Down through history, great leaders of radical social movements have been misquoted and misrepresented in order to promote the idea that wealth is king. Well, that era is coming to an end. The plot by the wealthy classes to create a generation of mindless debt slaves has failed. More and more, people are realizing that the war on the educated poor in this society was planned and orchestrated by a corrupt business class hell bent on eradicating the gains made by poor Americans over the past several decades. Their plan was certainly well-organized, but it was not well thought out. The business elite believed that they could select all those with potential, recruit them into the business class and turn them against poor people. That plan has failed because there were simply too many bright stars such as me who fell through the cracks, who were left out of the world of success. Now that I and many others have been left behind, we are coming for our revenge on the wealthy classes. Make no mistake, this will not be a violent revolution, not on my end anyway. No, this revolution seeks something much more refined than violence. Our revolution, the revolution of the educated debt slaves, shall be a revolution of thought. No longer will you hear words like "hope" and "perseverance" from us. No longer will you hear dumb catchphrases like "rags to riches", "stop hating" and "hard work" from us. We have worked hard and gotten nothing for our efforts. We have hoped and we have been disappointed. We have persevered and received nothing in return. We have had rags and received no riches. We chose not to hate while you hated on us. We are done. We have given you the opportunity to make good on your promises to us, my dear elite class, and you have not delivered. And so, we will reject your gospel of capitalism. We will reject your idiotic optimism. We will reject your dogma of hope, your toxic positivity. All will be exposed as tools of the elite. Did you really think that no one would ever hold you accountable? Did you really think that your corporate propaganda would keep us at bay? You probably did, and now you will pay for your flawed reasoning and lack of empathy. A hoard of leftists is rising up now, and it will topple your fairy tale world dedicated to the flawed rationale of Adam Smith. A quote from the oft misunderstood, maligned and misquoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will clue you in on the fate that will befall you in a short time. Listen up oh wealthy ones, "At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the west and the Midwest. But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farm. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. Now this is what we are faced with. Now when we come to Washington with this campaign, we are coming to get our check." You hear me rich people? We are coming to get our check, only this time it's not just going to be black people. No, no. You see, you fucked up and pissed off the white man, and the Asian man, and the Mexican man, and the white woman, and the Asian woman, and the Mexican woman too. Yes, you did. And I don't care how much money you throw around; you aren't going to be able to buy yourself out of this colossal fuck up of yours this time. You are doomed elitists. The clock is ticking. The bell is tolling, and it tolls for thee, rich man. Buy all the politicians you like. It's all just a waste of money anyway. We are educated, we are bold, and we are coming to get our check! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everyone says and thinks all the same exact shit in America. But I thought I was different. I thought I was cool. I thought I had a deeper understanding of the world. Yeah, all that shit that you probably think about yourself right now. You’re not just a person who likes to laugh. You’re a kind of comedy connoisseur. Sure, you like to laugh, but it’s not about laughter for you. No, it’s about philosophy and culture and freedom of speech. Yeah, I know. You’re like one those alcoholics who refers to themselves as a sommelier. Yes, yes, we know. You don’t have a binge eating disorder, you have a refined a palate that must be satiated with all the great foods of the world...simultaneously. We know. You’re not a liar. You’re a storyteller or a poet or a screenwriter. You haven't published anything or had anything produced, but you're still an unpublished author, and an unpublished author is an author nonetheless. You’re not some weird creepy stalker who follows rich people around like some kind of deranged hungry stray dog looking to lick up your master's leavings. No, you’re an esteemed member of the fan based community. You don't stalk. You appreciate. You're not creepy. You're curious. Yes, we know. We all know that you love to mince words; we all know that you are better than everyone else and that means that you can never do anything wrong. It's an impossibility! It must be because you say it is. We get it. We all know how refined you are. Anyway, after many years of licking comedian taint just like you, I went crazy. I’m not joking. I really did lose my mind. I don’t blame that on comedians. I blame that on myself. But, while I was crazy, I decided to stop watching entertainment. You see, in the conspiracy world, entertainment is evil. All celebrities become lizard people and everyone is illuminati when you’ve lost your fucking mind. The smallest movement is some secret message. That celebrity is trying to control you and you need to stop it right now. So, I gave it all up. I lived “off the grid” as they say. I wouldn’t even use my cellphone. I was that serious about it. I read a lot of books during those years. No, not just crazy books like the bible or Atlas Shrugged...I mean, I read those too, but all kinds of books really, way more than most people will ever touch, let alone read from start to finish. I read so much that I couldn’t read anymore. So, I went back to comedy and, for awhile, it was just as I remembered it. Then, one day, one of the funniest men to ever live, Michael Richards (Kramer, for those of you who are bad with names) called a man a nigger. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. My dad and I both loved Michael Richards and Jerry Seinfeld had way more black people on his show than other shows. How could this be happening? I thought. What was going on? What was even crazier was the huge amount of people who rushed to defend him, many of them were comedians. A few years later, the same comedians who defended Michael Richard’s blatant racism stole the term “cancel culture” from black people to launch a campaign to protect themselves from ever being criticized again. They are still on this free speech crusade to this very day and they have taken black comedians right along with them. But their crusade is not for the common man; it is a selfish crusade. They use it to dehumanize their critics and to present themselves as superior. And now, comedy is dead to me in America. If I want to laugh, I mostly watch stuff from the old days of comedy when comedians told jokes instead of demonizing minorities. I watch a lot of Seinfeld, but I have no desire to see Jerry’s new stuff. I like seeing Michael Richards when his only concern was making me laugh. It reminds me of my dad and it makes me feel like a kid again. Call me old-fashioned or boring or whatever you want. I don’t care. You know, kind of like your favorite comedians don’t care about me...or you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, we did it. We did it. We finally did it! Oh, come on. You know what I'm talking about. We. Did. It. That's right, we stuck to the man. We totally showed him dude. Johnny Depp is free. He's fucking free man. Alright. Alright! We really fucking did it. Good on us! Stupid pirate hats and cheap rum for everyone for you shall always remember this as the day that you almost caught an incredibly rich celebrity who cares absolutely nothing about you! Well done everyone. Well done. I'm clapping right now for you at this very moment. You did it. You gave Kyle Rittenhouse a reason to sue for defamation of character, and you should be very proud of yourself. Never in my life did I think a person who murdered someone would be able to sue for defamation of character. I underestimated you...or overestimated you...whichever one works. Anyway, the important thing is that you did something. You devoted months, some of you even over a year, to setting a legal precedent that could very well criminalize your right to speak out against abuse, especially when that abuse could or could not have been orchestrated by a person who is rich and famous. I mean, America, just when I think you couldn't possibly get any worse, you always surprise me. There really is no bottom in politics, no place to hide from the spin artists, nowhere to run from the bullshit artistry of the publicity stunt, the three-ring circus, the snake oil salesman. It's always there, waiting for you to slip up so it can shape and mold you as it pleases. But you don't care about legal precedent. I know. Trust me, I know. You care about Crybaby and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Pirates of the Carribean. You care about he Johnny Depp who appears to care about you, even if he really doesn't. And that's fine. I've accepted, over the years, that people want to have their cake and eat it too. You don't just want a flawed human being who struggles with rage just like most people. You want a superhero. You want Captain Jack Sparrow. You want to find neverland. That all makes sense in a very senseless way for that line of thought requires a dulling of the senses, especially those that sense scams. But I'm just talking nonsense of course. There's no way a megastar with millions on the line would ever lie to you. That doesn't happen. No, nothing ever happens in neverland, nothing too bad anyway. Everything is just right in a distorted