Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 311: Scaring The Bros

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

First we confer with our friends over at Compact Mag about how leftists should be more interested in ancient Rome. Then we talk about how the rest of the world is laffin at us. Finally we take a look at a rural community in Michigan who is apparently fighting the red tide. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

You know how, I don't remember when, you know how like we said at one point in time that like a solid 80 to 90% of articles on Compact Mag start out with like a horny impulse? They start out as someone being horny and then someone being ashamed that they're horny. We're not. They're not all ashamed. And calling themselves out like they're trying to work out their own uh uh like neuroses as they're writing this within the first paragraph yeah yeah yeah this one wait like this article waits for a few paragraphs before it like kind of like you know starts shooting out some pre-cum. So he buried the lead a little bit,

but he comes to a onanism masturbation. He sowed his seed on infernal soil. It wasn't firm yet. I never understood that analogy, by the way, in the Bible, because it made it sound like men in biblical times were jerking off on the dirt constantly. And they're just burying it, burying their sperm. Well, as they say, it says it's better to sow your seed in the belly of a whore than to masturbate. Yeah, like, spooging on the ground.

Yeah, Aaron, you're right. Just, like, covering it up with some... With your toe? Like, using your toe your toe just scrape a little dirt over that shit oh man they gotta pat the ground you know as you would pat the seeds you know the planted seeds that's funny just imagine you go up there just nutting on the ground and patting it and just watering it. Like tilling the land. It's seed. A human grows up out of that.

Oh, you got a human tree. I'd be so tired if it worked that way. Well, this article in the Compact Mag kind of goes towards what I was saying um the article is called when leftists thought about ancient rome because like you know there's this whole there's this whole meme about like ancient rome right now right like about how like guys are constantly thinking about the roman empire yeah i think about the abyssinian empire but that's just me though personally see real heads think about the roman kingdom before it was a republic see like because there's three phases roman kingdom republican and empire but real heads think about the kingdom dog you talk

about like shortly after ramus and remus towns with the two wolves and shit. Let me just read you some of this article, okay? I had to mention it because it hits all my interests. In the early 1860s, a middle-aged Karl Marx was facing one crisis after another. He lost his lucrative job as the London correspondent

for the New York Herald Tribune. His wife, Ginny... I know how that goes, brother. Yeah, we all know how... A post later held by the great Charles Portis. Yes. Who once remarked, if the Tribune would have just paid Marks a little better,

it would have saved us all a whole lot of trouble. This is right. Keep the man working. His wife, Ginny, almost died of smallpox money was scarce and there were several children to feed nobody was reading his decade plus old manifesto and das capital was still only a pipe dream to cope okay that's not true he was writing das capital yeah wasn't he already working on it like if it was like before he died so what he write in a year or some shit and then die like no he's working on it there's a lot of ahistoricism in this article that i'm shocked

made it past an editor but it's compact mag so you can't well is this the just to ask do we know is the uh is the author of this is this because you know compact mag has a hodgepodge a motley crew of uh of so-called leftists and um these weird right-wing people is this person a leftist or are they writing i guess they're writing from the point of view of a conservative critiquing the left, right? They are riding from the point of view of, okay,

that's a great question, Aaron, because I assume that if you are riding for compact mag, you are either a conservative who has way too many sexual hangups to be considered like in the conservative sphere, or you're a post leftist who has way too many sexual hangups to be considered like in the conservative sphere or you're a post-leftist who has way too many sexual hangups to be in the leftist there's a pedigree where there's a perfect circle for all these people who've been ostracized from their respective political communities yeah

his bottom line is you can't be normal about sex the um this guy his name is Alex Petkus Petkus he his twitter bio says he quit academia to teach you what they should have taught you he's a brave truth teller isn't he his interests are heroes, persuasion, tradition

energy from the past, he's a Princeton PhD in classical literature he's a vibes guy, he's a return guy but he's an energy from the past perhaps even more embarrassing is that you got a phd from princeton and can't get the basic facts of marx's life chronologically correct oh dude it it gets way it gets way more farcical to use a marx term um, anyways, Das Kapital was still only a pipe dream. To cope, the socialist philosopher turned to that age-old male spiritual practice, thinking about the Roman Empire every day. Some have detected in the recent viral meme,

How Often Do Men Think About Ancient Rome?, more evidence of a worrying rise in right-wing extremism. For years, classicists have been sounding the alarm about nefarious links between fascism and online male fans of antiquity. But not long ago, some of Rome's great men fascinated thinkers and activists of the left. You know, we didn't talk about it at the time,

but I do think about Rome. It's's a fun little hobby a normal amount like the glory what's that tom a normal amount a normal amount and not like about 20 minutes a day or about yeah like i'm not really interested in like the main fucking years like who's interested in that like i'm not interested in the main years no no we all want to know about like the decline we want to know about the bad times yes we want to know about cities burning while men play liars while emperors play liars and shit you know what i mean i want to know about the bacchanalia i want to know about that shit yeah yeah i want to know about the castrati you know what i mean like all these you mean like guys who've had their balls cut off to sing higher yeah nero would take young boys and castrate them for to sing in this choir well weren't they called like the phoebes

or some shit like that technically nero is like in the still in the glory days oh word damn that shit was long yeah nero was not in the decline years. He was like, I believe he was in the first century. He was emperor during the time that, what's his name? Edward Gibbons said that it was probably the most glorious moment in human history. Like, no one was luckier than the people who got to live in the first century AD Roman empire. So he was in the reasonable doubt age and not like the blueprint three era.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. I'll try to, I'll try to make this make sense. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

