Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 212: Panjshir Valley Hillbillies

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

This week we start off with an op-ed from our Senator-In-Exile Amy McGrath concerning Afghanistan. Then we check back in with AppHarvest, for whom news has only gotten worse since we checked in on them on Sunday's Patreon. And finally we finish with an exploration into the QAnon mindset with a reading from Politico. Check us out on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Yeah, David Petraeus is talking to Chuck Todd about the pullout from Afghanistan. Petraeus knows a thing or two about pulling out, doesn't he? He had like a mistress scandal. Wasn't that his big scandal when he was at the helm? Yeah, he did. I thought David Petraeus was the subject of a sex scandal i could be wrong no i think i think you're right i think he was um david petraeus sex scandal i'm pretty sure he was the betrayers david betray betray us

he betrayed his wedding that was like a go-to lib joke in like 07 david buttraius he had an extramarital affair with paula broadwell um that's not salacious i was kind of hoping it would be with like whoever the taliban leader's wife is that would be like that would be like worth talking about, you know what I mean? Well, what happened was she wrote a book about Petraeus. It's called All In. Put it all in, Dave. Yeah. It is all in. I could put a little more in, i don't want to it is all in

are you recording i don't even yeah i'm recording all right well i'm gonna hit this record then um that's pretty funny uh it is all in yeah i mean that's like so he was having he was having an affair with his biographer essentially pretty much yeah well i mean i don't even know what this it's called all in the education of general david petraeus it's a biography of dav David Petraeus. It's a biography of David Petraeus written by Paula Broadwell and Vernon Loeb. Didn't have an affair with Vernon. With Vern. That's a shame. Having an affair with Vernon Loeb would be, that'd be interesting.

What's he talking to Chuck Todd about? They're talking about Afghanistan and about, you know, where to go from here uh let's betray us as stance on i i don't know i wasn't even really paying attention it was like he was basically just saying that like the afghan people don't deserve this they fought hard and you know etc etc just just your standard issue garden variety sort of like yeah yeah i've been having a good chuckle all morning about the last two jewish guys in afghanistan and the taliban found the one guy so annoying that they let him get let him out of prison yeah i can't i can't put up with this anymore they're abolitionists man just it's right what was the story in the bible where um

god creates an earthquake to was it was it saul and someone else who were in prison? I can't remember. Oh, and he like, man, like a rushing mighty wind comes in and opens the gates and frees them. Yeah, there was an earthquake. I think it was Paul and Silas. Yeah, maybe. I think that's right. Yeah, that's the story you, that's probably what actually happened. Paul was just being incredibly annoying,

and the jailers were like, okay. And the guards were like, oh my God, these two bastards won't shut up. Go, just go. Fuck up. Fuck up. Speaking of Afghanistan, did you see where our senator in exile or senatrix in exile, Amy McGrath, wrote an op-ed about Afghanistan?

Oh, please, please give it to me. I have not seen this, but a clear example of I'm going to tie off right now. A clear example of I'm going to tie off right now. Of course. Of course. Okay, hold on. I lost it. Okay. Were U.S. losses in vain? Forever war in Afghanistan resulted in fewer terror attacks.

As the tragic and saddening scenes from Afghanistan dominate the news, many military veterans and others who served in America's longest war these last 20 years will understandably wonder, was it all in vain? Our answer, and I should point out, she also wrote this in, it's like a co-authored thing, with Michael O'Hanlon, who works for, you guessed it, the Brookings Institute.

Yes, yes, my go-to source for policy news. Was it all in vain? I don't make a single decision without consulting the Brookings Institute. I've made that a cornerstone in my worldview. Neither does Amy, apparently. Was it all in vain? Our answer is a resounding no beyond the valor and duty you demonstrated your sacrifices and those of your families made a major and positive difference for u.s security whether one believes that the taliban takeover now unfolding in afghanistan was the inevitable outcome of this conflict or the result of policymaking mistakes in Washington, much has still been achieved. Many of the gains will likely be

lost under Taliban rule, but many will not. First of all, for example, there have been few major terrorist attacks since 9-11. America has not been attacked out of Afghanistan since 9-11. This is a simple but very important fact that we should never take for granted. Indeed, while... A fact that I ensured when I strapped myself to the back of that whatever plane and got on that fucking gun and I just mowed them down. Indeed, while violence has continued to plague the broader middle east and also hit europe hard in a wave of attacks inspired or conducted by isis from 2015 or 2017 the u.s listen this is hilarious

look the u.s has largely been spared from major extremist attacks on its own soul basically they're saying like yeah europe had to take a couple for us yeah europe took a couple lumps but you know what i mean here's my thing though dude has nobody considered that that uh isis just may not have been a fan of the eagles of death metal nobody's thought about that I don't know, man. They're not into Dave Grohl on drums. They are not a fan of Dave Grohl playing the drums. In fact, that's really what was the major impetus behind what they did. Gotta get Dave Grohl out from behind that drum set.

We gotta get Dave Grohl out front, man. Yeah. Get him singing. That's where he belongs. He's a rock and roll star. We won't stop our spread of terror and pillage until Dave Grohl is on the mic again. I'm looking for a day when all the world's

terrorists and everything are rehabilitated because we can all agree on one thing. Dave Grohl needs to be front and center. Don't hide, Dave. Behind the sticks, man. All right. Yep. About 100 Americans have died here at home from jihadi violence since 9-11. This is hilarious if you had told american

officials or strategists on september 12 2001 that we would manage to limit casualties on the homeland to such a level for two decades they would have been thrilled to take that outcome it is a result to be sure of excellent work by homeland security and intelligence officials but the u.s military operations abroad including in and around afghanistan had much to do with it i um that's a i thought that was a weird thing it's like obviously like i don't obviously like bush did 9-11 so like on september 12th they weren't like they had already wrapped up their i mean i'm just kind of being tongue-in-cheek here.

