The Darrell McClain show
Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one Planet; nobody's leaving so let’s reason together!! Darrell, McClain is a Military veteran with an abnormal interest in politics, economics, religion, philosophy, science, and literature. He was born and raised in Jacksonville FL, and went to Edward H white High School where he wrestled Under Coach Jermy Smith and The Late Brian Gilbert. He was a team wrestling captain, District champion, and an NHSCA All-American in freestyle Wrestling. He received a wrestling scholarship from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa. After a short period, he decided he no longer wanted to cut weight which effectively ended his college wrestling journey. Darrell Mcclain is an Ordained Pastor under The Universal Life Church and is still in good standing, he's a Believer in The Doctrines of Grace Also Known as Calvinism. He joined the United States Navy in 2008 and was A Master At Arms (military police officer) He was awarded several awards while on active duty including an expeditionary combat medal, a Global War on Terror medal, a National Defense Medal, a Korean defense medal, and multiple Navy achievement medals. While In the Navy he was also the assistant wrestling coach at Robert E Lee High School. He's a Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under six six-degree black belt Gustavo Machado, Darrell Trains At Gustavo Machado Norfolk under the 3rd-degree black belt, and Former Marine Professor Mark Sausser. He went to school for psychology at American Military University and for criminal justice at ECPI University.
The Darrell McClain show
Exploring American Democracy: Pete Hegseth Controversial Hearing and the Rise of Oligarchy
Is America truly a democracy, or are billionaires pulling the strings behind the scenes? Dive into the fiery confirmation hearing of Pete Hexick, President Trump's controversial nominee for the Department of Defense. We delve into the explosive exchanges during the hearing, as Democrats like Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, and Tammy Duckworth scrutinize Hexick's qualifications and past statements, including those on women in combat roles and alleged workplace misconduct. I provide a candid assessment of Hexick's responses, arguing whether he stands up to the scrutiny or falls short of expectations within the broader debate about women's roles in the military.
The conversation takes a sharp turn into the murky waters of American democracy and the influential power of billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg over public policy. We uncover how their financial clout diminishes the regulatory power of institutions meant to safeguard the public, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I'll expose the strategic erosion of trust in government agencies and the unaccounted role of tech companies in spreading misinformation, shaking the democratic norms we once held dear. This leads to a reflection on whether American democracy is morphing into an oligarchy, with profound implications for the future.
Finally, the episode tackles the intersection of sports, social evolution, and politics, particularly concerning the inclusion of transgender athletes in traditional sports categories. This spurs a discussion on the political climate post-Trump's re-election and the unsettling capitulation of tech and media giants to his administration's whims. From Mark Zuckerberg's controversial actions to Jeff Bezos's involvement and ABC News's legal entanglements, we'll consider how Trump's influence reverberates across industries. The potential rise of authoritarianism and its impact on democratic integrity will be laid bare, making for a thought-provoking and comprehensive exploration of these pressing issues.
Welcome to the Darrell McLean show. I'm your host, darrell McLean, happy to be back with you guys Been a bit under the weather, unfortunately, for the last few days. A lot of things have been going on and I've been wanting to talk to you about a lot of it, so I'm going to try to go back to the old formula where, instead of posting once a week, I do multiple shows, shows throughout the week, because the news cycle is going fast. But anyway, great, let's get into our episode. So, first off, a few weeks ago I did a show about some of the cabinet picks that President Trump had picked, and today the Senate did a confirmation hearing for Pete Hexick. And, of course, there were some fiery moments and some testy exchanges between certain people. I cannot play all of the four-hour hearing, but here's just a snippet of this. Mr Hicks, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.
Speaker 3:Department of Defense under Donald Trump will achieve peace through strength and, in pursuing these America First national security goals, will remain patriotically apolitical and stridently constitutional.
Speaker 4:You said in your statement you don't want politics in the DOD. Everything you've said in these public statements is politics. I don't want women. I don't want moms. What's wrong with a mom, by the way? Once you have babies, you therefore are no longer able to be lethal.
Speaker 3:I've never disparaged women serving in the military. I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform, past and present. My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past and from personal experience, have been instances where I've seen standards lowered.
Speaker 2:Would you use our military to take over Greenland or an ally of.