He died shortly after the blueprint and thank God he did. No, everyone. No, the best shit real heads want to talk about fifth century sixth century like we we want to talk about like the tax farming system you know what i'm saying we want to talk about like the rise of the carolingian empire that's that's real shit right there finally finally um so reading appian's roman civil war in the original greek marx was particularly struck

by one figure he wrote to his friend and collaborator angles spartacus emerges as one of the best characters in the whole of ancient history a great general unlike garibaldi a noble character i like marx can't help but like throw some shade at just like an anarchist yeah i can't not was i don't think garibaldi was an anarchist i'm pretty sure he was like a italian nationalist i thought he might have been anarchy you probably were out though um he uh um a genuine representative of the ancient proletariat um spartacus was the gladiator gladiator who shocked the roman world by leading a slave revolt around 73 bc uh even before marx his example had captivated radicals the haitian revolutionary general toussaint louverture was hailed as a black Spartacus in the early 19th

century, a comparison recalled by another Caribbean revolutionary, Fidel Castro. And then he goes on to talk in an incredibly muddled way that makes really no sense about how the Stanley Kubrick movie about Spartacus in the early 60s was, you know, like multiple people who had been blacklisted in the McCarthy purges in the early 50s worked on this movie and how like real, you know, real communist men used to look up to ancient Rome and ancient Rome. This movie was a haven for the Reds. Yes. Yeah. this movie was a haven for the reds yes yeah but um but so then we like then he skips though to another like sort of mainstay in the compact mag like uva like their sort of like toolkit which is like invents a guy to be mad at um he writes spartacus in its current form would

probably not make it past today's progressive cultural gatekeepers yo can i just say something real quick i love i love when people take a historical figure or event in like in time and like just take it up with two hands and pull that shit up and put it drag it and carry it to like to contemporary times or another time period and try to make like extrapolate comparisons or examples like bro what do you he would probably be like what are you talking about if spartacus was alive today is there anything out there that it cannot be said of there that's or is there anything out there i guess that somebody has not said you couldn't do that today about people just say anything and somebody will say you know what that would never fly today and it's like

that we're talking about that person's still working or you know or this show's still on or whatever or we're still doing this thing right now yeah also everybody loves stanley kubrick movies like where no one's going to turn on sparkacus. Like, I don't know, man. He goes on, Frivolous women are the ones to blame for triggering the gladiators' revolt. Spartacus' wife is stereotypically feminine and passive. The fight scenes are purely male affairs, and the one black character dies too early. To underscore the Romans' decadence and corruption, the film, like the novel portrays its villain crassus as a bisexual predator even beyond these problematic details spartacus isn't

the kind of film that would be likely to appear at a nearby multiplex today hollywood seems unable today to offer viewers any real forceful male heroes drawn from the distant what are you talking about bro oh my fucking god i like the uh real forceful male heroes like what do you mean by forceful dude yeah like are you talking about liam neeson taken are you talking about like sex crimes like what are you saying right now because like thor that's like an ancient god or whatever you know what i mean like that's is he not forceful enough are superheroes not forceful enough uh it seems the current pop consensus shaped by the demands of dei would prefer in the mode of the ancient lawgivers to consign most of what came before to consign most of what came before the 1960s or the 2000s

to the bad times before good order was established. If that analysis is anywhere close to the mark, it is ironic that one of the men to whom the presentist status quo is often attributed was deeply affected by Rosa Luxemburg's Spartacus Brigade. As a young man, the Marxist philosopher... Again, this leaps so far, because now we've moved on to Marcuse, because he's talking about the 60s.

As a young man, the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse carried a rifle in a left-wing paramilitary unit in Berlin and flirted with the idea of joining up with the Spartacus Bond. But in 1919, after seeing the brigade fall in a bloody disaster its leaders summarily executed blah blah blah uh herbert herbert marcusa by the way was on the payroll of the cia so um i don't know probably not the best example to pick right right like i'm i don't know how many people are aware of that. And it may not mean anything, but I don't know. I'm hearing this for the first time.

Anyways, just continuing here. Here we arrive at the point in history where the question of how often a man thinks of the ancient Romans can become a funny meme. The meme is funny partly because the women asking the question are so shocked, but also because the Romans are so self-evidently interesting to their men. This disconnect is the result of the consignment of much of the past to the dustbin of history. In this context, the grassroots popularity of Rome among regular dudes should be encouraging for anyone who would like to see

the return to a robust historical consciousness. Oh my fucking God. That's all we want. That's all we fucking want, man, is to return to a robust social consciousness. As Marx, Luxembourg, he's talking about Howard Fast, Dalton Trumbo, Kirk Douglas, all realized, serious political movements need historical symbols,

Rome being so ancient, universal, blah, blah. Because of the success of the patriarchy smashing i think i missed a crucial sentence here where he's describing how absolutely fucking sexy the goddamn ancient romans were i swear to god all this obsession with rome as well which is fine it's all homoerotic as well which is fine brother you know do your thing man no judgment i think that's the thing oh yeah yeah this was this is what this was it um spartacus borrowed many elements from cabiria above all a focus on muscular male bodies in action sequences this is like trump's like i would kiss the generals this is pretty much

yeah it's like they look great in their uniforms they're big guys, 6'3". Look at Spartacus in that little Roman skirt thing with them sandals. Look at Spartacus. Is his ass hanging out? Look at his cheeks glistening. If he didn't have all this attention, he shouldn't have been wearing that fancy breastplate. Because of the success of the patriarchy-smashing cultural revolution that has rendered much of history problematic.

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I can imagine him saying that with a sneer. You know what I mean? Like, that's so condescending, dude. Well, I just, like, what are you talking like no one if anything honestly one of the most frustrating things to me is how much the left idealizes various chapters of the past including the 1930s and 40s like cio that you know what i mean that

kind of shit too it's just like i i wish that were the case that we forgotten about some of these not forgotten i don't want i don't want that but just that like they wouldn't be constantly trying to be recreate that yeah yes which that's the greatest i get on the nostalgia tip that's the great one that's exactly and that's the greatest irony of this piece um that i'll i'll get to in just a minute what i'm getting from this so far and just i gotta keep it straight because i'm battling covid brain fog right now but this man is in essence saying that wokeness has ruined everybody's chance to enjoy muscular men and tight-fitting

attire. Which I would think it was the opposite. I would think wokeness has made that more acceptable. But he's saying the opposite. He's saying wokeness has ruined everybody's chance to be as gay as possible

with the Romans. Be gay for the Romans. Your COVID brain has landed on something that is extremely fascinating and that you would only find on the pages of Compact Mag, which is that,

you're exactly right, Tom, wokeness has not made homoeroticism easier. It's actually made it harder. It's made it harder to appreciate as a real man, which is in the terms of the Roman Empire. The only way approach appreciate as a real man which is in the terms of the roman empire the only way you can as a straight man appreciate gayness is the roman

empire it gets at something very fascinating like a fascinating part of of homoeroticism in the west which is that like women always women always be ruined in the party for dudes who just want to bone each other suck and fuck women always be like ruining the side for dudes who just want to bone each other. Suck and fuck. Women always be ruining. The side said no girls only. The treehouse said no girls only. What are you doing here? You're scaring the bros.

