, right, there's this huge focus on technology. There's especially this huge focus on AI. And that's really been where we've been at for the last at least, what, 30, 40 years, at least. this focus shifting away from the physical and drifting towards the digital.

And it is, like you said, like the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans, probably even more guilty because at the end of the day, it really comes down to bowing down, bending the knee and chasing capital, chasing the dollar. And right now, all of the dollars are in the tech sector. Yeah. And you and I were talking about this, but there's a really great episode of the show Veep, which is one of the most incisive political commentaries, I think, of our current era. And it shows in a very comical way the way, the sort of confrontation between quote-unquote political power

that in that show is represented by the vice president, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus, right? And the techno-economic power of Silicon Valley where she rolls in there thinking that she's just going to collect a bunch of checks and like these guys are going to kiss her ass and everything and is rudely awakened to being treated like their employee, right? Yeah, there's so many good numbers.

it's in that episode. And so, listener, even if you're not a fan of VEP, please go and check. And this is something I think they could show in high school civics classes if they're still doing civics classes. But like, what is it? I think season three, episode four of VEP, they go to Silicon Valley and it's like just the spot on analysis and commentary of how things are operating today, not just with relation to like the tech sector in Silicon Valley, but just more generally, right? Because it starts, I think, in the beginning of the episode, there is a woman who is in the crowd that goes to shake Selena's hand and she's got a baby. And obviously, politicians love holding babies.

And that's like one of the parts of this commentary. But the woman raises with Selena and goes, hey, you said you were anti-fracking during your campaign. And now it seems like you're pro fact fracking. And actually the fracking that's happened around my house, it's caused some developmental issues for my baby. she's not able to meet those developmental milestones, and I think it's because of the fracking. And so she sort of embarrasses Selena, and it's all televised, right?

And you cut to the sort of operator's room where Selena's staff are figuring out what to do with this woman, this protester. And I think they say something like, Selena, what do you want us to do? Do we tame her or shame her to make her go away? And that's like literally those are the options. that's what happens these days, right? If someone is a squeaky wheel, if someone is gaining a little too much attention, those are the two things they do. There's also the third thing that they do, which is take them out, which also comes up as a joke in that part of the episode. So that part, that was really, that was really, I think, interesting and I think very, very valuable for people to watch.

But also this like microcosm of Silicon Valley, right? Everything, right down to like, like the 20-something founder who is treated like the Messiah, right? You have in Silicon Valley, all of these instances of these people who have like one idea that maybe isn't even a good idea. It just happens to be the idea that catches the attention of enough people and enough backing, enough finance, enough capital. And when you get that much attention and that much money at such a young age, I firmly believe that it on a molecular, on a chemical level, alters your brain.

And if people start treating you like your Jesus Christ at age 25 or age 30, I feel like you're going to start thinking your Jesus Christ, right? And I think this episode does a great display of that with this founder whose name is Craig, but like the CFO is very very particular about how you say the founder's name and so she's like to Selena and her crowd she's like actually I noticed you said Craig it's actually Craig Craig and they're like trying to the whole episode they're trying to make sure they pronounce the founder's name correctly so as not to offend him and he's got all of these different quirks that are just like absolute make absolutely no sense right like he's got a coding hour and we don't know when his coding hour is going to be but you can't distinguish instruct him during his coding hour. Yeah. Yeah, it's just all of this stuff to show that the political power is the subservient power to this techno-economic power because also when they show up, it's implied that like the

tech company already has done deep illegal surveillance research on every member of her staff and administration and it's just like they know everything about everybody's search history and shit and and then they can manipulate also the media algorithm of like what stories get boosted to the top and they can offer to bury the bad stories and it's just like that one's a yeah that one's a great one too right so like selina's trying to get this protester story out of the out of the news and trying to get it buried in the search engine. And so she reproaches the founder and it's like, hey, well, how can we get this to go down a notch? And the founder is like, he, you know, he takes umbrage and it's like, we don't do that here, right? We're not going to, uh, manipulate these