But it's just funny. Are you, though? I don't know. As one of us recently wrote with the co-author Hal Brands, that outcome was achieved largely because we managed to destroy al-Qaeda and ISIS leadership, I don't know why they did that to the Navy SEALs. I don't know basically i guess are they implying that if we pull out of afghanistan suddenly we're going to have just a huge you know infl in rush influx of terrorist attacks on american soil because yeah those were happening every week before 9-11 like yeah yeah dude that's a good point yeah it's uh it's absolutely ridiculous i mean

you know it's it's sort of maddening to talk about any of this stuff because it's like we all know the truth of it it's like the saudi royals are funding all this stuff and we're in their pocket right right and now we're we run interference for a opium operation that's just it's all just fucking nonsense to talk about like strategy what went wrong should we be there should we not be there all the like all this shit is for nothing and everybody knows it you know what i mean right it is so weird to live in a society where there's like like, the truth everybody knows, and then there's this, like, pretext that we all have to pretend like is true.

If you're talking about, okay, if 9-11 was, I still don't know what to make of 9-11. You know. Man, here we are 20 years later, and I still don't know what to think um but you know obviously one thing pointed out a lot is that like it took a long ass fucking time for them to get like jets in the sky um yeah so if you're talking about like someone who was like front row for if it was an inside job amy mcgrath is like i mean right there well she she was ready for the call she said according to her ads yeah um i mean so she knew about it like before it was even like really executed makes you think um sustaining this positive outcome now that af that Afghanistan descends back into greater violence and extremist rule will be difficult.

Counter-terrorism works best with modest numbers of troops, blah, blah, blah. In 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan, we have developed many new tools of intelligence gathering. Blah, blah, blah. U.S. defense, no longer a paper tiger. This is not to defend the u.s decision to leave the fight or to suggest that what comes next will be easy but we are in a much stronger position overall than was the case two decades ago we have also due to the resolve of our troops and other brave americans over the last two decades clearly demonstrated america's will and readiness to fight

in defense of its values and security the taliban may be rejoicing i took an oath you did too you know we've been pulling our weight domestically that's true we are the other brave americans yeah it's fucked up where's our op-eds um the taliban may be rejoicing in their military victories but they will surely think twice about colluding with an al-qaeda organization that has drawn so much US ire. And so, will they? I mean, but also, does al-Qaeda even still exist? Did it ever exist? Dude, you know what these people don't understand? It's kind of like listening to blowback.

This is just more widespread gangsterismo rule, is what these groups are. These are like organized crime outfits, more so than like ideological political terrorist groups right right right right they like you can't really fight that with military right i mean they don't what we created the fucking taliban we created al-qaeda right well also when you're the progenitor of said groups, you don't really have a, you know, a bargaining chip. Like every bad group in this article we made, ISIS, Al-Qaeda.

Yeah. Al-Qaeda being a uniquely American concoction. Right, right. Did you read that thing that was like the talib that everybody's using to spread around now it's like the taliban now control one trillion dollars of precious earth minerals that the world needs is that who you want to be in control of it right i did see that it's like they realized how ridiculous the whole feminism angle was so now it's like oh now they have lithium mines and you want these like what it amounts to batshit insane hillbillies like controlling a trillion dollars for the

rare earth minerals yeah i didn't think so um whatever our flaws in fighting the forever wars that's in they put that in quotation quote quotation marks forever wars um few are calling us like derisively yeah it's just like okay yeah i guess it wasn't literally forever but just as recently as like a year ago there was no indication that we were ever leaving afghanistan um right i mean and is there any functional difference between like eternity and 20 years like i mean at this point no because we reached the end of history exactly exactly we're at the fucking drain spiral um whatever our flaws in fighting the forever wars if you are calling us a paper tiger now she's they're referring to they're referring to when osama bin laden called the u.s a paper tiger in the 90s

um of course you know this is the damnedest country you lost to this guy ostensibly you know what i mean like really and like you when you when that happens like you don't get to be like we're the only country in the world that perpetually gets our ass kicked either in the short term or long term and still celebrates our victory all right it's so insane i'm i'm completely turned around on what the actual line on this is. Like, did we win the war? What does even winning a war look like in the 21st century? Like, you know what I'm saying?

Like, what does it look like under, like, advanced neoliberal capitalism? Like, I don't even fucking know. Like, I mean. Yeah. Yeah, like, who scores these things anymore? You know what i mean used in in the in the halcyon days you would have a guy wave a white flag and just like concede you know what i mean what happened to the guy that doesn't happen now waving the white flag yeah come on yeah you would

have a treaty you know the treaty of fucking uh versailles you know or whatever and all the heads of state would sit down and hash out who got what territory but no one gets territory anymore you know what i'm saying like formally yeah yeah that's what you know it would be like two guys would be like uh you know you would negotiate the terms of like your surrender you know what i mean you go sit down you'd hash it out well we get this you get that then you know you go peacefully into the night or whatever yeah someone has to pay a certain amount like i guess there was a kind of there was like a drawdown process between trump's i mean it's the fucking ridiculous thing like I guess Trump the Trump administration did

begin the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan and um and so this was a process really up until about like two weeks ago when they actually started withdrawing and the Taliban just started rolling over the fucking forces that had been like left behind You know what I'm saying? So, I mean... You're right. You're right. The fuck? I don't know. Dude, the story's a bit insane. It's like, see these things?

They go to the city, and it's all these hillbilly guys that are like, oh my god, bumper cars. That's essential when we're talking about the Taliban. We're talking about hillbillies yeah these are our people um as the 20th anniversary of 9-11 approaches it is a good moment to say once again thank you we are not only proud we are safer because of you um obviously it's like really stupid to engage with these idiots um the only reason we're doing it is because this person ran for senator in our state and managed to get millions of dollars and

skew the discourse to such an extent that it made us look like the taliban to everybody else in the world um yeah but like uh literally i mean people compare kentucky to the taliban you're in that race right right um but if you accept like the narrative that obama did this or so shit my bad if you accept the official narrative that osama bin laden did this then you have to also accept that he did this because of the U.S. occupation of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the early 90s in the first Gulf War, which means that, no, we are not safer because of the troops. We are actually less safe. Yes.