You're scaring the dicks. They're falling off and running away and sprouting legs and charging. Far, far from us. Ladies, you're scaring the bros. It's just like, I'm just... Human sexuality is a vast spectrum, right? This article and others like it in the return tradition kind of prove that there is a kind of homoeroticism that is extremely misogynistic.

Like, it hates, it loves dudes, but they're so ashamed of it and they take it out on women you know what i'm saying like yeah also as if women can't like it's also like again like the homoeroticism of it is like we all as men can enjoy this together because we understand robust forceful men of history and those broads they don't so they're not allowed in it's why it's this it's the same animating factor that uh william f buckley could call gore vidal a goddamn queer but he was like swimming naked with boys in his swimming pool but that but that was just in the roman sense yeah

it was like it was like the baccadalia in the way that you know it's um it's just friendly male male engagement you know none of it is sexual at all. It transcends sexuality. So, a public education has not for some time afforded recent generations of Americans much awareness of the potential realities of the past. Okay, I do kind of agree with that. Not in the way he's saying it. That's what motherfuckers want to sidestep this. It's so... The people that will nod to the Greek and Roman sort of origins of like, you know, like Namblethod and shit like that, also are the ones out here calling people pedophiles.

And groomers, exactly. Exactly, exactly. The people who fetishize grooming and who storicize it are the ones that exactly. Yeah, the ones that exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The ones that want to like have sex with young boys are the ones out here calling everybody groomers and peanuts. Um, so he,

then he then goes on to say in the precincts of higher education. Meanwhile, classicists are too preoccupied with counteracting the whiteness of the discipline or smashing glass ceilings with female translations of ancient epics to address the problem. A female translation of an ancient epic? Like, just... Like, is she speaking a different language? Like, do women speak a different language now? Like, what are you talking about? I did see...

Is there somebody trying to do female Spartacus? No. I just saw recently that there's like a new translation of Homer, and there was a big whoever the fuck Homer was, if he even existed. He may not have even existed. But there's like a new translation of the Odyssey, I think, or the Iliad. There's like a new translation of the Odyssey, I think, or the Iliad. And it's by a woman who apparently, not by virtue of her gender, but by virtue of her skills.

It's like a skill issue. People take issue kind of like with her translations. But it seems, I might be crudely misrepresenting this quote unquote scandal, but he's, it seems like he's applying it to her whole entire gender. It's too, it's too broadified. I can't fuck with this shit. This shit. Like,

what the fuck is this? Uh, Jesus. He says, if they could even admit it was one, Jesus fucking Christ. Um, also the,

the, the whiteness of the discipline. I mean, granted, I'm not in the academy. I don't fucking know what's going on in the colleges so i don't i haven't stepped foot in a college in years yeah i don't know how they're teaching ancient greece and ancient rome but um if the entire faculty of entire classics programs at universities is all white, that kind of does say something about the topic. So I think that you kind of have to deal with that in some way.

It's all white. It's all white. And this is what I'm getting at. It's the main people who study it are all white. They're studying a group of people for whom the category of whiteness did not exist so there is a disjuncture there yeah but it's also seen as almost like it's also seen as this precursor right um to like wet white western society you know what i mean so automatically you attribute like whiteness to the ancient romans you know despite

the fact that it was a vast fucking region you know they encompass like tons of people yeah they everybody forgets they conquered the world essentially almost that's the thing i guess it's because they they automatically associate like virility and strong ass muscular fucking quads and abs and shit with whiteness yeah or yeah we're dominating much of the world or whatever like that's ultimately what's at stake here it's like why they they're white supremacists is because they ought to harken back to a time when europeans by force just like took you know there were these conquerors and all this shit it's like it's it's like it's like the ancient alien shit dog not even ancient it's like ancient alien shit where people like yo how did they how did the uh how

did the ancient egyptians like build the pyramids or how did like you know like um indigenous people of the americas build these huge ziggurats and shit like that was it aliens because they're like oh black and brown people couldn't do that shit that's impossible right you know it's like the only people that could build civilizations were white people that looked like us they were sucking and fucking each other men specifically but that it always has a libidinal i don't know why i pick up on that maybe i'm incorrect but it does feel like there is like a libidinal thing here that is you know you know what it is not to not to even derail but you know what i think it is too it's like the way they envision progress, you know? It's almost like the Italian futurist, right? For them, like conquering technology and conquering nature, sorry, and technological progress, right?

We're markers of social progress, you know? And also being hyper-masculine and masculinity as a symbol of speed and strength and power and all that shit. Right. So for them, when they see these huge grand cities these ancient cities of antiquity like for them like not only does it have like oh this is western white society but like obviously this was created and built and designed by men you know right motherfuckers couldn't even build a tower right it's fucking they weren't even good at it they have the plummet down pack though i'm not gonna lie you know with the aqueduct yeah ah come on probably better than southwest atlanta to be fair though

i gotta filter better water with the goddamn t-shirt in a bucket well i mean that's that's the thing it's like past civilization i do get i do get annoyed sometimes with people having this sort of like hegelian view of history that like is on this trajectory where it only progresses and gets better where it's like there were technologies and things about the past that were you know they i hesitate to use the word better because i don't know, because I didn't live in them. But I do think that like- Y'all are some aqueduct stands. Y'all are impressed by the aqueduct.

