Speaker 1: Hello the Internet. Am welcome to Season to twenty two,
Speaker 1: Episode five of Deer Daily's like gates to production of
Speaker 1: Our Heart Radio. This is a podcast where we take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into America's share consciousness. It's Friday, February five.
Speaker 1: My name is Jack O'Brien a K. Jack is the
Speaker 1: best at the word. Old Jack is the best at
Speaker 1: the word. Old Jack is the best at the word.
Speaker 1: I promise that I don't cheat word all power. That
Speaker 1: is an a K courtesy of at Benny Swill Falcon
Speaker 1: fuck hat on Twitter for some reason. And I am
Speaker 1: thrilled to be joined today by a very special guest
Speaker 1: co host, the original Day one super producer of the
Speaker 1: Daily Zeitgeist, many of the first rate podcasts on this network,
Speaker 1: such as this is Important Lost Cultureista's he've heard her
Speaker 1: on her podcast with sharene linning units ethnically ambiguous, and
Speaker 1: of cour segments of this show such as on a
Speaker 1: Streaming Corner TM and it's you know, iconic phrase that's
Speaker 1: prestige casting TM. It's on a hostess. It's incredible you
Speaker 1: revealed how rich I am that I just trademark everything
Speaker 1: I do. It's true. I mean, that's prestige casting is
Speaker 1: you could You could really make a big a living
Speaker 1: off of that. Yeah. Yeah, I would even argue me
Speaker 1: not being able to book a guest host last minute
Speaker 1: and thus stepping in myself because this morning I was
Speaker 1: so lazy. Is prestige casting casting right there? Yes? I
Speaker 1: hope this has a life for you, like the that's
Speaker 1: a deal breaker ladies thing from thirty Rock. I'm trying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're working well on a weird Thrilled to be joined
Speaker 1: in our third seat by a very talented thinker research Sure.
Speaker 1: She's the senior Research Fellow at the National Iranian American Council.
Speaker 1: She has a PhD in Middle Eastern history. She's a
Speaker 1: must follow on Twitter. Among the most overqualified humans to
Speaker 1: be a guest on our stupid show. It's Dr sl D.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys, that's so much for having me. This
Speaker 1: is a This is a nice change of pace for
Speaker 1: my day. This isn't what you're normal. I told you
Speaker 1: ahead of the record that we will be talking about
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton's take on the Mexican pizza and you were like,
Speaker 1: that is just what I was talking about in my
Speaker 1: last meeting. It actually it actually probably was to be
Speaker 1: completely honest, because that's been behind the scenes of what
Speaker 1: goes on. We just shade trade fast food tips. Nice?
Speaker 1: Do I call you Dr? Red? Is that? I mean? Okay?
Speaker 1: It is fucking awesome. I sound like a villain from
Speaker 1: a Bond movie. I mean, the coolest villain from a
Speaker 1: Bond movie, Dreed. Come on, all right, I will call
Speaker 1: you ass out Dr Ratt, Dr Red, or you can
Speaker 1: take the beginning part actually of my first time and
Speaker 1: call me Dr rad ass There you go. Also very cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, how are you doing? Where are you coming
Speaker 1: to us from? I am in Orange County, California, So
Speaker 1: I'm coming to you from sunny southern California. I hate
Speaker 1: to show that off always, but I feel it necessary
Speaker 1: because it's just the only thing everybody always asks. First,
Speaker 1: how is the weather? I'm like, it's still nice. Always,
Speaker 1: it's still nice. It's still nice for now. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Climate will change things. We'll see where we go, but
Speaker 1: for now, it's still nice. Yeah, that's fine. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to get to know you a little bit
Speaker 1: better in a moment. First, we're gonna tell our listeners
Speaker 1: a couple of things. We're talking about We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about economic sanctions. What what that? We hear a lot
Speaker 1: about it in the news. We kind of brushed past
Speaker 1: it when we're talking about Cuba earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: but I want to just kind of put some detail
Speaker 1: into what what that means, what that does to a country.
Speaker 1: And we have someone whose way smarter than me here
Speaker 1: who has some expertise on that, So we will be
Speaker 1: talking about that. We're gonna be talking about the Israeli
Speaker 1: foreign minister accusing Amnesty International of hate crimes for pointing
Speaker 1: out that Israel is an apartheid state. We will be
Speaker 1: talking about and then this is where we really get
Speaker 1: into your sweet spot. Sl We're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani being revealed as one of the singers of
Speaker 1: the Masked Singer, and Dolly Parton potentially maybe having just
Speaker 1: saved the Mexican pizza at Taco Bell, all of that
Speaker 1: plenty more. But before we get to any of it,
Speaker 1: we do like to ask our guests, what is something
Speaker 1: from your search history. I think the last thing I
Speaker 1: searched was Matan Yahoo's cartoon bomb, Okay, because there was
Speaker 1: so Senator Bob Menendez, I think it was two nights ago,
Speaker 1: spoke on the Senate floor about the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaker 1: Because every time we get close to actually have a
Speaker 1: good deal, people have to go into hysterics, and there's
Speaker 1: always really fun graphics that accompanied that hysteria. And so
Speaker 1: it immediately made me think of this like cartoon bomb
Speaker 1: that Natan, yeah, who held up in two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about this, by the way, for decades.
Speaker 1: Iran has been on the cusp of a nuclear weapon
Speaker 1: for decades. So there's this picture of Nathan Yahoo holding
Speaker 1: what looks like a cartoon bomb from like Looney Tunes cartoon.
Speaker 1: It's just like a circle with you know, a wick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I searched that because I just wanted to put
Speaker 1: these two images next to each other as if to say, look,
Speaker 1: we're still doing this a decade later, same types of images.
Speaker 1: And Menendez used what looked like a nuclear blimp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was another fun graphic. It was a very friendly
Speaker 1: cartoon nuclear weapon. For some reason, that is true. You
Speaker 1: just see then, yea Manya who has a history of
Speaker 1: kind of um putting on these like shows that like
Speaker 1: he's like in front of a graph that's like as
Speaker 1: you can see why we are the best an iron
Speaker 1: should be eliminated from everything. And then it's like it
Speaker 1: always I always remember, like there's always memes that be
Speaker 1: like it looks like he's on the set of like
Speaker 1: the Eric Andre Show, Like it always just looks so
Speaker 1: camp and strange, or you're like, what is the budget here?
Speaker 1: Where is any of this coming? The production is? You know,
Speaker 1: you're like okay. In the two thousand and twelve presentation,
Speaker 1: he also takes out like his like red sharpie and
Speaker 1: draws a line, you know, on the bomb. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a very advanced kind of tech that
Speaker 1: he's using for that presentation. Where did he make that presentation?
Speaker 1: I think it was the Nations. Yeah. It really feels
Speaker 1: like like the level of you know, thinking and planning
Speaker 1: that goes into like a kindergartener teacher like bringing bringing
Speaker 1: a visual for her class when trying to explain like
Speaker 1: a you know, a very basic concept to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is how he's treating the audience right
Speaker 1: as no one. Yeah wow. And so there's a new
Speaker 1: one of these and it's like the big kind of
Speaker 1: missile that you would see in in a cartoon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's so that and exaggerated that it really does
Speaker 1: look like, right, like a blimp or something that's just
Speaker 1: it looks a lot friendlier than a nuclear weapon, would
Speaker 1: I think, and their purposes to scare people, and yet
Speaker 1: they're using like these friendly like these things might as
Speaker 1: well like get up and start singing a song like
Speaker 1: Dino d NA like the like it's just very bad.
Speaker 1: I don't know that, like I don't know who proved
Speaker 1: their power point on this, but it seems like they're
Speaker 1: really fucking it up. Oh yeah, because if they wanted
Speaker 1: to scare people about Iran's non existent nuclear weapons, just
Speaker 1: use images from the actual nuclear weapons we dropped, right,
Speaker 1: that would be scary at this huge explosion that killed
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people immediately. Instead, they go with
Speaker 1: Wiley Coyote's version of a bomb right right right. It
Speaker 1: really does. It's so funny looking. Yeah, it's almost like
Speaker 1: there's also like arrows that point to it that say
Speaker 1: like thistle material checkmark, and then it's like construct warhead.