Speaker 3:Denmark Senator. One of the things that President Trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand, and so I would never, in this public forum, give one way or another direct what orders the president would give me.
Speaker 2:in any context, that sounds to me that you would contemplate carrying out such an order to basically invade Greenland.
Speaker 3:Many of your work colleagues have said that you show up for work under the influence of alcohol or drunk. I know you've denied that, but you would agree with me right that if that was the case, that would be disqualifying for somebody to be secretary of defense Senator. Those are all anonymous, false claims and the totality.
Speaker 6:They're not. They're not anonymous.
Speaker 2:The letters on the record here on the record people who report to me with names attached to them. Senator Cain or I guess I better use the senator from Virginia starts bringing up the fact that what if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it, because I know you have. I don't want a long answer yes or no.
Speaker 3:have you led an audit of any organization of which you were in charge? Senator? In both of the organizations I ran, we were always completely fiscally responsible for the money that we had.
Speaker 7:Yes or no? Did you lead an audit and or no, did you need an audit?
Speaker 2:Yes or no? What are you afraid of? You can't answer this question. Yes or no? Did you need an audit? Do you not know this answer?
Speaker 3:Senator, every part of my leadership of these organizations. I'm not a perfect person, but redemption is real and God forged me in ways that I know I'm prepared for, and I'm honored by the people standing and sitting behind me and look forward to leading this Pentagon on behalf of the warfighters.
Speaker 1:Thank you so that was a four-minute snippet of what was a four hours 24 minutes and five seconds of a confirmation hearing, and let me tell you exactly what happened. If you're a Republican, you went out of your way to say that Pete Hexick was qualified and you asked him questions to prove his qualifications. And if you were a Democrat, they went out of their way to say that he was not qualified and to impugn his character, his motives, etc. Etc. Etc. A small example of a Republican type question, with the caveat of this you had the former running mate of Hillary Clinton, tim Kaine, saying he's not qualified. Democrat Elizabeth Warren grilling him. Of course she's going to say he's not qualified. Veteran and Senator as well, tammy Duckworth, you're not qualified. And it kind of standard boilerplate things Republicans, of course, because he's a Republican nominee, they blasted him. Senator Mullins blast what he called a liberal hypocrisy. Tim Kaine was very aggressive in his grilling in the eight minutes or so he got, and so I will say this just in my simple view of what I saw I think Pete performed very well. I think he answered questions forthright and honestly and I think, when it comes to the particular job, he's as qualified as anybody else would be at the job.
Speaker 1:Um, I think some of the statements that he makes you know before he became the defense secretary. I think in larger context he's making a moral critique, ideological critique, about women on the battlefield and things in that nature. And let me tell you those are conversations that we do have, you know, in the armed forces. I'm no longer in the armed forces, but those are conversations that have been had and will be had. It's a bit disingenuous to try to wrap this particular nominee as if he's some sexist because he doesn't think that women should be on the front line in combat. He did not say that they should not be in the military or they do not serve a place in the military. The statements were purely about the combat uh arena. So very, very fiery exchange, uh, but also A bit of a I'll just say criticism, some unfair, on one side and a bit of coddling and hand-holding on the other side.
Speaker 5:With every single day on the battlefield, you understand what happens on the front line where our troops will be. How many push-ups can you do?
Speaker 3:I did five sets of 47 this morning.
Speaker 5:What do you think our most important strategic base is in the Pacific?
Speaker 3:In the Pacific Guam is pretty strategically significant.
Speaker 5:How many rounds of 5.56 can you fit into the magazine of an M4 rifle?
Speaker 3:Depends on the magazine, but standard issue is 30.
Speaker 5:And what size round is the M9 Beretta standard issue? Sidearm for the military fire A 9mm Senator, what kind of batteries do you put in your night vision goggle?
Speaker 8:Duracell.
Speaker 5:So right there you're representing qualifications that show you understand what the warfighter deals with every single day on the battlefield. You understand what happens on the front line, where our troops will be, how many push-ups can you do so in any way.
