Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 85: Getting Back to the Heart Of Worship

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

This week we take a bit of a dive into televangelism, grifting, and Oral Roberts University's GEB TV. Then we read from a very funny book about leaving the Christian Praise & Worship industry. Finally we talk briefly about the West Virginia teachers' strikes and how we want in on the racket writing about the strikes. It's time the Trillbillies got their cut, dammit. Free episodes every week over at the Patreon (with your donation of $5 a month) visit www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty thanks god bless

I'll hold it up to the mic so that way you can at least hear it. Ow. Oh, man. A very PTSD response. Rex Elevate. What the fuck kind of name is Rex Elevate? I'm going to go ahead and tell you straight up.

Rex Elevate could get it. Look at her. She's a fox, man. She's batshit crazy.. She's got a heart. She's batshit crazy. I think that makes her hotter. Why is your name Rick Sella? Trump's peace plan is finished.

Okay, all right, hold on. I just want to press forward this quote real fast. It's so funny, dude. I was laughing my eyes off. Okay, hold on. The blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus. Okay hold on Sounds like Jack's going out of business With a death rattle coming out of his voice All the other religions are going out of business Listen

He's pretty old man All the other religions are going out of business. Listen to this. He's pretty old, man. He's got to be in his 80s. Oh, yeah, running along. Finished. There's only going to be one religion. And it's Christ has been with his people. Heather Raptor.

They've missed the greatest war of history. Now it's the end of that war. It's the Battle of Armageddon. He comes back with his people. He comes with clouds. Every eye shall see him. You know where he comes? You know where he comes to? Not to Rome.

Not Rome. Jerusalem. Jerusalem? He has always loved the Jew. He loved the Jew so much that he said, Israel's the apple of my eye. Israel is my fiancé. Israel's my wife.

He used those terms of love in German. He said, I'm going to give Israel... Ale ball and chain Israel over here. And that name is where my kingdom's going to be set up forever and forever and forever. And there's never going to be an end. Yeah, he almost died. Oh, yes, Jack. It's so wonderful to know the Lord is coming back again.

I just thought that was such a hilarious quote. I like to offer a counterpoint. He's always loved the Jew. He said, Israel is the apple of my eye. That's not anti-Semitic at all oh man counterpoint counterpoint i have a different vision in the future from the scriptures i'd like to share with all of our brothers and sisters out there if you got your bible you would turn to um James 5, James chapter 5, first one in the scripture says,

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, yes, and the rest of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as

if it were fire yes lord yes lord you have heaped treasure together for the last days hey for the last day how many knows in the congregation not uh mr bezos is heaping his riches for the last days how many knows that that bill gates is heaping his riches for the last days and the scripture goes on to say behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud cryeth behold lord and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the lord of sabbath yes lord you have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanting you have nourished your hearts as in the day of the slaughter. I really like the new American Standard Version because it says you fatten yourself for the day of the slaughter. Is that the King James?

This is the King James. It's a little tricky. You have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you. That means God's going to strike you down. He's going gonna cut you down like Johnny Cash. So anyway, you can go with

Brother Jack's version of events. I prefer ours. No, did someone write too deep right here? I think it was Bob. Bob Ray.

I just can't get there. My dad wrote too deep right here? I think it was Bob. Bob Ray. I just can't get there. My dad wrote too deep. Right here. Yeah, just not good. That's all right, Bob. The wisdom of the Lord makes the wisdom of the world folly. That's a good quote. It's one of the few quotes from the Bible

that actually would have some sort of thrust in our sort of political view or in our world. Whereas the... Well, it's not just there. I mean, time and time again, the rich man, bad things happen to him in the scripture. I have no idea. I have no idea how the prosperity gospel got born.

Yeah, what is the roots of that? I have no idea. When did it start? Like in the 90s, 80s? Probably in the 60s. Kenneth Hagin was kind of the first guy that brought it. Me and you and Emily were talking about him in the group text. He was kind of one of the godfathers of the prosperity gospel.

But it really started with a guy named Norman Vincent Peale who was basically like, like you know, you've seen the secret stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

The power of positive thinking. Yeah. He wrote the actual book The Power of Positive Thinking. He was a minister. And then it kind of spiraled from there and people said,

well, if we just like say stuff that's not true and kind of wheel it into being, then maybe we can form a whole doctrine around this. Fast forward, and before you know it, we've got all these preachers living tax-free in mansions, driving or piloting million-dollar aircrafts, and living rent-free in mind of your heads. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they not only have nice condos and hilltop mansions, but they also have a few apartments in mind in your head. Did you see that little snippet I sent you of Kenneth Copeland? How he bought his private jet off Tyler Perry? No.

And he went out on the runway when I guess Tyler Perry's people brought it to him and said that he just wanted to thank everybody and Jesus for buying him that private jet. And he did it when he came out in a pilot's jacket and sunglasses and sang songs. Oh, my God. Well, dude, the way that they make so much money, the way that they're so rich, look. All right, so, you know, over the weekend, I had to go back to Hobbs for, like, a family emergency.

My dear grandmother passed away. May she rest in peace. But, you know, she was a devout christian and um you know was active in her church which was my church growing up and so i you know i got to go back to my old church and i was incredibly stoned uh when i was there which felt pretty nice kind of took the edge off of all the PTSD, I'm sure, that was trying to creep back in. Well, dude, a lot of my dreams happen in that building.

A lot of my dreams now occur in that same building. So at one point, I rounded a corner into the courtyard, and it was like my breath just got taken out of me. I was like, oh, my God. I've seen this place so many times, not only in real life, but in my dreams. You know. Many bad dreams. A lot of bad ones. A lot of good ones too. A lot of nonsensical ones.

Dreams that just take place in that building. But, so anyways, I spent a lot of time watching GEB America. You know what that is? Golden Eagle Broadcasting. Yeah, that's Kenneth Copeland's thing. Yeah, it's Oral Roberts University.

Oral Roberts started it. Started it, yeah. Right. Mid-90s. Right. You know, Kenneth Copeland was his pilot. That's how he got into the TV preaching. Really?

Yeah, he was a grad student. Kenneth Copeland was a, was like, he had a, he was a singer. He had a singing career, like a record deal with like RCA or something back in like the early 60s or late 50s maybe. And he had one hit that peaked out at number 17.

I forget what it was called. I listened to it this weekend. Like a secular hit? Yeah, he was like a secular singer. Wow. And I guess one thing led to another and he ended up getting dropped from the label. Nobody picked him up and so he went back to grad school

and he was like an amateur pilot. One of these guys that would just fly oranges to somebody in Idaho and take the potatoes back or something. Whatever you were doing in the 50s and 60s. So he was just in the right place at the right time. Well, he enrolls as like a non-traditional student at Oral Roberts to get his college degree.

And he's the only person on campus because he's already in his 30s at this point or late 20s or something that has his pilot license. Right. And this is at the same time when Oral Roberts is sort of like changing the TV preaching game. Yeah, yeah. And so he was like, do you want to be my pilot?

And so the university bought Oral Roberts a plane, and Kenneth Copeland flew it, and then shortly thereafter, Kenneth Copeland started his own ministry, and on and on and on. It's almost like a family tree of all these TV preachers. They're all interconnected. Yeah, yeah, man. No, no, no. It's almost like a family tree of all these TV preachers. They're all interconnected. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They basically all sprung off of Kenneth Hagin. Right. And then Kenneth Hagin put Oral Roberts, begat Oral Roberts, Oral Roberts begat Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland begat Creflo Dollar. You see that guy in Georgia? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And he's on GB too. Yeah. But Billy Graham was kind of outside that. Billy Graham was related. Right. But Billy Graham was not necessarily a TV preacher as much as he was like an evangelist. Right. So he kind of just like roamed to and fro preaching the gospel.

And like not really, he wasn't really into like the healing and like the God's going to give you a Jaguar shit. You know, like the rest of these guys were. Right, right. His was more of a sort of standard Baptist. Dude, I was watching this. Okay, so like the best show, one of the best shows on television, period, but definitely the best show on GEV, hands down. Well, okay, I need to qualify that.

There are two that are incredible. The first one is Jim Baker, obviously. That one's just, you know, everybody knows Jim Baker. You know, the buckets, you know, the Vic Berger did the thing. But if you actually watch the show, it is fascinating. Incredibly entertaining. Incredibly entertaining. The, you know, because Jim Baker's got all of his kids.

Half of them don't even, you know, half of them are out of wedlock, obviously. He's got the one kid that's like the hipster beer preacher. Yeah, he does. Remember the kid that had like, started having church in bars? Who was of the sort of like Donald Miller. Yeah, he was one of the cool Christians. Yeah, I think he was. I think it was Jim Jr. maybe even.

Maybe. No, I think you're right. He's on there all the time. And then Ricky Baker, who looks kind of like the, I mean, I don't know how controversial this is, but he 100% looks like he was birthed out of, like Lisa Baker, isn't that her name?