Clovis searches. But then like Selena's top guy and Craig's top person, the CFO sort of have a side deal. that's for like tax breaks. Like we'll give you tax breaks if you pump up this other story about some other politician. Yeah. And it aired on April 27th, 2014. So only goes to show that I think

not to make any pretentious statement about what we're doing here, but simply as proof of concept that viewing things through this sort of cynical but realistic lens that is rooted in the immortal science of historical dialectical materialism, seeing things how they really are, how they really operate. It will enable you, too, listener, to predict the future in a way, to understand where things are going. And I think that that is what we...

want to spend the rest of the episode talking about is, you know, seeing where things are going. And in a time when every single day we are bombarded with evidence that our voices mean nothing, that the powers that be will run roughshod over every single one of our supposedly guaranteed constitutional rights, that they will trample us into dust and, you know, erase our names from history, right? There is still so much that we can do, if not to prevent their ultimate victory, which it's a big question mark, right? There's no guarantee. I don't think there's any guarantee that we, the people of good conscience, emerge victorious from this existential struggle with the evils embodied by the powers that be on both sides of the aisle,

embodied by the capitalist ruling class of today that is so venal, so tasteless and so cruel, genocidal. But we can live with dignity, and if we commit ourselves to doing that, and if we refuse to repeat and go along with the lies that all of these people tell to not only continue their reign of terror over the entire world, but also to perpetuate the myth of their moral superiority. That is what is truly an empty gesture on their part, and yet still so many people in the material interest of not getting thrown under the fucking moving train of this genocidal quote-unquote civilization say that the emperor's clothes are beautiful right is just the same old

thing that's been happening for centuries but but we don't have to do that right no not at all not at all and i think part of this whole thing is that the powers that be and the people in charge 100% want you not to be going out there in real life and making connections, real human connections with those around you. And I think that's by design, right? They want you glued to that phone in your pocket. They want you to be, to continue to be isolated at home and at work, to be alienated from everything and everyone around you so that they can pump whatever whatever content that they want right into your eyeballs into your ears. And it's even extends to the online content that you're consuming that is being narrowed ever more into smaller and smaller silos

where, you know, if you're in this group, if you identify with X, Y, and Z things, you know, you'll cast aside anybody else. And to be sure, sure, there are clear lines that should be drawn, right? For example, something that we've talked about many times on the pod, something that really gets our goat, I think collectively, is the open embrace for people like a Tucker Carlson, right? A literal CIA operative who has spent his entire adult life promoting not only American imperialism but also Christofascism and white supremacy. I mean, a racist, homophobic, transphobic, just piece of fucking shit guy that he says three things, three years into a genocide to suggest that, you know, maybe we should tamp down this relationship

with Israel. after it's so evident that the weight of the historical verdict will declare guilty the entire genocidal Amerisraeli apparatus for those crimes, only after that becomes crystal clear does he cast his voice on the quote-unquote right side of history after, as our brother Isaac from Coexist Inc. and myself discussed a lot, many, many months into the genocide, after hospitals had been bombed, after thousands of children had been murdered, torn limb from limb under Israeli bombs, and he sits down with Pierce Morgan and refuses to call out Israel as criminal, let alone

genocidal. Like the absolute vacuity of his position could not be more transparent. And yet, this is what the spectacle does. This is the functioning of the integrated spectacle that Gidebel wrote about in real time. So when we say, like, get with people, that doesn't mean latch on to the most popular influencer who is saying something that you agree with, regardless of all the baggage that that person brings with him. And be not fooled.

This is a guy who's going to run for fucking president. 100%. A thousand percent. Yeah, and it's not just like the genocide stuff. It's any number of things. I was thinking about, as you were talking, thinking about the Venezuela stuff and like going after the, you know, quote, drug cartels and all of that shit,

where Tucker has taken this position of, like, why are we going to the, why are we going to Venezuela? Why do I care about Venezuela? They don't import the fentanyl that's ripping through the cities in our country. I don't care about Maduro, but then in the same breath is like pretty much advocating like the death penalty for drug users and drug dealers and shit like that. It's like when we are getting to the point where And saying it's Mexico and China. Like, instead of... Right, yeah, yeah, right, right.