Speaker 1:And let me just say this last thing as a personal preference type of situation, and it may be a bit too close to the nose, but I try to be very transparent with you guys here Peake Exit has been as having a drinking problem. I am not going to Pretend Like that is not a Commentary. That is said about a lot of Military members, former and present, including yours truly. If he functions, if he does the job, if he's qualified, if he is able to control himself when he's on the job a lot of that stuff I think it's a bunch of crap. I think that he is not only qualified to do the job. I think that he is Donald Trump's pick for the job and I think they need to go on about it and not hold up this process.
Speaker 1:He is a highly educated individual. He held a significant rank in the United States military. The only problem that I would have what I fully do believe he would be able to adapt to is that he's never led an organization as big and as massive as the Pentagon. But he is as qualified as anybody else who's qualified, who did not hold the rank of a general or an admiral, and I think that he may have some personal character flaws, but I do want to stress this Somebody's personal life does not always mean that they are incompetent in their professional life. I think that he showed well in those four hours. I think he answered the questions as truthfully and as honestly as he could. He will make a fine secretary of defense in the Trump administration. As good as you could get as being a separate secretary of defense Much better than somebody like Mike Pompeo.
Speaker 6:The IDF has been forced to admit that they have been running a propaganda channel on Telegram aimed at Israeli citizens that featured snuff films of Palestinians being murdered, dehumanized as insects and vermin, their bodies desecrated and the destruction of Gaza glorified. Analyst Nox Bilal has been tracking the content on the channel. According to Bilal, on 72 versions you could find this video of buildings in Gaza being demolished. Each time one is reduced to rubble, the twirling menorah on the screen gets another candle. The caption reads burn Gaza down. You can also find some of the images that horrified the world but apparently delighted the Israeli audience of 72 virgins. The IDF atrocity. Tiktoks are not a bug but a feature of this system, not just allowed but encouraged. After all, this entire 72 virgins channel was sustained and populated with multiple posts daily, including confidential operational details, for months by the very unit dedicated to putting out the version of the war and the messaging on the war that the official powers that be want to see propagated.
Speaker 1:Now, way back in the day, way back in the day, there was a historian who I liked. He was very witty, charming, funny, brilliant, but also he was his generation's version of Oscar Wilde. His name was Gore Vidal, and when Gore Vidal would talk about economics, he would say in almost a warning-like way we have to do this economically, we have to do this. We have to do this because otherwise there's going to be a revolution coming and they are going to come and take it from you Now. We are now been blessed to be in the year of 2025. Been making his rounds on Fox News, on CNN, on MSNBC, on HBO Real Time with Bill Maher, and he has been issuing a dire warning and I think this is very interesting. So I'm going to somewhat let him talk and I'm going to also come in with my socioeconomic analysis on this situation as well.
Speaker 8:A lot of these tech billionaires are kind of following or trying to play catch up, I guess, with Elon Musk and making inroads with the new administration and the best trade of 2024 was Elon Musk put $250 million into the Trump campaign and since then the value of his companies and his stake in those companies is up by about $140 billion. So that's about a 5,600% return.
Speaker 2:And that's not any change in Tesla in the output.
Speaker 8:Nothing to do with the company, nothing to do with their operating margins, their innovation, their sales. It's based on a general assumption that America has become a full kleptocracy, like Russia, that the largest, deepest pocketed customer in the history of our modern economy. The US government will effectively is now, or effectively is now, pay to play and will shuffle contracts, monies and impose regulatory punishment on the competitors. To the companies who do not invest in the Republican Party or in his inaugural campaign is evidenced by the fact that very few of these tech executives invested in the inaugural campaign fund for Biden, and they are all doing it for Trump.
Speaker 1:So look, this is Scott Galloway, and Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU and he's also an entrepreneur and author, so he regularly tries to go on these programs and issue these kind of proclamations, and a lot of times, even though on a moral landscape, I'm more conservative than him, I think he hits the nail on the head. The problem is and this is from my analysis, of course is that America has always um reported itself to be a representative Republic. You, you, you vote uh to your alderman, your state senator, your mayor, your governor, your federal representatives, your president, and they come up with a solution in the form of public policy to address your concerns, with Elon Musk dropping this much money into a particular campaign and with his him getting a massive return on investment.