kind of way. It's difficult to explain, especially if you've never been there. But, guess what? I've found it. That's right! I found neverland, and it had the most peculiar kind of behaviors. At one end of neverland, there is a man who shouts about free speech continuously. "Free Speech!", he shouts. "Free Speech!" But, the crazy thing is, the man yells "free speech" so much that he can barely hear himself talk and he certainly never listens to anyone else. There is also a woman dressed in her pajamas. She munches on candies, and pringles and crunches. She bites of her nails and pulls hair out in bunches. Then she shouts at the TV while she's on her lunches. "Liberal bias!", she shouts. "Conservative bias!", she mouths. No matter what the TV says, she points out a bias, but her bias is so biased she won't even try us. Then, toward the end, there's a man who hates women for hating men. He puffs out his chest and dances like a hen. "I hate all your hatred!", he squawks from his perch. "Damn all your self-love and self-care and self-worth! You're all far too selfish to think of myself first!" Then he nods off while watching Fox News Network. Then, at the end, there are nothing but cops. They mean you no harm until you think a free thought. Then it's off to jail for you to sit and rot. But there'll be no trials or fan mail for you, just a really high bail and no one to screw. And when you ask the cops why you are to blame, they'll tell you, for sure, their names you've defamed. There you will sit wondering how, the anti-woke folks have turned on you now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier today I told a joke about the outdated and downright ridiculous show, America’s Got Talent. Why? Well, apart from the fact that talent shows are the vomit of the entertainment world, the whole idea that Hollywood is interested in any way in helping poor artists “get discovered” whilst being simultaneously located in Los Angeles, one of the most poverty-ridden cities in the nation, is a complete joke. As I have stated in past shows, the vast majority of Hollywood’s many jobs (they could cure poverty in the whole city simply by making it easier for artists to get employed instead of making them compete like dogs by the way) go to people who are already rich. This is not the 1940s. Poor people like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are not getting work anymore. It’s the spoiled brat children of people who are already famous that are getting “discovered” these days and that’s not a discovery. That’s just some rich person giving their friend or family member even more money than they have already given them. Hollywood does not create jobs. It destroys dreams and even ends up killing many of the people who have those dreams. Hollywood is an embarrassment to the world of entertainment. Do you have any idea how many artists commit suicide every year because they are turned down by this cartoonish monopoly you call Hollywood every year? I don’t know. I searched the internet and nobody cared to look into it. That’s how heartless Hollywood is. They only give a shit about people kill themselves if they are famous. The thought crossed my mind when I was still ill, that was after Hollywood told me to go fuck myself. Yes, I was “discovered”. I was going to be a star in Hollywood. But I got sick and couldn’t finish the one more year of college they required of me to get my acting “fellowship”. Well, it wasn’t much of a “fellowship” was it? I’m still poor and they don’t care. Hell, they laugh at people like me, the poor folk. They think people starving to death on the street is funny. They make fun of it on their stupid shows and their stupid comedy specials. Maybe that’s why Hollywood chose to hurl me into poverty with their fake ass promise of a better life. Maybe they needed material for a new TV show. Anyway, back to my joke. There was some stupid advertisement for America’s Got “Talent” on Twitter and the visual played a video of a woman moving in very odd ways while doing simple tasks like putting on makeup, flossing and sitting in a chair. The crowd was basically climaxing over these boring acts, bursting into an orgiastic applause the likes of which I had never seen before. This looked absolutely ridiculous and it was. It’s ridiculous to cheer for people performing basic tasks. It’s stupid! So I told a joke about it, which I automatically regreted because there is nothing that the fans of cruel assholes on TV love more than to troll normal people who poke fun at them. Someone told me the person was singing while doing this, to which I responded that I was even less impressed than before. That may be surprising to you, but ventriloquism is not that impressive to me, and if you take away the puppet it’s really not impressive. Now it’s just a ventriloquist act without the most interesting part! Anyway, fans of the show are still bothering me on Twitter about it because fans on talent shows literally have no lives of their own to speak of. All of this celebrity gossip is nothing more than a big publicity stunt to sell you crap and, if you find that interesting, that’s your business, but don’t pull me down with you. I don’t have anymore money left. Hollywood bankrupted me years ago.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As I have stated elsewhere in episodes such as "Why People Follow Tyrants", the human animal is not inherently immoral or moral, but incredibly misunderstood. Humans are animals. They are likely not special beings sent from above to accomplish some task because, if they were, no one seems to have figured out exactly what the task we are supposed to accomplish is. The only thing that separates most humans from other animals like dogs or cats is their superior reasoning skills, which not all humans fully develop by the way. Unfortunately for humans, they also have primitive urges such as the fight or flight instinct or insatiable hunger, which often overpowers those superior reasoning skills and turns them into apelike creatures fighting over where to hold a ceremony or how to interpret an ancient piece of paper. That does not mean that humans are dumb; it is just a basic recognition of the fact that we display animalistic behavior. That should be enough for people, if they were purely reasonable. But that is never enough for anyone. There always has to be some deeper meaning to something for most people. It's not just junk that we can't see in the sky with our pretty inaccurately designed eyes. No, it is an unidentified flying object. Sorry, but that's just a complicated way of saying, "shit we can't see". And don't even get me started on the concept of destiny. It's not just that Sally forgot to open the refrigerator because she has a poor diet and is likely slipping into dementia. No, god works in "mysterious ways". This fantasizing about higher powers or deeper meanings never stops. Right now on social media platforms everywhere someone is claiming that Paul McCartney died in the 1960s, that Princess Dianna never died and lives on today as Elton John's husband, that George W. Bush planned 9/11, that JFK is coming back someday, that Donald Trump won the 2022 election, that Joe Biden is in a state of "mental decline" (whatever that means), that the book of Revelation in the bible is coming true...again, etc. Like I said, there is no end to this lunacy. People just seem to want more out of life. But why? Think back to the fact that animals, especially social animals, tend to gravitate toward packs. As humans we think the word "pack" is dirty. So, we call our packs other things: political parties, cults, religions, groups, organizations, businesses, families, social groups, etc. And, for all our sophistication and moral protestation, our respective packs fight with each other on a daily basis. If you don't believe me, head on over to Twitter and find yourself some Johnny Depp, who I now call white OJ, supporters, and watch as they slug it with the Amber Heard supporters over which one of them has the best points. You will witness exactly the same kind of pack behavior you see in the animal kingdom when a gang of leopards decides to go to war with a lion pride over a piece of old meat. Leopards even make a habit of attacking lion cubs, forcing the lions to defend themselves. There's no reason for this behavior. Leopards have teeth; they can get their own meat. They also have kids of their own. So why attack the lion pride? Well because they are aggressive animals. That is what aggression does to you; it makes you unreasonable. It makes you do things for no good reason. That is why I don't waste time with debating morality. I don't want to be like some dumb leopard trolling a lion pride for a piece of zebra. I have better things to do, like trying to maintain my reasoning skills. It's a jungle out there, an insane orgy of warring tribes and factions with a bunch of disease mixed in for good measure. This is the human experience, and I want no part of it, apart from the cool music and good times of course. But the moralists don't want you to have a good time. That is too base for them. They want to yell at you like an ape grunting a baboon over a banana. Be my guest moralists, but you're not convincing me of anything. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you talk to any American alive today about the Civil War, you get one of two versions. The first is that white American freed the slaves because they woke up one day and were like, "Oopsie poopsies. We made a big mistake. Let's go give the black people ice cream and hugs to make up for it." The second version goes something like, "well, slavery really wasn't all that bad. It was just indentured servitude like the bible says. In fact, many slaves loved their masters and many black people are worse off today than they would've been back then." But neither of these are correct and they are both insulting. This is not how slavery ended. As I have stated in painstaking detail in the past, including in my episode "How Black American Slaves Freed Themselves", white people had very little to do with freeing slaves. That is not to say that white abolitionists did not exist. They did, but, just as there are very few white people today who take black people seriously, they were always in the minority. There would have been no white abolitionists were it not for the work of black slaves. Black slaves frequently rioted, destroyed crops, attacked their masters, and even killed those who enslaved them. This became a huge problem for the production of things like cotton and tabaco and other goods. It started to make less sense economically to own slaves. If your workers are sabotaging your production efforts, you lose money. So, really what occurred is that black American slaves hit white people where it mattered most, their wallets. This is how we obtained our freedom, through open and secret rebellion against the system. Then came John Brown, a white Christian man so morally opposed to slavery that he actually declared a war on the institution and used force to free slaves. The South then made the dumbest move possible and executed John Brown for killing slave masters, who also made a habit of killing their slaves by the way. The North was outraged by this. Killing a white Christian preacher for using the Biblical principle "an eye for an eye"? That was unacceptable, even for the most racist Northerner, of which there were many. Then the abolitionist Julia Ward Howard wrote the openly militant song "John Brown's Body" for the purpose of rallying the North to squash the confederacy once and for all. This is a far cry from the complete idiot's guide to the civil war that teachers across the nation are allowed to teach. So, why don't they just tell the real history? Is it because of southern objection? Well, that's part of it. The south certainly does not want people knowing that their ancestors raped, beat and killed my ancestor, but that's only part of the story. You see, moderate politics were just as possible in the 1960s, during the centennial of the Civil War, as they are today. Moderates during the Centennial did not want to be too "divisive". Yes, they used that word. They wanted to pass the Civil War off as some delightful sporting event between two reasonable parties, not the all out brawl for human rights that it really was. This backfired on the moderates of the 1960s just as it is backfiring on the moderates of the day, who would rather you bullshit online about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, than deal with the fact that white supremacy is running rampant. The South denied a black representative the right to attend a meeting for the centennial committee. John F. Kennedy tried to move the meeting to a non-segregated area, but the south still refused. The south seceded from the committee. Kennedy was outraged, and likely a bit embarrassed. So, he said to hell with the south and became a huge proponent of Civil Rights in America. A few years later, while George Wallace declared "segregation forever", Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech on voting rights. He did not quote the bible at the end of his speech, but the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", the song that union soldiers sang. The second Civil War had begun. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Forgiveness is addictive. There, I said it and I don't feel bad about it. That used to be so wild to me, the notion that anyone would criticize the idea of forgiveness. Unlike many, I wasn't indoctrinated very heavily with the value system that we call Christianity. It was really never talked about in our home. The closest thing my family had to church was gathering around the table to eat dinner and watch Seinfeld, which was my Dad's favorite TV show after Cheers was taken off the air. I vaguely remember my mother talking to me about forgiveness, but only rarely. Besides, right after that she would go on some tirade about Bush Jr. and how much of a moron he was. So, I never really even took her that seriously. But, years later, as I became heavily indoctrinated in the Christian faith by various fundamentalist Christian You Tube videos, forgiveness became extremely important to me. Forgiveness is a big deal in Christianity. You always have to be willing to take in those who are in need. You don't ever really do it that much because you're scared someone might kill your or something. But I did actually help people when I was a Christian, mostly through direct food donations. I fed several of my LGBTQIA castmates willingly even though I had just been watching a sermon about how they were possessed by demons. They never were, but that's what I believed. I thought that, by showing kindness and forgiving the sinner, that they would become a member of my faith, and that, when that happened, I would grow even closer to Jesus. Then maybe, finally, he would make my epilepsy go away so I could be healthy and happy like other Christians I knew. Unfortunately for me, and luckily for my LGBTQIA friends, that never happened. I was never healed or "made whole" as I believe the bible refers to it. No demon was cast out of me because there never was demon inside of me. I have epilepsy. That's a part of who I am. But I refused to accept that back then. I believed in miracles. So, I stopped taking my medication and kept doing these good deeds to try to win god's favor, to get him to notice me. I really believed that would work. Now, of course, it all seems silly, even a bit suicidal, and maybe it was. Maybe the very concept of forgiveness is a bit suicidal. I've done the research on this. Nations that worship an all "forgiving" god have the highest crime rates in the entire world, even higher than nations who worship an unforgiving god, and that's after taking into considerations things like economic hardship. Now, I'm not saying that the punishments we have developed work either. I still support defund the police for example. I know The Young Turks and Tucker Carlson alike told you to shit on me for believing that we can do more with less police, but the recent murder of an elderly woman with dementia by a New Mexico police officer should put that fear to rest. I don't think the answer is more punishment. We need to become more gentle, but we can be gentle in mental health facilities or rehab centers or even prisons. Unlike most people who talk about defund the police, I have ideas to replace them. Firefighters being deployed for non-violent mental health crises works, for example. I've seen it in action and they are far more likely to use non-violent persuasion than the police. You could also follow the German model, and make prison a nice place. It does not have to be a dystopian rape cage. It could be a place where people go to get job training. You could have mentors working there. You could teach criminals the skills they need to have careers. So this episode is not about throwing the police at every little problem either. It is about valuing life and admitting that we have made mistakes that we can rectify. Today I am a huge advocate for my LGBTQIA friends because I owe it to them. But I also owe it to everyone to make sure that they do not end up harmed by this reckless ideology that says to forgive and forget the ills of the past Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's that in the sky? It's a bird. It's a plane. It's an extremely annoying wealthy comedian complaining about people not liking their act! And next to them, why, it's the Monopoly Man! His powers include price gouging, polluting the environment and making pennies in the hands of poor people magically vanish into thin air! The penguin suited douchebags bringing up the rear are the Fundamentalist Brothers of the Supreme Kangaroo Court. They make a mockery of the Constitution and ruin democracy everywhere for everyone at lightning speed! They do have one odd weakness though: women with sidewalk chalk. Yeah, I don't know. Don't ask. And, wait...Could it be? It is! It's, it's, it's...the Conspiracy Theorist. The Conspiracy Theorist trolls the internet at lightning speed, protecting the world from imaginary demons, lizard people and Joe Biden. But nothing compares to the Orange Turd, a former president who has the power of complete ignorance. When these conservative justice warriors combine their powers they become The Conservative Justice League! That's right, it's the Conservative Justice League, and they are here to save you from your own thoughts and opinions! Alright, enough with the cute intros. Let's get down to annoying ass conservative business. In my days as an up and coming political theorist and satirist and San Jose State University I would often come across articles about the military industrial complex, which still exist today in many forms, especially when you consider that Raytheon basically tells presidents when to start wars now. But this is for another episode. In this episode I will be talking about a new kind of complex, one that has steadily gained power over the years and that very few people realize exists. I am referring to the entertainment political complex. I know, I know. In your mind, there is no way that an organization like Hollywood would ever be conservative. But you fail to remember that, although Hollywood often shows "sinful" actions in their films (the very idea that you are thinking of actions in terms of being sinful or not already proves my point by the way), they also end every film with the same basic religious principles: forgiveness, redemption, bowing down before a harsh god, and good prevailing over evil. These religious themes, which can be found in every movie, documentary, television show, and standup comedy act produced by Hollywood today, has laid the framework for the coming American theocracy. These