Yeah, using Mexico and China as the placeholder. But when you... What I'm getting in is like when the person that the media is putting out, when the person who's got like the most sane take is actually one of the most insane people who's ever been in popular media, shit is fucked up. Shit is all sorts of fucked up, right? You need to maybe step away from. the mainstream media sources.

Yeah, exactly. Like, and this is the thing. If you have conversations with people, with real people in real life, your neighbors, your family members, your co-workers, it's not, at least in my experience, and I am interacting with a wide variety, and I think, Dick, you would say the same, because we've had this conversation innumerable times off Mike, a wide, variety of people across the political spectrum, across race, age, socioeconomic class, whatever, people are pissed off. They have no faith in the institutions that govern our society. They have no

faith in Congress. They have no faith in the president. They have no faith in the Democrats. They have no faith in the Republicans. They have no faith in the media. Like the dam is about to burst, if only, if only people had something, somewhere to channel their dissatisfaction and their rage. But what the integrated spectacle has done is to basically dig a canal, right? dig canals in many directions to diffuse the buildup at that dam and to send it and divert it in a thousand different directions so that helplessness prevails so that nihilism prevails so that hedonism prevails so that anything but revolutionary fervor and solidarity prevails and And so really, you know, wow, we are interested in building up that reservoir to push open that dam

and break it down. We also have to dam up these artificial manufactured canals that have been put in place to diffuse the rage. And this is an area where we actually have started to really synthesize a solution. I think over the course of I don't know how many episodes we've been talking about this, I do think that this is really a first step. It is a basic thing that everybody out there must do. Are you ready? Okay, here it goes.

Get out there in real life and make connections. Talk to the people who are around you, physically around you, not just people in your household, people who are in your neighborhood, people who are in your workplace, and don't do it with some sort of ulterior motive of trying to, you know, organize them towards something or trying to get them to change their political opinions. It doesn't even have to be that kind of thing, right? Just get out there with your, with people around you and make connections and help each other, right? I'm talking about a form of mutual aid that can happen if you just get out there and make connections. And I know there are

plenty of people out there for one reason or another who can't do this. So if you can't do it, that's totally fine. And I get that. But there are many people who can do this and nonetheless don't. And so I'll give you an example, and I think you were talking about it, Don, and I know you do this as well. But I know every single one of my neighbors by name. I know all about them. I know their family backgrounds. I know all of their weekly troubles. We get together as a neighborhood, as a group as often as we can. Certainly in the summertime, when the weather is nice, there's about a group of us that gets together. and we're not friends. We don't consider ourselves like our soul.

We're not like the social group of the primary social group for any one of us, right? We're not like by any means the same age group or the same political affiliation or anything like that. We're just neighbors, right? We're neighbors that care about one another. And I think that is a very good first step. Same thing with coworkers, right? Same thing with the people you work with or go to school with. get to know people in real life.

Yeah, and I think it was important what you said of not coming in with a predetermined ulterior motive to the interaction. Certainly that's the end goal, right? You want to build up a sense of solidarity. You want to get people onto the same page. But at the end of the day, you know, being pedantic has never, one, a revolutionary struggle, right? Like, there are certainly lies that you can expose. There are certainly myths that you can bust about both the, you know, big, big propaganda points that are

shoved down everybody's throat all the time, but also about these off-ramps from the, the the well that we're talking about breaking the dam, these canals, you know, that you can, with the information that you possess through, you know, not only listening to Fourth Reich archaeology, certainly, but by following up on the sources, by reading books, by studying and understanding the context in which we've reached this critical juncture in history. and convey in just a normal way, not a pedantic way, not an aggressive way, your feelings that ultimately are human reactions to an inhuman society, an inhuman situation. Because I promise you, if you've not had conversations like this, if you have, as so many of us are,

impelled to do by the fear that being perceived as weird, being perceived as aberrant, as anti-system, as non-conformist, we will be cast aside, we will be subject to targeting by the powers that be. You know, once you can break out of that fear, you realize that everybody is living in that same fear and that everybody is self-censoring to some extent for the same reasons, and they feel badly about it. Like, just relate on that human level that we are indoctrinated to suppress and to repress in ourselves, in our discourse, in our lives, in the way that we practice the art of living itself.

