December 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Citizen journalist Ethan Faulkner joins me to expose the quiet dismantling of small-town America. As local businesses vanish, corporate giants move in, reshaping communities and consolidating economic power. We break down what’s happening on the ground, why mom-and-pop shops are being pushed out, and what this trend means for the future of American independence and self-sufficiency.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to Man in America, a voice of reason in a
world gone mad. I'm your host,Seth Holehouse. Let me ask you a
question. When you drive throughsmall town or Middle America,
you're driving through stripmalls and the Walgreens and the
Starbucks and the Applebee's onthe corner, is this the America
(00:38):
that you remember? Is this theAmerica of your childhood?
The America where you knew theowner of every shop on Main
Street, where the guy that ranthe local hardware store knew
your name and knew your dog'sname and would ask you how
you're doing when you go inthere? Because that's not the
America that I'm seeing. It'sthe America I remember. I grew
(01:00):
up in a very small town calledPlain City, Ohio, which has now
grown a lot larger. It's outsideof Columbus, Ohio.
But the America I remember wasbeautiful. You knew everybody.
There was a community. You know,whether it was, you know, my
best friend's dad owned thelocal, you know, auto shop, and
if I had car troubles, I'd gotake him, you know, to for him
(01:22):
to look at the car, or, youknow, someone else that owned
the local Amish cheese shopwhere we'd go get our cheese and
meats, that were, you know,locally produced. But that
America, it seems like itdoesn't exist anymore.
Or if it does, you find theselittle slices of it. You find
this cute little town somewherein, you know, kind of middle of
nowhere, Pennsylvania. Like, oh,wow, this is kind of neat.
(01:43):
There's a cute little coffeeshop, and there's a little deli,
but that's disappearing. Andit's really sad, actually,
because we're fighting so muchfor this America.
But it feels like the soul ofwhat represents America has been
strip mined, has beenobliterated. And that America is
(02:04):
turning into something wheresmall towns or medium sized
towns, you go in there, and allyou've got are ugly strip malls,
retail chains that you see inevery other city, a few small
local businesses, a bunch ofsmall local hair salons or nail
salons, of course. But thequestion is what's really
happening? And so my guest todayis a guy named Ethan Faulkner.
(02:27):
Now he runs a Substack that'scalled the Common Sense Rebel,
which I'll make sure that linkis in the description.
And my wife discovered hissubstack somehow, and she sent
it to me and started reading it.And I was like, I'm very
fascinated by this guy and whathe's writing about. And he's got
this really interesting, justreal perspective on what's
(02:51):
happening in America. And onearticle that he wrote, which
we're gonna be focusing a lot ontoday, is basically how the core
of America, these smallbusinesses and everything are
being gutted. And it's it'sintentional.
I mean, it describes whathappens when a Walmart moves
into a town. How does thataffect the local businesses?
What happens when the localpharmacy is replaced by a CVS?
(03:14):
How does that change the prices?What happened when Amazon came
on the stage?
And initially, it was a greatthing. All these brick and
mortar businesses now had thisamazing website to sell their
products to consumers all acrossthe country. There's a huge
audience there. But what happenswhen Amazon takes all the data
(03:35):
from that company and sees, oh,wow, this company is selling
staplers. So we're gonna nowmanufacture Amazon Basics
staplers.
We're gonna put those staplersin there, we're and gonna put
them in the top spot, so thatother local business no longer
can sell his staplers becauseAmazon is manufacturing these
Amazon Basics staplers in bulkin China, underpricing the local
(03:57):
competitor, and pulling them outof business, especially
considering that local businessperson is paying upwards of 30
percent or more of a fee toAmazon to use their platform. So
this is a very serious topic,and what I like about Ethan is
that he's just a simple Americanguy, right? He's just a man in
(04:17):
America, right? And he's a gasstation attendant. It's a
beautiful story, here he is,he's worked at a gas station for
the past ten years, and he'sobserving all these changes in
his local community.
He's observing the change in thesentiment of the people coming
into the gas station. He's seenthem become more confused, more
angry, more divided. And thenhe's also watching right around
(04:41):
the area of this gas station.He's watching, Oh, this small
local business is now gone. It'snow a CVS.
That small diner is now gone.It's a Starbucks. Oh, that other
place that, you know, shut downafter a fire, it never reopened.