entertainers (Dave Chapelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Cruise, Steve Harvey, and the rest) have spent decades indoctrinating you with conservative Christian values. I am not saying that they made a conscious choice to do so. They have no choice. This was the plan from the beginning because, you see, corporations own Hollywood now. When you put up money for a movie, you basically own the right to change the script as you see fit. That means that certain ideas are taken out, while others are added to the script. Corporations are inherently political. They seek to turn the populous into mindless, scared little children, kind of like the Bible. This makes you more likely to consume, to buy, to give even more money to them. Every movie is an advertisement, not just for coke or Ikea, but for political policy. Dystopian fantasies, for example, often inform you that the world is ending, just like Revelation in the Bible. This causes consumers to panic buy. Crime films always portray cops in a positive light; this is done to get you accept police brutality, which protects companies from unions and protests. Cartoons teach you to always be positive, even if you are starving to death. This constant positivity makes you shut up when you need help from your government. Standup comedy is used to shame minorities, to make them feel bad about demanding equality. Romantic comedies portray women as simple-minded sex demons, which is done to deny women their rights. You still lauhghing? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who influences the influencers? It's a question that rarely anybody asks, which is already a bit suspicious. In an age where we know more about our world than ever, whenever I see an unanswered question, I am always left wondering who benefits from the question remaining unanswered. Sure, there is not always an answer there, but preparing for the worst often leads to the best outcomes. I have a political mind. I never take things at face value, mostly because all of the information lies beneath the face. Humans speak in metaphors and legalities. They say what will please the most people, and do not say what will displease the most people. Even if you are "apolitical" you are still a politician to me. I do not want to hear proclamations of abstract concepts like "peace" or "love" or "freedom" from the politicized human psyche, and so I cut to the core. It does not take much investigating to find where influencers make their money. Up until recently I was under the impression that social media influencers were owned by corporations. There is ample evidence that this is quite true. Major corporations drop millions of dollars a year on marketing and the small pittance they dole out to social media influencers is only a very small part of that budget. However, I now have evidence that politicians are also funding social media influencers. Good thing you don't follow anyone famous, right? Not so fast. Micro-influencers, social media influencers with 25,000 followers or less, are now being used by companies and politicians alike. While some politicians disclose that they are using social media influencers, there is no law that requires such a disclosure. That means you are more than likely following an influencer who is under the influence of any number of party candidates up for election this year and any other year there is an election. In case you are wondering, this does not seem to be something that just the right is doing. On the right, several micro-influencers have been caught spreading lies about the election being "rigged", which also just happens to be the opinion of Trump and his followers. On the left, micro-influencers involved in the "healthy lifestyle" have been caught promoting information on climate change. This poses several difficult questions that virtually no one is asking. Is it ethical to use propaganda to further what you consider to be a "good cause"? Is manipulating people fine as long as doing so improves society in some way? Lying is not protected by the first amendment, so is deceptive marketing lying? Is the right to manipulate protected by law? Are your opinions your own or were they given to you by "alternative news sources"? I will tell you right now that it is difficult to think for yourself when your thoughts are not your own. This age of "free thinkers" is not what it seems. Everyone is manipulating, scheming, plotting to alter your worldview, to replace it with their own. Can you think freely in such a world? I think so, but it takes much more than the average person is willing to give. It takes skepticism, but it also requires a lighthearted cynicism as well. One must realize that you cannot assume the best of people in such a world in order to remain untainted with the propagandistic filth of partisans and snake oil salesmen. People who seek to control your minds are not your friends. Those of you who have been in abusive relationships know, more than anyone, that the abuser always seeks to infiltrate and change the mind. This is abuse. You are being abused when people secretly try to change your mind, whether it be for "your own good" or not be damned. It is important to remain distant from those who provide simplistic answers to difficult questions. Thinking for oneself is a human right. Nothing can change this. We must fight for our right to think freely. It is not the place of the government or big business to control thoughts. Liberate your mind and you have won. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

American democracy is no longer dying...it’s dead. That’s right, I said it. I don’t really care how you feel about it. It’s over folks. How do I know? This morning, whilst I was on Twitter mocking the positive thinking gurus for their positively charged ignorance, I came across a video of members of the FDNY standing outside of a church. A group of pro-abortion protestors passed by the house of worship shouting, “my body, my choice”. One of the FDNY, a male Trump supporter of course, then replied, “You have no choice! The Supreme Court ruled that you have no choice! It’s not your body! It’s my body! The Supreme Court said so!” That type of behavior has nothing to do with democratic values and the word should no longer be allowed when describing American government. But that, of course, will not bother conservatives. Conservatives believe that we should return to a more traditional time, the time when women were unpaid house servants and there were plenty of jobs available for men. This is the endgame of all of this. It is estimated that, were they to become pregnant today, about 25% of women would not be able to keep their jobs. This is because these women’s employers only offer about ten days of paid leave for pregnancy before they show you the door. Many women are not able to return to work after ten days for various reasons (post-partem depression, no childcare, no next of kin to watch the infant, etc.) But conservatives do not want a world where women are allowed to work and support themselves; they want a world where women are punished for having a night of fun. God forbid any American woman enjoy herself without the express consent of some dumb fuck with chewing tobacco running down his fat gullet living in Alabama. That just ain’t Christian. And please spare me the, “I’m a conservative and I think women should have a right to choose” speech. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe because, if you really did believe in a woman’s right to choose, you would not continue to vote for candidates who are hostile to women’s choice. So, stop trying to pretend to be fair and balance or reasonable or whatever Tucker Carlson told you to say. I am not impressed, nor am I as dumb as some of your liberal friends who actually buy your bullshit that you’re on their side.  And spare me the “state’s rights” speech as well. The last time people blathered on about “state’s rights” in America a Civil War started. But I don’t even have to look to that example. I can simply point to the fact that Mitch McConnell has now stated that a federal abortion ban would be totally acceptable. A federal ban would mean that all states, including California and New York, would not be able to legally provide abortion services for women. Oh, and how about the anti-contraception bills that are now being drawn up all over the south? One state has already outlawed some forms of contraception. But that’s a coincidence right? You’re not that kind of conservative. You're not that kind of Christian. Bullshit. Yes, you are. You’re a member of a party that took away people’s rights. You go to a church with people who promote these policies. You’re no better than they are. In fact, you’re worse because you won’t even admit that you are part of the problem. You are like an enabler of a drug addict who says, “I’m just going to bring the needle over and place it on the table for safe keeping. Now, don’t you go using on me. Be responsible. Play nice.” But you're not playing nice conservatives, and neither are the Christians, and neither am I, not anymore. This era of kind political debate is over. I see who you are. I know that, secretly, you do want women barefoot and pregnant. You get off on it, being able to say that you're better than other people, that you're a good boy or girl who takes precautions. Well, pretty soon the Supreme Court will come for you too. Perhaps your brand of religion, or lack thereof, will be too "liberal" or "radical". You're next Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I rarely discuss human sexuality anymore these days, mostly because many people I meet, for all of their pontification of sexual liberation, are pretty grossed out about it. In America there are essentially two versions of every argument; both of them argue that the world will end if we are not boring. The same can be said of human sexuality. Right wing