Speaker 1:And what I have seen labeled and I like the labeled the great capitulation I will we'll get over that later of all these billionaires, from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates, to the multi-billionaire that owns the LA Times, all going down to Mar-a-Lago. And then the multi-millionaires who are also in the media, headed up by Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough for Morning Joe, who went down to Mar-a-Lago, hadn't seen Trump went in whatever to kiss the ring in order to give their network the height of independent media, which is access journalism. This, the mask is off. That America one America is not a democracy. But we say democracy is small d it's republic is small d it's republic, but the mask off moment is that no, no, no, this is not. It does not function as a democracy, nor does it function as a republic. What it functions, as he used the word kleptocracy, I like the word oligarchy or plutocracy. I think in the end I'll just define what these two different terms mean, or maybe the three, just for argument's sake.
Speaker 1:A paper had already been done years ago by Princeton who said, effectively, america was a plutocracy, and what's always happened is that people in power try to pretend like there's not a pay for play type of game going on here and when Elon Musk left, unquote, the left and went to the right and funds this type of campaign a Trumpian type figure who is very brazen and transactional, and remember that famous clip where Donald Trump even said I know these people. You give them money and they'll do whatever you want. Right, no-transcript? Flanked by other billionaires Basically buying US not only foreign policy, but US domestic policy, us public policy. That's what the visa conversation was about. That's what the chips conversation was about. Is people did not recognize them and a lot of people did. Is that the whole game was?
Speaker 1:There are certain billionaires getting involved in this form of government so that they can stop regulation in the companies that they own, can stop regulation in the companies that they own. That's why most of them, if you have been paying attention over the last few weeks, have been going after the one government institution that is supposed to work and does work for you and for me the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that looks at corporations, looks if there has been fraud against the consumer, and sometimes you don't even know it and all of a sudden you'll get a check in the mail and now, all of a sudden, you have seen the march of the billionaires going on the Joe Rogangan uh show and the blah, blah blahs and talking about the consumer protection bureau, the consumer financial protection bureau, and that's the new boogeyman, because that's what they want to take down. They want to. They want to take all the power out of that, just like they took all the power out of the Environmental Protection Agency, just like they took all the power out of the Better Business Bureau, just like they took all the power out of the unions.
Speaker 1:I'm reminded of a lecture I heard years ago from the former Defense Secretary, donald Rumsfeld. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Donald Rumsfeld was talking about when President Ronald Reagan put him over a government organization and Donald Rumsfeld started to run the organization and he thought he was doing a great job. And he got a call from the president and President Reagan was giving him the business about the way the organization is being run. And Donald Rumsfeld brought up the numbers and basically said that the organization was running successfully and President Reagan said that's the problem. I don't want it to run successfully. And that has somewhat always been the game. You get certain people over an institution that they don't believe in and they make sure it does not work to erode public trust in the institution, and then the public will then call for the institution to be disbanded because the institution is incompetent. This is three dimensional chess that is being played, and now I think a lot of people are starting to catch on.
Speaker 8:Skeptocrat and if you don't think this, this hurts everyone. This raises prices and for the little guy or the companies that don't want to engage in this type of pay-per-play, it hurts them. This will increase prices and weaken our democracy. This is absolutely no different than how Putin became the wealthiest man in the world.
Speaker 2:Do you think this is a long-term change in the political direction of these tech companies, or would they shift course when the president-elect leaves office? Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's two things going on here.
Speaker 8:This is good for shareholder value, for Meta to not have to live up to the standards of traditional media companies. News Corp decided to circulate misinformation around Dominion voting machines, despite the fact they knew that was false information. They were sued because it resulted in economic harm against Dominion and they were punished through the tune of about three quarters of a billion dollars. What happened score on Fox was a dumpster fire compared to the nuclear mushroom cloud of what took place on Meta. Yet Meta is immune.
Speaker 8:So what you have is these companies that are circulating or kind of a misinformation Lollapalooza, quite frankly, are just running away with it in terms of profitability, in terms of shareholder value. So they're totally driven by shareholder value. They're doing their job. We're not doing our job in terms of electing representatives who have the backbone to stand up to attempts to weaponize the government and still believe in a democratic america where there's competition, where misinformation, where a lack of truth, a lack of trust in our institutions remain pillars of our society. That seems to be, that seems to be eroding, but they will. They will go where the puck goes and that is whatever increases the value of their shares so what he's talking about.