Yes. Man, it would not matter if every American troop was laying bloody dead in the streets of fucking Kandahar. We would still come back and say, we won. Right. Mission accomplished. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. It's so fucking stupid. The hubris and just the fucking i don't know i think a lot about what

you said about like you know this is a country that like actually doesn't have a war legacy to i mean for all the like sort of like baying and moaning we do about kicking everybody's ass and this that and the third we actually do not have a good like our track record does not stand up under scrutiny yeah i mean like other than like the spanish-american war and the the quote-unquote revolutionary war have we lost have we won any other war i mean we didn't win world war ii the fucking soviets did you know like we yeah i don't i mean vietnam lost yeah you know and i and i guess you could say like that's not what our goals are and you might be right i don't know i'm not much of an expert in this territory like in this area so i don't know um but uh but i don't know it does seem like we've achieved our

our goals regardless um i don't know profits were made which is even more sinister in a way which is just like okay we just needed some cannon fodder to do what we needed to do, you know? Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah. Well, so anyways, yeah, that's Amy McGrath. I knew she would have a take, you know, because that's her whole thing, right? Like, that's where she made her name. Yeah, I think Amy McGrath is that patrick j lawler tiktok guy with a with a mask on

that's just you know what i'm saying i helped the people of afghanistan did you i helped the people of afghanistan by firing the most sophisticated weapons imaginable at them. Yeah. Like, I... Right. Like, I'm just a simple country gal looking for love in an Afghani village from, you know... Oh, my gosh. Shit was fucked, dude. Yeah, that dude is weird. Very weird.

That tweet he had about, like, I'll just do it the old-fashioned way i'll just find a bride from the country that i conquer or whatever yeah it's like god damn that's not even funny yeah do you think that was a joke do you think that he was trying to make a joke i think he was trying to be funny but when you actually went to a place and engaged in that you it's funny if you didn't do that right right funny even if you didn't do that but you know what i mean right yeah it's it's it can actually hide behind irony because there's people that do that you know what i mean there's people that right

yeah right um well moving on from amy mcgrath uh let's let's check back in with the story that we spent a large chunk of Sunday's Patreon episode discussing. And that is App Harvest. Are there developments? There are developments since we recorded that. Are there developments? There are developments since we recorded that. You know, when we recorded on Sunday, if you want to go check out that Patreon episode,

go to patreon.com slash Trillbilly Orgers Party. You can listen to that episode. We talked about how, you know, just kind of the background. We've talked about them a lot, but we talked about their recent troubles and about how they've, you know how their stock prices completely plummeted. They had to report a $35 million loss in quarter two earnings. It's not looking good. But on Monday, it was announced that Block and Leviton

is investigating App Harvest for potential securities law violators. Investors who have lost money are encouraged to contact the firm. So, I mean, it's kind of becoming more obvious that this is just a fucking scam. Like, they've defrauded investors. It's a con. I got a question about that. It's a con. I got a question about that.

Does this pertain to, because I remember when you sent me a text two days before that story broke where he announced $32 million in losses, you said they had projected $15 million. Is this what that pertains to? They had told shareholders or whatever that lied about their actual losses or something? I'm not really sure what it means i would it could be several things it could be that they misled investors as to perhaps how successful or profitable it would be it could be that they obfuscated their earnings and maybe their loss was much larger than uh they thought it was going to be um and that that was the case

much earlier than quarter two earning reports you know what i'm saying it could have been a a number of things uh but something's fishy in the accounting department i would assume you know what i'm saying there's all the slip of the finger you know a classic pencil whipping a classic pencil whipping like tom and terrence true abilities 2000 april 2017 um you know uh sitting at the computer and playing true abilities episodes over and over again to make it look like we had a hire. And look where we are now. It worked for us.

We didn't defraud investors. It worked for us, and I have every confidence that it worked for Jonathan Webb and the good folks at App Harvest. Well, so I think here it is. It says right here, Before the market opened on August 11, 2021, AppHarvest announced financial results

for the second quarter into June 30, 2021. The company significantly lowered its 2021 full-year revenue guidance. AppHarvest began trading in the first quarter of 2021 following a de-SPAC transaction merging with blank check company Novus Capital. On this news, shares of app harvest stock fell more than 30 percent in intraday trading oh my god yeah yeah um and again i guess if you're listening to this and it's your first time to hear us talk about app harvest there's a lot of

previous episodes we talked about that on um but the best one to go to is just the most recent patreon so there's no way around it you're just gonna have to sign up for the patreon yeah that's that's that's what we're getting at there's no way around it um 30 is brutal man yeah uh hey ring the bell dude they were allowed to ring they were like the darlings you know for a minute like oh this is going to be the next big thing and so it comes at you fast ridiculous they're doing the whole uh we're going to make you know spaghetti sauce and margarita and bloody mary mix and all that kind of stuff with these rotten aphid picked over tomatoes that you don't want to buy for your own consumption right

um well uh so yeah app harvest um godspeed you know good luck yeah see you out there boys good luck um all right so let's get to the meat of today's episode. This is a longish article I've wanted to cover for a little while now. I was going to wait until we had the full crew on, but it just wasn't in the cards for this week. And I feel like I need to talk about it. I need to get it out of my system. It's been sitting on the...

Unburden yourself. I've been burdened by this for about a week now. So, this is a very interesting article in Politico. It's written by a woman named Megan.

It's a pseudonym. And so is the name of her husband, Dave, in this article. These are both pseudonyms. This is, I wanted to talk about this article for several reasons. First of all, the framing of it is very interesting. I don't know, you'll see what i mean in a second but the second of all is it kind of provides an interesting glimpse into both how the mainstream media views people like the reason why people get into quote-unquote

conspiracy theories you know what i'm saying like i don't have any real knowledge on if this is a legit article if this was just a fake thing written by the fucking um you know same people that brought us the warren commission report right i have no idea but it is an interesting glimpse into, like, both a dynamic that I think is real, but also a political one anyways, but also how the mainstream media views people who get into conspiracy theories. Anyways, let me just start here. This is Politico magazine. QAnon almost destroyed my relationship. Then my relationship saved me from QAnon.