Now there's a Walmart, there's aWalgreens, a CVS. There's all
these big corporate chains thatare coming in.
(05:03):
This is a really importantdiscussion. It's not some grand
profound discussion where we'rekind of digging into the
Committee of three hundred andthe bloodlines. It's not about
that. It's the simple thingshappening in this country. It's
a sober look at what's happeningto the America that I remember
it used to be.
And in fact, that's a big reasonfor this show and part of why I
(05:27):
even called it Man in America,is it's just a quest. It's a
journey to understand what isAmerica? What was America? What
was America like in thethirties, in the forties, in the
fifties? What was life likethen?
What is life like now? Try togain some perspective. Because
(05:48):
I've got children, I've gotfamily, I want to see a future
that's worth living and fightingfor. But if our future is that
all the small local businessesare closed down, and we have
these, these big industrial boxstores selling us stuff made in
China, and we're basically justkind of living under a corporate
(06:08):
oligarchy or something. That'snot the future that I want.
I want a future of small townsand local entrepreneurs that are
running these beautiful littlecoffee shops and, you know,
mechanic shops and, you know,just there's community. And
that's, that's what I want. Idon't want you know, go get my
groceries at Walmart, like whichI don't. Like, I go as much as I
can, I go to the local farmmarket, we get our milk at the
(06:30):
local raw milk farm? That's whatI want.
And so, this is just gonna be adive into this. And again, Ethan
is just I think this is kind offun, actually. It's a great
interview, and he hasn't done alot of interviews. He's a
brilliant writer. His substackis just like prolifically
amazing.
And so, you can see it's like,this guy really shines with
words. And so, I reached out tohim, and he's like, Cool, great.
(06:55):
So this, I think, is one of hisfirst interviews he's done like
this. And I think we're gonnahave some fun. And I think it
just we're gonna do is just havea sober discussion about what's
actually going on here inAmerica, and what we can do
about it.
So, I hope you enjoyed theinterview with Ethan. I'll make
sure that his links are in thedescription below. And just a
(07:15):
reminder that if you're watchingthis show on Rumble, thank you
very much for supporting a freespeech platform. Just remember
to hit the thumbs up button. Goahead, do it right now.
It'll feel good. Alright, hitthat thumbs up button, and also
make sure you're subscribed tothe channel. And I also
appreciate the comments youleave too. I read almost almost
all of them. I don't alwaysrespond.
(07:37):
I'm not good at responding tothings, but I do read a lot, and
I really appreciate yourcomments, good or bad. So
anyway, let's go and dive intothe interview with Ethan
Faulkner. Ethan Faulkner, man,it's good to have you on the
show. I'm a big fan of yourSubstack, and it's always nice
to put a face behind something.And it's also nice to have
someone that will step in frontof a camera instead of hiding
(07:58):
just behind some anonymous, youknow, name online, and and here
you are in the flesh.
So, Ethan, it's it's good tohave you on, man.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
It's nice to meet you, man. One of my first
interviews, I'm excited to behere.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well, good. Good. I'm glad that hopefully I can kind
of pull you into this space alittle bit because you've got
your actually, I'll it up herereal quick, but you have a
brilliant Substack. I mean, thisthis is your main homepage for
it. And, I'll let people exploreon their own.
I'll make sure that your link isin the description. It's
(08:31):
commonsenserebel.substack.com.And there's a lot that we can
dive into, but there's oneparticular article that my wife
sent me that really, reallystood out. And it's this post
that says, your town isn'tchanging. It's being
deliberately murdered.
And so so I'll read the intro,and I'll let you just kind of
take it wherever you want. Butit says, for ten years, I've
(08:54):
watched from my gas stationregister as corporate chains
replaced every small business.This isn't progress. It's
corporate occupation, and I havethe receipts. So instead of me
reading it, you know, I've gotthe author here.
So why don't you just walk usthrough what your what your kind
of the story that you'repainting, or the the story that
(09:15):
you're writing in this articlehere?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah. So I grew up in a really, really small town. So
this is actually the town nextdoor because even though I
watched changes happen here,like, a bakery burned down,
nothing ever got replaced, I'veseen the the small corner market
get even smaller. Where I reallysee the changes is is in this
(09:38):
this small city next door calledWareham. And I'm that's actually
exactly the town I'm talkingabout, and that's where I've
been working at the gas stationfor ten years too.