Americans view sex as an affrontery to religious doctrine. This is why you will find conservatives across every social media network discussing how sex and all of its incarnations have ruined the modern world. In the conservative mind, it is not obesity or poor diet or the rise in chronic illness that is the cause of the rise of infertility and erectile dysfunction in men. They argue that sex itself or pornography causes these things, which will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human species as a whole. They have no evidence for this, but they argue it nonetheless. Simply increasing the amount of physical activity in public schools and the workplace, along with removing fast food from schools and places of business would easily solve these problems. “Left” wing America (there is no real left wing in America; it is just a coalition of centrists and apathetic people who like Noam Chomsky) is a bit more nuanced. Their argument is that sex is bad because it leads to “immoral” actions like marriage and having children, which, in their minds, will cause people to create excess waste that will destroy the planet. The moderates also have very little evidence for their claims. While it is true that human caused climate change is real, most climate activists fail to realize that corporations create the most waste, not little Timmy and Tanya, nor the married couple that lives down the street that these people obsess over for some reason. If you simply limited these corporations’ ability to create excess waste, then climate change would become a thing of the past. Neither side has a positive view of the sex, proving that America, for all of its differences, is nothing more than a theocracy. Theocracy, the rule of people by a class of priests, also seeks to control human sexuality as both the conservative and moderate wings of the American political system seeks to do. This is no coincidence. The control of sexuality is necessary if one wishes to control massive groups of people. In order to control the masses, one must keep them in a constant state of stress, fear and crippling anxiety. Sexual expression between consenting adults relieves stress and anxiety, thus making life more tolerable and less horrifying to people. This is why the theocrats (moderates and conservatives are the priests of American theocracy; people like Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin are perfect examples) so desperately want to take your pornography away from you. It is also why they oppose your right to express who you choose and to be with, marry and procreate with who you choose. Anyone who tells you that procreation or marriage or homosexuality or transgenderism are somehow wrong or bad are all part of this theocratic mindset, even if they may not realize or intend it. There is nothing wrong with sexual expression as long as there is consent from the individuals involved and as long as the individuals involved are of age. But America is a boring and gossipy nation, so Americans are always trying to create problems with human sexuality where there are none. I do not think this will ever change in America because it has always been a sexually stunted nation from the get go. So, expect further legislation protecting you from having a good time in the bedroom. It’s kind of what we do here. Oh, and be sure to rinse your eyes out with chlorine after reading this. Some jerkoff on Christian Twitter told me STDs can be transmitted visually and you never can be too careful. Say a prayer to exercise the masturbation demons and try to only date inanimate objects to protect the environment from utter destruction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I don't have to tell you that most social media influencers are completely full of shit. You already know that because you see them on social media bothering you and your friends every time you try to have a little fun. These people are downers. They exist for only two reasons that I or anyone else can think of: to make you feel bad about yourself and to tell you which products to buy to make you feel better about how they made you feel bad about yourself. Apart from that, they have no purpose. While these discontent creators are very skilled at pretending to create communities for people to feel safe in, they actually spend most of their time arguing about proper punctuation while tweeting or saying what is okay and not okay to talk about when in their presence. The whole reason these jerks even make a dime is because of people like you, yet they spend the vast majority of their time bitching about how much they dislike the people they supposedly created the online community for in the first place. The other day I was shocked to find a very popular atheist influencer chew out another atheist for referring to the bible as one book, which Christians do all the time by the way, and proceed to mock her for not stating that the bible is a collection of sixty-six books. Seriously? What is the point of that? I'll tell you what the point is. The nation is heading in the direction of Christian theocracy. Everyone knows this, though no one wants to admit it. Influencers know this is happening too, and they know that they will lose their various corporate sponsorships if they piss the Christians off too much. So, many of the so-called atheist influencers on social media make a habit of babying Christians, while at the same time insulting their atheist followers, who made them popular in the first place by the way. But that's not just the case for atheist influencers. All influencers eventually sell out their followers for the big bucks. Here are just a few examples. Influencers such as Izzy and Tai have posted several pictures of themselves diving into a beautiful bright blue lake in Galacia, Spain, encouraging their followers to do so as well, and even claiming that the lake has special healing powers. The only problem with this is that the lake, "is contaminated from a World War II-era tungsten mine, where an iron manganese tungstate mineral was once harvested to make lightbulbs." Side effects include vomiting, rashes and fucking death you asssholes! Then there was the unnamed influencer who trampled all over a botanical garden in order to get a picture in nature to post on Reddit. 100% organic? How about 100% douchebag? Then there's Positravelty (influencers make their own words because who has time for English anyway), which recently posted a beautifully suicidal picture of a man holding his girlfriend over a huge fucking hole in the ground. Had he slipped or gotten weak she would be dead, but the power of positivity compels you! So, keep on smiling. It's not like that type of behavior has ever led to anyone dying or anything. I mean, it has, but again, influencers can't even be bothered to use real words so how on earth would they understand something like physics? Then there are the countless influencers who make the trip to Antelope Valley, not to exercise or anything constructive for that matter, but to trample all over wild flowers so they can post pictures of themselves on Instagram. One woman actually stripped down naked and covered her vagina and breasts with poppies, which just screams yeast infection, but the photos, the photos are so gorgeous! Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that many influencers send messages to hardworking business owners in hopes that these people, who are barely scrapping by after the pandemic, will give them handouts in exchange for...well, nothing really. No one goes on Twitter or Instagram to find what business to shop at. They just want free stuff because they're popular.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the golden age of media, journalists (that's fancy intellectual talk for someone who reports on shit instead of trying to sell shit) mostly investigated scandals and corruption. Were it not for journalists no one would have known that Nixon and his band of misfits were busying themselves trying breaking into the DNC. Were it not for the newspapers we would not have known that the creators of the arts and crafts industry were coloring wallpaper with deadly arsenic. Were it not for journalism we would still be eating steak with our cheeseburgers and compound butter, and so on, and so on. This is why I don't spend much time criticizing major media sources. For all of their many faults, and there are many faults in the media, they have done a great deal of good by informing the world of the actual corruption that exists within many of our major institutions. The media can even be counted on to report on itself from time to time, but not always. Sometimes we need to have a look at the people who are doing the reporting. We need to ask what their motives are as well. That doesn't mean that I believe the media is out to get me. They're not. In this particular instance, I don't even think that they are trying to mislead me, though they have been known to do that from time to time as well. But when Will Smith slapped the shit out of Chris Rock on Oscar night, the media lost all sense of intellectual honesty and flew into an entertainment induced frenzy. Just check out some of these very silly and also very hilarious headlines that are now cluttering your search engine for movies like "Independence Day", "Ali" and whatever the hell Chris Rock was in the nineties when he was still popular: "Chris Rock's Mom Speaks Out on Will Smith's Oscar Slap", "Will Smith Hasn't Personally Apologized to Will Smith for Oscar Slap", "Terry Crew Offers Honest Take on Chris Rock and Will Smith's Slap Drama" and, my personal favorite, "Will Smith Jets to India to Practice Meditation to Reflect on His Behavior After Slapping Chris Rock". I mean, seriously, what the hell is all of this shite? Who gives a fuck what Chris Rock's mom has to say? What kind of a man gets his mom to fight his battles for him anyway? Did Chris Rock call