How COVID isolation and supporting Bernie Sanders primed me to be sucked into a dark conspiracy theory. How in the world have you hid this from us? You've been sitting on this, you son of a bitch. I was waiting for the right moment. Okay. Let's begin. I was radicalized overnight.

I went to bed as a liberal, a diehard Bernie Sanders supporter, social activist, and a feminist. The next morning, I left the bed viewing Donald Trump, a man who I had utterly despised, as a feminist. The next morning, I left the bed viewing Donald Trump, a man who I had utterly despised, as a hero fighting a war against the deep state. In the ensuing days,

my fiancé, Dave, would hardly recognize me, and our relationship would nearly be destroyed. That's a good reason for that, because you're a complete fabrication. Someone plugged some numbers into an algorithm and this is what it spat out. Yeah.

My conversion happened last June, soon after California expanded the stay-at-home order to control the COVID-19 pandemic. As an extrovert, I did not take the lockdown well. The inability to go out with my friends, work with people, and interact with strangers left me feeling trapped and suffocated. At the same time, I was struggling to adjust to sharing the house with Dave after being single for most of my adult life. There were times when I desperately needed to get away for a couple of nights to reconnect with my energy.

But where do you go during a deadly pandemic? Dave wasn't handling the stay-at-home order well either without the ability to take extended weekends away to unwind from his demanding job he became depressed and increasingly short-tempered the more he let his anger leak out and at times explode toward me the more i felt trapped inside the house and desperate for something to change um so let's just give it the benefit of the doubt if this is real like this is a real stressful situation right like you can uh yeah you can imagine how june 2020 it's obvious that bernie's not going to be the nominee um you probably don't look at biden with anything like confidence or uh you have to wake up every

morning see dave's harry pimply ass and avoid him blowing up on you exactly like it's not it's not a fun environment no i can sympathize with our made-up friend here. It was after a day of his angry outbursts when I discovered QAnon. So again, I mean, yeah. Being in a bad relationship in a living situation that sucks ass could drive you to QAnon. Definitely. No doubt about it. I mean, it'd at least make you QAnon curious.

Like, what's everybody seeing this? There's no hope in this future. Exactly. Excuse me. curious like what's everybody seeing this there's no there's no hope in this future exactly excuse me yeah it was after a day of his angry outburst when i discovered q anon that night dave was asleep and i lay awake buzzing with stress tired of staring at the ceiling i decided to watch the quote-unquote fall cabal youtube series a friend of mine had told me about it's really weird i'd love to get your opinion on it, she messaged me a few days before, along with a link. The 10 episodes were wove together a narrative about quote-unquote the cabal, supposedly a secret and satanic pedophile ring run by members of the liberal elite, and Trump's secret fight to overthrow them.

I didn't sleep at all that night. Instead, I found dozens of articles and videos confirming my new political views. By the morning, I was a true believer. Hold on a second. Hold on one second. Hold on one second. I got to chime in here.

So she actually woke up and said, you know what? Trump might be a hero fighting the deep state and then she went looking for stuff to confirm this new worldview she just woke up on a whim with or that's the way it reads but i think what she means is that she started digging into this and then arrived at that that's yes yeah yeah that is the latter is what it's appears to me there is no human being alive that doesn't also have the mind of a ferret that is that politically malleable. Right. Maybe over time.

You know what I mean? You mean immediately overnight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, over time, maybe it's a change in class station or something and your political views, you know, become more abhorrent or better depending upon what your situation is. But I just don't believe that anybody just like I know and I know what this article is trying to say, but I just anyway, carry on. Well, that's actually a very interesting thing to point out. That's actually a very interesting thing to point out because you could yeah you're right like you could say i think what they're talking about is this

phenomenon of like q-pilled you know you know they talk about like you take the red pill and immediately overnight it's interesting they pulled out a puke a pull quote here we'll get to it in a minute but it says believing in q felt amazing like being in some sort of mystical state or euphoria i think it's i i just think it's it's interesting like um this phenomenon of being quote unquote like q-pilled i don't know we'll get into it here in a minute um it sounds a lot like transcendental meditation maybe i'm q-pilled and don't know it carry on um i think i think a lot of us probably are but anyways i'll get to that in a minute i think the fact that i was already a big supporter of bernie sanders primed me for the transformation a process people called being red pilled one thing q anon and bernie have in common is the belief that there is a group of

corrupt elites that makes it hard for everyone else in the country and the world to stay afloat. I hadn't trusted the government entirely before 2016. For example, I didn't find the explanations of 9-11 or the assassination of John F. Kennedy to be satisfactory. But my distrust only strengthened when I started to support Bernie that year. I started to think that the news media, billionaires, and the Democratic establishment conspired to keep Bernie from the presidency. This was a significant part of my bridge into QAnon. Okay, so very sort of almost provable things, she says was her bridge into conspiracy yeah all things

all things that like we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt uh usually that's not usually the pipeline though yeah usually somebody says well what if it is turtles all the way under this ground to the core you know what i mean right and then you go from there not not uh well you know it is interesting that pete budaj is the first person to win a primary contest before super tuesday and drop out hmm it it does that's the stuff of conspiracy yeah it does um again there's so many different rate ways to read this article one is that it was placed here by some fucking think tank tried and discredit bernie or they quote unquote left another is that this is a genuine experience it really did happen um you know uh i think there are several other interpretations of it um but i do

i can see how someone who it does feel like generally speaking people who supported bernie are a little more grounded in the reality that like uh you know capital sort of controls everything and it's you know billionaires and other things like that. But I can see how someone with complete loss of any hope of change, if they had put their entire sort of thing into Bernie, they might look at the situation and be like, okay, well, Trump is the only person who i've seen actually i'll go see what's going on over here then i guess i'm just trying to be open-minded

um quote unquote fall cabal affirmed my ideas about the system being rigged against bernie and my general mistrust of the government and organized all those thoughts under a simple explanation the world was being run by the cabal the documentary congratulated me for being able to recognize it and promised that trump and others were already working to fix it initially believing in q felt amazing this is that quote i pulled earlier that they pulled like being in some sort of mystical This is that quote I pulled earlier that they pulled. Like being in some sort of mystical state or euphoria. And I understand that.