So, practically, we've hadWalmart move in, Target move in,
Wendy's move in, Popeyes chickenmove in, all on top of places
(09:59):
that used to be businesses thatweren't changed. And that's just
in one corner of the of the citythat I work in. So that's what
inspired it. And I call itcorporate deserts. They're
corporate deserts because youit's a desert because you want
to get resources and you want toto get nourishment.
(10:23):
Right? But when you go to theWalmart or the Target, you might
get that instant gratification,but the money that you're
spending doesn't go into yourlocal economy even to the same
extent as, like, an O'Reilly'sAuto Parts or, like, a smaller
chain. Those the bigger thechain is, the bigger their
supply chain in general or allyou know, there's lots of
(10:48):
elements to business. The moneygoes out of your account,
period.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So I'm gonna quickly read through just this little
kind of intro section, becausethis is what really hooked it
for me. It says, my gasstation's on a main road. When I
started this job a decade ago, Iwas surrounded by a community.
There was a family owned bakeryon the corner, a local hardware
store run by a guy named Mark,two independent pharmacies and a
(11:14):
diner where you can get a coffeefor a buck. Today, the bakery is
a CVS, the hardware store is askeleton hollowed out by a new
Walmart neighborhood market thatopened two miles away.
The diner is a Starbucks. Thepharmacies are both gone,
replaced by a single massiveWalgreens. This isn't change,
it's not evolution. It's theresult of a deliberate,
(11:36):
systematic or systemic andpredatory campaign. Your town
isn't changing, it's beinghollowed out.
And the people doing it arecounting on you being too
distracted by their politicalpuppet show to notice. And,
like, that's that's really it,man. It's like, so many people
are just distracted with thebread and circuses.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And I feel like you're saying the word systemic
reading it right there. Thatword is gonna trigger some
people. Don't systemic. Whatdoes that mean? Right?
What it means is it's that is aa side effect of the system.
It's an emerging factor. That'sall it means.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And so and what's crazy is that, you know, my wife
and I, we we really try hard toshop at local businesses. We try
hard to buy made in America. Andthere's a there's a little, kind
of coffee shop, farm type thingclose to us. And it's kind of
sad because you walk in there,and it looks like mean, it is.
(12:32):
It's this little local coffeeshop, you know, owned by people
that live here and everything.
But you go in there, and theyhave all these nice seasonal
decorations, you know, likelittle pumpkin things, or for
Christmas, they've got ornamentsand wreaths, and But you look at
the back, and almosteverything's made in China. And
it's just like, Ugh, why can'tthese be sourced from local
artisans? And I feel like thatthat's just something about our
(12:54):
country that has changed somuch. Think you do a great job
highlighting it in the articlethat it's like the soul of our
country are is the people. It'sthe small little shops, the
small local barbershop or thehardware store we go in.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I call them the producers. They're the
producers.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Exactly. That's a great word for it too, because
they produce real things. Theydon't just produce products,
they produce community, whicharguably is more important than
products. They producerelationships and fulfillment.
But it's like, you walk into aWalmart or, you know, Best Buy
or any of these big, big, youknow, or a Walgreens, it's
(13:36):
soulless.
That's that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Because the producers are forced to work for for a a
company that doesn't have theirinterest in mind. So what's
where's the soul going? Youknow? If if somebody does have a
soul, you give them props. Like,I don't know.
I try my best while I'm workingat the gas station.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Exactly. And so what are, like Well, I guess you've
got some information in there,which I think is helpful. Let me
know if you want me to pull itup, because I can, because it's
more specific figures. But Iknow that you hit on some of the
information as it relates to howmuch money these companies like,
every basically, every dollaryou pay to a Walmart, how much
(14:19):
of it actually stays in yourcommunity versus when you just
have a small local business thatyou're when you pay that money,
you're actually putting moneyinto your community. So tell
tell us a little about that andhow how our money is actually
leaving these communitiesthrough these big corporations.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah. I think the best model so I already gave
you, like, half of the contrastwhen I explained how Walmart has
this big chain of businessexpenses. That's where all the
money so so the money spreads.Alright? And then the other side
of that contrast would be theones they only have one
(14:54):
business.