Speaker 1:Just in case anybody didn't see, is this great a visage to go see the president, like Bill Gates, mark Zuckerberg, et cetera, et cetera. Mark Zuckerberg is an interesting person. I'm going to do somewhat a story on that. In short, maybe on the uh, future episode. Uh, because Mark Zuckerberg was full of shit, um, and never trusted him as a person, just from, just from what I knew. But uh, the, the, the analysis of Mark Zuckerberg goes as such.
Speaker 1:When Barack Obama rose to was rising to prominence. He took in Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Zuckerberg somewhat chased the Democratic Party's tail and he was the Elon Musk of his time. So, even though Elon is older, he was the Elon of that period of presidential precedent. Facebook chased Barack Obama's tail. Trump won, facebook kept chasing Barack Obama's tail and so did Meta, and then the Joe Biden administration comes through. Facebook stays in that old Barack Obama coalition model. Elon comes in, buys Twitter, now X from Jack Dorsey, etc. And he becomes the Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1:On the right, he starts censoring voices on the left. He starts hyper-focusing on stories. He's more active, so he starts calling out governments a lot of times wrongly, uh, and he uses his platform to hyper, hyper focus the voices of opinions that he agrees with. He. He lets that. He um unleashes the bands.
Speaker 1:Uh's quote unquote free speech. Uh, back on the platform. Free speech um meaning the free speech that agrees with whatever I, the billionaire, thinks. Uh. Donald trump wins due to, in part, of um elon censoring a certain amount of content, in the same way that Zuckerberg has been accused of censoring content from the right. Elon puts $240 million into Donald Trump's campaign and now he has a seat at the table in the exact same way that Zuckerberg used to have a seat at the table. So what is that saying? It's saying that billionaires are buying seats at the table by using their money and what they have on them besides money, which is power, which is in the Zuckerberg sense. It was Facebook being an engine that released information because they could platform and de-platform people as like they chose, while not being an official news organization. And elon did the same thing for the right. Uh, and you see it openly. And now elon has kind of started to signal to all the other billionaires you need to come over here, because there's gains to be gotten.
Speaker 1:Um scott galloway also went on. Um I? Um went on morning, joe, you know, with um, joe scobberl and mika brzezinski and and um, and he left another dire warning Okay, and this was like dropping almost a bomb because, like I said Morning, joe, mika Brzezinski, etc. Joe Scarborough are the height of access journalism. Here we go.
Speaker 8:Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness, et cetera, joe Scarborough, are the height of access journalism.
Speaker 8:Here we go Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness. So why on earth would you not go back to a tax policy of the 60s, 70s and 80s where, say above, pick a big number, 10 million you actually pay more than 10%, maybe more than 20%, maybe more than 50%, because the difference between $30,000 a year for a household and $50,000 is enormous to the well-being of that household. Kids in low-income households have higher resting blood pressure, but the difference between making $10 million a year and $15 million a year offers you no happiness. But these individuals have weaponized government and we risk revolution. Whether it's CEOs being murdered in the street, whether it's a Me Too movement that had righteous components of it, or Black Lives Matter. What are these movements? They are targeting the wealthy.
Speaker 8:We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to correct income inequality. We put an insurrectionist and a rapist in office is because, for the first time in our nation's history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. Why? Because the majority of households are having the oxygen sucked out of the room, such that a small number of individuals and a small number of companies can be worth more than nation states. It is out of control. Our tax policy has gone full oligarch.
Speaker 1:So just for some clarity, so what he's talking about when he said that the happiness doesn't change on a certain income level. There was a study that came out years ago and the study basically showed it was on happiness, depression, anxiety and it uh, it tied it to finances and what it actually showed. The study was very interesting and it showed that people who made $75,000 a year and that was the market, $75,000 a year was the marker Were no different in happiness, stress, etc. Did somebody that made 1 million dollars, 2 million dollars, 5 million dollars, 350 million dollars, once somebody made $75,000 a year, that they that um, I don't know if it was an internal thing that they felt like they had made it that they were. They were no different. And the people that made under that marker um had a lot of anxiety, had a lot of depression about their finances, etc. And that was inside of the financial happiness index. So you didn't notice, in that particular thing he went from the word.