I sympathize with that. I mean, if you spend enough time investigating anything on the internet, like trying to make associations and connections and like feeling like you have tapped. Because you can riff forever. Yeah, yeah. Feeling like you've tapped into something that's true and that the truth is so dark and evil and that there are evil forces in the world then yeah you can feel like this sort of like mystical euphoric feeling like you've you've you've stumbled on some knowledge that the rest of the world doesn't hold and that like you're somehow enlightened and the rest of everybody is just like poor foolish people yeah yeah yeah yeah i feel that way powerful thing

yeah i feel that way a lot i mean really um but not for like q obviously but like i mean flat 77 well okay so for example um you know they've talked about this on like subliminal jihad but i had heard about it for a while just never looked into it but like the franklin um child sex abuse ring you've ever heard about this in franklin nebraska no but i instantly need to be i felt that euphoria you're talking about like i'm about to learn something now well um i mean to make a really long story really short like a ring of like a rising gop guy this lawrence e king and oh yeah yeah yeah i have heard this. Yeah. There's a

documentary on YouTube, actually, called Conspiracy of Silence. It was like a Discovery documentary that had been pulled. A Discovery Channel documentary that was pulled at the last minute. And I've heard some people say that the documentary itself is maybe like a limited hangout or an op or something.

But yeah, long story short is these powerful people were running like a child sex abuse ring and that there were even allegations of maybe satanic ritual abuse in there i mean basically this is kind of like an epstein thing carcosa shit yeah yeah dark evil etc but if you read the comments on the youtube uh video a lot of it is trump people a lot of it's q people i mean these are people who are like we've got to you know these these pedophiles like they're they're running society like we need to drain the swamp and get them out there these are people who are absolutely disgusted with this stuff but just don't like i don't really think anybody's really

offering any kind of like narrative that like affirms that this goes on because it does go on. I mean, you can look at the Wikipedia page for this and it's just like, this was a carefully crafted hoax. This wasn't a real thing, but it's undeniable. Once you like read into all of these depositions,

testimonies, interviews, watch the documentary, something was happening. And so it's like like this shit goes on. And so if you're a person who thinks this is disgusting and thinks it's emblematic of the way that they run society, where the fuck else are you going to go?

The only fucking group of individuals talking about it is fucking QAnon and a smattering of alt-leftist media podcasts but that's not like not enough like you know what i mean to really like channel it into something i don't i don't know i i didn't i don't know it's just uh i don't know does it make any sense like i i just yeah yeah yeah it it is weird I think and you know the derisiveness shown to like conspiracy people I think

you know because I mean it's something you know something we've said time and time again on the show is that like

you know like the general contours of their arguments are correct it's just like the you know the reaches they make

about lizard people and so forth and whoever is like kind of the you know the uh more out there shit but like the derisiveness shown to like like sort of you know people with a more paranoid mindset about things i think is part of it is just to discredit people that like ask the questions

you know what i mean and there's there i mean there are there is like unhealthy paranoia but then there's also like just right inquiry because like shit is like you know right in front of our face and i also think that an interesting dimension to this is the internet obviously because like the internet allows you to explore these connections in a way that's never been explored or allowed before i mean you know what i'm saying like you can stay up all night for example watch youtube videos and search on archive.org and you know what i mean just like fucking before you had to go pluck, like, arcane texts out of, like, the library catacombs, you know what I mean? Dust them off.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that there is a kind of, like, there's almost a kind of, like, mystical dimension to that. So I'm reading that Thomas Pynchon book, Bleeding Edge, right now. And there's a section in there I thought was fascinating. This character character he's talking about like the internet he says the internet as it turns out exhibits a strange affinity for the dynamics of curses especially when written in the more ancient languages predating

html through the uncountable cross motives of the cyber world the fates of unreflective click happy users are altered for the worse systems crash data are lost bank accounts are looted all of which being computer related you might expect but then there are also the real world inconveniences such as zits unfaithful spouses intractable cases of running toilet providing the more metaphysically inclined further evidence that the internet is only a small part of a much vaster integrated continuum i think that what he's saying is that like whereas before we didn't have this i mean like if you do believe in witchcraft or not is is kind of moot what he's saying is that like through our very ability to search out for information and just you know go down rabbit holes and click on it at all

times it does kind of create this sort of emergent property of its own yeah it becomes a sorcery of its own it becomes you and you can even curse people with that you can put axes on them that have real world effects i mean and they look at the january 6th thing i mean granted there's so many different ways to look at that too but ultimately yes it started as what you could say people posting online and became a sort of real world thing you know just demonstrating that we are integrating it into a vast much larger continuum um yeah and i think there's something very alluring about that and that's what i think that like a lot of the sort of like because there are like q debunkers

and stuff i think that's kind of what they miss is that like part of what is so powerful about this is your ability as an individual to complete to um to participate in that continuum to to uh to participate in that sort of like mystical uh or you know emergent property of of of the internet and to be sort of, quote-unquote, agent of change. You can search out these connections for yourself, and you can become sort of almost empowered in the things that you find, and in your ability to dig up these things and make these connections. And that's not something that the left is offering in any way, really. You know, it's like the left has traditionally always been like, well, this is the way it is. Rich and poor workers are going to rise up and take, et cetera, et cetera.

Like what QAnon offers is way more powerful. This is a very intoxicating thing almost, you know what I mean? Because, again, it does kind of empower you as the individual to be able to make these connections and then say i'm going to change the world with them because this is evil shit yeah you know right right i don't know but then then the problem becomes the general contours of what they find are absolutely correct there are pedophiles running the world yeah in different ways and all this kind of stuff. But then it's like when they take it into the realm of,

you know, antisemitic tropes and different things, that's when it's like, you know, it's sort of spirals, but like in itself, what they have is like a powerful, very powerful tool.