Tammy Faye was his first wife. She's dead now, yeah. She had the quaffed out, rooster tail, blowout hair. Right, but didn't he cheat on Tammy Faye Baker? That sounds right. Man. Well, anyways, back to what I was saying. I was watching Jim Baker the other day,

and he had this guy on there who wrote this book. Did I write it down? It was called God's Chaos Candidate, Dr. Lance Wallnow. And it's about how—dude, I swear to God. God gave us Trump just to kind of shake things up a little bit? Yes. Trump just to kind of shake things up a little bit? Yes.

His whole thing is that Trump is basically the modern day King Cyrus. And he has gone to extraordinary lengths. And apparently Benjamin Netanyahu believes this as well. And he even announced it at one point. It's like, oh, this is our King Cyrus. You know what I mean? Like, this is King Cyrus in the flesh, come back on Earth, or something like that. Yeah. But, anyways, where I was going with that was that this guy is like, there are two kind of Christians in the world today.

The Christians that grew up under Billy Graham and just kind of accept things for the way they are. And then the Christians who, you know, came to know God in the 80s and 90s who came sort of out of a different kind of Christian movement. They said this? Yeah, this guy said this. Okay. And he was excusing Trump's Hollywood access tape for the fact that he grew up under Billy Graham and was just a Christian just going through the motions

like he didn't really question any of the tenets of the faith. No, Trump is not a Christian. Here's the thing that kind of stops me in my tracks about the whole Donald Trump thing. When they try to contort themselves to make excuses for him. Donald Trump's actually on record as saying he's never felt like he had to ask God for forgiveness. Yeah.

Could you imagine if anybody else said that besides the guy that's just like propping up all the shitty tenants of their weird American capitalist techno religion? Right, right. Like, they would frickin' say them. You're right. You know what I mean?

Well, if you spend more than one hour on that goddamn channel, you will slowly start to come unglued. Because... I spent about four years i'm going broadcast it at a certain point it's horseshoe theory you'll become a leftist if you spend several years on it yeah that's pretty accurate it's weird um because it's all grifters you know it's all great i mean like i'm having a hard time talking just now because I've spent the last probably four hours just watching various videos.

Because I mean, like not only is it I mean, it's grifters, but the content is tremendous. Oh, yeah. Tremendous content. Great content. Like I was watching it the other day. I was watching, you know, Jim Bakker's got this guy on. His name is Frank Davis. He always comes on and does this whole food supplement thing or like a nutritional shake thing, kind of like the buckets.

Well, it's interesting you bring that up because this is something that's been going on in the contemporary Christian-like sort of TV preacher thing for a long time is in the 90s, Benny Hinn was doing chelated therapy. Uh-huh. You know what I mean? Yeah. is in the 90s, Benny Hinn was doing chelated therapy. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's where you do something to try to pull metals out of your body or something like that.

It's all this crazy pseudo-scientific bullshit. It's basically, if you look at it today, it's like Cernovich and the boys hawking nootropics. Oh, it's exactly that. It's in that same wheelhouse. The thing is, where they differ. Well, I haven't actually looked at the price of your, you know, the going price of your standard fare nootropic, but I feel like where they differ is that the things they offer

on Jim Baker and stuff are exorbitant. Like, this guy was hawking like supplement powder basically the equivalent of emergency for 92 bucks a pop just for a box of it man just like 12 little packets so they're just like they're just out to gouge well absolutely and so you know like old people because that's all really the only people that watch this old people and you know middle boomers and middle-aged people like that i mean like they're probably just eating it up they're like oh yeah and it's hilarious because the guy is like trying to explain what's in it he's like we've got all these ingredients we've got so many ingredients we've got more ingredients than any

other thing out there right now look at all these ingredients they're even like adopting like trump's cadences like trying to hawk their products pretty much yeah they will when at uh when um fucking regent university has the donald j trump school of business open up and like you know how to be a salesman like how to make deals well at the clinton school of public service they teach classes about clinton's like non-verbal cues and like his like really yeah like it's so i used to think that was like oh well that's interesting but no it's fucking creepy and they'll do that same thing with trump yeah you know what i mean you're right you're right yeah yeah it's like trying to mold people well it's like people see a successful

person and they're like that's what you want to be. We can help you do that. Yeah, no. So they're like selling exorbitant products. One that I saw was this guy, a recurring series they have on the Jim Baker show is about how water, drinking water out of your faucet is bad. And by the way, so I need to state this straight up. it's bad and by the way so i need to state this straight up jim baker's entire model the only like the his entire sort of um reason for existing and his entire model for his show is to point out things in the world that are harbingers of the coming apocalypse in the end

times um and to then use that to sell a product. So for example... I would put him in the same category as like a Jack Van Ampie who we just played a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The doomsday preacher but the doomsday thing is always to get you to buy something. Exactly. Yeah. And Jack Van Ampie is actually pretty fun

to watch too. Completely insane. Just because he's completely insane. Dude, a different level of brain breakage, like brain disease, brain worms, is when you've been crazy on TV for four decades. Yeah. Every single day.

Jack Van Impey runs on TV every single day. He's got a daily program. He's been bat shit nuts for at least 40 years. Maybe 30 something. I've been doing this podcast game for two years and I'm been bat shit nuts for for at least 40 years oh maybe i'm maybe 30 doing this podcast game for two years and i'm already bad shit oh yeah three feet of difference between being a podcaster and being a tv preacher yeah the line is very fat yeah there's only three feet of difference between that's what i've realized watching these shows i'm like man these people are really no different than me and tom we believe what we believe in they believe in doomsday seeds yeah yeah yeah so jim baker what

a thing he likes to do is um for example like what i was just saying like with the whole food supplements he's like it's the end times you need to stay healthy like that's his thing like he's like it's you know the world is ending so so you got to stay healthy. Why not do it with this whole food supplement shake? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, but another thing he also does a lot is he's a big, like, don't drink tap water guy. He's always got some guy on talking about how you don't want to drink tap water because there's all kinds of chemicals in it that'll fuck you up. Are they anti-vaxxers too, probably?

You know, I would. I've never seen any evidence of that, but I wouldn't doubt it. I would not doubt it at all. I would in it that'll fuck you up. Are they anti-vaxxers too, probably? I would say. I've never seen any evidence of that, but I wouldn't doubt it. I would not doubt it at all. I would not doubt it at all. But the most hilarious price gouge, the most hilarious con on that show that I saw, was this guy coming on talking about the bad water quality of tap water and everything. To sell his own product. It's called, like, Seychelles bundle water or something like that. And, you know, as Jim Baker's talking, he's got them stacked up behind him.

You know, like he's in the warehouse of a Sam's Club or something. And he was selling these for $150. And what are they? Water bottles? It's just water. Just water. Water bottles? It's just water. Just water. Clean water. It's just water.

It's just like water that they probably filtered in his garage or something like that. For $100. And they always phrase it like this. For how much? I feel like it's $150. Like a case of water? Yeah, like a case. It looked like maybe three dozen or four dozen or something. And it's it's

crazy man because it's like uh it's like you know yeah i don't know it's just absolutely it's it's funny the uh you know i was reading about kenneth copeland a little bit this weekend and and do you remember when my kukkabee went on kenneth copeland no he used to be't. He used to be a regular guest on Kenneth Copeland when he'd have books coming out or when he was running for president. Okay. Actually, like they all threw their weight behind him. And in fact, Mike Huckabee threw an event, like one of those $3,000 a plate fundraising dinners for his presidential campaign on the premises of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, campaign on the premises of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, which I think was some sort of conflict with federal tax law because Kenneth Copeland's tax-exempt,

and he's renting out that to people running for office. Yeah, that is a good point. You're not, I mean, traditionally, yeah, you're right. The separation of church and state is sort of supposed to be a barrier between that. The way they phrase these things is hilarious, though. It's like, for a donation of $150, you get this product. It's never that you're actually paying for the product.

It's free with a donation of to the ministry, yeah. That's the way around it. That's how we gotta restructure our Patreon tiers. Right. The episodes are free with your donation of 295 a month exactly yeah a love offering right right that's sometimes say well the the funny another funny thing about jim baker is that he's um he's always like building shit and never really doing anything uh he's always taking a lot of people's money and i mean he got busted for it in the 80s but pretty much right i mean

let's see what we'll see one of the guys do you remember i mean and these people are fucking super annoying too but you remember james randy the skeptic there's a lot of time trying to bust like the tv preachers and stuff yeah i remember it's one of those things like i you almost encountered the analogous thing on twitter these days with like you know like the berners and stuff. Yeah, I remember. It's one of those things, like you almost encounter the analogous thing on Twitter these days with like the Bernie Bros and like the Donut Twitter people and all this shit. Well, dude, honestly, it's the same thing now with people who like, anytime you ever see a tweet or something start off with,

as a ninth generation coal miner or as someone raised in a rural area as someone raised they practice it with their bona fides yeah people do this all the fucking time like the rural gatekeepers like the people who are like the sort of spokespeople of rural america or anything like that it's all the same shit yeah the playbook is identical it's so it's so funny that like i even see like my training in the church has opened my eyes to seeing different things about the way the left is organizing yeah yeah and let the proselytization and even like when we talk about like radicalizing people how's that any how is it any different and tactic from getting somebody safe you're right it you're it does seem to indicate that there's this point of being that you pass through to reach a sort of state of wokeness, radicalization, or whatever you want to call it.

