Rev Left Radio - UNLOCKED: Revolution and Resolutions

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

If you enjoy these monologue-style episodes and want to support the show and get access to multiple bonus episodes like this every single month, you can do so HERE UNLOCKED: Breht opens this Patreon episode with a discussion of American politics, talks about Lenin's anaysis of what makes for a revolutionary situation, and then he reads, reflects upon, and comments on an article by Ahjamu Umi from Hood Communist titled "The Unknown Relationship between Malcolm X and Kwame Nkrumah"

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Rev Left. All right. So today is the last day of 23. And what a year it has been. On our on Grilla History, we released an episode just a day or two ago of 2023 in review in which we sort of reflected on the year, 23, the big political events that happen, sort of looking forward, what's likely to happen in 2024. And I think the consensus was that things are going to get worse before they get better. I think we're going to see in 2024 an expansion of conflict and expansion of these wars, whether the Ukraine, Russia, or the Israel-Palestine wars continue to expand or a new war pops off. I think we're living through, as I said in that episode, the end of the post-World War II

sort of global order, the Bretton Woods system. I think we're leaving the age of American unipolarity, and I think we're leaving the age of globalized neoliberalism. All of these things are sort of coming to an end at the same time that here in the United States, we're entering one of these periods of realignment, of crisis, of de-legitimization, of public institutions. And so a lot of trends are sort of coming together at the same time. and what that means to me, what that has meant to me. And I've made it very clear on these Patreon episodes is it's going to get uglier before it gets better. We're going to continue to see chaos at home. We're going to continue to see the abject, venal, cruel, incompetent,

and impotent nature of our political system struggle to get anything done. Of course, unless that thing getting done is helping other people fight wars. because that America will always make sure that people are dying somewhere around the world, that American tax dollars are going to create weapons that blow people's bodies apart, that kill children, that traumatize families. America will always make sure that somewhere around the world, the bombs are still dropping, human beings are still suffering, the blood is still spilling, right? No matter what happens.

Crisis, good times, peaceful, high levels of legitimization, low levels of legitimization, low levels of legitimization, high polarization, low polarization, America will ensure people are being fucking brutalized somewhere in the world. That will never change. But as far as all the other problems that we face as a society, the homelessness crisis, insane inequality, basic corruption in the political system, the complete lack of democracy, no access to health care, huge amounts of student, consumer and medical debt,

all these problems, inflation, weighing down, on regular working people, lack of opportunity. Minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009. The longest period of time, the minimum wage is gone without being raised since the federal minimum wage was instantiated as a thing in the 1930s. You know, all of those problems, those are going to persist. And we're going to go back and forth between two fucking loser pieces of shit who can't solve anything and don't even want to in this next election.

So that's basically the situation we're looking at. I know everybody listening to this is going to. going to be very familiar with the situation we find ourselves in. But of course, as I've said, over and over and over and over and over again, you know, the crisis will continue to play out for many years. I think the 2020s, it will be just every year is going to be sort of an escalation in climate change, an escalation in global conflict, an escalation in internal polarization, an escalation in the domestic crises that we face, an escalation in the delegitimization of media, of institutions,

etc. That process has a while to go still. It has to be, you know, the mask has to be revealed to everybody. Let me find this quote, actually, one second here. Okay, I had to stop really quick to find the quote, but I found it. And it's a quote from Lenin in left-wing communism and infantile disorder where Lenin is talking about, you know, the conditions of revolution. What conditions have to take place in order for a revolution in general to be able to become possible? And I think it's very interesting because if you take me seriously when I say, and many others say, I don't pretend to be a unique thinker on this regard, that we're living through a crisis period in the United States and globally, right? These different crises trends are sort of coming to ahead at the same time. What does that mean for those of us that are interested in the fundamental transformation of society?

Well, first and foremost, and this quote, well, we'll certainly get at it. But it doesn't matter how many of us believe an idea, how many of us have thoughts about what should happen, how many people put the hammer and sickle in their Twitter bios. What matters is to the degree that we are ingratiated working alongside the masses and thus have mass support, and to what degree we are organized in the dual power sense, right? both like in the way in which organizations can tend to people, take care of people, build power, build mechanisms of self-governance sort of in the here and now in their own communities, and the broader conditions that we're operating in, you know, I'm organized as well. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought there, but organized as well, not just in the dual power sense, not just in the solidarity sense, but in the sense, in all the senses, right, are we politically organized? do we have you know basic militaristic aspects to our organization maybe it's not the time to develop those but are we ready for that if and when it comes right talking about an organization with an already high degree of organization you know these are the questions that we really have to work out amongst ourselves and that you know our success and what happens in the coming years whatever direction this society is pushed into is going to be influenced first and foremost by our degree of, again, organization and our degree of ingratiation with the masses, which is, of course, two sides of the same coin because, you know, we talk about the mass line, we talk about what effective organizing is, et cetera. All the historical examples of effective organizing are

synonymous with the revolutionaries being, you know, interwoven with the masses and having general mass support. Not everybody in society is going to like you. Huge swaths of society are going to hate you. But the mass. the lower classes, the toiling masses, the working people, poor people. These are the people that are going to be most invested in the radical transformation of society. And thus, those are the segments of society that organizers should be focused on, locked in with, etc. So anyways, all that in mind, and with the idea that we are in this sort of multifaceted crisis period, what does Lennon have to say about the fundamental law of revolution, as he calls it? So let's

talk about that. This is the quote, the full quote by Lenin. The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the 20th century is as follows. For a revolution to take place, it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes. So it's not enough, as a side note, it's not enough for the oppressed masses to realize that the way things are are shitty, it's impossible to go on like this, we want change, right? We already have that. We've had that in the U.S. for a very, very, very long time, and we still have it to this day, right? People, you know, are always

saying this in different ways with different political lenses, but this is obviously a sort of call from the lower and middle classes of American society that things, you know, sort of have to change, specifically the working classes and the lower classes. Back to the text. I'm going to reread that, and I'm just going to read the whole, I'll comment after because I think it breaks up the quote and makes it weird and hard to follow. So I'm going to start from the beginning and read it all in one go. The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the 20th century, is as follows.

For a revolution to take place, it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes. For a revolution to take place, it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the lower classes do not want to live in the old way and the upper classes cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph. This truth can be expressed in other words. Revolution is impossible without a nationwide crisis affecting both the exploited and the exploiters.

Let me say that again. Revolution is impossible without a nationwide crisis affecting both the exploited and the exploiters. Lenin goes on. It follows that for a revolution to take place. It is essential first that a majority of the workers, or at least a majority of the class conscious thinking and politically active workers, should fully realize that revolution is necessary and that they should prepare to die for it. So, okay, I'll get to that in a second. Second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics. Symptomatic of any genuine revolution is a rapid, tenement. fold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses, hitherto apathetic, who are capable of waging the political struggle, weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it. End quote. Of course he goes on for quite a bit, it's a whole book, but I found that little section interesting and worth reflecting on.

So, you know, revolution is impossible without a nationwide crisis that affects both the exploited and the exploiters. I think the crisis that we're living through and assuming that the crisis that we were talking about is going to continue to escalate, I think that condition is in place in part and will continue to instantiate itself into place, right? This crisis isn't going anywhere, no matter who's elected in the next election, et cetera. You've heard me make these arguments before. So at least one of the conditions is ripening for sure, which is this nationwide crisis. I mean, the U.S. has an imperial crisis abroad as well as many domestic crises at home, and that can't help but, you know, affect both the exploited and the exploiters. So Lenin says, I'm going to focus on another part of the quote, for revolution to take place, it's essential that a majority of the workers or at least the majority of the class conscious thinking and politically active workers, hopefully you and I, dear listener, should fully realize that revolution is necessary and they should be prepared to die for it. Now, that, I think, is an interesting thing to reflect on in the American context.

Lots of people are committed to ideas. Lots of people would love to see the world change. But how many people are willing to sacrifice something for that? How many people are willing to sacrifice their own comfort, their own career, their own life trajectory, their own plans for the future? And in some instances, put on the table their own life in order to pursue the radical transformation of society. I think once you start talking about that, the numbers dwindle. And people think to themselves, yeah, I'm prepared to die. But when we see revolutions, we see them come out of real desperation.

And it's one thing for people, you know, in the working class in America, to think like shit sucks and we fucking hate our government and all this other shit. It's another thing to go out and start killing and dying for it. And that's true for anybody, for any political faction, for anything. But that is a situation that could get worse, right? Right now, in the U.S. U.S., of course there are segments of American society have always been utterly immiscerated, have nothing to lose more or less, and would be in the right situation,

in the right context, and with the right education, you know, prepared to die for the radical transformation of society. But I'm not sure if that's a lot of people. And it's the same on the right. You know, a lot of people on the right love, a lot of guys on the right love this macho bullshit. You know, I got guns. Don't tread on me. I'm prepping. You know, if any of these calmsies want to take over this country, you better be ready to do. I got all my guns, you know, and these motherfuckers are super comfy, living in suburban houses with their fucking $60,000 pickup trucks, extended cabs. You know, are they really going to go out and fucking bleed out in the middle of the street for their ideas?