And, uh, I think people in power kind of know that, you know what I mean? I think that's why there's like been this wholesale sort of know that you know what i mean i think that's why there's like been this wholesale sort of like you know i mean they still i mean i'll still like listen to the radio and people still refer to the insurrection january 6th insurrection and some people won't let that go you know what i mean yeah i don't know yeah i, there has to be some point at which the left can intervene, though.

Before you, like, you come up with all this information, and you say, oh, my God, you're faced with, like, there's the gaping maw of fucking Satan. Just, like, this is evil. This is bad. Okay, well, yeah, it's the Jews and Hitler, and Trump is going to bail us out. It's just, like like how do you intervene

and that's that's sort of that's where you need sort of marx's dialectics right yeah at that point at that juncture that's when you need like a survey of political economy and the history of political economy and the way the world is because if you don't have that, then the only place that can go is just like, again, throwing darts at the craziest shit, lizard people and everything else. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. You're absolutely right. It's like you have to sort of, yeah, you have to combine the alchemy of a paranoid mindset with that sort of, you know, what do you call it historical materialist analysis of of marxism yes i think that's where the the potency lies exactly exactly um so uh so continuing here for about six weeks my fear about impending doom because of covet 19 climate change and what i perceived as the threat of fascism were gone.

The world felt safe and I felt energized, confident, creative, and brimming with love. Again, it's like, all right, if you're really Q, like, you wouldn't think the world, if you're really in a Q, I don't think you would think the world is safe. Like, which again, makes me kind of think like this is kind of like, maybe a little suspicious or something. I don't know. Dave, however, didn't take my sudden political flip well. The next morning, it was immediately obvious to him that something had changed in me. I was beaming and cheerful and yet held back on explaining the change. Despite his insistence, it took me a few hours before I was willing to tell him about my new beliefs.

He was disgusted. Just a month earlier, George Floyd had been murdered, and Dave, who had always considered himself to be a proud American, was so disheartened by the systematic racism and police brutality still present in this country. That did it, Dave! That did it! Like, you weren't... Okay, you're a dyed-in-the-wool racist,

and then all of a sudden you just said, you know what, I'm sick of the way police treat people. Exactly. He was more depressed than I had ever seen him. Hearing me express my new beliefs about the quote-unquote evil... Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. How was somebody that considered themselves like a dyed-in-the-wool, like Bernie liberal, with an avowed racist?

It's not that this person was... That's sus. Yeah, yeah. it's not that this person was that's us yeah yeah it was not that this person was an explicit racist they were just a proud american and they but but that is oh but but i mean if you're a proud american you're racist like you know at a certain level yes you're right but but yeah like they didn't see themselves as that um right but uh let's uh he was so disheartened by the systematic racism basically george floyd convinced him that racism exists right he was more depressed than i had ever seen him hearing me express my new beliefs about the quote-unquote evil cabal how the pandemic was a hoax designed to control humanity and how trump was our only chance at saving humanity was very upsetting to him he abhorred trump and he felt vulnerable to the

virus and thought i should feel that way too he was afraid i might have a mental illness for the first few days after my flip he couldn't stand to be near me he repeatedly told me he was disgusted by my energy and he couldn't bring to be near me. He repeatedly told me he was disgusted by my energy, and he couldn't bring himself to touch me or to speak kindly to me. His comments were painfully cutting and sarcastic, and at times he would slam doors. On day three, he sent me a text and asked me to promise that I wouldn't hurt him in his sleep.

This was too much. How could he ever think that I would have any desire to hurt him? I felt unsafe and unloved. I packed my bags and left, willing to end the relationship if it came to that. But Dave didn't want to lose me. He agreed to learn anger management techniques and to watch

Fall Cabal. He thought the series was full of crap and tried to talk me out of my new beliefs. The more he tried, though, the less safe I felt in his presence, and the more I turned to my new rapidly growing community of QAnon friends. Dave started talking with my therapist, and I saw College's friend about my sudden switch, trying to make sense of how the woman he loved could become such a different person overnight, or so it seemed. Eventually, his therapist told him to treat it as if I had found Jesus and may never be the person I once

was. Can you accept her as she is and still be happy in the relationship? The therapist asked. His therapist also suggested to Dave that he stay close to me to keep our relationship as solid as he could to help me avoid doing irreparable damage to my life and friendships as I was tumbling deeper into QAnon. He didn't tell me all at the time, but he gave himself half a year to figure out if he could make us work despite the growing differences between us dave decided to give it all he had he learned to approach my new views with curiosity instead of judgment but he also had to set

boundaries and ground rules i only shared q anon related information with him when he was willing and he promised to make time for these conversations once a week. I am open to the possibility that I could be wrong, Dave said. Are you willing to meet me there? Blah, blah, blah. You know, basically, the ability to talk to Dave about my QAnon-induced fears was very grounding for me and good for our relationship. My initial QAnon euphoria wore off after a few weeks, leaving me with unease about the dark world controlled by the cabal. When I was scared that President Joe Biden would mandate all people get vaccinated,

I could go to day with my fear. Et cetera, et cetera. Long story short, what eventually dissuaded her from the QAnon stuff was January 6th, which again, kind of, in my opinion, like leads critics to this just being fake. Like, I mean, I understand that there are people out there who probably did become disillusioned with it after January 6th, but my experience with, like, zealots is that they usually kind of double down. It's like the book, you know, when Prophecy Fills. Can I ask a question? And this really might speak to my character.