They're just one store. It'sowned by a few people. So when
you pay money to them, they'regoing to spend money their money
in the locally, most unlessthey're just gonna move the next
week. You know what I mean? Soit's it's really that simple.
And when I say that there's achain like, if you do a smaller
(15:16):
chain, it's because there'sthere's chains that operate
within regions, right, andsometimes within states. And so
you're keeping it closer tohome, that's what I mean. And
when you say America first,that's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And talk a little bit about the guess, it's almost
like antitrust, but it's I findthat doesn't really encompass
it. Because what happens whenthese companies come in and how
they're able to put the otherlocal businesses out of business
through loss leader products,through, you know, you know,
(15:51):
mass volume purchasing, they'venickel and dimed the factories
down to, like, almost losingmoney. Explain that, because
that's also really helpful inunderstanding, like, why these
small businesses, after, say,two years with Starbucks coming
in on a key corner, the localcoffee shop can't can't even,
continue.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Profit margins say that that is the easiest way to
secure money. So, like, thesuppliers want to to secure a
sale. So they offer lower ratesto people who can afford to buy
more. And that just makes sense.So this is something that this
is why we have government.
(16:31):
The only way to fix this is somesort of change. I don't know
what to say because you wantthese companies to succeed. I am
a capitalist. You're acapitalist. You know they wanna
make money, profit.
The incentive is to is to what'sthe word? Not just condense, but
(16:56):
just put all the power, all themoney into the same companies.
Right? Monopolies, really.Because that is the structure
that can make the most money cansecure the most money for the
suppliers.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And so, like, on your on your Substack, you've you've
gone I'll I'll pull it up againso people can see the just the
the kind of the the broad amountof content. You know, you're
you're covering everything fromEpstein, BlackRock, Vanguard.
You got an article. BlackRockand Vanguard own the Epstein
(17:30):
Network. I'm sure that's a goodone.
The Financial Coup, you know,there's a lot going into here.
But I guess it's like, you youknow, you're not just someone
who's commenting on small
Speaker 2 (17:39):
titles are half half clickbait. Half clickbait.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah. We kinda what I we kinda have to be. Right?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Mhmm. So, like, the idea of, like, the BlackRock and
Vanguard owned, the FC Network,I won't get too much into it,
but it's just the point thatthey have so much property.
Right? Their their asset firmsthat own so much shares, major
shares of so many companies,they had the major shares of all
the infrastructure that thatEpstein was working in. And
Speaker 1 (18:07):
so looking at what's happening to America in these
small towns and just the guttingof them, you imply, and you back
up this information too, thatthis is it's coordinated, it's
intentional. It's not anaccident. It's not just free
(18:28):
market capitalism evolving.What's the like, what's the
bigger plan here? And where doesthis lead?
Like, where do you see Americain ten years after this?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
That's interesting. I've been learning this stuff as
I publish it. Alright. I'm Ireally am a a normal guy who
really was into media, like butentertainment media mostly. It's
my background.
I did sales for a little bit.But then when the government
started to become so polarized,right, and I see my neighbors
(19:02):
start fighting each other,that's when I really got into
this. So I don't really knowwhat the plan is or if it's even
as an organization. I think isthat there doesn't need to be a
plan. It's individualincentives.
The system and it can still beon purpose, but the the
(19:23):
incentives are are structured ina way that everything aligns for
these this ideology. I call it aparasitic ideology to to persist
throughout time where where theywanna control populations
because they're easier tomanage, and they can do it.
They've been doing it throughdifferent so I track, like, Nazi
(19:48):
eugenics. It goes back evenfurther, but I'll start there.
And how that has changed overtime into, like, modern
psychology, where where whatthey do to try to control the
population is by having amonopoly on defining what what
is a real disease.
So, like, you have to have moneyto define these things. And so
(20:11):
they have control over overdefinitions of words and what's
a normal behavior instead ofjust killing people like they
used to. And, yeah, I don'tthink it needs there might be a
group of people who are justvery sadistic, having fun
coordinating, but I don't thinkthere needs to be. It's just if
someone is a whole lot of peoplehave incentives to make money,
(20:36):
We're fucked. I don't know whatto say.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting actually, because I
my wife and talk a lot aboutthese things, and that's kind of
if you look at where things leadto if left just to the, I guess,
to the laws of the current waythat our society works with,
which I think it's, you know,it's capitalism, but I almost
feel like it's become like cronycorporate, you know,
(21:01):
multinational capitalism, right?Where it's like, how can a small
local baker compete with the thethe massive global baking chain?