Or is it just an ego gratification exercise to present yourself to yourself and others as this hardcore, badass, action figure type guy who knows deep down he'll never actually have to prove that to himself or to others? I think that psychology is very much afoot on the political right for sure, and to some extent, to a lesser extent, on the political left. I think, you know, that while every political faction has its fair share of LARPERS and weirdos, there is a certain sort of machismo psychology on the political right that makes that strain a more prevalent and more cartoonish for sure. But that's an interesting thing. Now, while I'm saying that most Americans are too comfy in their various ways to be. ready to sacrifice at that level for the transformation of society, a nationwide crisis that is consistently escalating can absolutely very quickly, actually, create the conditions that make people

who are last year, you know, not political or certainly not ready to die for any, you know, big cause in a much different situation. You could imagine some series of crises that radically brings down the quality of life for most Americans across the board and then we're into people are ready to die because the options are getting smaller and smaller for anything to do about it. And that could come with the crisis intensification. At this point, I don't think there are enough people across the country that are really willing to pay that sort of a price for the transformation of society, whatever they want society to be transformed into. So I'm not just talking about the left. I'm talking across the political spectrum. Now, the ruling class elites are

always willing for other people to die to maintain their control, right? So that should, should be noted that, you know, these, these elites, you know, let's look how they talk about war. Look how Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley, you know, and John Bolton, these super comfy, rich, privileged pieces of dog shit, they froth at the mouth over the prospect of launching an inaugural attack against or, you know, a preemptive attack against Iran or widening this war or, you know, going in and bombing or helping Israel 100 percent, like the ruling class in this society is so depraved, so disgusting, so hated, in part because they are so willing to start another meaningless war where more people on all sides can fucking die, knowing they and their families

and their loved ones will not die at all. They get a thrill out of it. These fucking sickos in power, like a Lindsey Graham, like a Nikki Haley, like a John Bolton, I'm saying those names because they all came out in the last week saying insane things about Iran. They get, it's, for them, it's a game. For them, it's a thrill. It's sort of like an egoic way for them to, you know, sort of exercise what they think is their power. Like, you know, I can call for the, for the overthrowing of a government. And of course, there's an element of looking tough to your constituencies, right? Like Lindsey Graham has this thing where in so many ways he's an incredibly effeminate person, no hate to him, but it's obviously something that he is insecure about. And so he overcompetent

for that insecurity by pretending to be this chest-thumping warhawk, again, knowing that he will never have to know a moment of discomfort, even if World War III breaks out, right? These are these, this is the cowardice at the, at the bottom of these fucking psychopaths. And John Bolton has always been wanting to fucking bomb Iran. He's been wanting to do it for fucking two decades now. And he released a recent paper, an op-ed or some dumb shit, where John Bolton is like, you know, I'm sorry, but it seems like the only option we have left is to bomb Iran, as if this motherfucker hasn't been

coming up with reasons to bomb Iran for the last two fucking decades. And now he's acting like, hey, things have gotten so out of control that I'm ready to put this on the table. Maybe we do need a bomb Iran. It's like, that's your whole fucking thing, psychopath. So I say all that and just using their thirst, they're frothing at the mouth for more war and death and misery to show that they'll let people die for

their comfort. They'll absolutely stand behind a fucking, you know, the riot police and put down angry protesters who want to redistribute wealth or whatever. They'll let other people die for their cause, for sure. They'll throw as many people into the meat grinder as they need to to maintain their privilege and comfort, but they themselves would never think of chipping a nail doing something like that, right? So again, that's worth thinking about, you know, the factions, who's really ready to die, who's really in a desperate enough situation to go for a Revolution. What are the ruling classes, reactions to it going to be, et cetera? So that's the first part. And then Lenin says, second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics. And then he says, you know, a symptom of genuine revolution is this huge influx of people into politics who are now newly interested in waging political struggles of various types, who otherwise would have remained apathetic or apolitical or not interested, not paying attention that, you know, when these crisis periods hit, people flood into political action. And we've seen that on smaller scales just in the last several years

of American of American life. I think we saw that, again, not a hundredfold increase, not ready for revolution, not, you know, burning down the White House sort of mobilization. But with the Black Lives Matter protest, we saw huge influxes of people into the political realm, into protest movements, you know, into the political struggle, whether those people stayed in or not is a sort of a moot point because the fact is that that was a mini crisis that drew in people. We saw it after the election of Trump. You know, lots of people, especially lots of liberals, got very uncomfortable. They were willing to do stuff that they weren't otherwise willing to do, stuff that they

completely stopped doing once Biden took over. Like, I don't know, having principles and values and trying to hold people accountable, right? Once there's a D by the name, like 90% of these liberals just vanish into thin. they evaporated. They leave organizations hollow. They de-radicalize, et cetera. But still, following Trump, we did see that influx of, you know, hitherto relatively apathetic, or, you know, even if they were following politics, it's on that basic MSNBC, Fox News, Democrat versus Republican level. It's not like, you know, deep political values and struggles and a wish to transform society in any meaningful way. So we've seen these little events that

happen in the U.S., and we see that this ruled technically and traditionally does hold true. And we can imagine bigger crises bringing in even more people. And that's what Lenin is saying here. And so the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis. That's what they're doing. They're going through a governmental crisis. This hysterical debate between Republicans and Democrats, we're saving democracy from the Republicans and Biden is the anti-fascist vote and, you know, from the Republican side, the Democrats are trying to turn your kids trans and gay. Like, you know, we see this shit all the time, you know, big debates about military power, you know, the weird dissent from the Republican right about Ukraine. And then the interesting dissent from at least the constituencies within the Democrat Party against Israel, though the ruling classes in both parties don't really care much, although I would say that the anti-war strain at this.

moment in time, it can always change, of course. But at this moment in time, the Republicans seem to have more bottom-up pressure in their coalition to strip funding from Ukraine in a way that the Democrats have in their constituencies, their coalition. There's like huge amounts of Democratic voters who are against helping Israel slaughter fucking Palestinians and their children and destroy entire families and fucking murder 20,000 people. But that does not have any purchase within the party itself in the way. that anti-Ukraine aid does have some purchase among some figures in the Republican Party establishment, right? That allows them to try to hold up bills or try to negotiate, you know, or put conditions on the aid, etc., that you just don't see on the Democratic side. But all that is to say that all of these disputes, the revolutionary Marxists, should not be taking sides.

I am not picking Biden over Trump, and I'm certain as hell not picking Trump over Biden. I'm not not picking the Democrats over the Republicans or the Republicans over the Democrats. That is a fucking stupid fucking thing to do. It's an unprincipled fucking thing to do. You have to be opposed to both of them, opposed to the unique sorts of fascisms that arise in both coalitions. And to see those things escalate as the crisis escalates, that's certainly going to happen. But the ruling class right now is going through an inter-ruling elite factionalism, you know, a dispute amongst the ruling class about sort of the, the, directions to take the country in, how to maintain the basic class structure that has launched

them to these positions of power. They have different ideas about it. And they have aesthetic differences as well, right? This idea of norms and Trump is just not, you know, cut out for this beautiful job that only really responsible people can fucking have, yeah, right? But that's, so that that that, that interruling elite factionalism and fighting is certainly happening to a higher degree than we have seen, at least through periods of my life, though we've seen it for sure throughout American history writ large. That is going to continue to happen as the crisis develops. Those inter-elite disputes are going to increase as well. But again, our job is not to take a side in those disputes, is not to pick the worst, the lesser of the two evils. It's to

robustly, vociferously, and publicly oppose both of those parties and both of their formations knowing that ultimately though they take different paths they end up in the same fucking place which is capitalist authoritarian fascism and the dystopia that they want to create to maintain this system that is so irrational that that is destroying the biosphere that that ruins and consigns tens of hundreds of millions of human beings to to endless toil so that some can live lives of extreme opulence and luxury it's a fundamentally irrational system And as the conditions continue to change, and as the elite want to continue to maintain this irrational system in a context of continuous change, that's when the fascism comes out. And we're seeing it from both parties, again, in different ways.

So our goal is to, should be to organize as much as we can, politically educate as much as we can, and not tie even an inch of our wagon to either of these parties, to either of their fucking politicians. They're all, it's just all capitalist ruling elites all the way down. Their donor classes dictate what policies get pushed through. When they want to fund a war, they don't care about democratic mechanisms of power. When they want to not do something, they pretend like they're completely impotent. We can see through it. But that's the crisis they're going through not only in relation to different factions within the ruling elite, but this crisis that the ruling elite as a whole is going through in relation to the masses within this society.

For different reasons along the political spectrum are fed up with their politicians. Do not believe that these parties can solve any problems. Do not like to any degree these politicians. There's little cults on each side. There's the vote blue no matter who we ride for Biden freaks. And there's the maga trumps that no matter what Trump does, no matter what his actual policies are, they'll, you know, love him no matter what. I was going to say something more grotesque, but love him no matter what. and yeah so there's so of course those things exist and those things are always going to exist it's

never going to be 90 it's never going to be that that that occupy formulation where 99% of the population rises up against the 1% no that 99% is riddled with contradictions and the top 5% of that 99% has fundamentally different economic goals and interests than the bottom 50% of that 99% right um it was a it was a shorthand and it showed that we have more numbers on our side, and of course it played its role. But that's actually not how revolutions of any sort work. So all in all, this is just an interesting reflection on Lenin talking about the various conditions that have to take hold in order for revolutions to become possible. And then even if a revolution becomes possible, right, if all these conditions hold, it's going to matter a lot

the level of organization between the various factions, political factions that are that are vying for vying for the you know to the helm to to for their ideas and their vision of what this society should be to win out and so we're going to see and if I'm right about this crisis continuing to escalate in the coming years then the conditions for revolution the objective conditions for revolution are going to continue but we all know how media how the new social media postmodern fractured narrative you know algorithmically driven so sort of realm can lead people in a billion different ways, which is good for the ruling class, right? It's very good for the ruling class for all of us to be in these micro echo chambers,

for there to be so much information, such a deluge of information, that is hard for people to make sense of anything. Sometimes with too much information, it can generate conspiracy thinking. Sometimes with too much information, it can lead people getting demobilized. People just don't know what's true, what's not, who to listen to, who not to listen to, to who's doing deep fakes and who's being as truth-oriented as they possibly can. And that presents its own set of issues. You know, in previous areas before the Internet, you had, you know, this pamphlet from this organization is going out. This newspaper is ran by this faction of the political struggle against this other newspaper.

And so everybody's reading the same newspaper on this side. Everybody's reading the same newspaper on that side. At least there's something like more coherency. In the internet age, with postmodern epistemological posture sort of being integrated into our lives at warp speed, by which I mean there's no grand narratives, there's no a single source of anything like authority or truth. It is a sort of shattered mirror of different epistemological realms that one could enter into, you know, and again, that presents its own sort of problems. but political education, high levels of organization, ingratiation of ourselves and our organizations with the masses by actually struggling alongside the masses in our own communities, right? These are the things that are going to put us in a position to better take advantage of this

unfolding and intensifying crisis period that we find ourselves living through. So that's just food for thought. That's a little, you know, end of the year reflection on where we've been, where we're going. And again, my big takeaway is things are going to get uglier. before they get better. But this process, this process of the mask falling off, this process of more and more people becoming fed the fuck up and realizing they have no route to solve any of the things they care about,

to solve any of the problems or pursue any of their goals within this broken system, that is going to continue to intensify. But that process has to play out, right? The ruling elite have to delegitimize themselves in front of more and more and more people. there's a certain threshold. I don't know what that is. It could be different for different countries, different societies at different times and places. But there's a threshold where enough people can see through the illusion, can see through the smokescreen, the facade of democracy and these two parties who have different visions about where to take the country and we're all one family. More and more people have to be able to see through that for there to be a sort of qualitative shift in the American psyche and then, you know, in the various political behaviors that. that can fall out from that. And we're not there yet. And for those of us who we've seen that mask slip many years ago, some of us we saw that mask slip in 2016. Some of us, older versions of us have seen that mask slip during the Obama era. Whatever time you came up in and got radicalized,

you've seen the mask clip. It's been off for you for a long, long time. But for most people around you, that mask is still more or less on. And that has to fall. And where we've been seeing it fall. We've been seeing regular people in our lives, regular family and friends, saying increasingly radical things, being increasingly fed up with this entire system, having their own, you know, critiques of what's going on. And, you know, that process is a long one. Again, especially for those of us who have seen that mask fall well off a long time ago, if it was like we're waiting forever. But that process has to play out. And all the various scandals and controversies and things that take up Twitter for four days.

straight like these are all just parts of this much longer process of delegitimizing these institutions and these political parties and these politicians to the masses of American people and so that process is going to continue to play out and that's why we should just be in the in the business not of picking sides you know rearranging the deck chairs or picking what cabin you want to sleep in as the Titanic goes down do I want to sleep in the blue room or the red room the Democrats or the Republicans it doesn't matter are the whole ship's going down. Everything is going to change, you know?