Whatever. You come to some sort of consciousness. Well, I mean, I guess that's the whole point. I mean, I guess leftism has always been that. I mean, Marx had a sort of Formulation for it false consciousness As opposed to class consciousness and stuff Right

It's all a religion Yeah That just happens to be the one that I believe in Yeah right I don't know it's just funny to see All those sort of parallels Yeah yeah Back to the Kenneth Copeland Mike Huckabee thing.

So that was kind of a scuttlebutt because of, you know, I violated campaign finance law and a bunch of different shit. Right. And when they were, like, investigating that, in the same investigation, it was when they were talking about how they were using their private jets. And Kenneth Copeland's private jet had an inordinate amount of stopovers in Maui and Honolulu.

And this motherfucker said all those trips were for pilot's rest or to preach. Oh, man. were for pallets rest or to preach. Oh, man. Well, the thing is that people don't really... It's just a perfect grift because... This is another thing I realized this weekend is that so much of grifting in this country targets the elderly. Whether it's QVC or whether it's televangelists,

it's specifically targeting the elderly and getting them to expropriate the money of the elderly. Yes, exactly. And it's fucked up, man. It's really fucked up. It's insanely fucked up. And man, let me tell you this. My mom's not a rube at all.

It just tells you how sophisticated this stuff has got. My mom has came to me with shit that she thought was like, not that she got into it, but was like, is this legit? And I know it's like, no, no, fuck no. Stay away. And also quit putting your credit card information, like, I know it's like, no, no, fuck no, stay away. And, you know, also quit putting your credit card information on like, you know, this one weird trick to erase belly fat sites, you know.

But like, you're right. It's like there is like the only American religion is extracting resources from the poor elderly infirm and working classes and transferring it to uh-huh you know grifters capitalists landowners any manner of bourgeois yeah it's it's really crazy but in the case of sort of geb there's a specific culture that's like sort of growing up around it and that's why i like spending more than just a few hours in that world can start to make you feel like you're like

am I a bad person like what is you know what I mean like there's no good person in that world no every bad

every person in that world is bad is bad I mean it's totally bad or willfully ignorant yeah

at best at best you know it's funny when I was a kid I sent five dollars to Kenneth Copeland one time I would get it Or willfully ignorant. Yeah. At best. At best. It's funny. When I was a kid, I sent $5 to Kenneth Copeland one time. I would get it. Really?

Yeah, I did. And I got every fucking mailing in the world after that. And everyone is trying to shake you down for money. Yeah. God gave me this vision. Here's the scriptures this week. I mean, it's the easiest fucking grift in the world if you have an ounce of charisma is to be a tv preacher yeah for sure for sure you have all the tax benefits you pay zero taxes you live lavish the only weird part i think about it is like if i was unreasonably wealthy i just want to be like getting

fucked up and partying all the time and like i feel like as a tv preacher you just can't like enjoy your like ill-gotten gain that much well guys like because if you slip up the grip's over like publicly that's true that's true i mean you'd be a total shithead fucker like reactionary con man but like if you couldn't like you know yeah you have to cuss or drink in public you know yes exactly. To safeguard your public reputation. Yeah. Well, the thing about Jim Baker is that, dude, surely the guy parties. I mean, surely.

Or did or something. I mean, look, he was having an extramarital. He did get caught. He did get busted. All these motherfuckers have mistresses and shit. And then he came back. You know what I mean? And then he, like, people forgave him and whatever. He comes right back

but um yeah no uh another thing that he another segment he has on his show is he has this scottish guy come out named phil o'karen who i'm convinced is not actually scottish he has a the fakest accent i've ever heard he probably is scottish who the fuck knows but regardless every scottish accent sounds fake yeah Yeah. Right? You just do that weird cat purr, and then it's broken English on top of that. I could just try it in a different way. Just like...

You know what I mean? Fat bastard. It's a hard accent to... I can't fucking do it. If you can't do it, it's going to be cringeworthy. Every time. What are you doing, Tom? I, it's going to be cringeworthy every time. What are you doing, Tom?

I think it's a little Irish. What are you doing? I don't think that's it either. Anyways, Philip Cameron's job is to get people to give at least $45 a month. A month. So Jim Baker can build his... Don't chew the Bible. that's sacrilegious. So Jim Baker can

build a tiny little chapel on top of some mountain like Tennessee or something like that. $45 a month, man. That's a lot. Hey, even Bernie only asked for $27. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, it's a strange fucking griff man and um those fundraising mechanisms man are like like okay i'll give you an example if anybody that's ever owed a student loan debt knows that like you know they'll just like sell that shit down the river like you'll like pay on it for like two years and they'll sell it off somebody else and they'll bump the interest back up and you'll owe like you know like three times as much as you've like put in all this kind of stuff and and and and you know it'll have been owned by five or six different entities and the way they do that is like, you know, these people just go buy an Excel spreadsheet off some fucker in Cincinnati, Ohio or something. And then just like send people bills.

Yeah. You know that if like you just went to court, like you could probably prove that you didn't know. Yeah. Well, the TV preaching racket is a lot the same way. You see, like when you give Kenneth Copeland five dollars like I did when I was 14. You're in a system. You're in a system. You're in a system. And then now you're getting letters from Jesse Duplantis.

You're getting letters from Creflo Dollar. You're getting letters from Oral Roberts Ministries. You're getting letters from Billy Graham. You're getting letters from who the fuck ever else. Yeah, dude. And before you know it, you're in deep. And let me tell you something. Elderly people that are sick and unwell and kind of shut

in they like lean on these fucking vermin for entertainment kind of and like for some sort of uplifting message every day they key on them i mean if you ever watch the end of like one of those broadcasts it's like do you have any needs yes physical spiritual financial yeah and then the idea is that they've created this weird pseudo system like a science almost like marxism for like weird fucking christians and it's like the system's called seed faith and it's market based in the language around it already and they use scriptures in like mark and matthew that talk about you know if you have faith there's a grain of mustard seed right you know you reap what you sow all that kind of like those sorts of

cliches right and so in a way it is consumerism in its most distilled pure form it's like you're giving your it's sort of like when the the church used to sell like indulgences or whatever you know in the middle ages it's exactly like that and what they do is the idea is that if you need a financial harvest you need to give your money to

you need to plant your seed in our ministries and then once we go preach the gospel your money it's like your return on investment is that you're going to have financial you know finances come into your life if you have a physical need then you need to give us money and let us go pray for other sick people that way you can get healed you know your faith has their faith has healed you and uh and just on and on you know and it's

just a racket to like pray on the elderly pretty much well it's again this is the thing it's like um so much of our system i mean there's really no regulation on it i mean i know like it's kind of lib like john oliver had a segment about it at one point but pretty good in fairness yeah no it was pretty good um but like you know a lot of these things just go on without accountability and um but so much our system, again, I spent most of my time with elderly people this weekend. So I was like, you don't really think about it, but a lot of our systems. Now that I'm with you, let me just ask you a question. How does it feel to wake up every day on the brink of death?

How do you manage that? Well, that's the thing. You know know the end is in sight my friend yeah you know you're on borrowed time as my grandpa said over the weekend well i got my card punched so you know i mean you know your card is punched yeah i've heard i've heard those old timers say at my age you don't buy ripe bananas. Or unripe bananas. But they will vote. Yeah. Oh, they will vote. Yeah.

But no, the thing is is that a lot of them are preyed upon whether it's QVC or televangelists or whatever. But another thing is like hospice care and like elderly,

you know, nursing homes and stuff. And it's bleak out there. Well, also it's like there's a business of keeping them alive to extract every ounce of you know what i mean we're way more humane to our pets than we are to our elderly no you're exactly right like it's like the whole process the whole thing is keeping them

alive to get as much money it's funny i was thinking about i was reading this thing about the artist william de kooning the other day and uh the visual William de Kooning the other day. Oh, the visual artist? De Kooning. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about. They were talking about like, you know, it had nothing to do with being elderly, but it was like he was talking about style. Style is inherent in you.