Dog, they're still standing in like our fucking, our water supply, water system. We're getting flesh-eating bacterias in Martin County. They just built that shit 30 years ago. These motherfuckers are drinking

the finest water in the world and selling it to us for three dollars a bucket in pellegrino and all that shit listen dog the coliseum is still standing uh the georgia dome has been blowed up you know what i mean yeah they replaced it with that ugly ass mercedes-benz stadium so you know i'm not hating you know um but like the gender stuff i mean mean, obviously that, you know, we don't have to take a page out of that book. But anyways, hence the only safe space left for men to think about ancient Rome is the Internet to the evident. They love their safe spaces. I love their safe spaces, brother.

Again, like, when I was in college, I took several classics courses. The people that were in those courses, I guess that's what he's saying. I guess, in his argument, I guess what he's saying is that, like, white men can no longer go take classics courses in college without taking them with women and black people and other people of color therefore we have no safe space to and also also the people that were taking the class with the other marginalized people will look at us as if we'll be sussed out about us because we're white men taking these classical courses yeah like i had probably but not really i don't give a shit dude there are a lot of women in my classics courses in fact i would go so far as to say probably more than men honestly i guess my point though is that like um he's kind of giving away the game there it's like if i can't study my fucking ancient rome with 50 other muscular ass fucking dudes

without getting interrupted by a goddamn girl I don't want to do it then of course we're going to study it online and become Nazis don't you see what you're doing to us you're making girls study with us you made us do it you made me be a Nazi I'm an ancient Rome Nazi because you made a girl study with me

see the fascists now I'm an actual fascist because of you you know um okay this is the part that i find highly amusing as a uh marxist the academic and media establishment's abandonment of the serious task of inspiring men doesn't bode well for the left's political prospects revolutionary revolutionary marxism captured the hopes of earlier generations because it had the fruits of a real culture still in place marx himself had his german gymnasium education to thank for his classical learning the contemporary left's willful abandonment gymnasium it's like um it's like uh it was like a german schooling

so his gym teacher was also the history teacher like in america yeah what's the german conception of a hymnassia i gotta know you guys are getting hung up on the wrong damn detail is it like a stage or some shit yeah like do words even mean things anymore like yeah bro no like you mean gym, I didn't. Like, Electra Hall? Yeah, like, do words even mean things anymore? Like... Yeah, bro. No. Like, you mean Genesium didn't mean where I used to go

play dodgeball but where motherfuckers learned shit? Like, what the fuck is that? Yo, what? Oh, man. I'll look it up on my own time.

I'm sorry. Yeah, we'll... Tardy Boys will find out later. Um... Uh... Guys, you got me off topic okay i was thinking of sexy ass dudes in gymnasiums now maybe that's why he put that in there he was like he did that he's like some some little fucker's gonna lambast me and i'm gonna appeal to his latent homoeroticism um the contemporary left's willful abandonment of much of the historical past Light and homoeroticism. That's really my topic. The contemporary left's willful abandonment of much of the historical past

leaves it unable to execute the total rupture of history its architects promised. Perhaps in this sense, progressives have good reason to be concerned that they have ceded the Roman Empire to the legions of online enemies. Okay. Okay.

I have to... Okay. If you seriously say that, I don't understand how anybody claiming to know Marx has not read the probably most famous Marx paragraph in history. The point is it's like, it's highly ironic to say that about someone who's one of the most famous theorizing of revolutions was that leftist proletarian revolutionaries, but also mostly bourgeois revolutionaries actually is what he's saying, are constantly evoking the images of the past and LARPing previous revolutions. So, for example, like the French revolutionaries LARPed as Roman Republicans from the Roman Empire.

The revolutionaries of 1848 LARPed as the revolutionaries of 1793. The Tea Party LARPed as the Boston Tea Party. It's Clarence Thompson's wife's money sure yeah yeah we we larped as like early 20th century uh you know iron workers or factory workers or whatever yeah yeah yeah you yeah you i i see what he's, like, you borrow, every movement borrows aesthetic references from yesteryear. What? It's part of, without getting too deep into it, Marx's point was that

in the sort of, like, dialectical development of history, revolutionaries are almost, it's almost like they're incapable of breaking out of history and so like you even had the bolsheviks like all of them were obsessed with the french revolution and we're all obsessed with like danton and robespierre and like who would become the first to go to the guillotines you know what i'm saying like they're all they all larp as previous revolutionaries like this is part of the sort of trap that you as a revolutionary find yourself in like you will you know in trying to create a new future in a new world you often borrow from the past you pick up

things and items and identities from the past and then larp that out to to to our detriment yeah i mean there's a way to look at it too where I think uh Grafton Tanner in his book the circle of the snake uh he talks about nostalgia I think at the end he talks about revolutionary nostalgia which is like a more conscious effort right to like um look back especially at like programs like the Black Panther uh breakfast program right like organizations today especially during COVID that will look back to those times of mutual aid right and other organizations like that's fine but like i guess yeah when you're i don't know man it's almost like it's almost like a crab or something or crustacean molting you know yeah it has to kind of break out of this skin but it can only retain

and maintain the same form that it already had you know totally the morphology dimensions that i had you know what i mean yeah we're're all crabs We're all crabs in a barrel man And they're shooting at us Molting at the same time But he wants us to go back to fucking and sucking each other In the Roman bathhouse Yeah I Well anyways

If you find him on Twitter His obvi is one of the ancient Rome Statues So anyways Thought that was amusing because Avi is one of the ancient Rome statues. So, anyways. Thought that was amusing. Thought you boys would find that amusing. He's a Roman Homer.

He's a Roman Homer? Yeah. Roman, raging Homer? Raging Homer. Raging Homer. He's a homosexual. so Well, so, you know, pivoting away from ancient history to the current world, to the contemporary American life. You know, this is recording this on Thursday, October 5th.

The world is laughing at us, boys. The world is... The three of us or America? America. They're just sitting over there in Slovenia. They're laughing at us. They're just sitting over... They're sitting over there... Sitting in their ivory towers in Ljubljana.