Speaker 1:When he was talking to Anderson Cooper on CNN, he used the word kleptocracy. When he was talking to Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, he used the word oligarchy, and so I'm just going to give you a brief definition of the difference. So oligarchy is defined as a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution. Institution, a country governed by oligarchy would be the english uh aristocratic oligarchy of the 19th century. Uh, for a historical example, a oligarchy is a is uh from the ancient greek term, and it's from rule by the few. The rule command over everybody else. The oligarchy is a form of government in which the power and the form of government which is in power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political or military control. Now, throughout history, the power structures considered to be oligarchs have often been viewed as coercive, relying on public obedience or impression to exist. Public obedience, our impression to exist. Uh, aristotle pioneered the use of this term as a meaning to mean rule by the rich, contrasting it with uh aristocracy, arguing that oligarchy was the perverted form of a aristocracy. So, so that's just a short, short, short version of the term. Now, countries that we today, somewhat distinctively, will in the political span, will'll say oligarchies, would be the Philippines, the Russian Federation, iran, ukraine, the United States is in there and, of course there's going to be different meanings for that. I told you that Princeton came out with a study that said America was actually a plutocracy, and a plutocracy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth and income. The first known use of the term in English was actually in 1631.
Speaker 1:Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in actually any established political philosophy and actually any established political philosophy. So so the term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe and warn against a undesirable condition. Throughout history, political thinkers and philosophers have condemned plutocrats for ignoring social responsibilities and using their power to serve their own purpose and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict and corrupting societies with greed and hedonism. So examples of the plutocracy, the historical examples would be the Roman Empire, in some city-states in ancient Greece, the civilization in Cartridge, the Italian merchant city-state of Venice, florence, gina, the Dutch Republic, florence, gina, the Dutch Republic, the pre-World War II Empire of Japan. And, according to Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, the modern United States resembles a plutocracy. Also believed the US to be developing into a plutocracy. One modern form example of a plutocracy, according to a lot of critics, is the city of London, also called the square of mile of ancient London. So that is the difference between an oligarchy and a plutocracy.
Speaker 1:Now he used the term kleptocracy, which is more or less the same but a bit different. So when you get to a kleptocracy, it is a society our system ruled by people who use their power to steal their country's resources. Uh, government by people who use their power to steal their country's resources. What it means in simple terms is this it referred to, as in a lot of places, as a theocracy. It is a government whose corrupt leaders kleptocrats use political power to exhort the wealth of the people and the land they govern. So again, they use the political power to exhort the wealth of the people and the land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population. Now, one feature of the political-based socioeconomic thievery is that there is often no public announcement explaining or apologizing for misappropriations, nor any legal changes or punishment levied against the defenders.
Speaker 1:Kleptocracy is different from a plutocracy, which is the rule by riches and oligarchy ruled by the elite. In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly, outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes and special favors from lobbyist corporations. They simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates. Also, kleptocrats often extort and export much of their profits to foreign nations in anticipation of them losing power, of them losing power. So I, like I said earlier, I wanted to give you a definition of the three so that you would have a sense of what they are and you can decide what you think.
Speaker 1:America, in this, in this iteration of what we're going through, we are, I I think, at this point in time, there needs to be not just a political consciousness but a class consciousness, because I think that's what's going to save us. Even today's conservative movements actually have roots in a capitalist backgrass against the new deal. So during the new deal, uh, right-wing business people were furious that their authority was being challenged in the workplace and society, so they started the organization, and that's the story of the origin of what actually is the modern conservative movement. Um, yeah, really need people to go and check this out. Okay, just about how these movements started.
Speaker 7:If you're a right-winger, you're angry at the government. This is a right-wing obsession, as you know. Anything goes wrong, it's the government. It's a wonderful arrangement for big business Wonderful. Over the last five years of crisis, for example, the overwhelming majority of people who've been fired from their job have been fired by a private capitalist employer and the overwhelming majority of people have been thrown out of their home by foreclosure, had the foreclosure process begun by a private capitalist banker. And who are the people angry at? The government? They leap right over the people who actually screwed them to blame someone else.
Speaker 7:If I were a corporate executive or a banker, I'd be very pleased with a system like this. I kick you, you get angry at somebody else. I kick you again, you get me more angry at them. This is wonderful. Why should I ever stop kicking you? Or maybe it's immigrants or foreigners, or terrorists or Muslims or who knows?