It's like, you know, it's how you walk. It's how you smoke a cigarette or whatever. It's how William de Kooning could keep churning out de kooning's even though like he like needed his ass wiped for him like the last 15 years of his life or something like that and i thought about that like this this country in this world in general really is just designed to just extract max extract every ounce of surplus value out of you. Yes, man. Like, who didn't even know his fucking name

and was still churning out, like, you know, million-dollar pieces and shit for somebody else. You know? That's absolutely true. No, that's pretty bleak. Well, so that's Jim Baker. There's a few others, and we, again, there's Jack Yenpy, or Jack Yenpy, and there's a few others and we yeah i know there's jack mp and or jack

viann mp and there's um marilyn and sarah hickey oh marilyn hickey was my mom's favorite yeah she's like you know she's like charismatic like word of faith healing preacher yeah right um the doomsday preachers though you're right are the most interesting to watch the jack viann mps the jim bakers john haggie's in that yes definitely in that john haggie dabbles in all of it but he's mostly uh we gotta punish iran and and christians don't need to try to convert jewish people they're already getting in oh back to that jack van impy quote though real quick He loved the Jew. It's like Jesus was a Jew. What the fuck?

Okay, but this brings me to the most fascinating show on GEB. Hands down, might even be more fascinating than Jim Baker. Maybe not, because it doesn't have the characters. The thing about Jim Baker is that there's multiple characters. You've got Jim and his kids and Lisa. This show, you might know about it. Sid Roth.

Ring any bells? Sid Roth. It's Supernatural. That's the name of the show. Sid Roth, It's Supernatural. Did he have another beat before he was into the Christian stuff? He could have. I feel like that was like a mainstream show, and maybe

he just didn't pan out there, so he took his act to the Christian world. You might be right. I don't know, though. I don't know. Maybe I should look it up. I didn't know I had never heard about him until I started watching the show. Yeah. But his beat is like supernatural occurrences, miracles.

Yeah. But he almost kind of does it in like an X-Files type way. He brands himself as an investigative reporter. Like that's his brand. He's not a televangelist. He's not like that. His thing is that he's an investigative reporter just trying to find the truth.

You know what I'm saying? Right. And so he... Okay, it sounds like he's always been kind of into the Christian thing. Okay, maybe I'm getting mixed up with somebody else. At age 30, he was married with one daughter and working in Merrill Lynch as an account executive when he left to explore the new age. A Christian businessman challenged him that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah,

and after reading the jewish scriptures roth felt this may be true after a negative experience with the supernatural he prayed to jesus and immediately felt peace and love that's the thing he's really into the kind of like one of the sort of anti-Semitic Jews for Jesus type of guys. Right, right. Watch this, listen to this video. Dude, I was laughing my ass off

before you came on. Centuries have come and gone offering wisdom and understanding throughout the ages. Today there should be nothing beyond one's power to discover Real bad Real bad graphics Real bad. Real bad graphics. Real bad everything. What? Hello, I'm Sid Roth, your investigative reporter.

I'm here with Joan and Bob Nast. Six million dollars. Counterfeited. Caught. You look like such a nice couple. What are you doing counterfeiting six million dollars? Well, Sid,

I figured if the government could print it and it's not worth anything, I might as well do the same thing. I have no idea why he's doing it. Did you think you might get caught? I didn't even think about getting caught. Joan, did you know what he was doing? Yes. I just want to point out one thing. This video clip is called, A Witch Placed Her Image on My Cancerous Tumor.

Audience, it's supernatural. Money meant nothing. It was just to make us happy. I don't know why. How did you feel when your husband was caught? There's one other. That's another story. That's another story. I don't know why it started there, but that's hilarious, man.

There's one other you're leaving out. Who? There is one greater than even Sid Roth, my friend. Who's that? The undisputed king of sort of televangelist entertainment, Bob Larson. Bob Larson is unfuckwithable. But he was not...

Bob Larson is the exorcist. Right, but he was also an evangelist, right? But no, his beat is casting out demons. And pull some Bob Larson up from casting out demons. It's fucking hilarious, dude. He'll lay hands on somebody and he'll say, Who's in there? And the person will go,

Ah, this is lust! But also greed and envy. But he's... Was Bob Larson Catholic? No. Really? Dude, his is like... His is the... The like...

Marijuana Satanism. Okay, I'm gonna have to click on a video that says Marijuana Satanism. It's clickbait. So what is it? Is it like if you're possessed, you're high on marijuana? Hell yeah, baby. I don't know.

Bob Larson does exorcism on Veronica whose violent demons had to be restrained. Yeah, do that one. Do that one. Veronica of Indianapolis had some violent demons in her. Anger and murder came from generational curses. 30. 30. Married or single? Single. Been married? Yes. Kids?

Three. Three kids. Out of that marriage? One. Where'd the others come from? My twins were, I was young. I was young. They were illegitimate.

Yes. So why is Bob Larson dressed up in a priest outfit? It's just part of the gimmick. Part of the gimmick. Okay. He's just part of the gimmick. He's just living the gimmick like Ric Flair, you know? Alright, let's get to the actual exorcism part, Bob. Look.

Look. Look at him. He's staring. I want peace. He's staring. Where's the demon? White. But I want to be at peace but I want to be at peace I want to be at peace I want to be at peace the God who gave his son

to die for me say it say it the God who gave his son to die for me folks what other left podcast is playing motherfucking demons

if I forget those Bob Larson videos has the content well gone that dry left podcast is playing motherfucking demons. Bob Larson videos. Has the content well gone that dry? I don't know. It's a wellspring, my friend. Oh, fuck. Go with him now. Oh, fuck.

Hi, Veronica. Hi, Veronica. In fairness, Veronica, it looks like she got a little murder in her eye. Yeah, no, you're right. She does. Holy shit. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I didn't rewind that.

I forget those. Sacrifice me. Go with him now. Holy shit, he gets into races. Go with him now. What shit, he gets into races. Go with him now. What? Say, hi, Veronica. Hi, Veronica.

Break the curses of my ancestors. Break the curses of my ancestors. The Aztecs and the Mayans. Holy shit! I told you to stay out of the way. Go down. Come on, Veronica. Come back. Don't do it, Veronica. Keep them.

Keep the Aztecs and the Mayans, Veronica. So what's the curse? The pagan religions of the Aztecs and the Mayans? I think he's saying that the Aztecs and the Mayans were violent people and the generational curses have followed my... Or Veronica. No, well, he did say that. He said break the curse, the generational curse.

Didn't he say I've been sacrificed? Oh, yeah. Get away from me! Get away from me! Get away from me! the generational curse didn't he say i've been sacrificed oh yeah oh nice are you the strong man are you hugo chavez are you tinker taylor soldier spot oh fuck Are you Tinker Taylor, Soldier Spot? Oh, fuck. Oh, man. I mean, dude, the thing is, and this is why it's a perfect grift,

is because it's limitless. If you can go back and exorcise demons from past religions, civilizations. You can riff forever. You can riff forever. Trust me, somebody that's a content miner, I know content whales never run dry. They never run dry. You can riff forever. You're exactly right.

You can find somebody who descended from, you know, bubonic plague victims. You can find somebody who descended from, I don't know, Emperor Hirohito or something in Japan. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anything is on the table. It's limitless. It's absolutely limitless. You might say it's supernatural. I'm telling you, dude, Sid Roth is pretty crazy.

He had this guy on when I was watching it the other night he had this guy on who um who claimed that he had a bible that um secreted oil and i swear to god yeah so he put it on his desk at the top of the show he had the guy on and it kind of felt exploitative a little bit like it kind of felt like this guy was kind of like a sort of hillbilly type country bumpkin guy from like the backwoods who had a bible for whatever reason it was like oil was coming out of it i mean it was obviously a grift it wasn't real yeah but sid roth kept it up on this desk the entire show even when he was interviewing other people he had his bible in a big tub of oil and it was just gradually filling up well and in the fascinating part about this i wish i could find the clip there's no way i'm going to be able to find it right now but he said roth was you know this is how you know

sid roth is is a grifter he doesn't well i knew that when you told me that he he matriculated from uh merrill lynch into Lynch into the TV preacher grift. Well, he was interviewing this guy about the Bible, and the guy was giving a very long-winded answer. I forgot all about this. The guy gave a, he was like, tell me about how this Bible has impacted your life and what it's done for you.