However you say that. They're in Lithuania and they're laughing at us. Because we... We ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speakership of the House. And it's an undermining of democratic norms in the country's institution. And they're laughing. We showed our ass, basically, is what you're saying. That's according to the New York Times.

There's a news article in the New York Times about it that's not even op-ed. It's a reported story about how the world is laughing at us. So they didn't even have to go to the editorial board. They were like, we all feel bad about this, right? We all feel ashamed, right? We're all shitting in our duty pants right now, right? Yes, you are. Motherfucker, I don't feel bad.

right now right yes you are motherfucker i don't feel bad so they're they're saying that paradoxically removing uh somebody like mccarthy is a harbinger of fascism to come yeah they're saying that like this is from peter baker he says there was a time not long ago when the United States presumed to teach the world how it was done. You mean when it was dropping nuclear bombs on a country's dog and invading it? Where exactly was that, Pete? When it held itself up as a model of a stable, predictable democracy. When it sent idealistic young avatars to distant parts of the globe to impart the american way not even people not even people these are not people they're just products it's a very weird thing to say it is very dehumanizing fuck you dude these days to many watching at home and abroad the american way

no longer seems to offer a case study in effective representative democracy instead it has become an example of disarray and discord one that that rewards extremism, challenges and norms, and threatens to divide a polarized country even further. So I don't have to get into the rest of it. The rest of it is just about like play by play, blow by blow of Kevin McCarthy getting ousted. I just want you all listening to this to sit down and think seriously about a wooden-shoed sackcloth peasant in Siberia laughing at your ass. They're laughing at you. It has just worked like a 12-hour day where probably you two actually. But in the freezing cold, you know what I mean? They're laughing at your ass.

They've spilled their seed in the soil they're laughing yeah they're getting a reap a harvest and what they're saying is that america's not because they've traded in their democratic norms for whatever this is we did we traded for chaos didn't didn't canada also this week i mean i don't know man because i don't i don't know anything, I don't even know about domestic politics, much less international politics. But didn't Canada also oust their Speaker of the House? There's some shuffle in their, what do they call it, their parliament or some shit like that? Is it because of the Nazi incident? I mean, probably.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, Honka is now the Speaker of, is now the Canadian, whatever the equivalent is. The guy who, the Nazi in Cape is now the speaker of the Canadian, whatever the equivalent is. The guy who, the Nazi who came is now the speaker of that? Yeah, the ancient Nazi. Yeah, the mouthpiece for the Canadian. The ancient wizard Nazi? Yeah. The Merlin's Nazi?

Okay. So there's been some shakeup in North America is what we're saying here there's been shake-ups yeah also too i know i'm jumping around but didn't didn't i did i saw an article that said that republicans were in conversation with trump to bring him back as speaker of the house that's possible technically bro why would you ever have any faith in a country that allows some shit like that to happen dude it is i think apparently it is like legally possible like you don't have to be in the house to be speaker i'm pretty sure so is it some is it like some cincinnati shit where you like you just rise to the occasion from your um from your roman field to like to like fucking like serve the country or some shit. Yeah.

Can Trump be Speaker of House? That'd be so fucking great. Like the governing version of a citizen's arrest. Like, you know what? I'll carry that mantle. I'll be Speaker of the House if you all need one. I'll take one for the team. Apparently, he is ineligible for the post because the party's rules bar anyone under

indictment for serious charges from the house leadership oh y'all fucked up y'all you all listen if you wanted a speaker but i don't know anybody that's more equipped for the job that's what we need we need donald trump to have less ambition he doesn't if he could just not be the man like he would be just sorry i'm ill are you coughing bro yeah i'm coughing bro not very roman of you yeah sorry i'm being vulnerable um well you know it's they're laughing at us abroad. They're in Lemuria in Atlantis. They're laughing at us down there.

They're Narnia laughing at us. They're Narnia laughing at us. Wakanda. Wakanda laughing at us. Wherever Aquaman's from, I guess he's Atlantis, isn't he? The Jar Jar Binks sphere and Star Wars Tatooine Tatooine

laughing at us they're fucking laughing at us I'm fucking hot they're in their little caves on hot they're in their

little they're in their they're cutting open their tauntauns they're laughing at us they're in their palm races laughing at it. They're the upon races laughing at it.

The motherfucking Jabba the Hutt is laughing at it. Damn souls looking up from the river Styx. Laughing at it. They're in Plato's Republic laughing at it. They on the wall laughing at it. They coming off the wall laughing at it. The seventh ring of hell is lit up. Dante's inferno. Yeah, you guessed it.

Laughing at us. They're laughing at us. All the archdemons laughing at us. The motherfuckers laughing at us. Oh, man. Well, no. I just read a fascinating article in the new york times that i wanted to share with you guys before i read it i want to put a caveat that i'm not doing the standard ukrainian flag in the bio standard lib thing of laughing at rural people for being too dumb to you know vote in their

interest or whatever however but i'm not not doing that but that being said i'm really not this is more of like a sociological anthropological thing it's another example of how like there's no good real good guys anywhere to be found it's all just scraping the bottom of the barrel like spiraling the drain um more it's a moral uh moral bog is what it is yes that's moral quagmire it's exactly what it is it's it's another example like the ukraine conflict where words have no meaning. You know, it's like there's there's words, there's signifiers, but they're so far decoupled from the signified that it creates this very bizarre disjuncture between yourself and reality. So the article is titled A Rural Michigan Town is the Latest Battleground in the U.S.-China Fight. What?

So here we go. Yard signs along the quiet country roads of green chartered township Michigan, home to horse farms and a 19th century fish hatchery, blare a message that an angered community hopes is heard by local leaders, the Biden administration, and China. No Goshen. I had to read that several times.