And so our goal is not to pick one of the sides. It is to oppose the whole thing and try to get more and more people to see what the real face of this country looks like without the masks, the mini, many, many, mini masks that it dons. All right, let's go ahead and move into the second part of this Patreon, which is an article I wanted to read.

And it's relevant for many reasons. It's relevant because the topics that it covers is very much doubt. the center of what we care about here at Rev Left, but also because we just released an episode with two members of the Black Alliance for Peace on Kwame Nakruma. And when I was trying to, actually interestingly, trying to find the picture, various pictures to put up on our Instagram at Rev Left Radio Official to promote that episode, I came across this picture with Malcolm X, what seems to be either in a car or sitting down, I can't

really tell, but Malcolm X sitting next to Kwame Nakruma. That's something that I don't think we covered in the episode. Maybe one of the guests mentioned it and moved on. But as I found that picture and I started poking around. And of course, the picture comes from the one and only Hood Communist, which is a blog that is really principled. I like it a lot. Only recently really started sort of trying to read it and get into it a little bit more.

But everything I see from it I've liked so far. So it's hoodcommunist.org. I'll link to it in the show notes. Huge shout out. I recommend if you don't already check this website out and read these articles. If you're listening to Rev. Left, you would like Hood Communists for damn sure. And the author is Ajamu Umi, who wrote the article on Hood Communists entitled The Unknown Relationship Between Kwame Nekrumah and Malcolm X.

And the picture that I used is right here. Let me actually read the thing. It says Malcolm X and Kwame Nekrumah at the Harlem Rally honoring Nekrumah in July 1958. So wow, very cool. And that's a picture of, yeah, Malcolm X sitting right next, Tuna Krumum, both of them are smiling, looking towards the camera. Fascinating picture. So that's the picture I found, and this is the article it belongs to,

and this is the only place I've seen it. So I don't know how he got this picture, or how they got this picture, but they did. And I don't know if Hood Communists is one person or multiple people. That's something I'm still kind of confused about. They have different, I assume they have different, like, authors that write. Yeah, they definitely have a bunch of different. authors that, uh, that write for this blog. So, um, just shout out to everybody who writes for

it, whoever started it, hoodcommunist.org, definitely go check it out. But let's go ahead and read this article. And again, this is a nice little compliment to our episode we just dropped on Kwame Nakrumah. So I figure that if you listen to that episode, you'll find this extra interesting. All right. To the article. February 21st, 2021 marked the 56th commemoration of the assassination of al-Haj Malik El Shabazz, a.k.a. Malcolm X. in Harlem, New York. The 24th marked the 50th commemoration of the CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew Kwaume Nakrumah's democratically elected government in Ghana. The close historical proximity of the downfall of these pan-African giants is not coincidental, although the history of the relationship between these two men is largely

ignored and or unknown. And as an aside, absolutely. I was, obviously, they're both in the same realm of black liberation, of Pan-Africanism, etc. But I had no idea that they actually had a real-life meeting. So that's very cool. Back to the text. March 6, 1957, marked the celebration of Ghana becoming the first colonized country in Africa to claim its independence from Europe. During his Independence Day speech, Nekrumah made it abundantly clear that Ghana's independence

was nothing more than a paper declaration without the independence of the entire African continent. From that day forward, a significant focus on Nekrumas Convention People's Party was making Ghana the base of the African Revolution. Liberation forces from all over the continent set up bases in Ghana and were provided resources to train and prepare for their liberation work. Since Nekrumah's vision was a pan-African one, meaning he understood that all people of African descent are Africans and belong to the African nation, an important aspect of this period included inviting Africans from all over the world to consider. come to Ghana to help in establishing it as the revolutionary pan-African base. Many people he did this call. W.E.B. Du Bois and his wife Shirley Graham De Bois moved to Ghana.

Trumpeteer Louis Armstrong came. Academic Julian Mayfield moved there. Poet Maya Angelou responded to the call. Revolutionary organizer George Padmore, who remains probably the most unknown and significant contributor to African forward progress in the 20th century, came to Ghana and became an advisor to Nekrumah's government. Ghana became the shining star for the hopes of Africans everywhere, and Nekrumah became an inspiration and symbol of a greater future for African people. In July 1958, Nekrauma came to the United States,

and a major rally was organized in Harlem to receive him. Malcolm X was invited to participate in that rally, and it was there that he was introduced to Kwaimea Kruma. According to Nekruma's letters published in 1990, in the book The Conarchy years, Nekrumah and Malcolm developed a relationship that they maintained until Malcolm's assassination in 1965. Although he didn't provide much detail,

according to Nekruma's letters, the two of them stayed in contact during this period with Nekrumah advising Malcolm on an analysis of evolving political events. Serious study of Malcolm's legacy reveals that he had a pension for building relationships with revolutionary leaders and activists whose radical politics landed far outside the realm,

of the theology of the nation of Islam. Another example of this was Malcolm's invitation to meet Fidel Castro during the Cuban leaders visit to Harlem in 1960. As an aside, that picture of Malcolm X and Fidel Castro sort of smiling up at the camera, sitting on like a hotel room bed together with like little notes that they're taking is the banner and has been the banner

on our Patreon since we started. And I just always love that picture. I love that they're both smiling. The internationalism that it represents, the solidarity that it represents Malcolm X and Fidel Castro coming together and hanging out. It was just a beautiful picture, and a picture says a thousand words in that picture of Fidel Castro and Malcolm X. Like this picture of Malcolm X and Nakruma, they say way more than the picture itself entails for sure. It gestures towards a whole world of political liberation struggles and their internationalist solidarity. It's a beautiful thing. back to the text.

As he did with Nekrumah, Malcolm begged Elijah Muhammad for permission to meet both men. Although Muhammad was not overly enthusiastic about these meetings, Malcolm was able to negotiate space to make these connections. These political ambitions that Malcolm possessed speak to his evolving political consciousness and his growing radical beliefs, which really explain his paths towards leaving the nation of Islam much better than the commonly held narrative that he left because of Muhammad's fathering of several changes. children with secretaries within the nation. Malcolm was inspired by the radical pan-Africanist ideals of Kwame Nakruma, and according to Nakruma, they spoke about those ideals in that period between 1958 and 1964. So as an aside, they make a really good point here. They say that the political ambitions that Malcolm possessed speak to his ever-evolving political consciousness and

his growing radical beliefs, which are the main causal explanation for his leaving the nation of Islam, of which Muhammad's hypocrisy behind the scenes, of course, fueled that break. But all too often, I think this evolving political consciousness of Malcolm X is sort of not addressed in the normal narratives and tellings of the story, and that, you know, his disgust with Muhammad's, you know, false piety and seeming hypocrisy behind the scenes were the thing that drove Malcolm. And I think that's interesting because it shows Malcolm as this incredibly dignified principled, consistent person who can't

countenance such immoral behavior right, hypocritical behavior because he was so genuine, so sincere that that framing of the story does say something important about Malcolm. But I do think Malcolm was outgrowing the nation of Islam ideologically

and these political connections with figures like Fidel Castro, with figures like Kwame Nakruma, I think were a huge part in the expansion of his political consciousness and that's one of the tragedies of his murder

is that we didn't get to see where he was going to go with it and the similar thing with MLK MLK always had a sort of critique of militarism and an economic egalitarian vision for what the country could be but towards the end of his life

he would increasingly weave that stuff into his narratives right and so he became for white America and the white ruling elite, not just a figure of curiosity and perhaps amusement or disdain from white America, but possibly a real threat,

especially when you start talking about the poor people's march on Washington, a multiracial working class, you know, sort of organization meant to put pressure on the political system. He's talking about democratic socialism explicitly. Another one of those what-ifs,

you know? Of course, motherfuckers like Kissinger, and I'm sure fucking Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and Nixon, they all live, super, they live long, long lives, right? Evilist motherfuckers on the planet, responsible for killing, who knows how many people,

they all live super long lives, and all the heroes of history are cut short. Thomas Sankara, Rosa Luxembourg, Che Guevara, right, Malcolm X, MLK, we can go down the line. Taken from us too soon. What if they got the Kissinger lifespan? What if they all got 100 fucking years on this planet? You know, it's, it's, it's one of the,

the bitterest tragedies of them being taken from us is all the stuff that they still had to offer us, being robbed from us by people who in every case, you know, don't deserve to stand in their shadow. So, but yeah, that's a great point. Back to the text. After Malcolm broke with the nation of Islam, he made his much publicized trip to Africa. Much has been written and screened about his trip to the Middle East and his Muslim Haj to Mecca. The story of his letter detailing his evolution in his understanding of Islam has been repeated significantly for the last 50 years. But not as much has been discussed about his trips to Africa. Spike Lee's unfortunate 1992 film Malcolm X barely dealt with Malcolm's travels to Africa. This is interesting because between

Nekrumah's letters, FBI and CIA files made public, and Malcolm's own diary, there is a lot to decipher about Malcolm's experiences in Africa in general, and Ghana in particular. By the time Malcolm made it to Ghana in 1964, his work to expose the racist hypocrisy of the United States government was receiving significant press around the world. Nekrumah forced to balance a government system that possessed a strong grassroots desire for independence and liberation while being totally dependent upon the skills and resources of Britain and the U.S. to function was torn between negotiating with the Johnson administration for much-needed material support and making a public connection with Malcolm.