Speaker 1: And then it's like a little like what are those
Speaker 1: things with this? The sand falls through the timer and
Speaker 1: it's like with time and hourglass and you're like, what
Speaker 1: is this, What do you mean, you know, with time,
Speaker 1: we could have some real danger on our hands. Very
Speaker 1: USA today like chart a little like chart that they
Speaker 1: have at the bottom of USA today, or that they
Speaker 1: used to. I don't know if I still do that.
Speaker 1: It's just like very ambiguous and vague and ominous, like
Speaker 1: that's that's the approach, right. What is something that you
Speaker 1: think is overrated? Success? Okay, it is, isn't it. I
Speaker 1: mean like the concept of success in our society is
Speaker 1: just like work essentially work work, work, work, work, and
Speaker 1: that is defined as success. Like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I mean speak for yourself. I'm on
Speaker 1: my grind. I wake up at two in the morning
Speaker 1: and get my work out in and then you know,
Speaker 1: can't can't catch me sleeping. I also go to bed
Speaker 1: at four in the afternoon like that. And I guess
Speaker 1: I watched that Wallburger docuseries he did and Wall Street
Speaker 1: whatever it was called, And yeah, it looks like I
Speaker 1: don't know if he has that good of a relationship
Speaker 1: with his children, because it feels like most of his
Speaker 1: time is spent on his phone doing business in quotes
Speaker 1: because he knows and then the rest of the time,
Speaker 1: like traveling with like a false like an equipment set
Speaker 1: that he starts working out with at like three in
Speaker 1: the morning. Yeah, I know, he sounds like a blast. God,
Speaker 1: he seems. I just can't If that was my dad,
Speaker 1: I would be like, I don't know, my dad's not
Speaker 1: Mark Wallberg, I don't know what you're talking about. I
Speaker 1: would not admit to it. And you just described as
Speaker 1: the opposite of my dad. I don't think he's worked
Speaker 1: out since like the sixties, and at that time, like
Speaker 1: working out on one of those things that like jiggles you,
Speaker 1: like this thing that like shakes you, one of those works.
Speaker 1: And I think at the time he went for like
Speaker 1: a walk like that was workout, right, skip rope for
Speaker 1: two minutes while smoking a cigarette, and like that was
Speaker 1: definitely a part of it. I love that that smoking
Speaker 1: was such a huge I mean every footage or anything
Speaker 1: you see from like the sixties or seventies, you're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: they really are at the gym smoking a cigarette. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's just that's just the way it went back. Well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that post workout drag from the cigarette,
Speaker 1: right because your lungs have just opened up so right, right,
Speaker 1: they're craving that the good stuff. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think the success point is it's one of the
Speaker 1: most sort of nefarious, like parasitic ideas that like have
Speaker 1: been incepted into us that like make us feel bad
Speaker 1: if we're not actively working towards you know, that that
Speaker 1: central like capitalist ideal of you know, basically consuming and
Speaker 1: making making other people consume or giving other people something
Speaker 1: to consume. And yeah, I think I think people are
Speaker 1: maybe like having a see change sort of moment where
Speaker 1: they're like, wait a second, I'm fucking miserable. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. Wasn't there that this concept of like the
Speaker 1: great resignation And it's like that's where it's coming from.
Speaker 1: People are just like this is this is not a
Speaker 1: good system. We're unhappy extremely so what can be done
Speaker 1: about it? And it's because you're right, I mean, successes
Speaker 1: is defined by consumption and work, and if you're not working,
Speaker 1: that feeling of guilt that you get like you're not
Speaker 1: doing something was trained in you and it's not it's
Speaker 1: not real. It's just we feel that way because we've
Speaker 1: been told that we have to constantly be working or
Speaker 1: doing something like that's considered productive, but productivity is always
Speaker 1: related to like material gain and consumption and all of that. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I think sleeping is productive. It's extremely productive, absolutely. I
Speaker 1: mean it's the best thing you can do for your
Speaker 1: body and mind. I agree. I mean I feel like
Speaker 1: whenever I'll be done with work and it's like six,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm definitely forgetting something. I've definitely not completed
Speaker 1: my work and I should try and figure out what
Speaker 1: I haven't completed. And then I'm like and then I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting around and I'm like, I can't find a
Speaker 1: way to relax because I constantly keep thinking, but I
Speaker 1: have more to do, right, I have more to do right.
Speaker 1: It's becoming a bit of a mental illness for me.
Speaker 1: And uh, you are not alone. That is everyone in
Speaker 1: the country. That's the problem. Yeah, I feel like I
Speaker 1: used to get a lot of anxiety heading into the week,
Speaker 1: and I still do. And I used to think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just like I have like all this stuff that
Speaker 1: I need to get done and stuff. But I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's like my body's withdrawal from like
Speaker 1: doing productive stuff. And then like I feel bad if
Speaker 1: I go like two days and then the sort of
Speaker 1: coming back to like the whole grind of it all
Speaker 1: make like gives me anxiety because yeah, I there's like
Speaker 1: some sort of like guilt I'm building up anytime I'm
Speaker 1: not actively like working on something. And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: a healthy person, you know. I think back. I used
Speaker 1: to be able to binge a show in two days, right,
Speaker 1: and that's really like that was like my sweet spot.
Speaker 1: I can sit, I could. I used to be able
Speaker 1: to sit in my room and watch TV for hours.
Speaker 1: Now I can't do that anymore. Like I get tired
Speaker 1: and restless, and I'd be like, I have to get
Speaker 1: up and do something. I have to get up and
Speaker 1: do something. I have to get up and do something.
Speaker 1: And you know what I missed that. I just want
Speaker 1: to do anything. I just want to lay down for
Speaker 1: hours and watch every episode of Sex in the City.
Speaker 1: I did that once. That was peak me. Now look
Speaker 1: at me, I'm always like Jack, I clocked into work.
Speaker 1: You I do. Make you call me and tell me
Speaker 1: that everyone every day I'm like Jack, I'm in work
Speaker 1: and I'm ready to hustle. There was only one podcast
Speaker 1: team was bought by my Heart, and then I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now you need to start using a morning zoo voice
Speaker 1: when you clock in the morning. But yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the really insidious thing is when the thing that you
Speaker 1: do for fun and relaxation becomes something called on a
Speaker 1: streaming as part of you. I can't release anything. I
Speaker 1: have so much illness and content. Everything I enjoy, must
Speaker 1: enjoy must be turned into a podcast moment. That's true.
Speaker 1: What is something that you think is underrated? Well, I
Speaker 1: guess I think the flip side of what is what
Speaker 1: I thought was overrated is that I think boredom is
Speaker 1: really underrated. Like boredom is supposed to be something bad.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you know, on board, I need to
Speaker 1: do something, and just like the way that Anna was
Speaker 1: just describing, like something I would love to be bored,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what that was like, but just have
Speaker 1: nothing to do, just like not have a thought, you know,
Speaker 1: just like I just want to sit here and be
Speaker 1: so without thought that I'm actually experiencing boredom, and now
Speaker 1: I have to figure out something to do. And it's
Speaker 1: like that never happens, just this continuous We're so inundated
Speaker 1: with information twenty four hours a day, I mean, with
Speaker 1: our phones and social media is just like constant, constant stimulations,
Speaker 1: if you never get a chance to just be bored anymore.
Speaker 1: And I really think that that's part of like that
Speaker 1: should be a part of life, Like we should have
Speaker 1: time to be bored, chuck our phones off and sort
Speaker 1: of stare at the wall and see what happens to
Speaker 1: our brains. We're not doing anything else, there's just no downtime.
Speaker 1: I sometimes say that when because I have a compulsion
Speaker 1: like everyone else to check your phone, you know, if
Speaker 1: you have access to its constantly on it. So one
Speaker 1: camping with a few friends a few months back, and
Speaker 1: where we were there was no reception, and it was
Speaker 1: one of the greatest feelings of my life. I was like,
Speaker 1: because I don't have a choice, you know, if I
Speaker 1: had the ones like why don't just turn your phone off?