Right? And, of course, there areways, and I think that more
people are waking up to it, andthey're they're choosing to
support the local shop. They'rechoosing to, like, say, wow,
you've only got six ingredientsin your doughnut.
And, you know, Krispy Kreme'sgot 68 ingredients in their
(21:22):
donuts, right? So you're seeingsome of that happen, but it's
like, when I look at this, Ifeel like, okay, where it's
leading, if extrapolate, say,ten, twenty, thirty years down
the road, it's almost likeeventually you get to a point
where brands don't even exist.It's like you have this big
cement based building that justsays,
Speaker 2 (21:42):
oh my god.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know what I mean? And next to it is the big cement
building that says clothing. Andthen I
Speaker 2 (21:48):
already look at it like that Because the asset
firms own all of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
They do. They do.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Free of Blackrock Vanguard's history.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Exactly. And but actually, so I want to touch on
Amazon a little bit, becauseactually, I'll pull the article
back up because, let me find outwhere there's a part in here
talking It about really is. Letme see here. Yeah, here we go.
The Amazon spy now.
I'm just gonna read this littlesection really quickly, and
(22:22):
then, I'll let you respond toit. It says, Amazon is the apex
predator. It built the mainstreet of the twenty first
century and now functions as itsfeudal lord, waging war on the
very sellers it claims toempower. It's a three step
execution. One, the monopolytoll.
Amazon extracts a toll of 30% ormore from its sellers. This
(22:43):
makes real profitabilityimpossible. Two, the spy
network. Amazon spies on itssellers data, their sales, their
costs, or suppliers. Three, thecopy paste.
It then uses that stolen data tocreate its own competing Amazon
basics products, which it thenfor rigs the game, then places
higher in the search resultsthan the original product it
(23:04):
just copied. This is this is theheads heads I win, tails you
lose system. It's a closed loopof extraction designed to turn
every independent innovator intoa data point to be harvested and
then replaced. And this isreally such an important point,
because if you look at howAmazon has changed the
(23:24):
landscape, especially especiallyduring COVID, like, you know, if
you look at all the differentkind of, diabolical plans that
could have come out of theCOVID, you know, pandemic, I
think one of the biggest oneswas actually gutting America gut
gutting all these smallbusinesses in America. It's
similar to the Great Depression,right, which got rid of all
(23:45):
these independent banks.
The Great Depression, I think,was a manufactured crisis to
consolidate the banking industryin America. Other things as
well. The
Speaker 2 (23:53):
banks are fucked right now.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Oh, that's a that's a whole other topic too is what's
happening with Yeah. And so whatyou look at with Amazon, though,
it's like, how many peoplestopped going to a local store,
either because they were scaredor because the store was closed
and just ordered off of Amazon.But then you look at it and it
you made a good point, though.It's like, you look at the
Amazon basics stuff, and Ihadn't thought about it. I mean,
(24:16):
we have a bunch of Amazon basicstuff, like, know, if you need a
pair of scissors or something.
It's like, these these work.They got good reviews. And it's
Speaker 2 (24:22):
the old Walmart no name brand strategy.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Exactly. Online. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They save their money. You let it see for you
feel happier, but the the
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Actually, can you say it one more time? I think maybe
because you're leaning forward,your mic wasn't picking up. I
think your mic is yeah. Itwasn't hearing you go over your
hands.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
My bad.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Oh, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I said so, basically, they spend less money, so you're
happy as a customer, but that'sit's part of the the money going
out of America and also moreconsolidation of money going
into the same company. Creatingleverage over suppliers.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
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Exactly. And so, well, hittingon the bankers, this is
something that I'd love to hearyour thoughts on. Because I've
also I'm very fascinated with,you know, just money and the
role that money's played in oursociety and what's happening
with with the banks and bankers.So when you say, you know,
(26:38):
basically, a kinda like thebanks are screwed. Right?