So while Malcolm was provided all the respect of a visiting diplomat in Ghana, there was no initial invite or promise of a meeting with Nakruma. It should be noted that while Malcolm was in Ghana, the American government made it clear to Nakrumas administration that they were very displeased at the favorable treatment Malcolm was receiving in Ghana, and they would be very upset were Nakruma to, quote unquote, disrespect them by giving Malcolm any type of meeting or other official recognition. Eventually, it was Mrs. De Bois, who at that time was the National Director of Ghanaian Television, who urged Nekrumah to ignore the threats of the U.S. and British governments and do the right thing. Have a meeting with Brother Malcolm. So Nekrumah took the still extremely unusual step of agreeing as a president to have a meeting with a visiting dissident from another country, the most powerful country on the planet. The meeting took place.

Malcolm, even in his diary, never revealed much about what was discussed. There was another meeting when Malcolm returned to Ghana months later, and Malcolm still wrote little about what took place. He did make note in his diary of how much of an issue it was for Nekrumah and Sikau-Ture in Guinea to decide to meet with him. In fact, he talks about how when eating dinner at the Villa Sali in Konarki with Sacco-Turei, Saco, Saco-Turay, sorry. Yeah.

He was able to, I'm terrible at names. I'm sorry, I'm terrible at most things. He was able to ask the president of Guinea about the pressures involved in inviting him there. Okay, so he goes with the president of Guinea, a revolutionary associate of Nekrumah, and obviously Ghana and Guinea had very close relations, which you can hear about in that broader conversation that we had. And Malcolm is interested about, you know, what sort of pressures did you face from the government by inviting me here? You know, what was the situation in which I was allowed to come here? Because Malcolm, of course, knew that the U.S. is not going to be happy about any of this. but back to the text. Malcolm wrote that Ture, who he said was constantly adding food to Malcolm's plate while he talked to him, told him that, quote, African people need dignity more than money, end quote. Malcolm inferred that he took Ture's statement to mean that true African revolutionaries like Ture and Nekrumah were more concerned about principle than consequences. Despite never revealing much about their meetings, Malcolm was clearly impressed with what he experienced with Nekrumah, although his autobiography is full of references to his earlier association with Elijah Muhammad

and his 1964 meetings with Prince Faisal in Saudi Arabia and Gamal Abdul Nassir in Egypt, it was his meeting with Nekrumah that Malcolm calls, quote, the highest honor of my life. It was also Ghana that Malcolm labeled the, quote, fountainhead of Pan-Africanism. So as an aside, that's incredibly high praise. Malcolm says that it's the highest honor of his life

to meet with Nekrumah and called Ghana the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism. Incredibly high praise from anybody, but coming from Malcolm X, holy shit. Back to the text. It's no mystery that Malcolm's speeches, even before he left the nation of Islam, started sounding more and more like that of a revolutionary pan-Africanist. His famous chickens coming home to roost statement, days after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, is a clear example of this. Malcolm skillfully used the analogy of Kennedy's support for the illegal destabilization

and overthrow of the La Mumba government in the Congo and the subsequent murder of La Mumba as a case of the violence Kennedy supported coming back around to hit him. As an aside, we need to also do an episode on Patrice Lamumba. Absolutely. One of the martyrs of the cause of Pan-Africanism,

socialism, anti-imperialism, etc. And the way that he was taken out is just another, again, chapter of tragedy in the long book of tragedy of the best humans that humanity has produced being, you know, killed before their time by some of the worst. He's another example of exactly that. But, you know, Malcolm's statement, chickens coming home to roost, is a statement I think a lot about. Remember Reverend Wright after 9-11 got Obama in a lot of trouble because Reverend Wright was Obama's like pastor at his church

in Chicago and Obama's running for the government. And Jeremiah Wright correctly said, You know, this, the 9-11 was the chickens coming home to roost, you know, using the, the Malcolm X phrase that got him in so much trouble when he said that same shit about JFK getting assassinated, which is, which is fascinating. And if JFK was taken out by the CIA, that chicken's coming home to roost statement is even more interesting, right? Even more dynamic, if that's the case. It's neither here nor there. But yeah, that chicken's coming home to Roos statement, you know, after JFK was assassinated, after 9-11 attack. And to this day,

you don't think the chickens are going to come home to roost for Israel in the United States? Of course they are. They already are in some regards. But in these next few years, we're going to see more and more and more of it. And they're really becoming rogue nations. The U.S. has so much money, so much power, so much geopolitical clout that is hard for it ever to be a rogue nation.

When it goes rogue, it's just something that the whole rest of the world, that's just fucking roll their eyes and accept, because what the fuck are going to do? But with every version of that, they lose more and more and more of their cachet amongst people as their moment of unipolarity starts to collapse. More people are looking to different alliances. You have countries in the global south looking increasingly to China to get into trade deals with and to finance infrastructure projects with, etc. And the U.S. going to the mat for Israel and the U.S. going to such extent in the U.S.

proxy war against Russia is really, again, this revealing process to people around the world. Now, people in the global South have always known that the United States of America is one big son of a bitch, that it's an evil death machine, especially those people that live in countries that are on the wrong side of American aggression. But, you know, with media control and with countries needing to be nice to the U.S., because of its unipolarity status, there's enough people around the world that, you know, give credence to the United States and I think that that period of time

through these mini crises the war on terror and the reaction to 9-11 of course being the beginning of it and then but then all the stuff sense including what's happening in Israel up to this very moment is again part of this long process of the U.S. as a whole

its mask falling and the whole world seeing it for what it really is and those chickens are going to come home to roost in one way you can't build a society on the genocide of 50 to 100 million indigenous people built by millions of slaves kidnapped from Africa and brought over here in the chattel slave trade maintained to this day by brutal imperialism as i speak american bombs are dropping on the heads of innocent human beings literally as i speak i don't even have to check that because

i just know it's true um you know what israel is doing in gaza right now is with the u.s backing u.s support u.s. weapons of u.s. said not anymore we know if u.s. really meant no more it would stop this instant. Every fucking second that this war goes on is because the U.S. is allowing it to go on. So all of, you can talk about it in terms of karma, all of that karma,

the United States. You don't think that that shit's coming home to roost? It's coming home to roost eventually. And it's going to be fucking ugly. And so, yeah, that kind of gives me, you know, I'm one of the good ones, right? We're one of the good Americans. We've been saying this shit too. We agree with

you the rest of the world. This fucking sucks. please form an international coalition. Come in, topple our government, replace it. We will be happy about it. But yeah, those chickens are definitely coming home to roost for sure. And all you can do is laugh to stop yourself from crying because we are as Americans trapped in the belly of this beast. And when those chickens finally come home to roost in their fullest way,

it's going to impact every single one of us. Back to the text. Patrice Lumumba was one of those youthful liberation movement persons who took up base in Ghana, heating Nekrumas calm. Lamumba considered himself a student of Nkrumah, and he took counsel from Nekrumah during the crisis in the Congo in 1960. If Malcolm and Nekrumah maintained a relationship, doesn't it seem logical that Malcolm's words on December 1, 1963, about Kennedy, words that many people credit with expediting the break between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad, were influenced by the radical

pan-African analysis of Kwame Nekrumah? The book entitled The Final Speech, The Final Speech, of Malcolm X, which represents chronologically the very last speeches Malcolm made in the two weeks leading up to his assassination, all have a decided focus on Africa and its role in the liberation of people of African descent everywhere. This reality, coupled with the fact Malcolm decided to name his new organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, after the Organization of African Unity, that Nekrumah had helped found the year before, say more about how much Malcolm was being influenced my Nekrumas politics, than anything Malcolm or Nekrumah needed to say about their relationship themselves. For his part, Nekrumah wasn't revealing much either, but he did speak to one chilling aspect of their relationship in his letter to Julia Wright, the daughter of Arthur Richard Wright. In that letter, written a couple years after Malcolm's assassination

and the overthrow of his government in Ghana, Nekrumah, writing from the Guinea conicry, tells Ms. Wright that his intelligence officers in Ghana had alerted him during the time Malcolm was in Ghana that they had intercepted reliable information that Malcolm would be assassinated once he returned to the U.S. Nekhruma writes that he passed this information

along to Malcolm during one of their meetings and that Malcolm responded, as he always does, with dignity and resignation to the news. Now that right there is fascinating. I had never known that. So yeah, so Nekrumah basically admits that he had gotten, he had interstate, accepted information from the US that Malcolm was slated to be assassinated once he returned to the

US. And that opens the question of who was behind the killing. And there's that documentary that we talked about. I think we did a guerrilla history episode on it or a Ravel-Left episode on it. I forget. But when that documentary came out talking about, you know, who was behind the assassination of Malcolm X and how these innocent people were framed for it. And the normal story is that the nation of Islam killed him. And of course, the shooters were almost certainly from the nation of Islam, but there's a whole undercurrent of FBI involvement and of course CIA involvement when it comes to

Malcolm going to other countries or meeting people like Fidel Castro and Harlem. Whole undercurrent where they're trying to they're noticing these dynamics, they're trying to assist them, they're seeing their interest dovetailing with the interest of this faction with the nation of Islam that wants

to see Malcolm S go down. So the story that he was assassinated by the nation of Islam period and of discussion, I think is an overly simplified story that does not show enough light on the role that the FBI in particular but the FBI and CIA and the American government writ large

had in that assassination and all the devilish ass shit that they did leading up to his assassination. So that's fascinating but of course when I think of Malcolm X you think of the word and I've said it a million times dignity, how dignified he was

you know how sincere, how genuine how authentic, how self-composed, how centered within himself he was, is, it remains a sort of role model, even just that part of him. Everything else aside, even just that part of him, that dignified masculinity that he possessed, continues to be an inspiration for me as, you know, as a man, as a human being, as a father, etc. So, you know, Malcolm knew he was going to die in a very similar way that other people, you know, Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton, they all had, and I've said it before, these intimations that their time was coming up. They were just too effective, too much mass support, too charismatic. The United States government simply could not allow these people to continue to exist, and they made sure that they didn't.

But Malcolm in particular, you know, imagine walking around. And he had kids and shit, right? His house was fucking firebombed. And one of the fire, one of the fucking explosives went into his kids' fucking room. He had multiple children, little babies. They were ready to kill his whole family. You know? And so imagine walking around knowing you're a dead man.