Speaker 1: Because I have a choice, I'm obviously not going to
Speaker 1: do that. I turned it off. Two minutes later, I
Speaker 1: turn it back on. But when you're just a sort
Speaker 1: of stuck in the middle of the woods and you
Speaker 1: don't have a choice in the matter, it's it's such
Speaker 1: a nice feeling to be to be disconnected. And there
Speaker 1: were moments that I was bored and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great, this is wonderful. We should do this
Speaker 1: more often. So did you just like drive to the
Speaker 1: nearest place that had reception and just like call people
Speaker 1: and ask them to explain Twitter? Describe Twitter to you
Speaker 1: every twenty minutes or anytime we drove anywhere. Though I
Speaker 1: did have like the phone sort of in the corners,
Speaker 1: like do I have reception? They would just look at me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just want to know what's going on,
Speaker 1: as if it would make any difference if I knew
Speaker 1: what was going on. You know, this this new news story.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because new stories in reality are like
Speaker 1: the same new story for days and weeks and months,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the case of certain things, literally years,
Speaker 1: it's the same story, and yet you follow it as
Speaker 1: if there's something incredibly new happening. But it's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is the exact same story, which is there's a
Speaker 1: new cartoon. There's a new cartoon bomb, Like if you
Speaker 1: were to check out and then check back in in
Speaker 1: ten years, like are we still talking about this? It's
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's say it's the same story. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is true. Sometimes I will realize I've like left my
Speaker 1: phone in the other room for an ex extended period
Speaker 1: of time, and I'm like, look at me, one of
Speaker 1: my off the grip it and it's so and it's
Speaker 1: been like ten minutes. But I'm like, here, it's as
Speaker 1: if I've never even played with tech, but I've always
Speaker 1: quite impressed. If I don't have it like in my pocket,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, look at me, just the queen of
Speaker 1: checking out. But then quickly, as soon as I realize
Speaker 1: it's not there, then I go get it. But then
Speaker 1: you go forensically search for it. Yeah, then I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: that was great for ten minutes, but where are you?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. This is why I actually hate
Speaker 1: Apple watches. This is probably probably an unpopular figion because
Speaker 1: people love it so much. We're like, it's you know, now,
Speaker 1: even if you set the phone down in another room,
Speaker 1: it's still following you on your wrist. I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: just it's okay, it's okay to disconnect for while you're
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, possibly just for a minute, just for something,
Speaker 1: but no, it's now now it's attached to your risk.
Speaker 1: In case Jack, we're talking to you, you're always texted
Speaker 1: from the toilet everybody I know has an Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I can't. I can't do it. I'm
Speaker 1: on my phone already too much. Every time Jack texts me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you, are you in the toilet? Texted me
Speaker 1: from your Apple Watch? Again? Are you doing that right now?
Speaker 1: I swear to god, Jack, it's always Apple Watch. Texts
Speaker 1: are like they give you three options and that's it.
Speaker 1: Like you have to just go with whatever they have. Listen,
Speaker 1: We're going to have like an entire generation with hemorrhoids
Speaker 1: because everyone's on their phone in the bathroom. It's like,
Speaker 1: you need to This is not you can't sit there forever.
Speaker 1: You gotta get up and go that hemorrhoids happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the combination of phone and toilet, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: horrible yeah. But but if you sit there for a
Speaker 1: long seting for too long, I think this is a
Speaker 1: real thing. This is a real thing. WHOA how you're
Speaker 1: rethinking it? You're like, maybe I shouldn't be all So
Speaker 1: my kids are not allowed to, you know, have phones,
Speaker 1: will not be allowed to have phones for as long
Speaker 1: as possible. They're very young, but they love to just
Speaker 1: sit there and talk to themselves. So I do think
Speaker 1: there's like something about just sitting there that is nice.
Speaker 1: It's like a break from life. But then yeah, if
Speaker 1: you bring your phone in with you, it's wait. Can
Speaker 1: I tell you? One time your son asked me, the
Speaker 1: younger one asked me what does it mean to be confused?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I like tris And I was
Speaker 1: just like, uh what, I wanted to be like google it?
Speaker 1: Fore I got you should probably google that because that's
Speaker 1: a tough one for me. But then I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: children's minds, they're just like looking at something like what
Speaker 1: does it mean to be confused? And you're like, I
Speaker 1: wish to live such a life, such a simple life
Speaker 1: where you're just like I'm curious, like confused about what
Speaker 1: it means to be confused? And I was like, what
Speaker 1: an incredible questions to be confusedly figured it out pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: which I was. I was like, damn, he's like a
Speaker 1: Google incredible. Kids are incredible. They just don't even know
Speaker 1: they don't even know about smartphones, and like what a
Speaker 1: world that you don't even have to think anymore? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just go, Serri, what is this series? Like We'll
Speaker 1: tell you are there like toys smartphones now, like they're
Speaker 1: like toy phones and toy tablets and yeah, like they're
Speaker 1: getting them on screens very very quickly. Yeah, yeah, it's cute. Look,
Speaker 1: they're just like they're just like us. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll be right back. And
Speaker 1: we're back. And so, like guess at up top we
Speaker 1: talked about Cuba making successful vaccines despite economic sanctions, and
Speaker 1: you know, we've mentioned economic sanctions at various times. We
Speaker 1: mostly focus on, you know, US news, but when we
Speaker 1: do talk about international news, it's kind of impossible to ignore.
Speaker 1: But I don't think people I don't think I like
Speaker 1: even fully understood the like violence of economic sanctions. But
Speaker 1: asal you've been discussing them, like either on Twitter or
Speaker 1: you know, in the context of Afghanistan and Iran, and
Speaker 1: I was just wondering if you could kind of speak
Speaker 1: to like what what it means, like what what what
Speaker 1: happens when the US puts economic sanctions on on a country? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think what you sort of like suggested
Speaker 1: right now is this and it's an idea within the country.
Speaker 1: I think people don't realize it right when you hear
Speaker 1: when we hear economic sanctions. We think, look, well, it's
Speaker 1: not war, so that's better. That's like a nice alternative.
Speaker 1: It's like the benign way of pressuring governments rather than
Speaker 1: going to war with them. And the reality is is
Speaker 1: that it's it's not benign. It's extreme. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is akin to war in the sense that like why
Speaker 1: we say we don't say, like we shouldn't go to
Speaker 1: war because as we're wasting our I mean we do
Speaker 1: say because partially because we're wasting our own resources. But
Speaker 1: like part of the moral argument behind why we should
Speaker 1: avoid like war and conflict in terms of the notion
Speaker 1: of like an international community and why we founded those
Speaker 1: things was really like in the wake of these massive
Speaker 1: wars World War one, world War two, just the amount
Speaker 1: of destruction, devastation and death that was caused by it,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, sort of a wake up
Speaker 1: call for the world saying, hey, there should be better
Speaker 1: ways for us to figure out our our differences or
Speaker 1: our problems. And so this idea of economic coercion and
Speaker 1: economic pressure is presented like it's the nice way of
Speaker 1: doing things, whereas it's also causes devastation and destruction and
Speaker 1: people die because of sanctions people lose their livelihoods, their jobs,
Speaker 1: they live in poverty. I mean, that is why we
Speaker 1: say we shouldn't go to war. And yet the other
Speaker 1: part of sort of this presentation of sanctions, the way
Speaker 1: it's talked about by US administrations, and it's not unique
Speaker 1: to any political party, it's not I mean, this is
Speaker 1: just this is US foreign policy, is that they target
Speaker 1: these governments that we don't like, right, governments that you know,
Speaker 1: partaking behaviors that is not in the interests of the
Speaker 1: United States that we don't like for X, Y, ANDZ
Speaker 1: reasons that we give. But in fact the target civilians.
Speaker 1: And we know this. I mean, the literature on sanctions
Speaker 1: is so clear of who is actually being hurt by it.
Speaker 1: And you know, sort of these exemptions, these humanitarian exemptions
Speaker 1: get written into sanctions law, but the reality of it
Speaker 1: is it doesn't work because you know, you're looking at
Speaker 1: like what is a what is the sanction if like
Speaker 1: the bank is sanctioned a central bank of a country
Speaker 1: as sanction and they're trying to purchase medicines, right, they're
Speaker 1: trying to purchase vaccines. Will say, in order to purchase something,
Speaker 1: you need a transaction. There's there's always a third party,
Speaker 1: there's a bank, some kind of financial entity in the
Speaker 1: middle that allows that transaction to take place, and they're
Speaker 1: so scared of violating u. S. Sanctions that they just
Speaker 1: don't do it. They will do it. It's not a
Speaker 1: question of whether or not they can legally, they just
Speaker 1: won't because it's not worth it from a business perspective.