What what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So I guess they're not screwed. I mean, it's it's
fucked up is what I really meantto say. I didn't realize till
recently when I was looking intothe Patriot Act, how it enabled
a lot of the offshore bankingand too big to fail systems
where these banks literally cancommit felonies and just pay a
(27:09):
fine. And they can do offshorebanking to an extent that's
written in the legislation forpurposes of the government, but
it's all shadowed. You can't seeit.
So what else are they doing typethings? Yeah. I learned that
recently. It all happened rightafter 09:11. The day after.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah. Imagine that. How how convenient. One so one
thing I actually wanted to Ijust I was just kind of
thinking, I think it's animportant thing to touch on. So,
you know, you've worked you'reworking a register at a gas
station, right?
Which is, you know like, youcould say that it's similar to
(27:52):
being the guy that works at thelocal hardware store, right?
It's like such an embedded partof the community and kind of
providing one of the coreservices that makes a community
run. But it's also, I think itgives you a finger on the pulse.
And so, I can tell that you'requite observant. What have you
noticed in the behavior ofpeople over the last ten years?
(28:17):
Like, how has the behavior ofpeople changed? Because like, I
used to work in a mall when Iwas back in college, and I
worked in one little kiosk, andI love people watching. And you
can just sit and watch, and youcan see through you know,
whether through your salesinteractions or just watching,
you can see just the overallflow of behavior of people. But
what have you I mean, ten yearsis a long time to sit there at
the kind of that little nexuspoint of a community. What are
(28:39):
you seeing?
How have people changed in thepast decade?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Interesting you asked that. That's the whole reason
why I made my sub sec. It'sbecause I was I was sick and fed
up of watching. Everyone'sconfused, and they're reciting
lines from scripts half the timetrying to explain the reason why
things are going on. That that'show I feel, and it's been
getting worse and worse.
(29:04):
Like, you can blame immigrantsfor some things, and you can
blame freaking whatever you wantabout the ICE things going on
for but we need to realize thatit's the knocks coming from from
not the government side. Like,you know what I mean? So what
(29:26):
I've seen I'm gonna talk aboutpeople. They're angry. They
don't like the prices, butthey're still buying it.
And and they always have anexcuse for who to blame, and
it's always someone different.No one can agree on who who it
is. And you can put some blamein certain corners for
(29:48):
politicians. Absolutely. But youneed to think about their
incentives and the incentiveswe've allowed for in the system.
How do we elect a any type ofleader who actually puts our
interests first when there arepeople with bags and bags of
(30:10):
money begging for their votesevery day, and it's allowed.
Like, we legally have, like,avenues for that. It just seems
difficult.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And so you mentioned people are confused, they're
upset, things are getting moreexpensive, they're angry. What
about hope? Like, do you thinkthat are you seeing an overall
just hopelessness in people?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes. I say there's three, there's three layers to a
prison. I tried to write it alldown in like a, kinda like a
creating a new universe becausebecause the they have so much
control over language. We kindahave to take it back. Like,
there's three layers.
The top one is economic terror.Like, the fact that if you don't
(31:03):
go to work, you can lose yourjob. But, like like, say you are
on your way to work and you youpop your tire. If you have a
nice boss, they'll give you aslack, but, like, they don't
have to. They can just not payyou for that day.
And, like, so that's theeconomic terror. Every day,
you're worried about money. Andthen there's the great
distraction, which is what Ithink is the idea of turning
(31:26):
issues that are really aboutclass class issues, about the
wealth disparity and andextraction, what I call
extraction from the theproducers, the working class.
They they try to pin it on onother working class people. So
(31:47):
that that's the example for,like, ICE where, like, people
doing their jobs, the Democratsgetting mad at them, and then
also immigrants who are justtrying to make a living.
Most of them people getting mad.It's like, yes. Those things are
affecting the current norms, andit's costing money. But the idea
(32:07):
is we're shifting blame from thepeople profiting off of it to
the people who are just tryingto participate and produce. And
it seems to be almostintentional not just because of
confidence.
It's kind of like one of thosethings where they don't have to
coordinate because all theincentives combine because the
(32:29):
companies have the incentives tomake money and the politicians
have the incentive to getelected. And it's so easy to get
people into identity politics.And I don't mean just like the
color of your skin. I mean,people identify as as liberal or
conservative, and they want torecite lines that that make sure
(32:52):
they don't divert from what theythink that means, and that works
in the favor of these people whoare just offending off of it.