Goshen? Okay. It's like lotion with a G. No lotion. They're all that dry jacking there. Oh, man. That's insane. I don't think my last, my Roman boy would like that book. Yeah, we're a town of dry jacking there. Oh, man. That's insane. I don't think my last, my Roman boy would like that,

but you know. Yeah, we're a town of dry jackers. The opposition is to a plan by Goshen, a subsidiary of a Chinese company, to build a $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery factory on roughly 270 acres of largely uninhabited scrub land an investment of that magnitude can transform a local economy but in this case it is unwelcome by many presidents fear that the company's presence is a dangerous infiltration by the

chinese communist party and it has led to backlash death threats and an attempt to unseat the elected officials who backed the project. Can I just say the obvious thing? The obvious thing is that these are the same people who are using computers and using products and wearing clothes and like, probably like, their children's children owe money

to China. I mean, it's just like, it's just insane. Like, what are you talking about? I guess because it's so in their face, you know. Let me ask you a question. If they came into that town and said, we're going to give you all 100% employment and everybody gets paid 300K a year, you think people would still be worried about

the creeping Chinese Communist Party? How strong is ideology? I think Americans are willing to impoverish themselves if it proves a point. Like, we're very proud and stupid and stubborn people, so I wouldn't doubt that people would just go poor and go broke because they have too much pride and honor. I have no doubt. I can't remember if it gets into how good the jobs would be, but I'm pretty sure they'd be like stable you know manufacturing jobs um and it it does get at an interesting thing which is that like i've not really beat this drum too hard on this show because i know people really have an ideological investment in thinking this is not true but china

is a capitalist country it runs capitalism. It has stronger capital controls. It has stronger regulatory controls on its capital. If it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck, folks. But that's the thing that there's no meaning because they're like, they are called communists all throughout this piece. But it's like they're communists for trying to open up using capitalist business

practices a factory in the community it's like there's no meaning words don't mean i guess in the strictest sense they have seized the global means of production yeah well yeah strictest sense yeah um the debate over the factory has turned a township of about 3,000 people 60 miles north of Grand Rapids against each other and into an unlikely battleground in the economic contest between the U.S. and China. The resistance is part of a broader movement by states to erect new barriers to Chinese investment

amid concerns about national security and growing anti-China sentiment. It's the communist influences that I'm bothered by because they have shown repeatedly that they don't care about our rules, our laws, or anything, said Lori Brock. What the fuck is this, 1960 or some shit? What the fuck is this? Listen to this lady's bio. Said Lori Brock, who lives on a 150-acre horse farm

near the battery factory. Yeah, she's a hillbilly. Anybody named Brock... 150 acre horse farm. That's a hillbilly name. That's huge. I'd bet any amount of money her grandparents are from

Eastern Kentucky. Seriously. Any amount of... I'd bet my next three paydays. She is in Michigan. She probably did get you know guaranteed brock it makes sense that that sentiment has been reverberating in the united states and on the republican presidential campaign trail this year in august the campaign

of nikki haley called michigan's democratic governor gretchen whitmer a comrade for backing the goshen factory on wednesday they always make these people sound way cooler than they are, man. Shut the fuck up. That's what I mean. It's bottom of the barrel. If she's a comrade for bringing a capitalist industry in, it's just like,

nothing makes any sense. Is Gretchen the one they were trying to kidnap at time? Yeah. Yeah, it was. On Wednesday, Vivek ramaswamy a republican candidate will hold a rally at mrs brooks at miss brocks farm motherfucker your family's from asia all right i know this is the point i just don't that guy

especially don't understand so of course he's gonna beat the drum the hardest because the brown guy has to do it to know to let like you know let the voters know like hey i'm not one of i'm one of the good ones but it's still fucking insane, yo. You talk about an ain't shit ass motherfucker. Truly, truly. Animosity toward China has been deterring Chinese investment in the U.S. in recent years. Annual investment by Chinese companies fell to $5 billion in 2022

from $46 billion in 2016. Employment at Chinese firms in the U.S. has declined nearly 40%, but incentives is starting, but investment is starting to turn around as a result of the new federal incentives included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that were meant to spur American production of electric vehicles. Oh, it's Biden's fault then. Thanks, Biden. production of electric vehicles it's biden's fault then thanks biden well it is an interesting thing that like the like the once again the signifier of evs electric vehicles is now being like cast as a communist plot by china and any liberals that supported including the uaw chinese want to make the world the chinese want to make the world more habitable

i mean we can't have that. God damn, that's hilarious. And at the end of the day, it's a fucking car. It's like the EVs are not going to solve climate change. It's a fucking car. We need to be driving less cars. Exactly. I wonder how many emissions.

I mean, I don't know the fucking math of it, but what are the emissions related to producing these electric vehicles? Yeah, you're still. And also, I mean, where do you you think you think there's just an electricity ferry you know what i mean like you got a motherfucker on a pit on a wheel yeah it might be better but somebody's still burning coal or natural gas to power those evs that's that's how bottom of the barrel it is a evs are being which will not solve climate change are being cast as a climate change solving thing which is a communist plot by a country that's not actually really communist it's like it's all chimeras and illusions all the way down also also to you know not not throwing too much

at the chinese communist party but like you know just because of like just numbers also like you know one of the the top like uh em numbers, also, like, you know, one of the top, like, emitter of fossil fuels. Like, you know, emissions in the world, you know what I'm saying? Just by Spurgeon being as big as it is, but that's how meaningless all of these words are, you know what I mean? What's really funny is that consumers

in China aren't even really driving that much. Like, China is exporting a lot of their EVs to Europe, and, and i don't know this is a tangent but europe is like trying to stop some of these like they're they're launching an investigation into chinese ev production saying that they got state subsidies to do it which of course they did i mean that's the capitalism that they practice in china it's also the capitalism we practice here we just call it defense spending and it's a fucking elon musk but anyways um the coalition for a prosperous america which represents american manufacturers

coalition for broke-ass amer Yeah, you got that right. Estimates that Chinese companies could gain access to $125 billion in U.S. tax credits related to green energy manufacturing investments. There are really strong commercial logics driving this. And those commercial logics aren't going away anytime soon.