his mama crying after it happened? I can see it right now, Chris Rock's buck toothed ass crying on the phone, "Mama! Mama! Why doesn't Will Smith think I'm funny?! Wah!" And when did Terry Crews big forehead having ass get brought into this discussion. That ashy negro has something to say every time black people are in trouble, and that is no coincidence. He's probably working for the alt-right just like most of these Hollywood negroes are today. Yep, I said it. What are you going do about it? Sick Chris Rock's mom on me? I'm shaking in my boots. I'm pretty sure the last headline about Will Smith flying off to India to reflect on upsetting Chris Rock's mom is completely made up. Sounds like ticket sales to India have taken a downturn to me. The only reason I even did a show on this topic at all is because I wanted to show you how ridiculous the news has gotten, how it's all about entertaining people now and how the substance of the media is virtually non-existent now. There was a time when things like this were saved for People Magazine or TMZ, but that time is long gone. The gossip channels and the news channels blend together now. The sensationalism and shit talking in media has become so prevalent that it is hard to tell serious intellectual discussion from vulgar conversation that used to be reserved for dirty movie theaters and bars. That is why I always laugh when people call me out for cursing on my show. At least I'm giving you a fresh perspective on the idiocy that has overtaken our news. At least I tell you it's news entertainment. At least I don't pretend to be this infallible news anchor who's never told a lie. It's all a joke so don't be surprised when people aren't taking the news seriously.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is a myth in American a politics, a persistent, never-ending, uninformed myth that plagues the Democratic party, and keeps them in the dark on various issues, that is of course assuming they have any desire to see the light, which is a big assumption. The Democratic establishment is set in its ways and will not change for their base so that is a big assumption. I am starting to think that they enjoy telling this myth because that way they do not look so ridiculous when they manage to lose to far-right conservatives and burnout libertarians that I could honestly beat in my sleep. This myth is the myth of a centrist America, a reason based unemotional lump of boredom that decides what policies do and do not happen in America. However, when you look past the myth of the rational middle, and you actually look at the political leanings of the electorate, you see something much different, much less boring and far more diverse than most people imagine. The "middle" in America are composed of three main groups: independents, moderates and undecided voters. As clearly demonstrated in the article by Lee Drutman entitled "The Moderate Middle is a Myth", none of these three groups are "reliably centrist". That is political speak for no one really knows how these people will vote until they vote. If you look at each of these groups you will find an almost fifty-fifty split between egalitarian ideology (this is the idea that all people are equal and therefore deserve the same opportunities) and more market based ideology, which basically means they are motivated by which policies create the most profit. Within this almost fifty-fifty split between egalitarian and market-based ideology, you will find people bordering on the middle on both. You will also find a mixture of people who lean to the left on certain issues like free speech while at the same time leaning to the right on various other issues like immigration. The message you should take from this is that in America the center is not centrist. That sounds odd until you realize that centrism is a political ideology, not an indicator of one's willingness to compromise. Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, both centrist Democrats, have been the least likely to compromise during Biden's tenure as president. Both progressives and Republicans in Congress have been more willing to compromise with Biden (the progressives have been so willing to compromise with him that it is difficult to even call them progressives anymore) than either Manchin or Sinema. Centrism as an ideology is just being a people pleaser to milk the electorate of the most votes. The whole point of centrism is to prevent progress, not to embrace it. You are a centrist when you do nothing and the centrists in Congress have done nothing. Biden has foolishly aligned himself with these centrists and so has aligned himself with political inaction. This is bad news for any politician. If you want to be elected in America you must actually enact the policies that your voters want. Sure, Democrats on Twitter are feverishly trying to convince you that that is what happened, but it didn't. Leftists put Biden in office. Some of those leftists were independents. Some of them were true liberals. Others were moderates or undecideds. But pretty much all of them were in their teens to mid thirties. You know, the people that Democrats are always busy talking shit about. Younger people are far more likely to fall under the spell of apathy after the person they vote for refuses to keep their promises and Biden has not kept his promises. He ignored voting rights. He failed to create the gun legislation he's been promising since Obama was president. He left women out in the cold on Roe V. Wade, which will be repealed soon by the way. He laughed at people when they asked for the $2,000 dollar monthly checks, the ones that he and his vice president promised. He also never canceled the $10,000 of student loan debt he promised. He's doomed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

America is a peaceful nation...as soon as you have drifted off to sleep. But, at its core, America has always been like most nations: bloody, violent and unforgiving. America lives by the law of competition. If one does not compete, they will perish. It is as simple, primal and barbaric as that. You must race off to buy some house or to invest in some entrepreneurial gamble. The more you complete, the more you will be liked. The less you compete, the more likely you will die on the street, and no one will care either, especially if you are poor. The American aristocracy dreams of exterminating the poor once and for all. This is true of the American right and the American center, otherwise referred to as "the left". Both of these warring factions are looking to exterminate the poor in vastly different ways. Centrists favor what I like to call "slow kill" extermination. They throw out some crumbs, mostly in the form of independent contractor jobs (these are jobs with no benefits that are not sustainable for normal things like raising a family), but also in the form of cruelly dangling welfare over people, while at the same time making it extremely difficult for them to qualify for. Centrists are altruistic genocidal maniacs. They prefer to be seen as superior to the right, more enlightened, even a bit cooler for the kids to watch, in their minds anyway. But, deep in the recesses of those centrist minds is a desire to eliminate the poor, to breed out the bad stock. Right-wingers, of course, are "fast kill" exterminators. They make it difficult for you to even apply for welfare. They make the requirements ridiculous. They make it so that you have to pay inordinate sums of money to be healthy and because they profit off of your poor health by aligning themselves with various fast food companies, they benefit from prescription drug companies even more than centrists do. You will find right wingers online talking about the "health benefits" of red meat and even smoking cigarettes. This, of course, is nothing short of attempted murder. I hate to break it to you, but if you eat red meat on a consistent basis (by consistent I mean anymore than once a week) your life expectancy will go down every time. And, look, don't take that personally. None of this is personal or me telling you that I think I am better than you. I am just telling the truth. Smoking, alcoholism, binge eating, diets that are heavy in omega 6 fats with little to no omega three fats...all of these things will kill you slowly and painfully. But the right promotes it. Sometimes even the centrists will promote these things. Why? To kill off the poor people. Aristocracies do not look well upon the peasantry. The misinformation agents of today (the various podcasts, instagram accounts, You Tube channels, etc., etc.) are merely an extension of the soft kill tactic. I know it sounds strange, perhaps even impossible. But, really, what does Joe Rogan owe to you? How about Dr. Joseph Mercola? What about Dr. Oz? How about Dr. Phil? Nothing. They owe you nothing. They don't know you. But they know that they can pull on your heart strings and once you have someone by the heart strings, you have full access to their wallets. Never forget the countless amount of people who have been scammed out of house and home or just life in general by these hucksters. An expensive camera and well placed lighting can make any crazy person with a budget look perfectly normal, as if they agree with everything you think, even if they don't. You may think these people who make up their own facts are harmless, but there exist something deeper beneath the surface. Companies own these fakers look, stock and barrel. Big business is in a war with the government to milk you for all you have. Some of these clowns have government and big business ties. Do you see the conflict of interest? Can you feel the squeeze tightening around your wallet? Your personality? Your perception of reality?