Speaker 7:Scapegoats? And the left, not to be outdone, no better able to understand system, despite what it says, has its scapegoats the bankers, the Federal Reserve bankers, the Federal Reserve, the big businessmen or the government Ever there, only now, in reverse, the government didn't regulate enough, the government didn't do enough. It's the government. Whoa. Everything else other than an analysis of the system.
Speaker 7:The problem is the system, the way we relate to one another in producing goods and services, in distributing them, in parceling out the income that our output enables us to have. Oh no, no, we're not going to look at all those relationships Taboo. We look for scapegoats, and it shows up not only in the way we think, looking for who the bad guys are right-wing bad guys, left-wing bad guys. We beat each other up over who the real bad guy is. Left-wing newspapers say it's not the poor people, right-wing newspapers say it is the poor people, and then we have long debates about whether it is or it isn't the poor people. This is bizarre, and if there's no systemic critique, then there needs to be no systemic response. Nobody is going to say change the system.
Speaker 1:The sickness is the system, and that was Professor Richard Wolff here in that last clip.
Speaker 6:And.
Speaker 1:I played that clip because, like I said, I think we need to start Moving beyond the politics Of democrat, republican, libertarian and uh, constitutionalist Whatever else you want to Label yourself as, green party, etc. And we need to move To a body politics, a uniparty, that the center of the movement is economics. My last word I was grateful to have a show question today from our long time subscriber and Patreon, gene, who says will the Senate pass the bill preventing trans people to play on the girls team? So he's talking about trans men and trans women are trans women, I would say to pay play on, uh, cis women's teams? Uh, the house passed that vote today. So if the bill goes through as it is, currently, I do not believe it is going to pass the Senate. Currently, I do not believe it is going to pass the Senate. I'm going to also go ahead and answer a question that you did not ask, and I will say that there has only been one study on this particular topic and I think it has to be a common sense type of thing and even though life is not fair, I think, as much as we can, we have to try to provide a sense of fairness to the topic and because of that I do not believe that is appropriate for anybody who is not a biological female to play in a sport that biological females are involved in in, even if they have already been through the surgery and puberty blockers et cetera. Because I think once the bone density and the muscle mass and everything is set, it is very hard to call that back.
Speaker 1:Um, when I was growing up in in high school in Jacksonville, florida, I was involved in a combat sport known as amateur wrestling. We had a female on our team who is my very good friend, who I'm still friends with. Her name is Anastasia. Because we did not have a girls league, anastasia had to wrestle with the boys and sometimes she did beat the boys. I do not think that it would be the same and it would be celebrated the same if there was no boys league and there was an all girls league and the boys had to join the girls team. I think there would be outrage and we would see it is inappropriate and we may see that somebody was trying to game the system.
Speaker 1:I use the elementary principles of common sense. If it does not work in one context, what makes you think it is appropriate in a different context. It does not mean that it is fair, but not all things that are correct and pragmatic are going to be at the level of fairness. Level of fairness, there's a reason why in these sports, for generations, for millennia, we have women's track and men's track and women's basketball and men's basketball and women's powerlifting and men's powerlifting and women's baseball and men's baseball and women's soccer and metal soccer that we now are faced with a new phenomenon Because of social evolution, and that is the trans epidemic the trans movement, I should say, and it does make us have to decide how we're going to deal with people who are humans and therefore deserving of respect, decency and dignity. But we cannot give one group respect, decency and dignity by letting them oppress and make unfair requests of another group. I think the best way to deal with this is to create another league and let them equally, with decency and dignity, compete against each other. Now here's my last word, and this is the great capitulation.
Speaker 1:At a press conference in Mar-a-Lago, donald Trump described recent events from TikTok CEO of Apple, secretly Brian, and a co-founder, google and other tech barons. He said in the first term, everyone was fighting me. He said, in this term, everybody wants to be my friend For once, president Donald Trump wasn't actually exaggerating. Since Trump won re-election, this time with the popular vote, many of the most influential people in America seem to have lost any will to disagree with him or even stand up to him as he goes about transforming America into what a lot of people believe will be the sort of authoritarian oligarchy that he admires. Call it the Great Capitulation.