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the last?
Do you think there's threelayers, right? Oh, yeah. What
was the final one?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Learned helplessness. Learned helplessness. You the
first thing you brought up, it'slearned because we I think when
we're younger, we have biggerideas, and we don't we don't
feel like we have to submit towhat's normal. That's why I
think it's learned. And we thinkthat we have to play play within
(35:02):
what we hear on TV and howeverybody else is acting to
things instead of thinkingdeeper.
That's why I think it's alearned helplessness. It's it's
not nests. Like, revolutionshappen because that helplessness
reaches a breaking point. Idon't want that to happen. Yeah.
That's do stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
That's an interesting point in looking at that, that
revolutions happen happen whenhelplessness reaches a breaking
point. And that's actually I'dprobably say it's probably true
in many ways. I know a lot ofrevolutions rev sorry,
revolutions have beenmanufactured, you know, for
certain reasons, and they'vebeen part of social engineering
and regime change operations.But I do think that that's
(35:43):
actually it's a really importantpoint that when people look for
the avenues to change, alright,it's almost like it's similar to
someone who say is trying tolose weight, right? Say they've
tried 10 different diets,they've tried working out, they
tried all these different thingsand nothing is working, they
become, they're just like, Screwit, doesn't matter, right?
(36:05):
Like, and maybe they're gonna gothen get some very extreme
surgery, right? Because it'slike, I've tried everything, I
can't fix it, So let's move tolike the more extreme thing. And
I think it's actually similar tolooking at the fabric of our
society, and this learnedhelplessness is that I am
wondering, where does this lead?Because I think a lot of
Americans, they think a lot ofAmericans thought, Okay, let's
(36:28):
put Trump in office. Obviously,enough to vote him in.
They say, Okay, we're gonna putTrump in office, he's gonna fix
all these things, right? He'sgonna fix the economy. He maybe
he's gonna, you know, shut downthe Federal Reserve, he's gonna
do all these things. Now,granted, he's done some things,
he's, you know, secured theborder, and he's helped kind of
correct the transgender sportsissues, and it's like, okay,
(36:48):
there's some things that he'sdone, but I mean, have you
noticed, say in the past sixmonths, have you noticed that
people are just like, all of asudden, this weight is off their
shoulders, and now they're,they're like inspired, they feel
like they're living in thegolden age?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah. I don't think so. And I don't know if it's
really Trump Trump's faultnecessarily. Because once you're
you're in there, he says he'sgonna drain the swamp. Right?
But the swamp is is it it's likewhen you drain the swamp, who
fills it in? More people withthe same incentives. Yeah. Like,
(37:26):
he can even if they'reloyalists, I know what to think
about it. I just I think I needto do more research on systems
because or find people.
You have a big audience who whowho are into systems reach out
to me because I know how to towrite write in a way that gets
(37:48):
people to listen. And I do thinkthat we can fix the way things
work within government. If if wecreate a, like, a third voting
block that puts pressure on onboth parties to pick a candidate
that will because, like, theRepublican Party has already
proven to us that they canchange their platform if they
(38:11):
see a voting block.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But they kinda So if we create a a more narrow voting
block that's less about relyingon on a person, which is, like,
Trump had good ideas, but it's awe need to focus on on shared
values. And he tried to do that,but we need to reach across the
(38:37):
lines where we can easily, whichis poverty. Because social
issues are all exasperated. WhenI say social issues, I mean,
yeah, culture, like, you feelinglike you're not allowed to to to
talk about your religion aspublicly is is a social kind of
issue and so is, like, I don'tknow if being open about being
(39:01):
gay, I guess. But all everybodyfeels more stressed out, is more
agitated when they have lessmoney, and more crimes happen
when they have less money.
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah. No. It's a good point. It's a good point. And
how does that so how does thatfit into the war on hope?
Right? We talked earlier aboutpeople being hopeless. And I
know that you have a whole kindof section of your sub sack
where you highlighted the war onhope, which I think is it's
similar to the learnedhelplessness, but like talk a
(39:36):
little bit about hope, and therole of hope in a prison and the
role of hope in a free society.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Alright. We we feel like they're we're in a
deterministic system when welose hope. Because the idea of
of a deterministic system meansit's going to happen no matter
what. Deterministic systemscan't be fixed, but they can be
broken. And what I mean by thatis there's not going to be a way
(40:09):
to do this without some somesort of pain.