The possibility that... I just like the term gain access as if they're not doing it through legal means. You know what i mean like once again like this idea that the chinese are stealing technology they're stealing our resources it's just like yeah shut the fuck up they're just like they're kicking down the door of every small town america we're like we're gonna fucking put a plan here whether you like it or not motherfucker we're gonna give you jobs they're kool-aid manning into your neighborhood into your community man busting through the wall yeah with electric vehicle battery i sent tom this article earlier and it's like you know live in a county where they're trying to build a federal prison the entire

argument for which is we need more jobs it's just like it's probably the same in this place it's just like again it's bottom of the barrel because who the fuck no i mean a job is a job like you're being exploited for your labor but it's a prison is a little bit different but you know what i'm saying like it's a factory anyways it's like given the choice between like a federal prison or like a uh a job a livelihood a china China-backed battery factory. What I was saying was I want to petition the Chinese government to propose a battery factory for my county and just see how many heads explode. She's like, oh, I thought y'all wanted jobs.

Let's do this. I thought y'all wanted the jobs. Not like that, not like that. Well, you know, President Xi in iowa for a couple years as a young man and i can just imagine him looking out on the fruited plane saying you know what one day i'm going to send to the highest heights of the chinese communist party and on this very land i'll build multiple ev facilities and they won't be able to do a god damn thing about it. He's been

playing the long game on this one. I'm with Brock and Ramaswamy on this one. I think G... You think you should dash a young man's dreams? That's fucked up talk. Oh man. House Republicans have also urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to withhold

any federal subsidies for the Goshen facility. The Inflation Reduction Act, blah, blah, blah. We know that the vast majority of investments made through the Inflation Reduction Act are being made by American companies. The Treasury estimates that only 2% of the electric vehicle and battery investments that have been made during the Biden administration involve Chinese companies. made during the Biden administration involved Chinese companies. Goshen already has operations in California and Ohio and plans to open a $2 billion lithium battery plant in Illinois. The company chose Michigan last year after securing nearly $800 million in grants and tax exemptions from the state's strategic fund,

whose officials said the investments would bring jobs, customers, and economic vitality to the region. At the time, Ms. Whitmer held vitality to the region at the time miss whitmer held the factory as a win for the state since then a growing and vocal contingent has been working to halt the project okay this is can i just say that's just amazing that there will be right-wingers who already don't give a fuck if people have jobs but in so many words are telling people like i'm preventing you from getting a job because of communist influence from the chinese communist but that's just kind of insane yo that's really bold to turn

around and tell your voters that but they're probably with it though well the reasons that they're giving well i'll just i'll read i'll show i'll tell you much of the effort has been directed at green charter township's board of trustees a group of local republican officials who voted to allow goshen to secure the state tax breaks when residents realized that the company was coming to town had ties to china township meetings that usually drew a handful of people attracted hundreds of angry critics so did they just not tell them from the get-go did they just drop it by the way they're chinese i don't i don't i get i don't know i don't know fuck i don't know if they like, if some enterprising activist

looked into it and was like, oh my god, they've got a fucking Chinese house. Also, why does it fucking matter? Capital flows all over the globe. Who the fuck does it matter where it comes from? You don't understand, Terrence. It's the evil Chinese Communist Party.

It's the Chinese Communists in their capitalist plot to turn us all into communists using capitalism. To give us jobs and make the air greener. Yeah. Make the environment greener. What'd you say, Tom? That's why they caught with Chinese characteristics.

Uh-huh. It means insidious and sneaky. That's right. That's right. Jim Chapman, the town township supervisor has heard residents suggest that they would call in the michigan militia or exercise their second amendment rights to stop goshen from building the factory okay i would i i you know what's hilarious is the idea that like these fucking uh dipshits with their like delusions and like they're practicing other

shit on the weekend like uh what are y'all gonna do stand against the fucking chinese army that they can think they think it's gonna be like red dawn yo you know what i mean like they think there's gonna be like this showdown between this you know the michigan militia and the chinese army also too i just have to say that like you what you just brought up um terrence about like uh building a jail right as opposed to like building like um you know a factory i mean like if they're like talking about sending militia to like stop construction i wish they would do that for cop city you know what i mean like it's just like it's just kind of insane that like the cops are beating the shit out of people

to build it. You know what I mean? And here, that's going to take lives away, going to kill people, destroy the environment. But in Michigan, people actually want to stop. I mean, I wouldn't say, like, progress, but some level of economic progress, at least for the region, for the town. And you can't halt progress. Yeah. That's right.

The thing is, it's a development project. There aren't going to be any Chinese army. That's not how this works. There's not going to be a Chinese guy there probably, dog. No, exactly. They contract out American firms to fucking do it. You're right. What will happen is they'll just pack up and fucking go to another town that wants them.

Yeah, like, okay, we're not going to fight with you. We'll just pack up and fucking go to another town that wants them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're not going to fight with you. We'll just go 20 miles south of here. This is the thing. Mr. Chapman, a lifelong Republican and former police officer, has found himself in the position of trying to convince his neighbors that allowing Goshen to bring more than 2000 new jobs to the area will create a housing boom and bring new businesses. So it's like, the guy...

That is so mind-blowing. That's such a weird inversion. Not just the Republican, but the fucking cop. You know what I mean? It's like, actually, I give a shit about my community. That's insane. Yeah. And he's like, bring on the Michigan militia.

Like, I believe in this this i'm down with ccp fly like the chinese flag outside his house yet residents have confronted mr chapman with a host of conspiracy theories including that the plant is a quote trojan horse and then it will be used to spy on americans some in town believe that the plant will employ cheap chinese labor instead of local workers and erect cooling towers and erect cooling towers to conceal ballistic missiles national in the right fucking mind that's going to move to rural michigan bro bro i already see it bus loads bus loads of chinese nation nationals walking into the factory. Oh, my God. That would be kind of tight after you get all these people riled up.

It's actually we're going to bring our own people in first. It's just busloads of Chinese guys. They're like, God damn it. I personally like the idea of them building smokestacks and putting ballistic missiles in them just so that they can, for fun on the weekends, nuke the surrounding countryside. Just like, yeah, for fun, we're just gonna fucking nuke some blank space

in America's rural landscape. So actually in the paperwork, it actually said that we could also use this as a missile test site. It was in the fine print if you didn't read it. I will go to my grave and people will curse me for this project, Mr. Chapman said.