He was like, well, my nephew, it got, you know, he he was unemployed and he needed a job and he was at a sam's club or kroger or something like that and he saw a broom and so he started sweeping up the floor and the manager came by and said you need a job young man why don't you come by for an interview next week and he did he didn't get the job but he tells Sid Roth was like interesting and so the guy so the guy kept telling stories like that that that did not actually demonstrate the power of the bible yeah and so you could tell Sid Roth was getting kind of irritable with him and he was like give me something man exactly he goes and so at one point he just slips the mask mask slips and he goes, wow, you really believe

this stuff, don't you? I wish I could find the clue. I'll find it. I can definitely find it. Just completely fed up with this imbecile. Completely. Pretty funny, man. Pretty funny. man come pretty funny it you know it's it's it's uh that shit could only really exist in

a country like this oh yeah totally well it's it's it's our specific sort of like blend of consumer like hyper predatory consumerist capitalism our um obsession with the media, you know what I mean, in specific media forms, you know, our obsession with the con, you know, scamming people. You're right. It could only exist in this culture. And also, but also, if you look at the proliferation of, like, that sort of charismatic Christianity, if you look at where it's really blowing up at, it's all places

that capital is ravaged. Yeah, totally. Basically, what they're trying to bring into the mainstream, what they're trying to bring into Vogue is this is you don't need to worry because at least this is what you're left with. Heaven and the

promise of all you gotta do is pray for your health. And what that does is it just provides cover for them to like, the insurance companies run roughshod. Yeah, right, right. And just to completely decimate everything. No, for sure. That's why Jim Baker is like,

he needs to stay healthy in the end times. You're gonna do it with this little powder I've got. It's got so many ingredients. Yeah. You can't even imagine how many ingredients it's got. Yeah. So many ingredients. Oh, man.

I don't know. Give me a second. I've got to take off this sweatshirt real quick and burn it up. Okay. Just throw that sweater in the fireplace. I just throw that sweater in the fireplace. Well, what I'd like to do eventually on this show is try to do like a C.S. Lewis reading series or something, like some sort of like exploration of that.

But it's becoming increasingly clear to me that, you know, I haven't been in the church in a long time, but it's becoming increasingly clear to me that there are a lot of contradictions within it that are becoming harder and harder to sort of manage. To square. Yeah, to sort of square and control. So it's funny. It's like their trajectory sort of mirrors what the billionaire class is like feeling a little bit right now. Yeah, probably a little bit. You know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. like feeling a little bit right now yeah probably a little you know yeah yeah it's it's weird i mean you've got sort of you know you've got this sort of grifters like jim baker who don't do the prosperity gospel thing that's not jim baker's thing he's um you know he's the doomsday guy he's the whatever he's playing on like you're on the fears that all the big, like Adam Curtis talks about hyper-normalization, all the big disaster action films as bread in all Americans.

Exactly. Which, be damned, is going to come to pass soon. Well, yeah, exactly. In a lot of his episodes, he's even got certain episodes titled stuff like Trumpocalypse and stuff like that. Oh, my God. He's referred to Trump as the like Trumpocalypse and stuff like that. Oh, my God. He's referred to Trump as the wrecking ball and stuff like that. He thinks that this is the whatever.

So you've got that kind of grifter in the church. And then you've got the maybe sort of adjacent to that is Joel Osteen, right? Who, I mean, I'd never really, I'd always ignored him. I mean, you gotta understand, when I was a Christian, I ignored a lot of these things. Like, I was like, this is heresy. This is not. This is heresy. I plead the blood, Lord.

It's like, I plead the blood. Give it the blood, Lord. I'll plead the blood. Give her the blood, Lord. I was watching him the other night, and it is just phenomenal how many people are in his sermons. I mean, we're talking a full stadium, man. Well, he bought the compact center where the Houston Rockets used to play.

That is Lakewood Church now. That's incredible. So a place that probably held 10,000 or so people. Yeah, and it's really weird to think about because it is so out of place in modern, in sort of modern society. Like when we generally think of like mass movements like that where people can turn out, you know, by the hundreds of thousands, their very individuality is stripped away into this large collective mass. We generally think of things like Stalin's Russia

or the 50s and 60s. I don't know. We just don't really... It's out of place in 2019. But it is still going on in those type of churches in those type of spaces yeah yeah joel olsen is an interesting character because he's he is somehow skirted all the trappings of like the sort of like just lowbrow con man tv preacher yeah you know what i mean

yeah yeah yeah and like sort of become america's preacher type. I would say he's kind of the heir apparent to Billy Graham in some ways. For sure. And basically, but what people... He's got similar hair. Yeah. This bouncy fucking Rand Paul perm looking thing with the mullet sort of. Yeah.

But Joel Osteen also comes out of that same lineage. I mean, his dad, John Osteen, was a contemporary. Oral Roberts was a contemporary. Right. Kenneth Hagen, like, his mom wrote a book saying that she was healed of liver cancer through prayer after giving just weeks to live. Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, all the miracles always happen in all these TV preacher's families. So, you know, you've got that, and then, you know, you've got, like, maybe on the sort of opposite end of the political spectrum. I haven't kept up with this in years. I don't even know if it's still out there. But, you know, like the blue, like, jazz Donald Miller type people.

The people who want to make. Rob Bell. Who's Rob Bell? Rob Bell was the guy that questioned the existence of hell in, like, 2010. And is like. Tom, we should have stayed in this fucking world we could have made up killing oh dude yeah we're we're ready for him uh we should do a spin-off podcast that just examines the stuff well so i mean like there's this huge question uh apparently well it's not huge but

um i've swiped this book from my grandma's nightstand. It wasn't her nightstand. It was her table in the living room. It's called Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement. Your grandma was reading up on the evils of CCM, huh? Yes, she was. I mean, I always kind of suspected that she didn't agree with it which is really funny to me um like that's how far sort of conservative she was you know what i mean like she so like this author dan lucarini it's his name

he wrote this book why i left the contemporary christian music movement and so i dude i had to take it of course yeah i was sitting there i was like talking about brother i was like dude this is content gold um but like some of the reasons why he's like you know i was talking about like um you know so like we've talked about it on the show before um you know the sort of ccm as they call it whatever whatever, sort of originated out of like the Jesus movement in the 60s or 70s. And the whole point was to be like,

you know, as he says here, it was this mentality of just come as you are, you know? Yeah. Come as you are, come to the church.

Not in the Nirvana way either. Yeah. But like, yeah, you know, rags, whatever, filth, whatever whatever come as you are well like dan lucarini doesn't agree with that he's like nah son this is not take a bath before you

show up go buy a new suit new shoes yeah yeah yeah well Well, as he explained it, he's like, acceptance, I've highlighted this part. Acceptance doctrine is so pervasive in some fellowships. He sees this as a problem that a lot of churches have tried to start adopting the, you know, tolerance doctrines in mainstream society. So he thinks that's a slippery slope to, like, accepting homosexuality and whatever. Yes, that's exactly right. That is exactly right. Acceptance doctrine is so pervasive in some fellowships

that Christians are no longer allowed to question another Christian's behavior or personal preferences. If you confront them... If you confront another in love, you will be accused of judging them. If you dare quote chapter and verse from the Bible, you will be accused of judging them if you dare quote chapter and verse from the bible you will be called a pharisee if a church has any practices that step on the toes of anyone's personal preferences then it is considered to be a legalistic church so yeah it's like he's he takes issue with the whole snowflake, you know, trend in the church right now.

Really? Of cheating people with fairness and kindness. Ah, so he's like, we'll get back to the strongman tactics. Pretty much, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what he says is like, there's no, there's no, okay, this is pretty funny. Why I had to leave. Firstly, I could no longer accept the premises undergirding the CCM philosophy.

So let me ask you a question. What was this guy, what was his deal? Was he in a band? Was he like a show promoter? He was like a worship leader. He was like in a worship band, like a worship leader. Like a, Lord, I lift your name. One of those guys, okay.

Yeah, acoustic guitars, a drum set that's behind like a 10-foot wall of plastic plexiglass or something like that. I don't know why they always had his play behind those. Whatever. Okay, secondly, when I saw what the Bible teaches about true worship and what it really means to be in the presence of God, I became sickened at the way my generation so glibly used profane and vulgar music accompanied by vulgar dress

to offer up worship and praise to a holy God. Thirdly, to preserve my marriage and to be faithful to God in all things, I needed to separate from the temptations

that were ever present in the CCM setting. The ego gratification and attraction to the female members of the worship team. Man, you wouldn't believe it these these girls in the worship bands just busting it open i mean dude i he's got a chapter called seducing the saints this is great i mean i'm skipping over this gets into a little bit of

mike pence stuff doesn't it like being along with female band members it does it absolutely does so he's got some arguments about like oh there's some sort of philosophical arguments like oh there's no philosophical art there's no argument in the bible that would justify accepting people as they are right like apparently as one at one point he says, like, even Jesus told people that they had to change and stuff like that. Whatever. But then where the real meat of this, though,

is in the part about... It's very obvious reading this that his whole reason for writing this book was just this short chapter. Like, everything else is just window dressing for this little nugget. Am I the only one who has noticed that some of the ladies

in the worship teams were performing special music or wearing provocative dresses or tight revealing clothing and doing so on the platform in full view of the congregation? They are imitating they are imitating secular female artists who dress that way purposefully to tease and tempt men ladies little tip rein it in and cover it up cover it up ladies the apostle the apostle paul

commanded you to dress in modest appeal apparel with propriety and moderation. He also said we are not to have even the slightest hint of immorality in our lives. My wife Judy tells me that a woman's style of dress can do more than just hints. It can advertise. Oh my God. I admit that my old sinful nature retains certain lustful tendencies, and I continually have to guard my eyes in order to starve such desires. I'm not alone.