Speaker 1: If you're a bank, right, it's not worth it for
Speaker 1: you to allow this transaction to take place in case,
Speaker 1: you know, you violate U. S. Sanctions. And part of
Speaker 1: it is because there's so many it's I mean, have
Speaker 1: you ever tried to read some of the bills and
Speaker 1: things that come out of Congress? Just like legal language,
Speaker 1: it's complicated for most people to understand. And so now
Speaker 1: you have all of these sanctions. You have, like Iran
Speaker 1: is the most sanctioned country in the world. You're talking
Speaker 1: about like a well over a thousand sanctions, right. You
Speaker 1: have entities, like financial entities in Iran that are double
Speaker 1: or triple sanctions, so not just sanctioned once, if that
Speaker 1: even makes sense, but they're sanctioned under different designations. So
Speaker 1: there's just this really complex web of sanctions. And then
Speaker 1: you expect financial institutions to partake in transactions. They don't.
Speaker 1: And so what happens is you have countries that have
Speaker 1: like essential goods that they can't get. You have scarcity,
Speaker 1: hyper inflation, unemployment, people losing literally losing their livelihoods, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, in ran you have with studies from last
Speaker 1: year that said something like ten of the middle class
Speaker 1: had been forced into poverty. That's millions of people. And
Speaker 1: that's not that's not the government. These governments stay in place.
Speaker 1: I mean, the most sort of obvious example is Cuba.
Speaker 1: It's a sixty year embarkment. What do you do for
Speaker 1: sixty years that doesn't work that you think year sixty
Speaker 1: one is going to do the trick. Yeah, they'll come around.
Speaker 1: We're we're closed to get them well. And and there's
Speaker 1: the fact there's the additional problem, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at it from the United States, are
Speaker 1: politicians and repeated US administrations talk about this idea of
Speaker 1: like an international rules based order, international law, how like
Speaker 1: you know, there's an international community. We love using these phrases,
Speaker 1: but then like something like a hundred seventy two countries
Speaker 1: vote uh for the thirty year in a row to
Speaker 1: end the embargo on Cuba, and two countries say no,
Speaker 1: the US and Israel, and so that's a done deal.
Speaker 1: No embargo is not going to be lifted. So it's like,
Speaker 1: what is that the international community? Then? Is it just
Speaker 1: these two countries and the other hundred and seventies forget
Speaker 1: what they have to say. So it's it's a combination
Speaker 1: of the policy and how the policy is implemented when
Speaker 1: you look at it on a sort of like international scale,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we just don't do any of
Speaker 1: these things consistently, Like we're like, oh, we don't like
Speaker 1: this country, so they're gonna get sanctioned. But this other
Speaker 1: country that does the exact same thing. You guys are cool.
Speaker 1: You're you're never gonna get sanction no matter what you do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. It's it's such a like and you would
Speaker 1: think like it's all politics, but it's like, no, it's
Speaker 1: all like money and playing favorites and doing and making
Speaker 1: the US money and making Israel money. And if you
Speaker 1: can't do that, then honey, you don't got a shot.
Speaker 1: And your people have to now start to in the
Speaker 1: streets and they can't have ppe and they can't have
Speaker 1: you know, basic human rights, because the US is like
Speaker 1: not feeling it. It's a really it's so dark that
Speaker 1: it's just generally there's no like, there's nothing that they
Speaker 1: can say, like even we watch it. We watched on
Speaker 1: the news, we watched Biden be like this has to
Speaker 1: happen because of this, this and this, and you're like
Speaker 1: not really, like but you can see. You can go
Speaker 1: online and read what's happening. You can go online and
Speaker 1: see like actual news. You can go to like Al Jazeera,
Speaker 1: you can go to like you read what's going on
Speaker 1: and be like, I don't know, I just don't think
Speaker 1: that's necessary to the extremes that we take it to,
Speaker 1: especially with the Uran, when you can actually go and
Speaker 1: look at what's being reported about their nuclear program and
Speaker 1: these choices and these are just it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know it is reel is like not feeling it,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh well, oh good, oh well you're right. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pose this question where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's say, right now, there's a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about Russian in Ukraine, right, it's just Russia Ukraine, Russia
Speaker 1: Ukraine constantly and what is what is it that we're
Speaker 1: saying Russia is doing that's wrong that they shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 1: Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Russia can invade a sovereign nation.
Speaker 1: I mean, is no one seeing the irony of the
Speaker 1: United States saying you can't invade sovereign countries. So that's
Speaker 1: a basis for we're going to massively punish the Russian government.
Speaker 1: The Russian government I put in quotes because again it's
Speaker 1: broad scale. Sanctions would punish Russian people. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: punish the Russian government because they invaded a sovereign country.
Speaker 1: The same thing we did we put sanctions for human
Speaker 1: rights violations. The US is you know, obviously country that
Speaker 1: through its own wars and committing war crimes, is abusing
Speaker 1: human rights. And domestically, of course, you can talk about
Speaker 1: systemic racism, you can talk about the fact that we
Speaker 1: have the most prisoners in the world. In fact, one
Speaker 1: of every four prisoners on the planet is in the
Speaker 1: United States. So these are all things that we could
Speaker 1: that we sanction other countries for it that we do ourselves.
Speaker 1: We sanction members of other countries, politicians, and other countries
Speaker 1: on corruption charges. This while while in the U s
Speaker 1: u s. Politicians buy stocks and make money off of
Speaker 1: industries that they regulate, which in any other context we
Speaker 1: would call corruption, but in the US is called capitalism.
Speaker 1: So there's that. So the question becomes, okay, would would
Speaker 1: be justified if right now Americans lost their savings, we're starving,
Speaker 1: couldn't access medicines in a pandemic because of the actions
Speaker 1: of the US government, which, according to the government itself,
Speaker 1: are all sanctionable, sanctionable crimes, right, because that's what we
Speaker 1: say to other countries. So it's just this constant loop
Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. That is, if you pay attention to it
Speaker 1: long enough, you miss being bored. Like I said, boredom
Speaker 1: it is under it. It's just the more you pay attention,
Speaker 1: the more frustrating it is. Becau It's like, what, we're
Speaker 1: just full of ship. That's the only way of saying
Speaker 1: it that that's very honest. It's like we just we
Speaker 1: do things and then punish other countries for doing the
Speaker 1: same things we do. Right, You retweeted a headline about
Speaker 1: over a million fleet as Afghanistan's economy collapses and added
Speaker 1: that Afghans are selling their children and Organs to survive
Speaker 1: while the US is intentionally choking Afghanistan's economy because we
Speaker 1: lost a twenty year war. Like that's yeah, that that's
Speaker 1: just I feel like that is not getting the level
Speaker 1: of attention that it probably deserves in the in the
Speaker 1: mainstream media. That like that is what is happening. That
Speaker 1: is the consequence, and it's being done in these bills,
Speaker 1: and that that if you read them all, it would
Speaker 1: break your brain. Like you you come out like the
Speaker 1: other end with just like a thirty thousand miles stare
Speaker 1: because so like they they know how to do it
Speaker 1: in a way that is so boring that people won't
Speaker 1: pay attention to it. But the the whole idea of
Speaker 1: economic sanctions and like how Americans kind of justified to
Speaker 1: themselves reminds me of the attitude of like corporations who
Speaker 1: want credit for giving jobs to people, like who think
Speaker 1: people should be like grateful for Like Trump at one
Speaker 1: point was asked like what humanitarian thing, like to name
Speaker 1: a single humanitarian thing he'd ever done, and he talked about,
Speaker 1: like what if heat and clothed thousands of people who
Speaker 1: worked for my company? I give so many jobs. I'm
Speaker 1: a job creator, and like that idea that like rather
Speaker 1: than like, these are people that should be grateful too
Speaker 1: because they served me and I get to be a
Speaker 1: billionaire celebrity. Uh. Instead of that, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: they owe me because I created this job, even though
Speaker 1: that job would have been there just with a different
Speaker 1: asshole at the top probably if Donald Trump didn't exist.