Imagine at any moment when I give this speech, when I turn this corner, when I get out of this car, I have not only shooters from the nation of Islam on me, I have the entire American government that would love nothing more than for me to, to die and he knows that his time is limited and he's just as he's evolving

as his politics are expanding as he's still putting in the work this tireless tireless fighter for freedom and for his people

he knew that the end was near and that psychological state even for the most dignified the most well put together

the most comfortable in their own skin human being right the most cool calm and collected person you can

imagine knowing you're walking dead man and you have a family that has to be a sort of psychological torture that is sort of unfathomable to people who've never had to experience that and I can't imagine

what he was going through internally in those last weeks where he knew that his time was incredibly limited and then yeah when he goes to Ghana and gets information like this it just confirms everything he already suspects you know that and so then he goes back to America

knowing the crewman just said hey our government intercepted information that you're going to be assassinated once you return and then you get back on that plane and fly back fucking home. It's surreal. Back to the text. We have a little bit here left to go. Not much. Nekrumas' reason for revealing

this to Mrs. Wright was that he wanted Malcolm to stay in Ghana and help to build the work Nekrumah was engaging in. Work we now know consisted of his recognition that the Organization of African Unity, now known as the African Union, was a top-down organization,

organization that would forever be controlled by neocolonialism and imperialism. Once Nekrumah was in Conakry, he saw that what was needed was a grassroots revolutionary pan-African formation, which he calls for in his 1968 work, the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare. That grassroots formation is the All-African Committee for Political Coordination, which consists of all the on-the-ground pan-African liberation parties and movements. Once consolidated, this formation would make up the all-African people's revolutionary party. Clearly, Nekrumah wanted Malcolm to participate in this work. Three years after Malcolm was murdered, another African leader who made a name for himself

engaging in militant struggle against the racist system in the United States would come to Africa and meet with Nekrumah. That man was the young Stokely Carmichael, who, unlike Malcolm, would decide to stay and become Nekrumah's political secretary in Guinea. This young man would later change his name. to Kwame Tureh, to honor Nekrumah and Seikau-Turay, and he would spend the last 30 years of his life working to bring Nekrumas vision of the All-African Committee for Political Coordination into existence.

So I didn't know that Kwame Ture literally named himself after Nekra and from Ghana and Ture from Guinea. That's absolutely fascinating. So yeah, Stokely Carmichael changed his name to Kwa-Mai-Turie because of his interactions in Ghana and Guinea. It's a beautiful thing. Back to the text. In a telling revelation,

Nekrumah revealed some of his early frustration with the immaturity of the young Carmichael and possibly the depths of the discussions and intentions he had with Malcolm when he expressed in one letter that, quote, Stokely talks too much. He's not nearly as mature as Malcolm was, end quote. There is enough evidence available today to confirm that Nekrumah wanted Malcolm

to move beyond the bickering with Elijah Muhammad so he could work directly with him to build pan-African capacity. What they actually discussed, plan, agreed upon, we may never know. But one thing is clear, they were working together, at least on some level. On this 56th commemoration of Malcolm's assassination, we are secure in the knowledge that Malcolm was no more interested in returning to the nation of Islam than a disillusioned lover would be in returning to a relationship where they had been wronged. He may have been unsure and without complete confidence in what he could do,

but from an ideological perspective, Malcolm had clearly moved on. And given more time and space, without the intense harassment that was instigated by the U.S. government, Malcolm probably would have moved to a higher level of revolutionary pan-African work with a clear emphasis on the unity of Africa under scientific socialism. And with this week being the 56th commemoration of the overthrow of Nekrumas government in Ghana by reactionary neo-colonialist thugs, we know that Nekrumah learned from the events of the Congo in 1960s, 61 and the overthrow of his own government, that neocolonialism is the biggest threat to African unity.

He knew that imperialism can only be destroyed by the masses of African people. His work to produce an analysis that captured that was probably his greatest contribution to our forward struggle in progress. Malcolm and Nekrumah played their part and made their contributions. This week, I'm thinking about what we can do to build on the legacy that they gave us. again that was from Ajumaumi on hoodcommunist.org and the title of the article

is the unknown relationship between Kwame Nakrumah and Malcolm X. It was written in February of 2021 so of course it was a couple years ago that's the 56 commemoration, etc. I don't want people to get confused about those anniversaries but yeah, wonderful,

wonderful article, fascinating insights, stuff that I did not know and I'm obviously been a longtime huge fan of Malcolm X in particular read his autobiography, did episodes on Rev Left, watch all the documentaries, continues to inspire me to this day. But I did not know the depth of the relationship between Kwame and Malcolm

and what Kwame Nakruma's vision for Malcolm X was. And the dark fact that he had to tell him that, you know, he was slated for murder upon his return to the U.S., which ultimately turned out to be correct. Yeah, devastating stuff. But I think that's going to be it for today. A quick note on the Fantasy Reve Left Fantasy Football League going well. We're in the championship.

Instead of covering it all of it right now, I'm just going to wait for this week or two to play out. And then we'll let people know for the few people who are interested in who won that league. And then next year, I would like to continue to expand this out. I know it's a silly thing, but it's fun. It's one of the ways I can engage with followers and listeners and do something fun with people who support the show. And I do NBA Fantasy as well, which is also. so very fun. So next year, maybe we can create like a little pot, not a lot, but everybody throws in a little bit of money and, you know, winner takes all sort of things so that there's a

little bit more investment in trying to win and just see where this goes, because it's just a kind of a fun thing to do. All right. But with that said, we have some good stuff coming up on Rev. Left very soon. Another installment of our DeBois series with the one and only Joy James coming soon by the time this comes out. It'll come out today. So, yeah, that will come out. come out sometime this next week. Really interesting stuff coming from guerrilla history. Me, Adnan, and Henry got to write the foreword for a book on Palestine being released by Iskra Books.

So it's the first foreword I've ever written. I've written a blurb on the back of a book before. Very cool. I've been sampled in a hip-hop song. Very cool. But to be able to check off, you know, doing a foreword to a book specifically on Palestinian liberation is really humbling. and a really beautiful opportunity.

And, of course, there'll be other forwarders as well. It's not just us in the forward. But it'll be cool. And it'll be cool to have a book on my shelf that has, you know, us and our work in the forward. So that's cool. And then, of course, you know, me and Allison are back at it again. Why we took a little, little bit of a break, because we're both very busy this last fall. We do plan on getting back to reading texts.

And I think our next text is going to be the 18th Brumair of Louis Ngui, Napoleon by Carl Marks. So we're going to get back to some, you know, old school Carl Marks, direct first resource. What the fuck am I thinking of? Primary source. There you go. Jesus Christ, Brett. The primary source, reading Carl Marx on the 18th Brumere, it would be fascinating.

That movie on Napoleon came out. We did the whole episode of Napoleon. And so, you know, this is like what Napoleon's fucking nephew or some shit. taking power in France and uh this is where that famous line of marks you know first his tragedy then it's farce he was talking about napoleon and then the the later napoleon you know his nephew or whatever trying to do the old napoleon thing without all the napoleon vigor and charisma so i don't know i've never read that book the 18th premier excited to read it and of course with the absolutely brilliant alice and escalante to help us walk through that text as well so some things to look forward to

I'm going to continue to put in work for all the people that support these shows. It really means a lot to me. And let me just, let me cover one more thing. I have a couple more minutes here. I wasn't prepared to do this. I should have probably brought in more paperwork, but I don't think people really care that much. It was just something I saw quickly on a subreddit. I've never had a Reddit account or anything like that.

But, you know, these subreddits pop up and there's a Rev. Left subreddit. And somebody kind of posted about the amount of money we make on Patreon. And there is a question, basically, you know, this person is just saying, like, is this cool that, you know, the Patreon says he's making $10,000 a month, $10,000 a month? That's crazy. Like, you know, he's basically rich. Is this what, you know, communist influencers or podcasters or whatever should be making? And I really loved the response in the comments because the comments were people that actually listen to the show that have heard me talk about this before, broke it down and explained to this person, he makes nowhere near that. so just to let people know very quickly this is something that is a little weird to talk about but i do think it's important i think it's worth mentioning and if people have questions or confusions about it i want to clear it up because i've never made anywhere close to 10,000 in a month in my entire motherfucking life okay i've never known that sort of money i've never

touched that sort of bag okay i've never even fucking come close so the first thing to say is whatever you see on Patreon it's a little under 10,000 I think it's 9,000 something okay first of all you got to think Patreon takes its huge chunk every month I don't exactly know you can look it up it's a significant amount of money

that Patreon takes from it's a I believe it's a percentage so the more money you make the more Patreon takes this is not crazy it's to be expected then you got to think I split everything 50 50 with producer Dave we did this since the very beginning we started Rev. Left without a thought in the world that this thing could make a single penny

and were completely and utterly surprised by the fact that it became successful eventually. And if people, longtime listeners will remember, I took a big gamble with Rev. Left. I, after it had some steam, but it only had like a couple hundred dollars on Patreon. It was not nothing that was indicative of the fact that I could make a living off this. I took out, perhaps recklessly, a $10,000 loan with 3% interest. So I had to pay back $13,000. I took it out to quit my job and pursue Rev Left full time. So I started the all of Rev Left with that $13,000 debt.

I was able through the Patreon and through the amazing contribution and support of the listeners to over the next year or two, pay off that loan and come back to normal. So I was already starting in debt, but whatever, we got that paid off. Patreon takes this cut. Uncle Sam needs to give money to Israel and Ukraine. So, of course, they take their cut. I paid $16,000 in taxes. $16,000 in taxes last year. That was because the taxes were fucked.

I didn't know how to do this shit. Being self-employed, I didn't know it fucks you over that hard. You're not taking Social Security and Medicaid taxes out every single paycheck. There's also a self-employment tax on top of everything. Completely took me off guard. Fucked my whole shit up financially for like a fucking year. I desperately tried to pay off the 16K. Even right now as we speak,

from the next round of taxes. I'm still owing $3,000. We've got an extension. We're trying to pay that off. Not saying that for sympathy, just saying, these are my financial realities. I'm not living high on the hog.

So you have $9,000, $5,000. Patreon takes this cut. Uncle Sam takes this cut. We split what's left 50-50. And so that gives me, roughly, I believe, and that's why I said I should have brought in paperwork just to confirm this.

But I believe my income last year was $40,000. $47,000. Now, $47,000 is beautiful that I can make that much money. And of course, the exact same for Dave and his family, right? That I can make that much money doing what I love and trying to educate people, move people to the political left. It's absolutely fascinating. I'm deeply grateful. It could not be happier for them. But I don't have a savings account. I live in a small house. I have three kids. Our rent is $1,200 a month. We have one nice car that we lease because we want a safe car for our kids. It's a Subaru Outback.