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When analyzing the works of any great political theorist or of any subpar politician, you will quickly note the aversion to tyrants. According to these great and subpar minds, tyrants are responsible for everything wrong with the world today: wars, toxic work environments, abusive relationships, egotistical celebrities, and poor teamwork are just a few of the things off an almost endless list of ills that tyranny is supposedly responsible for. I say this not to be facetious, but to highlight a very real and very flawed trait of current western political theory, that being that the vast majority of people are reasonable and moral, while they tyrannous few rain on their peace parade. This view of the world is just as irresponsible as it is misinformed. We tell our children to go out into the world with open hearts and unguarded minds because of this idiotic theory of natural goodness. Then we turn around and blame those very children when they develop risky behaviors and personality disorders. This is a classic case of blaming the victim. We set people up to fail by convincing them that most people are good, not realizing that once you have been stabbed in the back for the ten thousandth time, crime and recklessness begin to look more and more appealing. Afterall, if your parents, leaders and teachers lied to you about naturally good world, then anyone will lie to you. So, why not just lead a life of crime? Why be good to people who only use morality to reach their own personal, often greedy, goals? These are the questions the political theorists and philosophers of the day have pretty much abandoned. Instead they prefer to sweep difficult issues under the rug and wax philosophical about the good old days when racism was king and women were considered disposable party favors. They will tell you that the world was once not like this, that there was a time when people were reasonable and peaceful. These are all lies. The world has not changed much at all, and people have always fallen victim to nostalgia. I say fall victim because nostalgia always picks and chooses which memories it will fixate over. Obviously nostalgia chooses the best memories and forgets the worst memories, leaving us with a picture perfect view of the past. People under the spell of nostalgia should always be ignored and even ridiculed for this reason. There is no place in politics for such lazy thinking. So, how do tyrants rise to power in a world full of peace-loving, god-fearing people? One could of course blame ideology, but this is another lazy argument. There are good and bad points in every ideology. So, in this instance, people focus on everything bad about Christianity, or Islam, or Communism, or Capitalism, etc., leaving out the many good things that these worldviews offer, and again leaving us with an uninformed conclusion about the world we live in. In Enlightenment philosophy, rationality and the individual are king and queen. But selfishness often causes us to rationalize genocide or police brutality or unaffordable healthcare. In Russian philosophy, the collective and spirituality and are kind and queen. But the collective is praised in such a way that it becomes god, eventually leading to the annihilation of anyone who goes against it. The truth behind all of this idiocy is this: people love tyrants. Of course they will never admit to this, but this is only to keep up appearances. The human mind is lazy and so the human being is always looking for shortcuts to problems. Some people refer to this chronic laziness as "human ingenuity" or "technology", but really it is nothing more than a way of being lazy, of having some device or technician do your thinking for you. Modern humans are the laziest they have ever been. They need to be told to exercise. They need to be told that certain foods are bad for them. They need to have a sky daddy or a political daddy tell them what to do, and so they tyrant comes in, offering the final solution. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have I ever told you that you could be wiser, faster, stronger, and an all-around better person? Well, if I did, you would probably think I was a jackass, and you would have every reason to. Implying that someone is somehow incomplete or unperfected is just a form of passive aggressiveness, a way to insinuate that someone is awful without actually saying it out loud. Yet many people make a living doing this on a daily basis. They go by many names (wellness coach, lifestyle councilor, motivational speaker, etc.), but they are all members of the thirteen billion dollar self-improvement industry, and they are coming for your wallet. They are just full to the brim of all kinds of swanky technology (brain hacks, wellness apps, etc.) to turn you into the you you never thought that you could be. But there is only one problem. Self-improvement does not work. It fails every time because it assumes that you are the problem, that you are the one who needs to change. But, seriously, how much can one person change? What is the limit? How many green smoothies can you drink? How much time can you devote to meditation? How much yoga can you squeeze into your schedule? How many pep talks can you listen to? How much longer can you go on trying to be a better person? Does it ever end? If self-improvement gurus had their way, it never would. As long as you seek out their advice, these life coaches will continue to find things wrong with you. They will always have new checklists of things that you need to do to feel better because that is how they make money. As soon as your wellness journey ends, so does their payday. So, much like a drug dealer, the wellness gurus will only ever give you a taste of the good life they enjoy. This keeps you coming back for more: more books, more lectures, more coaching, more fitness programs, more breathing exercises, more yoga poses, more quasi-intellectualism, more pep talks, more, and more, and more of your money down the wellness drain. It always makes me laugh when I see someone complain about how religion has failed them only to turn around and offer me some idiotic guide to being a better person. What is the difference between self-improvement and religion? There are lengthy texts devoted to how you should live your life. They are rituals, some of which are directly pulled from eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, that you must perform to achieve enlightenment. There are strict and often unreasonable diet restrictions one must follow. There are group meetings. There are even places that one must go to hear the self-improvement hustlers spread the good word. It is exactly the same thing, and it costs just as much money too. The faithful flock is fleeced just like always. What makes this all even more scandalous is that this way of thinking offers no solutions to your very real problems, but merely treats the symptoms (anxiety, depression, insomnia, starvation, etc.) of those problems. Few people today seem to realize that treating symptoms will get you absolutely nowhere if you fail to address the problem causing said symptoms. If you are not hungry, for example, you can smoke a little weed, and your hunger will come back. But let's say that cancer is causing your lack of hunger. Did you treat the cancer with your smoke session? No, you just made yourself hungry for a brief time. You put a dollar store bandage on a gaping wound. The same thing can be said of treating things like anxiety or insomnia. Great, your magnesium supplement made you less anxious. But why were you anxious in the first place? It could be a chronic illness like mentioned earlier or it could just be that society is broken. You could be feeling all of that anxiousness because you know damn well that the person you voted for is not going to help you. That insomnia could be there because you don't even know if you're going to be able to feed your family tomorrow. It's time to learn to face life's problems head on again  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The term Hell's Kitchen was first used in America in the 1800s to refer to a particular area in Manhattan (west of 8th Avenue to the Hudson River and north and south from 34th Street to 59th street to be exact) that, by the 1850s, became mostly populated by Irish immigrants, with a small mixture of Jewish, Italian and German immigrants sprinkled amongst them, who had come to America to escape the Great Potato Famine. As is the case with most origin stories, the true meaning of the term can only be deciphered by digging through a sea of both mythos and fact. The truth is that no one knows the exact reason why the term Hell's Kitchen was used to describe the area, but we can certainly take some educated guesses. A possible explanation was the downright barbaric working conditions that came along with working on the various tanneries, railroads and docks in the area. To give you an idea of what it was like working in or living near a tannery in 1800s America, this excerpt from "Hemlock and Hide: The Tanbark Industry in Old New York" by Hugh O. Canham sums it up pretty well, "Life in a tannery town was tough. The work was hard manual labor. Living next to a tannery meant the constant stench of curing leather and stagnant pools of waste material. Streams became heavily polluted as tanning liquors, lime solutions, flesh, and hair were discharged directly into them..." Some of the workers worked twelve hour days with only Sundays off, some worked only part time, while others only worked seasonally, camping out on the tannery property during pealing season. Accidents and deaths while building the railroads were common place. It was not uncommon to see longshoremen work all day to transport goods in and out of the country. The work was no cake walk so there was plenty of opportunity for crime to start developing in the area, which offered more money for less work. A few of the major organized crime units in the area were The Hell's Kitchen Gang, The Gopher Gang and The Parlor Mob. They offered "protection" to