Why is it that some people are absolutely jarred by January 6th and I never think about it? I don't either. Like, some people are absolutely disgusted at the very mention of it and treat it almost like I'm par with 9-11. And I swear to god i never even think about it it's just like i do you know what i mean i don't know what that says about me and i hope it doesn't say anything negative about my character but i have a hard i just have a hard I'm finding any sort of like, you know, like, I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, I don't want to sound batshit insane to anybody with an earshot of this. But like, it's just something that like, I'll talk to people and they were just like, well, almost well up with tears in their eyes. And I'm just like, okay, you know, like it was this great assault on our democracy and then i'm just like oh for sure man yeah yeah i don't know you know i um um i i think part of it is the symbolism for people who i i think it was the fact that it in in in the libs mind it's like they tried to steal the election and they almost got away with it like of course they wouldn't fucking

got away with it they're never going to get away with this man we're talking about a guy that owns a tractor supply fucking franchise and like nine dip shits from the swap meet. You know what I mean? Right, exactly. I mean. More than that, but you know what I'm saying. Well, it's like you said, like just like a week or two after it happened, I think me and you were talking. It's like it's mostly because Nancy Pelosi almost got her wig split.

Like that's really what it is. It's got nothing. Right, yeah. split. Like, that's really what it is. It's got nothing... Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is very true. It's like, it's like the people... To them, like, watching this in real life is like watching West Wing.

And, like, President Bartlett, the real world analog in their mind at that time, which was Nancy Pelosi, almost got got, and that was just like beyond the pale. Yeah. Somebody that does not care anything about them, or anybody for that matter. Yeah, I think that it also violated their idea of what America is, that we have quote-unquote free and fair elections and

peaceful transfers of power and all these things that they tell themselves about america i thought it was extremely brain shit i thought it was extremely funny i was scolded by people for not taking it seriously but i stand by it that's the other thing i thought it was fucking funny yeah well then you know the other thing too too, I think it bears saying about this, just in the interest of fairness, is, you know, we're talking about this sort of, you know, again, that sort of the power of that paranoid inquiry and utilizing that to get at some greater truths, when you don't have that basis in sort of like Marxist political economy, what happens is you just contribute mightily to the e-crisis. It is incredibly damaging to society. You know what I mean? When you don't have those two things together.

And I think that bears mentioning here unless somebody say, they're out there saying the cuban honors are are actually virtuous you know i i might i think my stance on it is like you're not going to um enact real change in this country much less overthrow the government if that's what your goal is and if you're a socialist it should be um uh parody just for my haters and those in the fbi but um you're not going to you're not going to do that as long as something like q anon exists so i think you have to engage with it on some level um yeah when i say that january 6th was funny i just mean that like i don't i don't know we talked about this on the patreon episode two weeks ago with tanya

because we talked about the mysterious suicides of the police officers who were at jan at the capital that day and i kind of floated the theory that perhaps it was a lib-orchestrated false flag, and the only reason I say that, I don't really believe that, but the only reason I say that is because if you look at the outcome, it does allow liberals to, I don't want to say resolve, because it's definitely not resolved, but it allows them to engage with a contradiction that arose over 2020, which was that a large portion of americans i should i should revise that a large portion of the democratic voting base or people on the left in general uh working people in general let's say

working poor and working people were questioning for a brief time are police necessary and the january 6th riot allowed libs to resolve that in their minds and say yes of course they're necessary we need them they're necessary because nancy pelosi almost got murdered and not only are they necessary they're heroes and they're valorous and they're brave and you know what i mean like all that shit all of their all of their like living breathing sentient aaron sorkin characters that they adore almost got mobbed so ergo we gotta have police right you know it allows them to engage with that and to resolve that because in a world of intensifying climate change and greater houselessness and all these other things, the libs need the police.

They can't not have them unless you completely remake society. And they don't want that. They're never going to do that. They don't want that. So they need some sort of way to justify it. They're never going to be in a better position than this. Right, exactly. They need some sort of ideological justification for why they exist.

And a bunch of idiots fucking storming the capital because like ask yourself and i said this at the time and i took heat for it but seriously ask yourself if they had been successful in taking the fucking capital and trump was still in there or fucking the q anon shaman was president now would anything be different there'd still be fucking cages at the border, and there still are, because Biden hasn't done fucking shit about it. We haven't done anything about climate change. All of these things.

Give him time, man. Give him time. Motherfuckers been in that goddamn six decades, and you got motherfuckers in here screaming, give him time. I mean, yeah, you could say, well, Trump could be in there heightening the discourse and we have greater hate crimes and all this stuff. But have the number of hate crimes gone down since Trump? I mean, I don't, granted, of course I want, I don't want Trump still president, but I'm just saying functionally, they all basically want the same thing.

They just want to do a little bit differently fuck i don't know that horse is out of the barn man you know what i mean like those conditions like are not just easily remedied by like a figurehead like switching office or not you know what i mean which is part of what libs think they they symbols and sort of like symbolic gestures in terms of like politics mean so much more to them. That makes total sense too if you think about it. Just because like, I don't know, if like signs and symbols run the world, like, I don't know. You were saying something the other day that was like, you know, you're like, man, are they fucking with us a little bit? You know, you were talking about something that you'd heard on Saloon with Jada.

I forgot what it was. I was talking about 9-11. Because, like, when you dig, I mean, obviously, if you dig in a 9-11, it's like, okay, if this was an inside job, they did their homework. And if it wasn't, then the coincidences are so incredible. homework and if it wasn't then the coincidences are so incredible it's like for example american airlines flight 77 hitting the pentagon on the 77th meridian which is 77 feet tall it's like how the fuck do those coincidences line up you know what i mean like you'd have to have some but i think that like as they point out on that there's some weird cosmic sort of pre-ordained event or it's an inside job exactly like which is crazier i mean you know i

mean i don't know i i just uh but the but i think the point is is that that you're making is that like symbols are powerful to all of us um they all have a kind of mystical quality to them do what thanks for tying that up for me i was like on my heels like where was i going with that i had it but but it's all about how they're used and are they um are they used to like salvage the american project or are they used to um change the world create a better society like are they used for an analysis of things that is dialectical you know what i mean like yeah i i um i mean i don't know i just i i've just been really struggling with this lately because it's like we do this show every week and and half the time i'm like oh it's pointless and then the other you know and then i talk about like culture war and all the vaccine stuff and people are like well that's why