So do millions of other Christian men and boys. Ladies, please do not put a stumbling block in front of us with your immodest apparel. Can that be the title of this episode? Yes. Ladies, don't put a stumbling block before us with your immodest apparel. Well, it's hilarious, man. It's like that story I told you when I was in high school and I was at church camp and they brought us all into a room, probably 100 or something, teenage boys, just to talk to us about jacking off. Guys, I got to tell you something.

Huddle around here. Did you know? Did you know? Did you know that if you do it in your shower in your dorm room, it can clog up and... They'll have to put up a post. You'll be incredibly embarrassed in front of all your boys. This guy got up there.

He was like, sometimes you find yourself thinking about your friend's mothers, your friend's sisters. We were like, yeah. It's actually pretty. Central movement. Is it proper and modest for Christian ladies or gentlemen to dance and sway in a worldly manner

while they sing praise and worship songs to God? No. Whoa, I can refute this, Lugurini. David danced until his clothes came off. He saw you coming. He foresaw that. No, they're doing this because of the rock music style and beat, not because they want to dance before the Lord like David

did. It's fine to bust it open for Christ. It's fine to fucking pop that pussy for Christ. Latest. Twerking for Christ. As long as it's not to rock and roll music.

As long as you're not providing a stumbling block with your immodest apparel keep keep fucking uh yeah keep fucking busting it open passion is an important ingredient in worship and praise but this same passion can become a snare to unwary participants does your does your worship team mix single or divorced men and women together with those who are married this is an open door for sexual immorality if you dude dude straight up miss lucarini he caught her catching some side dick and he's like he's trying to close every door to that ever happen again he got burned because his bass player in his praise and worship band slept with his wife.

Yeah, that's it in a nutshell. Luke Carini's just admitting to the whole church that he's a cuck. Yeah, exactly. Hold on. If you put hot-blooded males and females into a passionate rock music group, there will be strong temptation for sexual sins. CCM styles facilitate an atmosphere where a female's innate desire to have

emotional intimacy with a man can easily be achieved. I'll tell you this. Such as with Judy. Fucking nothing gets me hornier than fucking jars of clay. I always think of that when you said that. My friend

said people were throwing panties at a Jar of Clay concert. I don't know if I believe it, but. The problem is, most of the time that man is not her husband. Oh, dude, this is for sure. He for sure got cucked. He got cucked, man. I know it. I can smell it from a mile away.

Jeremy, the worship leader, fucked his wife. No doubt about it. Was up there singing, Lord, I lift your name. Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary. Locked eyes with Judy. Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary for that fucking pussy.

For fucking Judy's pussy. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. ccm styles facilitate an atmosphere where females innate desire to have emotional intimacy with a man can easily be achieved the problem is most of the time that man is not her husband this leads to something called emotional adultery a problem that can later lead to physical adultery a cozy let it manifest a cozy mix of it's like they don't understand just how attraction works anyway like like they never thought that like the natural like just attraction you might

have for somebody like they just think that oh my god that's outside of god's order yeah i think like that's such a foreign like like, weird thing, like, that, like, every fucking dude or woman or whatever is not, like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm under no illusions that, like, my girlfriend probably doesn't think I'm the best looking guy ever. You know what I mean? It's like, they just can't accept that. You know what I mean?

That's something I got over a long fucking time ago. Well, the thing is, is they have no outlet for their sort of like lustful thoughts or whatever. It's like, it's the sort of like classic reverse psychology thing. And this is why Christianity is so fascinating. If you get 50 people in a room and tell them the one thing they're not supposed to think about is sex, invariably they're all going to get horny as fuck. Yeah, absolutely. They're going to get horned up.

Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. I mean, it's just human nature. I don't really know. A cozy mix of men and women in a worship team can also be enough to cause a division between a spouse who is on the team and one who is not. Jesus Christ. Judy wasn't on the team, so one who is not. Jesus Christ.

Judy wasn't on the team, so it invites jealousy and mistrust. Judy saw unity between the men and women in my groups that did not exist between their spouses who were outside the group. This is a stumbling block to the spouse on the outside. Even if there is no actual physical sin between the members of the worship team, this type of atmosphere is still wrong because it can weaken the marriage bond, leading it to break down in the future. This motherfucker is the most jealous motherfucker alive.

Oh my God. I mean, he's got Miss Luccherini like living under the house. Oh yeah. I'm sure there must be at least one contemporary worship leader who is now thinking, come on Dan, you're being a Puritan. My people can handle this without sinning. Be very careful, friend. As leaders of the church, we are never to lead the

saints into temptation or any hints of immorality. Why would you even permit an environment of potential sexual temptation and emotional adultery to exist in your church service? That's so fucking stupid. Oh, Tom. Man, it is so weird to see.

I mean, it kind of makes sense, though, in the scripture. The Bible says that God's a jealous God. It is ultimately at the root of all the anxieties. And I know this is not an original take at all, but there is this sort of sexual insecurity that just oozes off of these people that become these right-wing fucking crazy bastards. You know what I'm saying?

You are absolutely right. You really have to understand that that really is the central pathological feature of this type of christian yeah oh yeah totally and it's like really the only reason that they like dabbling racism is they're scared to death that their wife fucked a black day scared to death well it's um it it's partially it's i mean i'm making a joke there but no i know what you're it, it's partially, it's, I mean, I'm making a joke there, but no, I know what you're saying, but it's like partially that like they, because they're jealous because

that is a sort of central feature of their personalities and who they are. And look, we all get jealous, but in some people it's like an unbridled, like crystalline fucking feature of who they are. Christianity is perfect for that because christianity says that your spouse is your property you know your wife is your property it's like it's a very patriarchal thing there's no meeting of equals there's no actual like you know understanding of each other and development of a healthy relationship it is just this constant um game of brinksmanship like oh is judy gonna fuck jeremy the worship leader because you know that's a fantasy that's

played out in his mind multiple and over here is bishop sexton saying let it happen hey see if she'll let you watch that'd be fun wouldn't it that get you a little dick hard dan watch jeremy fucking rail judy oh fuck man um look i'm not a sex nerd or anything yeah but but really honestly there that there's just such weird fucking jealousy about these things that explains a lot about, you know, like I know like a lot of leftists would say, you know, like your critique of Nazis. You know what I mean? Like, you know, talking about there's like various sexual pathologies and all that doesn't lead to Nazism. And I think that's a fair take. And OK, you say that.

Damn sure don't help steer my wife from nazis either you're right good point yeah well it's the thing is like that's why you know it's so dangerous for him that like the church is trying to attract like normal everyday people as they are using secular forms such as rock and roll music but what's so funny about this is that i played in a praise and worship band for years um there's nothing about it that's really like sexy i mean is there anything that got you horned up about playing praise and worship music there's plenty of things that got me horned up in youth group don't get me wrong.

But, like, praise and worship necessarily, I mean, like, what he's objecting to, and he even says it at one point, is that, like, rock and roll is immoral because of, you know, that's the whole point. Like, rock and roll can't be, you know, rehabilitated or appropriated into Christian spaces. The whole point is to make your hips move and to sort of simulate sex. And it's like, well, yeah. I mean, that's why it's awesome. I'm going to find out where Luke Carini lives and I'm going to pull up in an IROC Z, about an 82 model or so, playing Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood.

And then I'm going to stand up on the hood of it and just gyrate until he comes out of the house at night. Well, he says it right here can rock music be used by satan what a question the very names of many of the performing groups black sabbath kiss acdc he doesn't think kiss stands for nights in satan's service does he literally wrote it he wrote kiss night in sat Satan's service. My God. They advertise the profane associations.

Rock music is obviously connected with certain evil things and people. The Bible commands us to avoid and abstain from the appearance of evil. Put two and two together and you get four. Motherfucker. Oh, man. Oh, man. It's so funny. I grabbed this. I walked out to the car my brother was like what are you doing with that yeah that was his first question then immediately three seconds later he was like oh man tom's gonna love that

oh shit well we did this just to avoid talking about bernie sanders yeah we're just feeling like everybody that's everybody else is gonna run with that this week let's just go back to our bread and butter right let's that's you saw what i was doing yeah i punted i didn't want to talk about i kept on being like how can i tie bern Bernie Sanders' campaign into this? Oh, fuck, man. Oh, fuck. Well, there's really nothing else to say about this. It's been a crazy week. And, yeah, I've sort of wanted to avoid talking about Bernie

just because it's February 2019. We're going to have plenty of Bernie to talk about. Plenty of opportunities to talk about you know yesterday it was kind of like everybody trying to beat each other to the punch on the sort of bernie tank and uh you know i'm just over here sipping the tea so you know above it all everybody is all here's the here's the thing though here's the thing though everybody's all like get off my lawn about the various stuff but one thing I've noticed

is like where our grift is concerned everybody's trying to steal our shine and fuck the teacher's tracks oh I know you know what I mean like that's our shit

I know I've noticed that and I see like I see like Eric Blunt getting the likes and retweets who is who is an obvious

fucking grifter yeah this guy from New York writing a book about the Union. Just this completely fanciful, fetish-sized version of what went down the teacher's tracks. It's like, Block,

I want to tell you something, Block. I want to take you to a place called Mingo County. And I want to tell you something. I bet you've been there, man. If you can come with me to Mingo County and come out with the same takes that you write about in this book.