And then I have an old beat-up ass rusty, dusty, musty truck that I take fishing, hiking, polar plunging. And I just use it to get around. Maybe I come to Dave's and back, right? So I got three kids. Make $47,000 a year. You know, all the stuff that comes with it, inflation, paying for all your kids' stuff. Every single month, we are out of money.

Every single month, with perhaps one month or two months' exception, we have to use the credit card to get through the month, and then we get that next paycheck. We pay off whatever we had to dip into in the credit card to buy groceries and gas, and then we try to spread the rest of that paycheck out, right? We live in a very humble-ass way. Now, my wife has a seasonal job. So during the summer when she works, she's a part-time job because, you know, we have three kids, and it means a lot for us not to have to take them, and we can't afford it anyway,

to a daycare and have somebody else raise our kids. I know for a lot of working parents, unfortunately, your only fucking option. We have this thing where we tighten our belts just enough. We can raise our own kids. You know, we can stay at home with our kids. And it's a beautiful thing that I'm very grateful for. When my daughter was born, I was 19, I was not staying home with my kid, okay? We had family that we relied on, but we worked every single day. And only with my most recent son and my kids are older, my other two kids are older, do I get to stay home and be with them, which is a fucking an absolute dream? Is it incredibly challenging and hard in ways I can never even

express in words, of course, you know, literally in the trenches. But I'm deeply grateful for that because that's going to pay dividends in their lifelong memories of me. Dad was at home with us. Dad was changing diapers. Dad was feeding us. Dad was joking around with us every day. You know, even my own dad. He was gone for most of my childhood. He worked 12-hour days when I live with him. And then after, you know, he was divorced. He went to prison for a period of time. Didn't see him for almost a year when he was in prison. And then he would move different states, often fleeing charges and local police departments. He moved around the country.

So there was many years in my life where I saw my dad once or twice a year for a few weeks, right? There's times in my life where I lived with my dad for a while. But, you know, that inconsistency was always a huge thing. And then now that my dad is gone, it hurts a little more, that we didn't get more time with him, you know? And I never wanted to leave my kids in that position. So I'm very glad that I get to do that.

But yeah, $47,000 is my income. My wife's part-time seasonal gig helps us have a little bit of breathing room, not enough to start a savings account or anything, but just enough not to have to go into credit card debt at the end of every month, right, to make ends meet, to buy that last grocery hall, to fill that tank up one more time before our next paycheck comes in, gives us a little breathing room. But what we live financially from a financial perspective is the very,

very normal working class life, perhaps lower working class life. I mean, with my wife's income and my income combined, we're talking $50, $55,000 a year, which is by no means living high on the hog. So if you come across that idea, you come across the post like that, or even you're just curious,

you look it up on Patreon, $10,000, and you don't know any of these other details, you might think Brett Braxin, he puts $10K in his pocket every month, damn that dude must be living he must have nice ass cars he must be living in a big ass house he's bawling out absolutely absolutely not absolutely not is it the most money i my broke ass is ever made in my life 47,000 you know that's chump change for real ballers it's the most i've ever made in my life you know my average income before that we're talking like 30k a year um for my

average income i'm you know like i said i've never touched big money like that and uh the the one year where I thought, where I actually, with Rev left money during COVID, I actually was like, oh shit, I'm bringing in, I'm bringing in a lot more money than I ever have before, right? And so I did start to be able to build up, like, I had like $1,000 in my savings account. And, you know, I could buy a new fishing pole. And I was like, holy shit, like we're, this is actually, I can get used to this. This is like comfy. Oh, Brett, you didn't think you have taxes to pay.

So, you know, so, you know, before taxes, This shit goes up, and I lived a whole year of my life thinking that taxes don't exist, which was incredibly fucking stupid of me, and I paid severely for it because that next year, boy, did they hit my ass with an IRS bill, $16,000, $0 in the bank. And again, that was during COVID, that year of, like, maybe I can live comfortably for the first time of my life. Absolutely not, sir. Well, you can for a year, but we're going to take that shit back.

So how the fuck? If you don't have money, you know, if you're like me, how do you come up with 16K to pay the fucking IRS it was fucking horrific I had to sell you know

this is my whole life I've had to do shit like this but you know when you have to sell stuff to pay bills like I've accrued a huge library of books and during that period of trying to pay back our taxes I sold probably half

if not more of my personal library to a local bookstore here in Omaha to try to get some money in we always are trying to find stuff in the house to sell when push comes to shove you've all been through it you know my younger years i remember selling a really nice guitar i had uh to make ends meet um selling golf clubs uh to make ends meet just you know just fucking liquidating shit in your house and trying to find ways to to make ends meet

so all that is to say on one hand and i'm telling you guys this because you're the patrons you're the people that actually pay me and if any of you came across that and you start thinking like damn brett's racking in what's 10 times 12 120 000 dollars a year, Brett makes $100, I don't want you to think that, because it's just not true. And it would be insane if people thought I was living this crazy ass baller life when I'm not. So you should, I believe I owe it to you as the people who actually pay me to do this stuff, which I deeply appreciate, an explanation for that stuff. And I think I've made that articulation before, but obviously not everybody listens to every

episode. So just to say, it's split between two people. David has a wife who works a seasonal job and he has two children. I have a wife who works a seasonal job. We have three kids. Uncle Sam, Patreon, they all take their cut. And at the end of the day, we make a humble, comfortable living. Not one that is abundance, certainly not living above our means in any respect. You know, there's like a $20 shirt in my Amazon fucking thing that I can't buy because it's just a, it's a flagrant waste of money that we can't spend right now. You know, it would be a silly financially dumb thing to do to spend that 25 bucks or whatever on that new shirt that

I want. So these are the sort of financial calculations that I deal with. Again, amazing that I can do this. I don't have to go clock into a job. You guys are basically my bosses. You guys could pull the rug out from underneath me at any time. You guys can decide that I'm no longer worthy of support. But I don't have to go into a place. I don't have to clock in. I get to spend time with my fucking kids during their formative years. And I live comfortable, right? I'm not next homeless, you know, but I'm also not the sort of guy who has a savings account, right? So it's, it's that thin line between the two. But I, again, I'm deeply grateful. I would do this. I don't care about money and wealth, but that makes it even shittier to think that some people out there

are thinking I'm raking in 120k a year. Like, you know, because I don't value that. I'm always been perpetually surprised that I've been able to build this into what it is and to make a living off of it, but I don't want people thinking that I'm, I'm bawling out on your guys's Patreon money. I'm really not. Not even fucking close. Shit is stressful, like it is for all of you, especially when you take into consider inflation and especially when you take into consideration that I, the brilliant person that I am and the life shaker and mover that I am, have $65,000 in student debt, which Biden just turned back on. So because of my low, relatively low income to child ratio, having three kids and only

making $47,000 a year, my payments right now to stay in good standing are zero. But the interest continues to accrue. So, you know, I can pay zero and be like, I have kids and shit. I don't make a fuck ton of money. Okay, you don't have to pay anything. But that number is always going up. And that fucking sucks. And it's scary and it's always in the back of my head. And it's like the big fucking financial albatross around me and my family's neck. And so, you know, with inflation and with that level of debt, the fact that we're never going to be able in any reasonable, foreseeable future to afford a home, you know, I'm just living a normal ass fucking American life,

which is a life of quiet desperation where you make it, you make it. You're not homeless. You have family will help you out if worst case comes to worst case. But you're not living large. You're struggling. And there's a lot of you probably listening. who work regular jobs who make a lot more than me

who make a lot, lot, lot more than me and are very comfortable and can afford to have a savings account and don't need to depend on credit cards to get by and there's also some people who make as much as me but maybe don't have kids. One of the blessings I have is that I do live in fucking Omaha, Nebraska

so it's not like I'm living in L.A. or Seattle or Austin, Texas, or New York City and trying to afford rent there. So the fact that my rent is only $1,200, or a little bit more than $1,200, that's awesome. That's definitely, it definitely helps. But still, having three kids in and of itself is tough, having tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, dealing with basic inflation.

You know, basic inflation sucks, but think about with three kids every single time you go to the grocery store, you're getting, if you just are you and a partner, triple the amount of food you get every grocery trip. And you're coming close to what it takes to feed. people you know um so that inflation which might you know bump your grocery bill up 40 which is certainly annoying might bump mine up 200 um which is you know fucking catastrophic in some instances so whatever it's a little weird i don't like talking about money um it's always an awkward thing but you are the patrons you people do support what i do here

deeply grateful for it um so many benefits not complaining not asking for anybody's sympathy but I'm just correcting the record and one of the people in the comments that got a lot of upvotes was very, very on point and must have heard my previous version of this speech and set the record straight

a lot of people came in to confirm it and even the person who made the original post I believe responded to that explanation and saying oh okay I didn't know and then there's the other argument of like oh why is only the left to be on the left and make any sort of money That's the only political arena.

That's the only area of interest where people really get uppity about it. And it's like, you know, it's sort of like this self-defeating thing where anytime somebody on the left even sniffs at the prospect of having some success or some financial comfort on the back of their political work, it is, you know, to some people and sometimes it's anathema. It's inherently a black mark against you that you've made anything at all. And that is sort of unfair. I'm not, now maybe when we're talking Hassan Piker money, you know, we can have a debate. But $47,000 to do this stuff is, it's a beautiful thing, but by no means am I living high on the hog. And there is a sense in which sometimes on the left, but it's because of where our values come from, that this stuff becomes more prickly than it does in almost any other arena, right? I see people fucking TikTok influencers or Instagram clout chasers, you know, fucking people.

People like, and this gets really obscure, but like fucking neon and, you know, all these, like these, this, what's his name, Doherty? This weird little fucking prepubescent looking guy who goes around with these huge bodyguards and tries to fuck with regular people. Like doing dog shit, contributing nothing to society, educating nobody, inspiring nobody, raking in millions of millions of dollars. And it's like, oh, Brett on Rev. Left makes $47,000 in a year. I'm talking about Kwame Nakruman, Malcolm X. Should he be guillotined? And so, you know, we should have some balance here, right? Some proportionality to it. But again, I am blessed. I never deny that. Incredibly grateful. And I've always said that my role in life, my goals in life do not have anything to do with wealth

or money. All I ask is for a basic level of comfort and stability for my family and that I can find some meaning in my work, something that is meaningful and reward. because when I don't have that, it can get hard to maintain my mental health. And that's true for a lot of people. And we all have to cope with it in our own ways. But yes, I'm incredibly grateful, incredibly blessed. And thank you so much to everybody who continues to support us.