Speaker 1: But like with the US and saying is obviously it's different,
Speaker 1: but like I feel like it's similar logic, Like the
Speaker 1: US creates the situations where they need people to do
Speaker 1: things that aren't in their best interest and then starve
Speaker 1: them when they don't do those things. And again they
Speaker 1: act like they should get credit for like any economic
Speaker 1: activity that happens anywhere in the world, and it's like
Speaker 1: their right to withhold economic activity, like the US economy
Speaker 1: is coming over there and like feeding them normally and
Speaker 1: then just choosing not to with economic sanctions. But like
Speaker 1: it would be easier for them to do nothing and
Speaker 1: let children eat and like let their families like get
Speaker 1: the food that like the global economy would bring to them,
Speaker 1: but instead they are doing a great deal of work
Speaker 1: to kill people, to like starve people in ways that
Speaker 1: are just like don't don't make headlines. That the fact
Speaker 1: that it doesn't make headlines is the important part, Right,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of headlines during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Speaker 1: Drawing from Afghanistan, everyone across the media spectrum was constantly
Speaker 1: talking about it, and and on sort of right wing
Speaker 1: media that wanted to criticize Biden for withdrawing. It was
Speaker 1: a question of abandoning the Afghan people, right, it was
Speaker 1: abandoning the So that was the big things, like, oh,
Speaker 1: look what we're doing to Afghan people, because they of
Speaker 1: course care so deeply about the population of Afghanistan. Now
Speaker 1: those same people are just silent on the fact that
Speaker 1: you have I mean, when you read the stories about
Speaker 1: people literally lining up to like sell Organs because they're
Speaker 1: trying to survive there, they're setting when people talk about
Speaker 1: selling their children, there's another situation. There's another humanitarian crisis,
Speaker 1: what has been deemed the worst humanitarian crisis in the
Speaker 1: world in Yemen, which the US is also complicit in.
Speaker 1: Um So I always think, like, think about that fact.
Speaker 1: Here we are talking about human rights, sweet were centering
Speaker 1: human rights in foreign policy, and we love human rights
Speaker 1: are so important to us, and yet the US is
Speaker 1: complicit in the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis and is
Speaker 1: now complicit and actually actively involved in the world's worst
Speaker 1: oncoming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. So number one and number two,
Speaker 1: the US is behind that. In both cases, it was like,
Speaker 1: how can you still reasonably say that we are concerned about,
Speaker 1: you know, the fate of Afghan people when you know
Speaker 1: more than half the population is facing starvation in a
Speaker 1: freezing winter and we just do nothing about it. We
Speaker 1: will spend, so we will spend. The United States will
Speaker 1: spend trillions of dollars, put American soldiers and harms away,
Speaker 1: a wage a war and bomb a country for two
Speaker 1: decades in the name of liberating them, but then won't
Speaker 1: lift a finger to not let them start Like this
Speaker 1: doesn't require the US to do anything, just allow them
Speaker 1: access to what belongs to the Afghan people, Like the
Speaker 1: funds of the Central Bank of Afghanistan belongs to the
Speaker 1: Afghan people, and that is being frozen. They have no
Speaker 1: access to it, which is what central reason why the
Speaker 1: economy is in free fall. It's collapsing, right, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: requiring intervention by the US two put these sanctions in place,
Speaker 1: and that is preventing that. Like it's like, I think
Speaker 1: people just have such a US centric view of the
Speaker 1: world that they're just like, yeah, well they don't get
Speaker 1: the nice things that we give to other countries as
Speaker 1: opposed to know, the US is going in and like
Speaker 1: freezing their economy essentially and starving people as a consequence.
Speaker 1: I we think about the fact that the projections are
Speaker 1: that more Afghans will die of starvation now in the
Speaker 1: as a consequence of US economic policy, then died in
Speaker 1: twenty years war. Wow, it's uh. And then you know,
Speaker 1: naturally the US will then go sell weapons into the
Speaker 1: region and make money off that, causing further destabilization and violence.
Speaker 1: It's great, Yeah, we just make money. It's for us
Speaker 1: to make money, right every time. I was actually one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting points. It's like, oh, look at
Speaker 1: these quote terrorists who have weapons. They get weapons. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you wanted less weapons in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: you could just stop selling them there. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: stop start giving them weapons. It's like, oh, Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: is committing war crimes in Yemen. Gets to the US
Speaker 1: America's number one arms buyers, Saudi Arabia, and we just
Speaker 1: sell them over and over again with no you know,
Speaker 1: with no thought. It's like, where if we have the
Speaker 1: world's leading like I think something like close to the
Speaker 1: entire world's military budget spent by the US, we're also
Speaker 1: the world's number one arms dealer. And it's just like,
Speaker 1: well we are are so much of our economy is
Speaker 1: run on weapons, and it's like, oh, we're we're peaceful nation.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that doesn't add up. That doesn't really add
Speaker 1: up very well. Yeah, that's the degree to which the
Speaker 1: US economy since like the beginning of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: has been propped up by the military military industrial complex.
Speaker 1: And like we we like it came up when people
Speaker 1: were comparing some of the budgetary you know, infrastructure bills
Speaker 1: or like humanitarian aid domestically with the defense budget, and
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, this thing that's being described in
Speaker 1: the media as a ten billion dollar bill that's over
Speaker 1: the course of like a decade, and the military budget
Speaker 1: is ten times that for just this year. Like it's
Speaker 1: just invisible to people and therefore just like so powerful
Speaker 1: and just like gets away with like doing really whatever
Speaker 1: they want. But I think it like is the secret
Speaker 1: behind the U s economy that like Americans don't want
Speaker 1: to look at, is that the entire economy is propped
Speaker 1: up by the fact that they spend as much as
Speaker 1: they want on the military on weapons, and yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: that comparison point was so important right when when we
Speaker 1: looked at like build back better or any anything where
Speaker 1: it with social services, right, like services actually safety nets
Speaker 1: for American people cannot get that passed in Congress, even
Speaker 1: even a Congress that is, you know, a House and
Speaker 1: Senate with Democrat majorities and Democrat white House. I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest frustrations for me is when you
Speaker 1: listen to the Biden ad and say, oh, you know
Speaker 1: the Republicans, I'm like, well, is it Yeah, like it
Speaker 1: is to a certain extent, but also you have the
Speaker 1: majority and everything. So somehow, amazingly the Republicans when they
Speaker 1: are a majority can do whatever they want, and then
Speaker 1: when they're a minority, they can block everything. And Democrats
Speaker 1: are always helpless. Hmm. The majority of minority is always helpless,
Speaker 1: almost as if that's their job. Secretly, that's what they're
Speaker 1: there for, is to be that if they're not all
Speaker 1: money in their pockets as well to like claim the
Speaker 1: progressive ideals, but then actually not not get any of
Speaker 1: them to move forward well in order to sort of
Speaker 1: like sell this idea. First of all, the fact it's
Speaker 1: called defense budget is itself right, like we're not we
Speaker 1: are no one is attacking us here, like when this
Speaker 1: is not happening in America, whereas everywhere else in the
Speaker 1: world there they like if you look at the Middle East,
Speaker 1: especially where we've had the biggest bootprint in the last
Speaker 1: couple of decades, I mean, there's constant, constant war all
Speaker 1: over the region. And so we talked about defense when
Speaker 1: our military is across the world, like no one is
Speaker 1: at our borders. We have the U. S. Military military
Speaker 1: basis all over the world. We have you know, in
Speaker 1: the middle of the Persian Gulf, you have the U. S.
Speaker 1: Coast Guard. I love that. That's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: The U. S. Coast Guard, the US coast, the guard
Speaker 1: of the U. S. Coast is h And so you
Speaker 1: have to have this sort of media hysteria that we're
Speaker 1: always in danger because the only way to justify the
Speaker 1: amount of money we spend is that to protect American
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Biden actually said that today about
Speaker 1: the attack in Syria that took out I don't know
Speaker 1: how many leaders ISIS has, but yet another ISIS leader
Speaker 1: that took out an ISIS leader killed a few several civilians,
Speaker 1: and then he said something to the effective or tweeted
Speaker 1: something to the effective, you know, protecting American lives at
Speaker 1: home or something like. But Syria is not attacking the US, right,
Speaker 1: There are no Syrian troops in the US. There are
Speaker 1: no Syrian troops or military basis anywhere close, not even
Speaker 1: on the same hemisphere. And somehow that's that's the way
Speaker 1: that it's framed. So it's you know, these countries are
Speaker 1: all a threat to the US, Russia, China, Iran. At
Speaker 1: one point it was Iraq, which is why we had
Speaker 1: to invade Afghanistan, which is why we had to invade.