I'm guessing just based on the inconsistencies in the little four words and the different things I've read about this thing coming out. All right. He co-authored an article in Jacobin about the sort of centrality of class and how class has to be central to all. This is the thing that drives me crazy with socialists these days. I'm an old-timer now. Of course it's central. What the fuck? That's the whole point of socialism.

Hopefully, by being a radical, that's just already given, and you can use that as a way to talk about the other fucked-up features of our society, patriarchy, racism, other stuff. I, you know, if you really think that like the West Virginia strikes prove your thesis that class. About class, yeah. About class and about how it is and should be central to all these sort of larger projects. larger projects. Then what we're going to wind up happening is just getting some sort of

social welfare state that expands some benefits for some people while still raiding and exploiting the rest of the globe for its resources. I'm just not satisfied with that.

Plenty of people could say, well, you're missing the forest for the trees like you know and the thing that i was thinking about today is that it is interesting to me how every election since i've been a you know voting person has been has like sort of had this dynamic in it where it's like you're just holding your nose and voting for the least, the lesser evil of whatever. But now it's fascinating to me that the center of gravity for that has moved to the left in a lot of ways. And so now you have people who you were pretty good friends with

just three years ago. Now a lot of them are basically saying like, oh, you're a purist or on the opposite side. Oh, you're just cynical and you're sort of, um, you know, just holding your nose and voting for the lesser evil or whatever.

And it's interesting like how that is moved. Now the center of gravity for that is now moved to Bernie. Um, whereas yeah, just three years ago it was Hillary or, or, or, or,

Oh, and it was like, yeah, it's like, Oh no, we're not going to do that. We're not holding our nose. But then now it's like the same thing's applied to Bernie now that he's viable. Exactly. And it's probably the early favorite. I mean, probably nothing.

He raised $5 million in a day. I don't know. I think I stepped on your point that you were making though about the teacher strikes and so i didn't no you didn't step on my point at all i think i think something that people outside the region as much as i hate to say i hate to say use that phrase my tooth is they don't get us that, like, that upward mobility has been repressed to the point that – here's what – and I'll extrapolate out further than that. When I was a kid, like, you know, minors are sort of like the poster children for, like, the working class,

or at least from 2016 kind of on, you know, and more specifically, the oft talked about white working class. Yeah. When I was a kid, we did not see them as working class people. We saw them as petty bushwop people in Appalachia. Their kids were the rich kids in school.

Right. And that's something I think that gets lost in that whole discussion is like, I'm not saying they're not workers. It's kind of, you know, they kind of fall into that banner of you know the sociological term skilled workers like you were talking about you know a couple weeks ago with like the guys in the oil fields and all that kind of stuff yeah yeah the other side to that is you know up until recently they were very well compensated in you know on balance with service workers in the community and all this kind of stuff.

And so I think if you're talking about class and you're using Appalachia as sort of your case study in that, you're getting it fucked up. Yeah, you're going to get a pretty skewed. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. Just to connect it back to the teachers, I think the teachers, you know, and don't get me wrong, I'm very moved by like what's happening in West Virginia right now.

And particularly like with the bus drivers and the people that are kind of, you know, sort of ancillary figures to what's going on with the teacher strikes is even more powerful to me in some ways. When you're trying to talk about class and you're using dispatches from Appalachia, you're going to get it fucked up if you don't talk about... I think people think when we're talking about coal miners, we're talking about in the poverty of Appalachia, those things are connected. Right. And they are in the broader sense that coal mining, the coal industry has created conditions that keep a lot of people in poverty but if you're talking about the minor as part of that then it gets a little complicated well the thing is like they don't really understand and this is what kills me when people from new york get a book deal or whatever to write about this is that they don't understand like the way that this the role that those workers have in rural communities. Look, you know, when we talk about, like, Trump country and why a lot of these places, like, vote conservative

or vote against their interests or whatever, what we're actually talking about is a very well-oiled engine of sort of ideological production and indoctrination. And so in a rural community, that layer of workers the sort of skilled noble workers as you were just saying sort of like more masculine skilled professions that make quite a bit of money their whole role in a lot of these communities is to shore up the sort of conservative social order granted plenty of them could be in a union but that's besides the point like well also the union thing has sort of been like you know uh emasculated right almost like i remember growing up like

they you know i'd hear all these like scab miners talk about like well if you're one of them union mining pussies if you get bit by a spider you get six months off paid right you know that kind of stuff acting like they were like somehow softer than yeah yeah no you're absolutely right and that is i mean part of their pay is to uphold that order like you know i'm saying like my brother-in-law is a minor and a couple years ago before the shit really bottomed out like he brought home 180 000 a year right you know what i'm saying like these guys are not like you know, like now where they're paying you 17 bucks an hour to dig into a hillside and get coal out. You know what I mean? At one point they were compensated.

And part of that good compensation was tied up in upholding that sort of masculine. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, and the thing is, is, look, you know, as America deindustrializes and these places are hit the hardest. I mean, look, unless you completely overhaul the way that they're structured in the in like the sort of role they play in the larger national economy. I just look, I've lived here for seven years. or national economy. I've lived here for seven years. I grew up in a rural area. I can't see them going socialist anytime soon.

You know, I mean, granted, it's on us to do that and to sort of try to guide them in that direction and to, you know, build out a sort of ideological space for that in these places. But unless you are really grappling with the role of conservative thought and ideology and stuff like that, I just don't really see it happening. I mean, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's, also, I think that, seems to me like they're getting a little ahead of themselves, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, also, like, another thing is that this is, like, a super long-term project, too, like building socialism and all this stuff. That's why, that was, like, you know,

we were talking in the group message last night about, like, the Bernie Sanders campaign. And it's like, I'm not voting for Bernie Sanders because I think it's like some net positive for socialism or like, I think it's some like sort of like grand revolutionary gesture. Like, even though it's like definitely comparatively better,

I think we're just a bit disingenuous if we say otherwise. I'm voting for Bernie Sanders for what I can get out of it, for what my sick working mother can get out of it, for like, you know, so people that, you know, are like, you know, working like shitty, like, you know, service industry jobs can get some more money out of it. And as Katie pointed out,

that is the normal average person's approach to voting. That is their approach to politics. And it's material. Think about that. You know what I'm saying? And that seems to be separate from building some sort of mass movement. I could be wrong. I don't know.

I mean I really don't know. I think it's the question is like is the mobilization of workers toward something like that? Is that building socialism or is it just like, yeah, or is it just like or like isolated workers getting certain material concessions? Is that just what it is? You know, I'm not phrasing that the right way, I know. Well, you know, look, this week or maybe two weeks ago, no, I think it was, yeah, maybe a week or two ago,

was the 100th anniversary of the Seattle General Strike. Right. I said that to you. Yeah. And. You sent it to everybody. I sent it to everybody.'s i said they put it on all the lap poles and yeah you're right and it you know in this um they set up a committee like

the general strike committee i believe set up a committee afterwards to sort of write about it and find out what went right what went wrong and the most striking thing to me about it reading reading it is that it took decades to basically make a general strike. And even then it didn't work necessarily. It went for five days. Most workers just turned out for solidarity. But regardless, it took decades to build up the sort of solidarity and class consciousness and just organizational capacity to actually do it. and class consciousness and just organizational capacity to actually do it.

And so, you know, that to me is building socialism, right? Like that's sort of the whole, that's, you're reaching across several layers of the working class, several industries, you're putting them all into sort of one grand coalition to exercise your sort of economic leverage and force over the industry there. Man, that is...

That's a huge task, and it seems separate from a social welfare state, or a social democratic state with, like, you know, sort of robust, you know, welfare policies for your income or your health care or stuff like that. It's not to say that that isn't a form of socialism. Or if that isn't like

if it's a bad thing. Nobody's shitting on that. Exactly. I guess what we're saying though is that I see a contradiction in what Bernie's saying about a total economic and social transformation of society and what he's proposing. What he's proposing. And he's proposing, yeah.