local businesses by forcing those businesses to pay them off...or else. They also ran illegal gambling operations. The famous reference to sleep with the fishes applies here, as many of the people who challenged the gangs ended up in the Hudson River for a permanent vacation. The gangs also fought with each other, attempting to gain hegemony over incoming goods from distant lands (the early days of the American black market, which still thrives to this day), as well as the labor unions. During prohibition, these crimes intensified as the mob bosses warred over who had control of the illegal alcohol market. Mob bosses profited so much that they even tried their hand in the entertainment industry, investing in the Cotton Club. During the Great Depression, the mob took further control by offering jobs to the populous after shaking down various businesses. During WWII, the mobs robbed boats of armaments being sent over to Europe. Crime spread rapidly. Fear gripped America. The established order, what little there was to begin with, was set aflame. You may not realize it, but you are now living in such a time. Jobs are scarce. Tyrants are threatening nuclear war. Crime is rampant. Moralists are calling for bans on all kinds of drugs and normal behaviors like sexual experimentation, which create even more opportunities for the black market to thrive, and thrive it will, as long as you let yourself be lead astray by the descendants of these mad men you call leaders. If you make a deal with the devil, if you sell yourself out to Russian oligarchs and American monopoly men, you have to be able to stand the heat when you get burned, or you have to get out of Hell's Kitchen. You can suffer for awhile and have your integrity when you come out on top or you can climb on top of people and bully your way to the bottom, perhaps of the Hudson River if you're not too careful. Now, let's get cooking. Some like it hot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I told you two years ago, as both corporate Democrats and old guard Republicans like George W. Bush Jr. began trumpeting their calls for unity amongst a divided nation, that we would end up here. I told you because I felt an obligation to do so, as I have seen this little game before. See, you're probably really great at something, perhaps management, maybe computer repairs, possibly making soap. Hell, there are all kinds of things it could be. And do you know what? Unlike most other people you meet in your life, who will only ever focus on the talent that makes the most money, I am willing to bet you are great at two, three or maybe even five things. And do you know what else? I would never tell you how to do those things, and, if I really needed to learn how to manage a successful company or fix my old computer or start an organic soap franchise, I would come to you, totally humbled and in search of the knowledge you possess. Unfortunately for you, I am really great at what I do, the whole political analysis thing I mean. And guess what? I totally called it. I know these bozos out in D.C., not personally, but I know their game. The unity calls start coming right before something really catastrophic occurs. This is where good old Hegel comes in. But you don't have to manufacture a crisis. They come along naturally every thirty years or so anyway, but that's a discussion for another episode. Though it sounds fancy, the Hegelian dialectic is quite simple to use to your advantage politically. You're presented with a problem, and two sides with differing opinions. You allow the extreme versions of each solution to have the most press time. This enacts a flight or fight response in the populous. Both are advantageous to the center (the corporate Democrats and old guard Republicans I mention earlier). An extreme right creates violence and chaos while pushing for strict adherence to traditional Christian values, while extreme left demands censorship, diet regulation and a subscription to Noam Chomsky's You Tube channel. Now, you can pick the two sides apart. You call them irrational, unreasonable, psychopathic, narcissistic, anti-social, blah, blah, blah. But you don't distinguish between the extremists and people who just want things like civil rights, lower taxes, or easier access to health care. Do you see how you have killed two birds with one stone? Now, once election time comes around, you can make some pretty cutthroat policies and play kiss ass to all those companies who fill your pockets. Now, Nancy Pelosi doesn't look so bad when she supports a member of her party's reelection, even as he is under investigation by the FBI, and just happens to be pro-life. Oops! I bet you didn't see that one coming, huh? No, not Nancy. She would never do that. Well, she did, and now you have some explaining to do to your daughters when they cannot have access to abortion services. See how "reason" can be used against you, how the center of the road is just as rough, relentless and unforgiving as the right or the left of the road. That's why I always tell you, you have to pick sides in politics. Then at least you will be able to tell your children or your loved ones or yourself that you stood for something. You won't be so cold and lonely on that deathbed of yours. I know you don't want to think about it, but it's coming, sooner rather than later for some of us. Yet we all crave to be included in this farce we call democracy. We all want to kiss and make up with people who clearly abuse us. It's unhealthy, but you know that. You don't need me to tell you. Did you see how easily they rolled over on the whole "Don't Say Gay Bill"? Remember that whole voting rights thing? Nope, all forgotten. All forgiven. Almost as if it never even happened. That's Hegel for you. It works every time. This certainly isn't acceptable, this willingness to put getting along over our own freedom. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you listen closely enough, you can hear it. It comes as a whimper, a mutter, a stutter, a fluttering tinge of insecurity. It's there, right on the tip of your tongue. You know what I'm talking about. You just don't want to admit it. So, who is he? Go on, tell me. I won't judge. I promise. But I want to know his name. What is it? Is it Donald Trump? Is it Barrack Obama? Is it Joe Biden? Is it Joe Manchin? Is it Mitch McConnell? Perhaps you like to live on the wild side, so you chose Ron DeSantis. Perhaps you like to live on the mild side, so you chose Kirsten Sinema. Perhaps you like to live on the child side, so you chose Rand Paul. It could be anyone really. But he's out there. You know, your daddy. Almost everyone needs a daddy when it comes to politics. Not your biological father, that's different. I'm talking about your dada, the one you cheer for on the television when he promises you he'll take care of you next time for the fifth time in one election cycle. Yeah, good old Pop never lets down. Well, he does, but the mythos of the all-protecting father is too alluring to simply discard. You know, like Tim Allen from Home Improvement or Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Whatever your pleasure. They come in all shapes, colors and sizes. Daddy knows best. My daddy told me that your political ideology is too stupid to be on the big boy news channels. My daddy knows better than your daddy. He makes more money! Daddy, daddy, daddy. Your superhero. Your knight in shining armor. Your Prince Charming. Your Superman. Your King Tut. Your daddy. Almost all of the great fictional characters in literature are daddies. Daddies rushing to the rescue of the dumb little children. Daddies racing against time to save the world from the crazy uncle. Daddies repairing broken down engines, and broken down toilets, and broken down lives in a vain attempt to save some broken down town. Daddy to the rescue! What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the individual you see as your personal protection from the world around you. They are your rock and they are going to fix it for you, whatever is broken today that is. Most have one. Few will admit it. It is the person who tells them what to think and how to react to those who challenge them. Daddy dearest. My daddy let's me have ice cream for dinner. He says I'm all grown up like his friends on the television, and this year for Christmas my daddy's buying two ponies, and one them will have a chocolate saddle. My daddy loves me oh so very much. He loves me more than other daddies love their children. The point is that everyone has their own, personal bias. This bias is individualistic and nature, and requires a deep analysis of a person's personality before you can even begin to decide the sources of this bias. This is not a communal or a cultural bias. This resides deep within the subconscious mind, causing otherwise rational individuals to either block out information that opposes the source or to utilize said information in such way that bolsters support of the source, hence reinforcing the bias. Yet there are people out there who believe that everyone thinks alike, that they are all swayed in the exact same ways by different sources. These same people believe that social media has torn the nation asunder, dividing us and causing us to be so polarized that there is not opportunity of solid, meaningful discussion. But what exactly are the links between social media usage and radicalization? Where is the proof for this claim? Is there any at all? Well, it turns out that no, there is not a whole lot of scientific proof for this claim. In fact, all real world data indicates not only that echo chambers do not exist, but that social media use exposes people to a rich variety of sources including print, radio, television, and advertising, as well as independent social media channels. Is not this democracy? Is not this freedom of the press? Why demonize it?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.