Speaker 1: So you're we're we're bombarded, which is like psychological torture
Speaker 1: to do that to your own people, Like we are
Speaker 1: bombarded with messages that tell us we're always under threat.
Speaker 1: So that justifies just trillions of dollars constantly being spent
Speaker 1: on on wars abroad. Yeah, it's real fucking mess. Here's
Speaker 1: here's my pitch. So we continue to call it a
Speaker 1: defense budget right, but we pivoted to social services. But
Speaker 1: we continue to call the defense budget because we need
Speaker 1: defense from the US government the people, Because even one
Speaker 1: third of that budget could do miracles for this country's
Speaker 1: social services. Yeah, just even the bare minimum to give
Speaker 1: us healthcare. I think it used to be called like
Speaker 1: the war budget or something. Howard Zenn writes about that
Speaker 1: in A People's History of the the United States that the
Speaker 1: Department changed its name when they stopped waging defensive wars
Speaker 1: and moved into starting to be like offensive. They changed
Speaker 1: their name to Department of Defense to throw everybody off
Speaker 1: the scent, and it was Department of War. That's what
Speaker 1: it was. It was the Department of War. In Department
Speaker 1: of War became Department of Defense. Yeah, and can you
Speaker 1: imagine how much they paid the pr agency that helped
Speaker 1: them pivot, Like and we just kind of have a
Speaker 1: little positive spin. Maybe let make it look like we're
Speaker 1: in trouble. They probably gave them cartoon bombs. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: probably where it all comes from. Like, now make all
Speaker 1: imagery a little cartoonish, and everyone will be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, how cute. We do need that nuclear bomb? Okay, great,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a quick break and we're gonna
Speaker 1: come back and we're going to talk about Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: and Dolly Parton because we have to, and we're back
Speaker 1: and just we we kind of got a sneak preview,
Speaker 1: like a there was a leak of an upcoming piece
Speaker 1: of mass media that will presumably feel like a psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience that went bad, just like that Jimmy fallon Paris
Speaker 1: Hilton clip that we talked about last week where they're
Speaker 1: talking about their like board ape and f t s
Speaker 1: and everyone's just like, yeah, board. So we got a
Speaker 1: new one and it feels like a real doozy where
Speaker 1: we got you know, it's like a Tim and Eric
Speaker 1: bit but real because a apparently last week it will
Speaker 1: air next month. But last week it was revealed that
Speaker 1: one of the masked singers was Rudy Giuliani, and I
Speaker 1: think Ken Jong and Robin Thick both walked out. Robin
Speaker 1: activist of our generation, hero huge, you know, And if
Speaker 1: I were if you were to be like pick which
Speaker 1: host would or which judge would walk out, my first
Speaker 1: pick would have been, well, obviously Robin Thick would not
Speaker 1: stand for this classically. Well, I've always like felt a
Speaker 1: little bit better knowing that he's still out there sort
Speaker 1: of protecting our values, you know, just making sure that
Speaker 1: people don't get away with some bullshit like this. Um No,
Speaker 1: I mean, at least in this case, you did the
Speaker 1: right thing. I just can't, like, I'm I've never seen
Speaker 1: an episode of Masked Singer like beginning to end, and
Speaker 1: I have seen a clip. It really feels like a
Speaker 1: bad dream. Like the paper machee masks are scary, the
Speaker 1: editing is like aggressive and strange, and then to have
Speaker 1: the person under the mask be Rudy Giuliani. I mean,
Speaker 1: we should obviously should not be surprised that he said
Speaker 1: yes to this, Like he first of all, like his
Speaker 1: I remember he used to like love to dress up
Speaker 1: as a woman and sing and dance on SNL and
Speaker 1: at any banquet that he would be allowed to do
Speaker 1: that at. He just like needs attention the way other
Speaker 1: living organisms need oxygen. So like, I'm not surprised that
Speaker 1: he said yes to this, um, assuming that he's been
Speaker 1: asking to do this for all seven seasons since they
Speaker 1: started the show. But I don't know. It is on Fox,
Speaker 1: which you know it's made in America for Americans who
Speaker 1: were previously okay with Sarah Palin being on the mask
Speaker 1: singer in the Sean Spicer thing is getting brought up
Speaker 1: a lot in this context. I personally feel like that
Speaker 1: was not the worst thing, because watching him try to
Speaker 1: dance and like where those outfits was a little like
Speaker 1: the shame seeing where like seriously is paraded through the
Speaker 1: city because he's just like not a good dancer and
Speaker 1: not he was not pulling off those looks. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it remains to be seeing how the Giuliani thing goes.
Speaker 1: I think he's probably set a new high point for
Speaker 1: the show in the category of costume that would smell
Speaker 1: the worst when the mask is pulled off, gross, kind
Speaker 1: of like why would you even pull it that imagery,
Speaker 1: It will certainly be sweaty on the inside. Oh so
Speaker 1: much sweat, probably hair dye like pouring down into his face. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is miserable and editing. Have you ever watched like
Speaker 1: a clip of the show when they like do the
Speaker 1: mask reveal and it's yeah, it's like an episode of
Speaker 1: Black Mirror. None of it feels real. You're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a budget for this. Someone is pending a lot
Speaker 1: of money into this. It's wild that this show is
Speaker 1: so popular and has maintained multiple seasons. I think the
Speaker 1: weirdest partner. And this is just like one example of it, obviously,
Speaker 1: But is this like politicians are not entertainers, Like when
Speaker 1: did they become entertainers? They're not comedians. And by the way,
Speaker 1: since we're saying that comedians are also not politicians. So
Speaker 1: it's like this sort of conflating of the seriousness of
Speaker 1: the work that they're supposed to be doing. Right, Like
Speaker 1: people are charged. If you're the U. S. Government, you're
Speaker 1: not only charged with the responsibility of, you know, carrying
Speaker 1: out the will of three plus million people in this country,
Speaker 1: which are most powerful country in the world, and you're
Speaker 1: literally just on a daily basis killing people across the world.
Speaker 1: And now we're watching them as a mass singer and
Speaker 1: like dancing with the Stars, and you're saying, what this
Speaker 1: is not There's a sort of especially for problematic political figures,
Speaker 1: which is someone like Giuliani, there's this thing of rehabilitation
Speaker 1: in media. It's like if you make them funny, if
Speaker 1: you make them clowns, then people will stop thinking about
Speaker 1: their criminality and the things that they did. And it's
Speaker 1: like just Imagine this and to know how ridiculous our
Speaker 1: behavior is, imagine it in another country. It's like, imagine
Speaker 1: we bring up this is what they do in Russia,
Speaker 1: and suddenly it's like, oh, that's disgusting. Like here's this
Speaker 1: person who was part of an administration who did X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z, who who tried to cool the country,
Speaker 1: and now we're inviting him on our fun programming to
Speaker 1: laugh at them and laugh with them. And it's just
Speaker 1: a very bizarre way that we've developed relationships with these politicians.
Speaker 1: And you see see the same thing with it's different
Speaker 1: and categorically someone like Giuliani, but with like George Bush,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like everyone's favorite. Y. I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's more criminal. Yeah, he has no idea the damage
Speaker 1: he's done in the Middle East. And guess what, he's
Speaker 1: a painter. Now, well then you know, screw it. It's fine.
Speaker 1: Now America's national treasure. George W. Bush like great, great, great,
Speaker 1: great great great, Yeah, I will say it does say that.
Speaker 1: Apparently Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Sharon Sharon or Sharon Shersinger there, sure, sure,
Speaker 1: sure you don't know how to say that last name? Sure,
Speaker 1: they both stayed on stage, to which I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: Jenny McCarthy did. But a part of me thinks, like
Speaker 1: Nicole sure Zinger probably has no idea who Rudy Juliani is.