Speaker 1:Following January 6th, mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook. Following january 6, mark zuckerberg, the facebook uh co-founder, suspended trump's account, but last month in mar-a-lago, the wall street journal reported that um zuckerberg stood hand on heart as the club played a rendition of the national anthem sung by an imprisoned January 6th defendant. It's not clear. Zuckerberg knew what he was listening to. He pledged a million dollar donation to Trump's inauguration, as did the OpenIA CEO, sam Altman, and Jeff Bezos from the company Amazon, which has also streamed the inauguration on its video platform. Jeff Bezos is also obviously the owner of the Washington Post, after Time magazine declared Trump's person of the year. The publication's owner and the Salesforce CEO, mark Benoff, wrote on Twitter, now known as X this marks a time of great compromise for our nation. The owner of the LA Times, the billionaire pharmaceutical and biomedical entrepreneur, patrick Soon-Shiong, killed an editorial criticizing Trump's cabinet picks and urging the Senate not to allow recess appointments.
Speaker 1:Most shocking of all, abc News, which is owned by Walt Disney Company, made a craven decision to settle a flimsy defamation case bought by Donald Trump. As you remember, a jury last year found Trump civilly liable of sexually abusing the writer E Jean Carroll. In memorandum, the judge in that case explained that, while a jury did not find Trump had raped Carroll, it was operating under the New York criminal law, which defines rape solely as vaginal penetration by a penis forcibly or I did find I should say that he did forcibly penetrate EJ and Carol, but he did so with his fingers. The finding that Ms Carol failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Trump had not raped her, as many people commonly understood the word rape, wrote the judge Indeed, as the evidence at the trial recounted Below on air, that a jury had found Trump liable for rape. Trump, who regularly threatens and sometimes filed defamation cases against perceived enemies in the press, sued and though his case seemed absurdly weak, abc News actually decided to settle in exchange for $15 million and a donation to Trump's future presidential library or museum for $1 million in legal fees, and a public statement of regret from Stephanopoulos and the network Display of submissions are limited to the tech industry and the media industry.
Speaker 1:Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, agreed to step down aside before the end of his 10-year term, rather than to make President Trump fire him to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who, so-called the Department of Government Efficiency, are dozed, seem posed to hack away at our already, I'll just say, insufficient and bare safety net. And the New Yorker Jonathan Blitzer wrote of a current administration's refusal, at least so far, to renew the humanitarian parole of immigrants from countries such as Venezuela and Haiti to possibly shield them from deportation under the incoming president considers Trump a fascist, and who has warned about the horrors of mass deportation. The atmosphere of Biden's White House has struck several people I spoke to. With a cursory, sedate, blitzer wrote Different people have different reasons for falling in line. Some may simply lack the stomach for a fight or feel, not unreasonably, that it's futile.
Speaker 1:Our tech overlords, however liberal they once appeared, seem to welcome the new Trump order. Many hated wokeness, resented the demands of the newly uppity employees who chafed at attempts by Joe Biden's administration to regulate crypto and AI To industries with the potential to cause deep and lasting social harm. There are CEOs who got where they are by riding the Z-guise that they can pivot easily from mouthing platitudes about racial equity to slapping on a red MAGA hat when it's convenient. Some Democrats appear to think that they might steer those into a productive direction and that, regardless, they'll get credit for bipartisanship. The electorate, after all, has a readiness and rendered its verdict on its resistance.
Speaker 1:One of Kamala Harris' pollsters actually reported to Politico recently and they warned the Democratic National Committee leadership against pearl-clutching over Trump's transactions, including the widely unfit character ricksters and characters he announced for his administration. The voters, she said, don't care about who Donald Trump is putting in the cabinet Collectively. All these elite decisions to bow to Trump make it feel like the air is going out of the old liberal order. In its place, it will be something more of a ruthless and um nichian. The individuals have and has the intrinsic moral right to live his life in a special and fulfilling way, without subordinating to the universal collective. Mark anderson, the software engineer and the venture capitalist at the forefront of silicon valley it's right where lurch wrote on twitter last week pervos of extra guilt must not steal that from you. Even powerful people who did not vote in favor of this harsh new world Can find their consolation in it. Thank you for tuning in and I will see you on the next episode.