That's the Republican police officer who's pulling for the project. After researching the company and the actions of other Chinese businesses that operate in the U.S., Mr. Chapman concluded that Goshen was not a threat and that the opportunity to invigorate a relatively poor part of the state was worth it.

We vetted them. We vetted them properly. They're not like these other Chinese companies. They're trying to give us jobs. The people trying to give us jobs are okay. He says, what are they going to spy on us for in Big Rapids? Are they going to steal Carleen Rose's fudge recipe?

That's a pretty good line. Opponents hope that a November recall election can replace the board and stop Goshen in its tracks. Residents are raising money to file lawsuits and petition against every permit that Goshen will need to construct a factory that is expected to span more than a million square feet. I'm worried about environmental catastrophes.

There's going to be 200 to 300 truckloads of chemicals coming in every day said kelly kushway who poses goshen and is running for a seat on the township board we know china has not worried too much about their environment some community activists coming from the country that coming from the country that literally like has like a fucking oil spill or a trade spill of chemicals like every other fucking day? Okay, whatever. Whatever, fine. Some community activists such as Ms. Brock are coordinating with counterparts in other states, including North Dakota, where Fufang USA tried and failed to construct a cornmeal to learn how to terminate a Chinese investment. Ms. Brock said she remained hopeful that the Goshen factory in her town could be halted.

We haven't even started, she said. We haven't even hit them with one lawsuit yet, it's i hope we remain broke forever i hope we remain broke as fuck with no johns and no hope for the future dog well that's the thing it's like she's probably like a local elite she's got 150 acres so she's probably a rich person in town you know what i mean she's petty booze or even bourgeois who the fuck knows what yeah you got horses you gotta be booge but does dude i mean it's bottom of the barrel dog you know what it's like you know i've used this example before we talked about it remember remember that show we did maybe like i don't know man that's maybe like a year back or so but it was about that um that it was a cat it was like wasn't it a cat store some shit like that dog

wasn't it like where you could go like see cats or some shit yeah right and how like in texas yes in texas actually austin and i think i'd use the example like i think they had like oh they had like a black lives matter lawn on lawn signs and shit like that like they're progressives i think the owners and i think i gave the analogy it's It's like Arthur C. Clarke talks about like mysterious artifacts or objects that kind of drop into our realm and create these ripple effects that go like pour outwards that kind of warp society, right? And kind of change relationships. I mean, as if this thing like had like physical weight to it, you know? I mean, the factory has physical weight to it, but it's more about this idea and i guess this dream you know even though i mean like this would objectively i mean the chemical stuff i can understand that right like but i mean if it's going to give you

jobs and revitalize your community but the only reason why you i don't know it just makes people fucking go crazy dog you're right you're absolutely right i think it's a perfect metaphor it's like um because i've tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who lives there and say like, how would I respond to this? Because like, obviously it's like, obviously you want jobs for people where you live. you live it doesn't matter where the i mean these people are using it for like jingoistic and uh xenophobic racist purposes right like um but you also it's a fine line though for someone like us because you also don't want to like you also don't want to get in a position where you promote all forms of development because then you get yourself into a position where you're like well even prisons and stuff and then also at the end of the day like what you get yourself into a position where you're like, well, even prisons and stuff. And then also at the end of the day,

like what you're supporting is a factory that exploits people's labor. You know what I mean? And so it's also like, well, you know, I don't know. I don't know, really know what the right answer here is.

Um, but I do, I do just find it fascinating how like in the lack of any other answers or any kind of critique of american political economy what you get is a bunch of like horse farm owners pissed off that they're about to put icbms in the fucking farm across the road because this china communist party is like taking over american way of life i mean just like truly undergirding the NIMBY ethos, which you could say undergirds the American ethos, I guess.

Uh-huh. God, man. Just selfish, self-serving, racist, xenophobic assholes, man. With horses. Anytime any of this stuff happens, one way or the other, it's always the fucking affluent people in the community that are

the biggest cheerleaders for all this shit. You know, either stopping it or like promoting it or whatever. And like, that's telling to me. They stand to gain or lose something. And so they have to be the most vocal proponents or opponents of it. I know this is a moot point that people bring up and i mean i'm not like well-versed uh historical and stuff but i mean i mean it's like you know these people these petty boogies these boog people like the vanguard to like actual fascism you know you know i mean they're the ones that because of

like their property relations they're like yeah you know yeah i could do with a little bit of racism you know i could do with a little bit of bigotry you know impoverishing others at my at my expense or their expense rather you know yeah yeah well shit china you could build that shit right here in uh where i live man in atlanta you can build that shit right in my literally in my backyard i have no problems with that yeah yeah you could buy my whole block actually listen Listen I'll sell you some land CCP I mean there's so much abandoned My Atlantic I'm just gonna start like

Doing squatters rights on like vast swaths Of land and sell it to the Chinese Communist Party Can you do squatters rights For another nation That's literally Kind of like what English colonialism was It's just like we're here so it's ours now yeah we've been here for 30 days you can't kick us out yeah we have resident we

have residents the law in my country says this and that's what we're going to apply here too because i'm traveling over here so i'm bringing the law with me you know you understand oh man all right well i think that about probably about covers it for the week unless you boys got anything else you would like to add to the discussion. I have nothing. Nothing. I have nothing to add either, but I also just wanted to name that I have nothing.

Nothing's your name. You gave all your possessions away. Some gave all All gave some Put that shit over Roman bathhouse Yeah Before you walk into

The bacchanalia Oh shit Alright well Thanks for listening this week Everybody we encourage you all To go to the Patreon please The last two weeks We've had some good

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Yeah, they did. I also heard, too, if I could say, i heard that some other content creators on patreon um they were having issues because some of their patrons were unsubscribed without their uh permission or whatever so yeah it happens about twice a year with these motherfuckers yeah if you if you notice that you are not subscribed anymore uh become a patron once again and if you notice that you have not subscribing anymore, become a patron once again. And if you notice that you have never subscribed, become a patron to do that.

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