Speaker 1: Who is Nicole Schuer singer she's from, like Pussycat Dolls,
Speaker 1: Like she's just a singer songwriter, that type. But I
Speaker 1: don't think she probably has and she's British, so I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't she probably just like at this cute little
Speaker 1: old man under the mask. I don't know how Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's terrible. I don't know what impression I'm doing, but
Speaker 1: that's the feeling I get that she just has no
Speaker 1: idea what's going on. And then Jenny McCarthy, well, we
Speaker 1: could sure she just doesn't even care. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like she's Rudy Gang. Yeah. Yeah, she feels like she's
Speaker 1: not worried about what Rudy's up to. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like that. The Usually America loves the celebrity who doesn't
Speaker 1: take themselves too seriously, like Jennifer Lawrence, she like fell
Speaker 1: down and talked about pooping her pants and you know
Speaker 1: she's you know, even an athlete. We love when they
Speaker 1: like poke fun at themselves. But like we like we
Speaker 1: should want politicians to take themselves seriously. They should they
Speaker 1: should be taking their job pretty seriously because yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's that's the thing. It's like, I
Speaker 1: also I don't think that we should go to sort
Speaker 1: of like either extreme politicians are human beings. They can
Speaker 1: they're valuable, they're allowed to make mistakes. They sometimes say
Speaker 1: or they have said things a long time ago that
Speaker 1: that people would take issue with, and there should be
Speaker 1: that space to have that like discourse and that discussion.
Speaker 1: But but to sort of to trivialize them is the
Speaker 1: part that is frustrating to watch, Like when you're trivializing
Speaker 1: their actions to then it's like, oh, that was really funny. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Putting the country in danger is not like
Speaker 1: a funny thing. So it's just like very weird choices
Speaker 1: by the and and they do it obviously for the
Speaker 1: same reason you know, media channel or a broadcast company
Speaker 1: will do anything. They'll get ratings. That's all that sort
Speaker 1: of like matters in the end. Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 1: were we're going to cut this part out that this
Speaker 1: whole episode is a viral piece of content for the
Speaker 1: mass singer it was all having you on everything. This
Speaker 1: is branded content to get people to tune in when
Speaker 1: the big reveal comes around. That. Rudy also like, do
Speaker 1: they disguise their voices when they're singing the songs? Like
Speaker 1: are they auto tuned? Yeah? I think it's purposeful, so
Speaker 1: you don't you can't atomatically guess who, okay, because I
Speaker 1: was gonna be like, I'm pretty sure like if I
Speaker 1: heard somebody like breathing heavily and like drunk lee slurring
Speaker 1: over the bag bagging track in a thick New York accent,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, huh, I mean, we know who that is, Like,
Speaker 1: it probably isn't him, right, I've never seen the show,
Speaker 1: but it was the objective to get I mean, how
Speaker 1: would you guess it? If it's not their voice, if
Speaker 1: it's not them singing, how could you possibly guess who
Speaker 1: the person is? I guess I don't understand the premise.
Speaker 1: I think so apparently every season has a theme, and
Speaker 1: this one was the good, the bad, and the cuddly.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's just like it's like people, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a cuddly Who could you want to cuddle with
Speaker 1: more than Rudy Giuliani, a sweaty, alcoholic pervert who tried
Speaker 1: to bring down our country. I also have to correct myself.
Speaker 1: Apparently I was thinking Nicole Sure is someone else. She's
Speaker 1: not British, She's American, so I don't know what her
Speaker 1: excuses with liking or being okay Rudy Giuliani being there.
Speaker 1: I guess she is actually American. Sorry, I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but pussycat dolls I confused them with another I don't know, Sorry, Nicole.
Speaker 1: If there are Nicole Scherzinger stands out there who listened
Speaker 1: to the dailies, I geist, you don't need to listen
Speaker 1: to the dailies. I gist you're good, You're you're good,
Speaker 1: just watch the mass singer or whatever. I actually don't
Speaker 1: know anything about her. Maybe she's an amazing humanitarian who
Speaker 1: just ripped him a new asshole when he took his
Speaker 1: mask off. So I don't think so. Based on this
Speaker 1: article i'm reading, it said her and Jenny McCarthy stayed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just like bantered with him, which what does that
Speaker 1: even mean? How do you banter with Juliani? Oh, the
Speaker 1: guy loves he that guy loves improv. He was actually
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of early UCB people talk
Speaker 1: about how you know he would always at the ass
Speaker 1: cat and then really quickly just to end on a
Speaker 1: I know, Dolly Parton may have just saved the Mexican pizza.
Speaker 1: So a few days back, The take Out, which is
Speaker 1: the fast food blug that we treat like The New
Speaker 1: York Times on this show, pointed out that Dolly Parton
Speaker 1: had voiced her support for the return of the Mexican
Speaker 1: pizza in an interview with Insider, and like not she
Speaker 1: didn't like take a hard stance. She was like, oh,
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite things to eat, and like
Speaker 1: named a bunch of taco bell items and then was like, oh,
Speaker 1: and there's this other one Mexican pizza. They like one
Speaker 1: of the restaurants used to make the Mexican pizza. And
Speaker 1: then somebody told her that they had taken that away
Speaker 1: and were like, should they bring it back? She was
Speaker 1: like yeah, So it wasn't like she waged a campaign,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. She seems like magnetically pulled to
Speaker 1: whatever the right opinion is on everything, and they apparently
Speaker 1: are bringing back the Mexican pizza the spring, according to
Speaker 1: kind of Mashed dot Com, which is sort of like
Speaker 1: the Washington Post of this podcast. So maybe she can
Speaker 1: bring back nacho fries as well, because those are also delicious.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why it's so like it's seasonal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we wanted potatoes become seasonal potatoes and cheese. That's all. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. It's called part in power. I believe whenever
Speaker 1: Parton puts her power into something, it comes back. She
Speaker 1: invests the vaccine, Mexican pizza, all of it. She's her
Speaker 1: powers are strong. History will use is more important, but
Speaker 1: I have my really does feel like Mexican pizza at
Speaker 1: this point based on how I feel this country people
Speaker 1: care more about. Yeah, Mexican pizza in the vaccine. It's
Speaker 1: just like something about it just like really made people happy.
Speaker 1: Now here's what we do. You put the vaccine in
Speaker 1: the Mexican pizza. Thank you. You should be rounding this country.
Speaker 1: You make a vaccine requirement for eating fast food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be incredible. Could you imagine the country would
Speaker 1: burn down? People people, they would be so pissed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what we talked about. I forget where it
Speaker 1: was in the world, but they had talked about having
Speaker 1: I think they actually did put in a vaccine mandate
Speaker 1: for weed and to like in order to buy legal
Speaker 1: weed you had to get be vaccinated, and like they
Speaker 1: saw a huge increase, so it wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: weed and alcohol. Like if you make a vaccine mandate
Speaker 1: for weed and alcohol, like you're done. Everybody will get vaccinated. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was suggesting alcohol, and Miles was like, you know,
Speaker 1: like that that would be the end, Like that would
Speaker 1: be the end of society. People use their ship. But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure there was like a legal weed, like
Speaker 1: a trial of a llegal weed, like vaccine mandate and
Speaker 1: it head in effect. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: fast food. Yeah, alright, sorry, I was trying to find
Speaker 1: I was trying to find it in fact check myself
Speaker 1: to make sure that wasn't just a dream because I
Speaker 1: dream in podcasts, but you're dream in like stories on
Speaker 1: a dock. Yes. Yes, So it's been such a pleasure,
Speaker 1: Dr Red. I will call you Dr Red. It's been
Speaker 1: so wonderful having you on the show. Can't wait to
Speaker 1: have you back again. But you, like I said up top,
Speaker 1: you are a must follow on Twitter. You do an
Speaker 1: amazing like sort of tracked changes, correcting of New York
Speaker 1: Times headlines and just various headlines, and people just need
Speaker 1: to follow you if they don't already, where can people
Speaker 1: find you and follow you? Thank you Jack and on
Speaker 1: a for for having me on today. That was This
Speaker 1: was a really great conversation. And I really actually do
Speaker 1: hope that Dolly hears this part about the nacho price,
Speaker 1: being very serious about that. I love that, and they're
Speaker 1: not readily available to me. I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: I sucked up, like as a as a podcast, so
Speaker 1: I should have asked, like what you guys favorite Like
Speaker 1: lost menu items are like menu items, right, so it's
Speaker 1: not okay. Mine was the soft potato taco and they
Speaker 1: actually did bring it back. I was gonna say, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty pure they have that still. I guess they
Speaker 1: took it away and now they brought it back. I
Speaker 1: put in a special request with Dolly partner and on
Speaker 1: her website where it's like suggestions for me to get
Speaker 1: involved in, and she didn't run it back for me.