I mean... And also, you know, a point we've made is revolutions, there's a lot to manage before, during, and after. And something we talked a little bit about today is that, you know, are we prepared for, you know, the sort of wealth strikes and, you know, what the retaliation of the wealthy and CEOs is going to be

if this mild social democratic program is put in place after decades of just these guys being able to run roughshod. There will be capital flight. There will be, you're right, wealth strikes. Or capital, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that's a great way to put it. They're organized. You've got to understand and they their sort of understanding of class and class consciousness runs quite a bit deeper um i i think i think one thing i don't know i wouldn't

say necessarily that we messed up on but that's something i would critique that we've said is you know in the last couple weeks like when ever since Trump in the State of the Union gave those two sentences about curbing socialism. And I said, they're not scared. They're just throwing out there as a mild threat. I think they are scared, but I think they're scared not for the reasons we think they are. I think they're scared because that's just the reactionary posture. They're so touchy.

Because what is just reactionary is being a reactionary or just they're so touchy because what is you know just reactionary is being a reactionary is or just being a conservative in general is you know having power having wealth seeing that threatened and then reacting to that yeah and i think that's what we're seeing like they're showing their hand how dedicated they are to the cause of snuffing us out you're right okay just by like you know bernie sanders entering the race you know you see trump today crazy bernie and all this kind of stuff like you know like 2016 that there wasn't that right bernie was like oh he was treated very unfairly all this stuff because they didn't think bernie had a chance in hell yeah yeah you know what i'm saying now they see

some steam behind that and it's and now it's like, okay. So I wouldn't necessarily call them scared, but they are sensitive. Yeah. Hypersensitive. I absolutely agree. Well, and that's a thing that scares me. And I'm not saying this is a well-actually thing. It's like, if anything, I'm saying it more as like sort of advice or something it's like our generation has never experienced rationing we've never experienced sacrifices that like is

going to be a result of what you were saying capital flight wealth strike stuff like that if he's serious about what he's saying we're talking about massive disruptions to the economy yeah and um and that they well they wanted jimmy carter bernie they want to banish him to the dust ban of history and say like those ideas don't work look right it's been proven right and they're going to leverage everything they can money wise and all this kind of stuff and that's really and truly what we're talking about in terms of you know when we're trying to be critical of bernie and saying well him and and the movement for socialism in general needs to just go for broke because if we don't if we leave the door open for capital a little bit it's going to kick the fucking thing wide open in four years when bernie's in his 80s and trying to run for re-election and there's no

heir apparent and yes you know that that's what i mean that's like kind of at the crux of our critiques of like electoral politics and why it's not wise to just throw all your energy and resources into that yeah and it's why i we've said before like you need a constituency and a base to actually see those things through and granted that may exist and it probably does i mean obviously trump like you were just saying is see some actual force behind this and is scared and is like oh crazy bernie um but you know to that point bernie needs to just dig in and just be like but you know how you stop trump from doing all that shit and like just putting your hand on his head just call him like a tell him he's got like a little dick and he's like a fat fuck and you fucked his mom in like 71

you know what i mean like you have to you can't be gentlemanly with trump because he'll just bully you yeah no i i fucking dunk on him shake your fucking nuts in his fucking gooey ass face yeah i don't i don't know man um uh back to what we were saying just a second ago, though. People are cutting in on their grift, god damn it. And we want the god damn cut. We want some residuals, Bonk. We want some residuals. Yeah, I feel like I just did not articulate myself there at all

because I was trying not to talk about it. And then once we started going down the road, I was like a guy who was hanging on the back of a garbage truck or something like, ah! Dangerous-ass job. Yeah, I'm just trying to sit back and watch what happens for a little bit without getting too far into the prognosticator. Because look, I'm wrong like 95% the time and so um you gotta give yourself a more credit that's more like 72 you know you know i also have the brain disorder of like

oppositional defiant disorder or whatever where like if somebody says one thing i have to be a contrarian just yeah it's and i look i don't like that about me i've got a not much about me i do like there's not a whole lot about me i do like you're exactly right um so i'm i am a cognizant of that and i'm aware um but mostly look i just want these things to stick and to be successful and i don't want anybody to get killed in the process and so that's where a lot of my sort of critiques come from. That's another thing I've been thinking about, man. I was listening to the Choppo episode about Elliot Abrams the other day. I just wonder how far away we are from state violence against known communists or socialists or whatever in this country.

Yeah. Like citizens. You know what I'm saying? I wondered about that, too. In the age of Trump, it seems like they haven't really been able to get their shit together enough to really target leftists. Like how far are we away from just not being able to cross the fucking street without like a legal hassle at least?

You know, if they're not like assassinating us, I mean, that'd be bad PR, but like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Well, there is a case to be made. I don't know. I guess it could be coincidence, but I think it's pretty suspicious. You know how some of those Ferguson activists

have been murdered since Ferguson and stuff? Yeah, suspicious things. It's pretty fucking weird. But the fact of the matter is, me and you live in the middle of nowhere. They're not sending out Mulder and Scully to fucking track. Well, it's because you can't come to a town like this and people will know you're not from around here pretty quickly exactly

and then wherever we get around and yeah wherever we get around then we can take to our bunker and yeah exactly whatever yeah you're right well we want residuals we spent a whole hour and a half talking about griffs god damn it and we want our fucking money um it's so funny the thing about appalachia is that um the there i'm just gonna i'm just gonna like fucking just uh poverty shame eric blonk and give us like some some royalties off that book and just be like yeah just you're just the next in a long line of people just extracting wealth from afar here aren't you, buddy? Well, the funny thing about it, and I try to immunize myself to this.

Every now and then I have a hard time. But the funny thing about Appalachia is that at least since the 60s, since it's become such a highly guarded item and topic in media and the corollary to that, it's become such a highly commoditized form of grant revenue and capital. Just a very healthy stream of, seam of grant money. It has produced a class of, you know, speakers, spokespeople, guardians, gatekeepers. speakers, spokespeople, guardians, gatekeepers.

And so every time someone steps on the soil and starts to talk about it or write about it, immediately the hackles of everyone is risen. And I, like I said, I've tried to immunize myself to this. And listen, we're probably on the lower end of that. I don't really care. Eric Blunt can write his book, but I reserve the right to be hypercriticalical i've been so contrarian to that impulse that at times i found myself embracing people that i wouldn't even norm i mean like stacy kranitz and stuff not like i actually ever

embraced her but at the same time i was lukewarm you just like you saw you saw her get chewed up at the gates yeah you kind of feel a little bit for her. Well, and not just that. It's just that, like, if the crowd is moving in that direction, I'm like, man, fuck that shit. So it's like, in a way, I don't have anything against the Jacobin writer or some shit from New York or whatever. It does hurt a little bit when I'm broke as fuck, unemployed, can't get published anywhere, and can't get a paycheck when I see some New Yorker. That's the extent.

I mean, it's ruining a little bit of jealousy. I admit that up front. We just call that envy. That's just... Straight up. Just straight up envy. We need Bob Larson

to exercise the envy demons out of us. But I'm not gonna actually try to make a career out of it, I guess'm not gonna actually like, you know, try to make a career out of it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. We should just

stay in our lane. Keep being the actually guys. You know. Keep bringing in our little pittance of Patreon money. Into the region.

Yeah. Into the region. Well, speaking of Patreon money, please check out our patreon um p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash trailability workers party um generally got good stuff up over there um so please check that out um please don't hold us to anything we've said in this episode uh

about bernie uh definitely about the televangelist, hold us to that. That's fine, yeah. Our Bernie text will change by the day. Well, I didn't prepare to talk about it today, so I didn't really have any talking points prepared for it, but I don't really give a shit, dude. I'm so disconnected from it, bro.

I don't give a shit. You're above it, bro. I'm so disconnected from it, bro. I don't give a shit. You're above it, bro. I'm above it. Like I said yesterday, I'm going to go work on an offshore drilling rig. You're going to try to hasten the end of the world by doing your part in resource extraction. Yeah, baby. I'm not an accelerationist now, nor have I ever been. I have a new political philosophy Briefly in the 90s.

Well, I have a new political philosophy called de-acceleration. Called the third way. The third way. Well, that's the thing. A lot of people in their Bernie takes are like, we've got 12 years to... Look, climate change is...

I'm just... I got to break this to you. There's not a goddamn thing we can do to stop it. And so... And the general motion of the left in this country right now is for Bernie.

And you're not going to change their minds. And, you know, just... That's just where we're going to put the shovel in. Yeah, here's where you're just going to have to put the shovel in.

That's right. So so there we are there you've converted the trailblazers we're burning 2020 now no we're not but we you're right that's where we're gonna have to put the shovel in all right anyways please check out the patreon and sign up there um uh'll start, you know, sending you Bibles and stuff if you're not careful. Prayer cloths. Yeah. Healing oil. For a monthly donation of $5 a month, you get free episodes on the Patreon. Yeah. So please check that out.

Anyways. Also, if you have any infirmities, you'll be healed too. Sign up for our Patreon and you can get rid of your cancer or whatever. That's right. All right. Well,

we'll see you all next time.