I think coming up, what year are we coming up? And are we coming up on year seven of Rev. Left? We started in early, early 2017, January, February, 2017. So that's 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, going into 24. So this February will be seven years that I've been coming to this microphone and doing these episodes. And it's a whirlwind. When we started off, we never expected us to have even more than 100 listeners.

It was unfathomable to us that we could make a penny off any of this. And so I am in a constant state of awe and gratitude that I've been able to do this. And I also know that statistically I'm not going to do this forever. Probably, you know, for some reason or other, something could happen at any time and this could all be taken away from me. And I'll just have to go, you know, I'm trying to build up a secondary plan B career of being a high school teacher, going to school for that. But that's also accruing more debt. I think it's like $15,000 to go through this teacher training master's program that I'm going through. I don't have that money.

So it's, you know, it's one of those things that you guys. to spend money to make money in the United States. You got to spend money to be able to put yourself in a position to make minimum fucking wage. I see these horror fucking stories about teachers, how little they make, how much they're disrespected, fucking students swinging on teachers and shit. And it does kind of fucking horrify me a little bit. But I do, but I do firmly believe that there is, um, there's value in it, there's meaning in it. I can play a positive role in people's lives. I can help educate them. I can act as a mentor. I I can help guide people through tumultuous periods of their life.

I know high school was incredibly tumultuous for me. And if I could be a source of wisdom and compassion for people at that level of their life when they're in their late teens going through that transformation, if I can inspire them intellectually, I'm going to find a lot of meaning in that, even though I'm not going to make jack shit for money. And that's something that at a very young age, I accustomed myself to. I oriented myself to this idea that I value my free time. and I value my life meaning more than I value the pursuit and stacking of bills. And some people take the opposite route. Some people say, hey, I'm stuck in capitalism. I'm going to fucking go hard and, you know, stack these greenbacks and get that bag.

And I understand it. Every single sort of, you know, every single incentive in our society is geared towards that. And if you can do it, more power to you. But I just know that that for me, the raw pursuit of money over everything else will only lead to very dark places mentally and emotionally for me and so I'm just not constituted to be the bag chaser if you will so okay all of that

very last thing I thought I was going to end this shit 20 minutes ago very last thing which I meant to talk about this in the beginning but I'll talk about it right now resolutions New Year's resolutions yes they're cliche it's annoying Every year somebody comes up with resolutions, it can be a very annoying thing. But I would urge you to try to take the idea seriously. Try to set a goal for yourself that is achievable, that you've been wanting to do, and that you know that you would benefit from doing it.

Whatever that may be. I do it with my whole family. Last year, we all made our resolutions. Mine was strength training. For 2023, my goal was to get put as much muscle on my body as, I can learn as many compound barbell movements as I can become an incredibly dedicated weight lifter and trainer. And I've done that. But this year I'm stepping it up from three days a week of working out full body workouts. I'm talking deadlift, squats, bench presses, overhead presses,

pull ups, rows, you know, big, big shit, going from three days a week to five days a week in 2024, trying to up that goal, put on more muscle mass. and just, you know, get as fit as I fucking possibly can to set an example for my family, to set an example for my kids, and to live up to the sort of person that I want to be, to self-actualize, if you will, in the realm of physical betterment. You know, I think of self-actualization not as one thing that some people do and some people don't, but as a thing that can manifest in any area of life. You can self-actualize in fitness and nutrition.

You can self-actualize in the arts. You can self-actualize in the intellectual realm. right by pursuing excellence pursuing development and betterment in whatever field that you're interested in but having built strength training into my daily routine now it's a habit it's no longer a chore on days when i don't work out like during the weekends when i take two days off i get antsy to get back in the gym and that feeling is really good to know that this thing that started off is something i know i had to do to get healthy as you hit your 30s all your metabolism and you know the robustness of your youth begin to fade and you immediately recognize this shit goes one of two ways

either i get on the passive american treadmill to obesity and poor health and heart fucking disease and cardiovascular disease and i become immobile like all the fucking people in my family who i've seen over the years completely just sort of not let themselves go not dramatically give in to their indulgences but in american society given the low quality of our food and the affordability of shitty food and food deserts and all this other stuff, if you don't make a concerted effort to be healthy as you possibly can, to learn about nutrition, to learn about exercise, and to weave these things into your life, you have to take an active control over your own life in this country, or you are on the automatic passive treadmill to so many

middle-aged Americans are, right? They're on high blood pressure medicine. They're overweight to an unhealthy degree. I'm not trying to shit on anybody. I'm not trying to put anybody down. I've seen it in my own life. You have people in your life. You've seen it with them. I have friends from high school who have taken different routes, right? The passive treadmill into oblivion. And now they're in their 30s and it's hitting hard. Or the people who at some point in their life say, I can turn this bitch around. And that's the thing. You can always turn it around. At any age, you can always turn it around. And that hope is always there for people who want to take that control over their own lives. So, you know, now that I've done that, one of the things I sacrificed in order to focus on strength and

sports, I played softball last year. I was in two different volleyball leagues, and I want to match or exceed that this year. I'd love to get into like a basketball league or something. Integrating all those things, what I pushed out was my meditation practice. So in order to wake up every morning and go strength train or go do cardio or go, you know, do a sport, and then all the recovery that your body has to go through when you're revving in at that level, meditation fell completely out of my practice this past year. And so now my goal is, okay, you've taken the health, the nutrition, the strength training, the sports, the cardio, even the cold plunging and some of these other things I do for my health.

Over the last several years of studying and learning and growing and putting the pieces all together. So I spent a year just learning nutrition. I spent a year just learning how to fast just so I could control my hunger because I'm a big binge eater at night, my whole life. my dad was too a binge eater you know the sort of guy that would fall asleep with like his dinner dinner plate on his chest in his bed and I knew I had to get away from that so I spent like a year during COVID just learning basic nutrition and just getting down the practice of fasting just so I could have control over that dial so now I've built in fasting so for me it doesn't work for everybody

I don't recommend it for everybody everybody's different for me what is it's allowed me to do is have control over that dial so if I want to go up to 18 hours a day 19 or 20 or 20 hours a day, right? I could do that. I could start moving the dial in that direction because I have control over it. If I want to drop down to 16 hours a day, 12 hours a day, maybe I want to eat in a slight caloric surplus because I'm trying to build muscle mass, which I absolutely am. So I want to loosen my fasting and allow more caloric intake throughout the day. But maybe during the summer I want to cut down a little bit and get more into cardio and cut some body fat, that I'll be able to take that little dial that I've been able to master and twist it up or twist it down according to my needs.

And then after that, I got into cardio, started playing basketball in the morning, started going on long hikes, long walks, trying to get 10,000, 15,000 steps a day. That was pretty much for a full year of conditioning myself to get back into that fucking flow. And then after that, so a year of nutrition, a year of cardio and basic activity, you know, step counts and whatnot. then the third year I integrate weight training. Then the third year is when I start doing, you know, okay, now that I'm in a place where I can, I have nutritional knowledge, I can control it. Now I'm in a place where I've gotten used to conditioning my body

with long walks and hikes and playing basketball. So I got some cardio to go. Now I'm ready to move into weight training. And that's what worked for me. That was a three-year process, only semi-conscious that I was going through these motions and going somewhere. You know, when I was in my nutrition and fasting, I wasn't thinking about weight training.

I wasn't thinking in two years I'm going to integrate weight training. It was just as I went along this path, strength training became interesting to me. Whereas before that, I had no interest in that shit. I remember doing it in high school, whatever, it's fine. Some people are into it. That's not me. But on this path of taking care of my body, especially after seeing my dad die from alcoholism and just the brutality of what happens when you don't take care of your body and, in fact, poison your body,

huge impetus to begin really seeing what I can do with my body and taking my body to the levels that I can possibly. I'm not, of course, not going to do steroids or Tren or any of this psycho shit, just natural. What can I do with my body? How fit can I be? How much muscle can I put on? At my dad's funeral, there was a picture of him when he was in his early 20s and he was in a bath towel, like in a shower after a sporting event or something. I don't really know. But he was flexing with his shirt off.

And I just like saw his physique and I was like, Holy shit. You know, my dad, somebody who, when I was a kid, was like 300 plus pounds. And by the time he died was a shriveled version of his self, you know, alcohol had decimated his body. His body was completely broken, swollen in weird places, nonfunctional in other places. His heart barely worked. His brain had atrophied. He went through a violent, brutal death, you know, because of his complete inability to take care of his body.

And so that inspired me and seeing that picture of my. my dad as a young man with all that muscle on him showed me that I have some genetic potential. I have somebody in my family that can put on this much muscle. I wonder what I could do if I applied myself in that direction. So in a lot of ways I see it as like a way to cope with my dad's death, a way to integrate my dad's masculinity into my own masculinity, to integrate my dad into myself and try to expand my capacity in the inverted way that my dad did not. right so my dad treated his body like shit and i'm going to treat my body as well as i can my dad

didn't get to spend a lot of time with his kids i'm i'm trying to organize my life where i can spend a lot of time um with my kids my dad could not hold down a relationship he was married and divorced five times um in his life i committed to my wife been with her for for over 10 years married to her for over a year now um we have two kids together and that's a beautiful thing and so what i what i what i see is not one-upping my dad but what I what I see is like my dad is inspiring me teaching me through his failures what he was unable to do that he wanted to do he wanted to keep his family he expressed deep regret about not being there for his kids when we were young about not being able to keep good women in his life who he you know even married and all he had to do was like

not you know cheat on that person and he could have had a wonderful life with them but he can't help it. So by showing me the flaws and revealing to me his aspirations, it inspired me to do that myself. So whatever, all that is to say, maybe that's inspiring to like three people out there to get on that grind if you're so inclined. But there's a million other things you can do. And so this year, my resolution is to reintegrate meditation into my new expanded, you know, sort of habit of working out, playing sports, weight training, putting muscle on, nutrition, all that stuff. Now that I got all that in place, and I've been doing it for years, so I know it's not just like a, you know, once I lose the desire to do it, it's going to evaporate. No, I've locked that shit in.