Speaker 1: There's actually something else. And this is all revealing just
Speaker 1: how much fast food and specifically talk about I eat.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's good but it's delicious. It
Speaker 1: is with our with our listenership. Unfortunately, that's very good.
Speaker 1: They had on like the Dollar Menu too. It was
Speaker 1: like a beefy Frito burrito and actually have friedo ships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the brito. Yeah. I may have like shed a tear
Speaker 1: when they took that off the menu. I was like,
Speaker 1: you put Rito's in the burrito. That was brilliant. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why we're taking away really good items. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can find me and do not talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff on Twitter. I should. I should probably would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe you should, honestly, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is my next sort of venture on Twitter will
Speaker 1: be fast food items that I could do. I could
Speaker 1: do a lot about that. Actually, um my handle on
Speaker 1: Twitter is s al rad, so it's just at a
Speaker 1: S S A L R A D and that. That
Speaker 1: is really the only social media platform that I pay
Speaker 1: attention to. And in fact, the funny thing about it
Speaker 1: is the only reason I'm on Twitter is because I
Speaker 1: was forced to be by work. When I started working
Speaker 1: at NACK in the beginning of two thousand nineteen, They're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know you have to be on Twitter, do I
Speaker 1: are you sure about that, Like, yeah, no, you don't
Speaker 1: have a PhD. Right, Well, I will say, well, say
Speaker 1: it was a great source of just like fast information
Speaker 1: of like what's going on. And because I wasn't on
Speaker 1: and I wasn't quite aware of the fact that you
Speaker 1: actually we have like heads of state diplomats, these people
Speaker 1: are using this platform too. I mean, if you're Trump,
Speaker 1: he was using it to try to declare wars. So
Speaker 1: I mean it's important to know what's going on. Apparently
Speaker 1: on Twitter there's real stuff happening there. But yes, that's
Speaker 1: the that's the only social media platform that I am
Speaker 1: active on. Cool And is there a tweet or some
Speaker 1: work of social media you've been enjoying. Uh Nima Shirazi
Speaker 1: had a tweet actually about the Bob Menendez nuclear weapon
Speaker 1: graphic something where he called because the funny thing about
Speaker 1: the graphic too, is it supposed to so he's just
Speaker 1: this like a blimp cartoon looking bomb and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be the Iranian flag. So it's like green, white,
Speaker 1: and red, except the stripes are a vertical instead of horizontal,
Speaker 1: and so it's actually the Italian flag and not the flag.
Speaker 1: And so you've have pointed that out, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was hilarious because we were just like, I have
Speaker 1: to read the tweet. Actually, well, yeah, you guys can
Speaker 1: pull up the tweet because it's pretty it's pretty funny
Speaker 1: that he basically says something about Iran is developing its
Speaker 1: safeguard nuclear energy program using an Italian blip. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was damn that is true though. That's a
Speaker 1: classic Iranian move. Anna, where can people find you and
Speaker 1: follow you? What's the tweet you've been enjoying? I'm at
Speaker 1: a host n on Twitter. A few tweets I'm enjoying.
Speaker 1: One is from Zack Anner at Zack Anner and it's
Speaker 1: the mass Singer is not the bastion of integrity. I
Speaker 1: once believed it to be right. And then one from
Speaker 1: Meredith at Deats Underscore. Meredith, my dad just texted me.
Speaker 1: Can you give me a call? So either he wants
Speaker 1: to say hi or my whole family is dead, it
Speaker 1: would be both. Oh my god. I saw that too,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was hilarious because I could relate
Speaker 1: to it so much. Yeah, but that's always like, give
Speaker 1: me a call and I'm like, oh my god, what happened?
Speaker 1: And he's like what's up. Yeah, and you're like, what, God,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Don't send those texts. And there's actually
Speaker 1: it's every time. Every time my dad's like leaves me
Speaker 1: a voice message like oh no, give me a call back,
Speaker 1: and then I called back and he's like, so I
Speaker 1: was at Costco and and you're like, what do you?
Speaker 1: And like when I leave a message or like ask
Speaker 1: somebody to call me or anything like that, I am
Speaker 1: always so I'm like, but don't worry, nothing's wrong, Like
Speaker 1: everything's good. Like I feel like that's how you tell
Speaker 1: part of people who have like anxiety is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets me. I always get scared for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And then it's always just my dad was just like
Speaker 1: I saw some I saw this. It's always at Costco.
Speaker 1: My dad's always at Costco. He goes every day and
Speaker 1: now that he's retired and he has nothing to do,
Speaker 1: and it's always like something he saw at Costco that
Speaker 1: he thought maybe I should go to my Costco in
Speaker 1: l a and see if they have because maybe I'd
Speaker 1: be interested in it, but maybe not. I don't know
Speaker 1: something to think about. Anyway, I was in the garden
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my god, just text me like
Speaker 1: I was at Costco. Would love to tell you about
Speaker 1: something versus call me why you like, Okay, everyone died.
Speaker 1: That's what I got. You can find me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at jack Underscore. O'Brien, uh tweet I enjoyed Professor Hinckley
Speaker 1: at prof Underscore. Hinckley tweeted, Babe, listen, I need you
Speaker 1: to bring me fifteen thousand dollars cash my passport. I
Speaker 1: out pizza the Hut and there after me and then
Speaker 1: Mike Scolland. I don't want to read this. I feel embarrassed,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to Mike Scolland's tweeted me me jerking
Speaker 1: off a dog with the Jackass boys. So you guys
Speaker 1: said you have a show? What's it about? Is so stupid?
Speaker 1: One really got me like he doesn't know that this
Speaker 1: is part of the show. Explained the joke to you anyways. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at daily zeit guys
Speaker 1: for at the Daily Ze Guist on Instagram. We have
Speaker 1: a Facebook fan page on a website daily z guys
Speaker 1: dot com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes
Speaker 1: were link off to the information that we talked about
Speaker 1: today's episode as well as a song that we think
Speaker 1: you might enjoy. And we're gonna ask super producer Justin
Speaker 1: to come on in and uh tell the people about
Speaker 1: a song that he thinks they might enjoy. That we
Speaker 1: will be linking off too on the footnotes. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for the intro. Jack. I've noticed for the
Speaker 1: every day so far February, you've been highlighting black musicians,
Speaker 1: so I just want to keep that trend going. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we you know, make it through the whole month. But
Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs I'm enjoying right now is
Speaker 1: by a very well known artist, burn A Boy. But
Speaker 1: this song really hits me because if you want to
Speaker 1: feel like you're driving in an open top jeep on
Speaker 1: a beach in subtropical Africa for just a few minutes,
Speaker 1: turn on this thing. Okay, this is Cony Baje. I
Speaker 1: think I'm mispronouncing that because I have stupid American ears
Speaker 1: and this is how they hear them, and it sound
Speaker 1: my stupid American mouth reinterprets that sound. Um. But this
Speaker 1: the key to this tracks funkiness is its syncopatient, the percussion,
Speaker 1: the guitars, the way they play off of each other,
Speaker 1: and then the rhythms and the counter melodies off boy,
Speaker 1: they will just send you to another place. You can
Speaker 1: have so much fun analyzing the little pieces of this
Speaker 1: song that he keeps going in. There's all types of
Speaker 1: saxophones and strings and little pieces of African percussion that
Speaker 1: your mind can just plan to flag in and and
Speaker 1: just just sit there and enjoy your your time. So
Speaker 1: check this out. This is Cony boj Ko and I
Speaker 1: Be a j E by burna Boy, And you can
Speaker 1: check that out and put mopes all right. Damn, If
Speaker 1: I ever make a piece of music, I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: Justin to describe it to people. They'll probably ship on
Speaker 1: it because it will be bad. But he's good at that.
Speaker 1: He's really good at describing songs anyways. The Daily Zeitgeist
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That
Speaker 1: is going to do it for us this morning. We
Speaker 1: are back this afternoon to tell you what's trending though,
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you all then. By Hi,