And, you know, it takes some real work, some real self-reflection to break out of that. bubble. Certainly if like Dick and I, you are, you know, positioned somewhere in the bourgeoisie in your profession, in your lifestyle, right? Like, there should not be a knee-jerk rejection of any identityarian group just out of the gate. You know, many people will have these layers upon layers of their personality. Maybe you do too, if you really think about it. And I know that certainly I do. I think we all do.

It's peeling those layers back and, you know, connecting with one another that makes you realize just how much we all really do have in common. And in this particular moment where, like, they are fucking dabbing on us day in and day out. Like, it's not, you could look back on Obama and shit looks a lot more obvious in hindsight, right? But there's no comparator in the life experience of anyone alive today to the level of venal corruption that is being practiced out in the open by the ruling class, not just the president, not just his administration, the ruling class, the tech bros, the billionaires, the bankers who finance them, who continue, despite espousing liberal talking points from time to time, supporting materially the

creep of fascist politics, fascist technology over every aspect of our collective lives with the goal of enslaving us all while they escape to their fucking bunkers and look what the people in Albania are doing when met with the fucking Jared Kushner Ivanka Trump takeover of part of their land to bunkerify themselves at the expense of the people. they're burning shit to the ground. Now, we're not advocating violence. We're not advocating anything like that on Fourth Reich archaeology. But what we are advocating is the basis to create that mass consciousness,

because without it, we are doomed, absolutely doomed. Don't lone wolf it, folks. If you've learned anything from she Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald and any one of these lone wolves, that's not good. Don't do that. Do start by building a real community around you, not just an online community, a real community, a real community where you know the people around you, you know what they are doing. You have hopes together.

You share your hopes. You share your troubles. You'll be surprised. I mean, almost everyone you meet. is everyone you meet is going through some shit, right? And I'm not just talking about, you know, the people, the people that you normally hang out with, right? I'm not talking just about your friend group, right? I'm talking about people that are around you of all walks of life. There are great, great opportunities that are, I think, being missed in every major city, every major

locale that our listenership is in, you know, just get out there. There's no reason to stay on line. Right. And to put a concrete point on it, right, what we are advocating for are localized experiments in communism, in communalism, in collectivism, right? A co-op. Spend time in a community garden. Spend time in a tool library. If you find a neighbor who needs help moving some things around in their house, give them a hand. Build that trust relationship where they know that they have someone in their immediate network that can help them.

And they will, I guarantee you, they will extend that same sort of help when you need it. And I'm not saying do it just because. of that, I'm saying that is the natural and beautiful outcome out of all of this. Right. Yeah, it's like a real innate human desire to live in community

to share. You know, there are existing co-ops. There are existing like a place where you put in a few hours of work and you get script to spend in the co-op shop that you could get clothes.

You could swap clothes and you know do like a community thrift type of a situation you could grow vegetables in your neighborhood and everybody gets access and can take what they need not saying that it will replace the supermarket anytime soon but these are all baby steps towards building a collective consciousness like the thing that you just mentioned dick a tool library right like you say hey you know tools are expensive but maybe we could just create a thing, a system where you check it out. Like you need a you need a drill, get the drill. You need a table saw, grab the table saw, you know, do what you got to do.