Let me re-bring in the meditation practice and really see what those two things in synergy can do. What happens when you're taking care of your body and your mind at that high of a level? You know, that's what I'm interested in pursuing and chasing down. And so I think that's my resolution this year. my wife's resolution last year read like 10 books and she did that my daughter's resolution was read six books and she did that so I'm very proud of both of them for doing that and then my son he's only eight but his was to learn music we got him into piano lessons for a full year he just performed his first piano concert absolutely beautiful brings tears in my eyes just thinking

about it and now he's obsessed with music he's obsessed with playing piano we got him a ukule daily, you know, these little things he's interested in learning the guitar next. So that's a beautiful thing that even my eight-year-old son succeeded at his New Year's resolution. And now we're all getting ready to make new ones. So I'm excited to hear what their new ones are. And I'm excited to hear what your new ones are. If anybody feels so inclined, feel free to in the comment section of this post on Patreon, let us know what your resolutions are for the year. Sometimes it can help just to articulate it to other people and really solidified in your own mind is something that you really want to pursue.

And don't get discouraged with setbacks. There are days when you fuck up where you fail to meet your goal for that day. And you just got to dust it off and refocus. You're going to fail a million times before you succeed once. And building in that ability to deal with and transcend and overcome failure is not only going to be important in whatever specific goal you might be pursuing, but is an important quality to have through life to be able to persevereign. veer, to be able to put up with failure and keep going, to be able to pursue excellence against

adversity. These are all things that make you a better human being, a better father, a better mother, a better friend, a better whatever. These are sort of virtues that you can cultivate within yourself. And the other thing I've learned about discipline over these last few years, because I used to be this sort of person, like, I'm just not discipline. Some people are born with the discipline to like really focus on something and get it done. And other people, most people, just don't have that discipline and I'm just one of the people that unfortunately don't have that discipline. That's massive cope. Discipline is not something you're imbued with.

There are some people out there that for whatever fucking reason, genetic, environmental, some combination thereof, have this dogged determinism and this iron discipline naturally. It does not come naturally for me. And I'm willing to bet for most of you it does not come natural for you. But what I've learned is that discipline is a muscle you can exercise. Discipline, if you want to be a disciplined person, You just have to do the disciplined thing. I wake up one day.

I'm not quite in the mood to go work out. I don't feel like it. I don't have the motivation. I'd much rather turn over and go to sleep for another two hours or just get up and fuck around, not do anything hard or anything challenging. But what kind of person do I want to be? Do I want to be the sort of person that takes the easy way out?

Or is the sort of person that can just stop pursuing something when my internal will isn't 100%? or do I want to be the sort of person that despite not wanting to do something, I know I should do it. And so I'm going to force myself to do it. And every time that I get the fuck up and I go into that weight room, I'm casting a vote for the sort of person I want to be. I'm casting a vote for this is what a person who is fit. This is what they do. This is what a person who is disciplined does. And the more you exercise that disciplined muscle, the more you tell yourself, hey, this is not negotiable. I'm not waking up and immediately trying to come up with excuses for why I can't work

out today. Shut the fuck up and get in there. That works for me. Maybe being less harsh, works for you, whatever. But I think that idea that we can all be disciplined people if we just begin being disciplined people, I think it's sometimes overlooked and people will come up with excuses and say things like I did, like I'm just not a disciplined person. I don't have the discipline to do that. You could do that. You could develop the discipline to do something, just like you develop anything else in life by doing the thing over and over again. And then all of a sudden it starts becoming easier. And then all of a sudden, what I realize, I don't need the discipline anymore.

I want to do it. I wake up on workout days excited to go in and work out. And I'm just using workout because that's my thing that I pursued these last few years. It's applied to anything. I'm just using this as a stand-in for whatever the thing is you want to achieve might be. And because no matter what it is, if you want to achieve something, discipline is going to be a part of that. And to tell yourself that I'm not going to pursue anything because I'm not the sort of person

that is disciplined enough to be able to do that is just to give up before you even try. And I want to inspire people to think about discipline not as something you do or don't have, but as another thing that you can cultivate by being disciplined, right? So that's some food for thought. Hopefully people find some of that useful. The very last thing I'll say that's in connection with this, and I think I've mentioned this before, is I had this thing a couple years ago where I'm like, who do you want to be? And that's an interesting question when you really start asking yourself, what sort of person

do you want to be? And then after that question, can you break down the sort of person you want to be into a handful of archetypes? This is an idea I came up with that has worked wonders for me. And it's going strong after a couple years. So I thought about the person I want to be. I want to be a good dad. I want to be a fit person. That sets a good example for my children. I want to be able to never stop learning, never stop teaching. I want to continue my meditation practice and develop my spiritual experiences and energies and capacities. And I want to be the sort of guy that goes out and can fish that can go on long hikes, that camps.

I've always had that in me, you know, winter camping, shit like that. So I was like, okay, take all of that stuff that you want to be, the sort of person that you would be happy with being in 10 years. And can you put that into like three to five archetypes? and the four archetypes that I came up with, these are going to be different for everybody. But this is the product of deep thought about who I want to be, which is like a philosophical, existential question

that you should ask yourself and very clearly mull it over for a while in your head. This is the product of that inquiry. And the four archetypes that I came up with that represent four elements of who I want to be, and when they're all put together will make me the sort of person I want to be. are the following, the athlete, the teacher, the sage, and the outdoorsman. Now, these are just labels I put on them. They could be other words for sure, but by athlete, I mean somebody who cares about their nutrition, that gets good sleep, that, you know, strength trains, that participates in sports,

that does cardio, that keeps themselves fit and vigorous and healthy. I definitely want to be that. You know, that's a priority of mine in life. Okay. So what makes the athlete? Well, the athlete is the person that does the sports. The athlete goes on runs. The athlete goes in weight trains three to five times a week, six times a week, whatever it may be for any individual. These are all things that the athlete would do. And by doing these things, I manifest, I cultivate consciously the athlete within me. The next thing is teacher. And for teacher, it's two-sided. I want to teach. I want to help other people learn. Hopefully I do that on my shows, as well as my play. plan B pursuing my to become a high school teacher. So definitely, and I've got, I've gotten into classes this last two years, gotten to the master's program. So I'm doing all of that element of literally becoming a teacher. But also what is important about a teacher, they never stop learning. So learning is also something that goes into the teacher archetype to learn so

you can teach, so you can learn more, so you can teach more. These are all, you know, sort of dialectically intertwined with one another, the learning and the teaching. So to be a teacher is somebody who, yes, teaches other people as much as I can, but also never quits learning. It's always curious, is always trying to learn new things. And so that's the second archetype. The third is a sage. It could be a saint. It could be a Buddha.

It could be whatever it is. But that just stands in for my spiritual practices, my meditation practice, the development of my moral and ethical and virtuous life. Those things all go together. How do I treat other people? How do I take care of other people? How do I put my compassion into action? in the people that are actually in my life, my family, my friends, my social circle,

you know, how maintaining a meditation practice to deepen my self-knowledge, to deepen my spiritual journey. That's very crucial to me. That's important to me. I do not want that part of me to die off. And that means I have to actively cultivate it through engaging in things like meditation, through reading, you know, theological or spiritual texts, wrestling with those ideas, you know, facing my own existential situation, etc.

and the very last one is the outdoorsman that part of me that likes to go out in camp that part of me that likes to go out and catch fish you know the kayak fisherman within me the small game hunter within me perhaps i can cultivate one day i've done many turkey hunts i enjoy that sort of thing being out in nature interacting with nature long hikes um you know these are all things that that cultivate the outdoors men within me i can start a fire right i can catch a fish if worst case scenario happens. I can go, I can go out to a lake by my, by my home and make food for my family. A year or two ago, I did a whole thing where I watered my front yard so that the worms would come up to the surface. This is like an old trick you can do, night crawlers, right? So you

water your lawn during the day, you go out with the flashlight at night and all these night crawlers come up out of the now soaked and saturated soil. And you can grab them. And so I collected a bunch of these night crawlers. So I got the worms myself. I didn't go buy them. I went out to fish, put my own worms on my own hook, caught my own fish, brought my own fish back home, cleaned my fish, filleted my fish, separated the meat and threw out all the garbage. And then that very night, me and my wife cooked that fish for our family. And that was just a cool little challenge to me where from literally getting the worm myself to getting the fish out of nature to cleaning that fish, which is a skill set in its own

right is not fucking easy to cooking that fish in a way that is safe for my family to eat to now nourishing my family's body with the worm and the fish that I went out and got from nature that I can't tell you how rewarding that was to eat that fish it wasn't the best tasting fish I've ever had in my life but it was the best experience I ever had eating fish because that was me I went out and did that and I proved something to myself and I built a skill set that is you know that could become incredibly necessary but even if it never comes as necessary is a really interesting, cool thing to be able to do. So the athlete, the teacher, the sage, the outdoorsman. By putting them into these archetypes, I can refocus and quickly remember

what sort of person I want to be and the steps I have to take to become that person. And maybe, like the last year, the athlete and the teacher became prominent, right? I was just doing the athlete stuff and the teacher stuff. The fishing, the camping, the hiking, the young kid that makes all that stuff, much more difficult as well. So it's a natural ebb and flow. That all took a, went to the back burner. And then my meditation practice, right? The sage, that kind of went to the back burner to focus on the athlete and the teacher that came to the fore.

And now in my new year, let's see if I can reintegrate the sage and then lock in the athlete, the teacher, the sage, all functioning at the same time. And then let's see if I can, you know, especially as my youngest grows a little older, I have more time to go out and do stuff like camping or spending four hours at the lake and shit that my wife right now would beat me with a stick. if I try to do, those things come back online and become more possible again as the kids get a little bit older. So then I'll see if I can reintegrate that and then just take all of those archetypes and continue to develop them to their highest level. And I want to self-actualize in every category, right? So maybe that is helpful for some people. Maybe you could recreate three to five archetypes in the same way, thinking very deeply about the sort of person you want to be, come up with these archetypes and then now use that as a shorthand to continually remind yourself

and focus yourself on what you want to be, the sort of human being you want to be in this world, and to actively spend at least some time every day working toward one of those goals and cultivating one of those archetypes and developing it and self-actualizing within that archetype as much as you possibly can. So that's a little bit of a word of encouragement,

hopefully a word of inspiration for the new year to all my listeners. All right, I'm going to end it there. Thank you again so much for another wonderful year of Rev Left. Thank you again so fucking much for supporting the show, for supporting two families out here in the hinterlands of the Midwest and the Great Plains, and for continually just being one of the best audiences that I could ever fucking hope to have cultivated. I truly mean that some of the smartest, most compassionate, most loving people that I've met have been supporters of this show, and it brings tears to my eyes and it makes my heart

swell to think that these are the sort of people that are attracted to what the hell it is that I do. So thank you so fucking much. Love and solidarity. And I hope all of you and all of your families have a wonderful, wonderful new year.