what you do is important because you're getting the word out there and i'm like but our message quote unquote message if we even have one if there's any coherence to it at all it never fucking gets outside of the you know pre-ordained algorithmic uh barriers you know uh corral that it's in so like how can it actually be doing any work other than justifying how people see the world as it already is which is not not invalid which is not a bad thing but yeah i i just struggle with this because then i'm like well is there any points well you know i've brought this up before but i still stand by it you know what i mean if like you know i told the story about how like it was either kairi irving or steph curry was like

questioning the moon landing and then just got raked over the coals because you know on the news saying that's a slippery slope to like anti-semitic conspiracies and all that stuff and i grant you like yes there there are slippery slopes to anti-semitic conspiracies holocaust and all that sort of thing but i'm here to tell you if you believe in the better angels of the u.s united states of america's nature you are no better than any of these q anon people that you're casting aspersions at and that's that's tough medicine but you need to take it well you're right you would be better served just going ahead and assuming the worst because that's usually true what do you think a fucking government of people who would launch a 20-year war would be capable of doing if they don't have any moral compunction

about toppling governments and all these other things that we know they do you think they have any fucking moral compunctions about just vaporizing 3 000 americans in broad daylight like i don't know if i believe that or not but it certainly seems plausible yeah and we'll also i mean you know just a listen to blowback or any like real reporting about cuba the cia the fbi well i don't know exactly which agency it was, but they killed Americans in service of smearing Castro. Yeah. Yeah.

There's precedence for this. This happens all the time, particularly when you're introducing communism into the conversation. Yes. Yeah, man. I don't know um i look i i guess i'll finish up here with um megan the our pseudonymous pseudonymous pseudonymous anonymous um person here algorithmic yeah since i left i sometimes feel frustrated and disheartened that i can't

fit into either the political right or left those are both in quotation marks i still don't trust the government that much i no longer identify as red or blue i wish i could be purple but there is too much red in the purple for my liberal friends and family so i mostly have stopped talking about politics reading news can be disheartening and stir up old q anon association so i generally avoid it i have almost hmm if only there was a way to talk about the kind of yeah the broad contours of what they've talked about in q anon but but discard the anti-semitic shit in the the you know the part where trump is fucking savior and maybe plug it into uh as you said earlier like a real system yeah exactly then then maybe liberatory system yeah

then maybe you'd be cooking with gas um so i i have almost completely exited all forms of social media that was essential to my recovery you know and that's probably not a bad thing but the thing is unfortunately this is the thing like you could talk about all you could talk about that all day to the cows come home just log off get online but that's just we don't we don't exist in that world anymore we're all sorcerers now we can all fucking make things happen in the real world with our fucking keyboards so i mean like we are the we are the the necromasters yeah i'm not saying please do not misinterpret that and think that i think you should post all the time i don't think that at all or for that matter that you should try to raise the dead yeah i don't think that at all i just i'm just saying that like we talk about this before this you know e-crisis or

whatever the fucking you you want to call it ultimately at the end of the day what it means is that there are people spreading information and ideas out there there's a war on for your mind like you know and you uh you have to engage with that at some point I guess you can't just like let QAnon like run the fucking table I guess I don't know I don't know can you outpost them I don't know I don't know yeah

but that's the thing you don't have to because again that's kind of where the materialist I mean like I don't know I mean that is where the materialist part of this comes in at. If you're organizing, you know, your workplace or tenants and these other things, like, you are engaging with a material aspect of the world and pushing history forward in a way that is just as tangible as, you know,

what these idiots are doing storming the Capitol. Yeah, yeah. just as tangible as you know what these idiots are doing storming the capital yeah yeah well i mean it's also telling too that like all the buzz all the sort of marxist buzz words it marked the word marxist itself uh you know um whatever else they want to say critical race theory all those kind of things it's it like it's telling that like all those they had to go ahead and demonize all of those things right because if you sort of plug that sort of mindset into they get a hold of marxism in a real way then you got a real dangerous situation bubbling you know what i mean so it's like it's like whoever's like pulling the strings of q anon has like done the work of like okay we got to discredit marxism off the top yeah from the jump you know i mean you know people smarter than me and more well read than me will know exactly who and when and where i'm talking

about but i'm pretty sure that the term conspiracy theory itself was introduced in the late 60s as a way to discredit communist movements. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've read that before. I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. Okay, last paragraph.

This experience has taught me a lot. Before I joined the radical right, I was part of the radical left. Now I'm more open to opinions from the whole political spectrum, and my curiosity and compassion has expanded. I'm okay with not having the answers. I have learned who my real friends are. I'm thinking of this whole experience as a form of death and rebirth. I am excited for this next chapter of my life.

It's like that scene in Hannibal where Anthony Hopkins is eating Ray Liotta's brain. Just like, I'm excited for this next part of my life it's like that scene in hannibal where like anthony hopkins is eating ray leota's brain just like i'm excited for this next part of my life i'm no longer right or left i've been reformed completely reformed like clockwork orange or something i've been completely reformed it's so ridiculous it's so true um but yeah i don't know so uh i ultimately basically what they're trying to do is there's you know ultimately they're just basically being like look bernie bernie people are just as susceptible to the q anon thing and in fact they're responsible probably worse probably worse in some ways. Probably worse in some ways. Yeah. Yeah.

Stories. You know, here's the thing. If you look at the worldview that's been consistently demonized by all the worst people on the planet for years, maybe you should just kind of check that out and see what's going on there. Right. It's all of a sudden no yeah it is a good rule of thumb right like if all the most powerful people in the history of world have tried to stamp this thing out i don't want you to talk about it right like doesn't it kind of

tell you something about it yeah it's not you know not rocket science um all right well that's probably a good place to sign out for the week. A few references on this episode have been made to recent Patreon episodes. So go check that out. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Trillbilly Workers Party. And $5 a month. Pretty cheap. Go sign up and check out that content we talked about and uh any final

thoughts uh i don't have any final thoughts i just uh yeah thanks everybody all right well we'll talk to you later