Yeah, if you have kids and your neighbor has kids and you guys are having trouble figuring out some way to do child care, I'm sure that if enough of you got together, you could, you know, many hands. could take care of that problem rather than each of you spending, I don't know what the going grade is these days, thousands of dollars on child care. The point is, I think, to reduce your reliance on the consumer markets. Reduce your reliance on having to go out there and make more money for some reason, right? You can do a lot simply through this network of, community through, you know, what I call mutual aid. Yeah. And we in the United States have such a long way to go because of the values,

the truly twisted, perverse values that have been inculcated in us from birth through propaganda, through propagandistic what the old reggae singers used to call brainwash education, right? they have really pitted us against one another in what they want us to believe is an existential battle of all against all and that is not how it needs to be and you know again to um call back to a conversation I was having with with good old Marcus the other day right and he was referred to referring to Louis Althusser, the Marxist scholar, it is always already as it should be. When you tap in to that spirit within yourself, within the people around you, it just feels natural. It always already has been that way. And you just need to find that out in

in your own way. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it because if ever there was a time that the fucked up-edness of this way of living has been there for all eyes to see,

it is right this moment, right this second in history. And I know, Dick, maybe you have any final thoughts. I know I wanted to end with the last paragraph of the Society of the Spectacle by Guy De Beau, which I think speaks to all this.

But first, I want to pass you the mic for any closing thoughts. I think maybe we're getting close to time to wrap this one up. Yeah, my only final thought, as always, is be good to each other. Do not feel like you have to turn away from your fellow. man and woman in person and do everything you can to break down those walls, break down those barriers. And we will be right here on the airwaves ready to go, ready to talk to you week after week because after all, this is a friendship podcast. And I will do this podcast every week for as long as I am physically able,

whether or not you tune in. So fear not because your buddies, I know Don will be as, Don is as likewise committed, so I just want to say fear not. Either way, we will be right here to talk you through it week after week for as long as we are able to.

Yeah. And of course, all of this is not to say you need to say you need to cut off your horizons at the local level. And indeed, one group of listeners that we had heard from that I didn't mention in the shoutouts before, but is appropriate to shout out right now, are the listeners that we heard from Minneapolis, who emailed us, reached out in the midst of their really, truly epochal resistance to the ice invasion of that city last winter that is all but memory hold by the mainstream media.

Like that should not ever be forgotten and the opposite. It should be embraced. It should be studied and it should be spread across this country as a model of what happens when people do this type shit. because everything that we were just talking about, that is what the people of Minneapolis were doing when they won a fucking battle against the federal government, for God's sakes. Yeah, of course, the war is not over. Far from it. You know, ICE is still out there.

Absolutely. They're still growing in numbers. I mean, the big, beautiful bill that we covered in this, show when it passed with Andrew Micellick in the Big Congress series is only now seeding the terrain for the future expansion of ice into a massive American Gestapo. So you think that the ice has gone away, you're way, way wrong because they're just licking their little wounds and regrouping for the next run. And this summer is going to be a hot fucking summer. So, you know, we're going to get some of those voices on this podcast, we are going to turn our focus, you know, as always,

you know, one eye facing back into history to ground our analysis and one eye facing firmly into the future to substantiate a practical game plan that we can all share for our collective liberation because it is collective liberation or it is collective enslavement one or the other. And I know what side I'm on. I think you know what side you're on if you're listening to this show unless you're a fed, in which case, fuck you, fuck your whole way of life. Desert or sabotage, do the right thing. But, you know, it is what it is.

and onward we fucking march. So, in the words of the great, late, Guideborg, emancipation from the material bases of inverted truth is what the self-emansipation of our epoch consists of. This historical mission of installing truth in the world cannot be accomplished, either by the isolated individual or by the atomized crowd subjected to manipulation.

But now as ever, by the class, which is able to effect the dissolution of all classes by bringing all power into the de-alienating form of realized democracy, the council in which political theory controls itself and sees its own action. This is possible only where individuals, are directly linked to universal history, only where dialogue arms itself to make its own conditions victorious. Damn, we should have started with that one. That's good to finish with. I mean, there it is, folks, right there from the goaded, Gidey Bohr, from the goaded society of spectacle.

Get out there. And again, I know, I know, I know that there are. many who are listening who for one reason or another cannot get out there. To you, I say my comrades, just keep doing what you're doing. Do what you can. But to everyone else, to everyone who is able, do it. Do it now. We say we call this one. Let's do it. Until next time, I am Dick. And I'm done. Saying farewell. And keep on digging. So journey a long...