But the hope comes from the ideathat you can construct a
difference after the I call it asalvaging. Right? So, like, that
you go through tragedies in lifesometimes, but you can you can
(40:32):
just mope about it or whatever.But if you move past it, the
best things to do is to not justforget about it. It's to salvage
what you learned and buildthings from it.
So we don't have to look so soupset at at the system. We need
to look at what's making usupset, take learn from it, and
(40:56):
create something new. And that Ithink hope is as simple as
realizing that our our our painis the is the quickest not the
quickest, but the most sincereway to to finding a solution.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
It's kinda like a necessity is the mother of all
invention. Right? And it's like,if you've got if if you're you
know, if if you cut your arm andyou're bleeding out, you're
gonna very quickly find asolution for it, even if it's an
old rag on the floor or atourniquet with a necktie,
right? And it's a good point,yeah, that pain does that. And
(41:33):
I'm curious where yeah, wherethis leads to, right?
Because it does seem like a lotmore people in this country are
experiencing pain than before.And not just pain as in, like,
physical pain, just suffering,just mental suffering,
struggling. And if you look atthese statistics, right, which
(41:54):
I've done a lot of of dives intothis, you look at, you know,
credit card debt, you know,people that aren't paying their
loans, people that are livingpaycheck to paycheck. These are
all things that are, you know,near record high for this
country. And yeah, like, that'sit's a good point.
It's like, that that sucks. Itsucks for people that are
working two or three jobs,forced to put their kids into
(42:16):
daycare, both parents areworking, still barely getting
by. And so maybe that becomehelps become a catalyst for some
sort of division
Speaker 2 (42:25):
or
Speaker 1 (42:25):
some I work sort with those people.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I literally have coworkers like that. Yes. And
when I try to talk to them aboutthese social issues, they're
they're happy that I am, butthey're just like, I can't.
Like, stop talking to me aboutit. Like, I know you're trying
to do good things, but I don'thave enough, like, mental
capacity for this.
They're so that's that's totalthat's the economic terror
layer. That's not even theydon't have time to be helpless.
(42:49):
They just feel worn out. Like,there's there's so many things
that get in the way of of us.What's the word?
Unifying and actually creating avoting block for the producers.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And so what do you think the solution is for this?
I mean, as you've mentioned, youa potential political solution,
but on the ground, right, in ourday to day life, in our own
communities, like, what is thesolution? Because I don't want
(43:27):
to end up at a place where,again, you've got the big cement
building that just says, Food,and that's it. Or coffee. You
know what I mean?
Like, how do we -How do we kindof take the direction that we're
headed and change it in apositive way?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I was looking into the lots of different ideas. It
comes down to a lot ofalternative systems. What I mean
by that is so welfare programsexist for a reason, but we've
been seeing abuse through thesystem and also cuts where cuts
(44:06):
shouldn't be happening. So it'sboth sides issues. So we should
not trust the government forwelfare.
We should be creatingalternative systems that help
our communities because we care.And I know there's incentives
there for profit. And so, like,I'm not sure what to do. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
And what about actually, where was it? I think
it was is it this article whereyou're talking?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Because there's stuff to do, but it it requires, like,
a army of people. Exactly.That's exactly what it is. The
engine protocol.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yes. The engine
Speaker 2 (44:47):
protocol. Tells you everything.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Oh, there we go. Yeah. The engine protocol. Yes.
Okay.
So yeah. The the reference forbuilding our way out. So is it
okay. What is the engineprotocol? Walk me through
Speaker 2 (44:58):
lot. Oh, god. It's a lot. Like, those are PDFs at the
top. You don't have to openthem.
But basically, it goes intoworkers' co ops, which is the
idea that you're you're notyou're more of a stakeholder
than a shareholder in thecompany. And that means that
there aren't no shareholders.The people who get incentives to
(45:22):
to vote on what happens are thepeople who actually work inside
the company. And then there'sideas for, like, land trusts,
ideas for, like, taking landthat isn't being utilized by the
community and creating, like,housings to compete with Bill. I
(45:48):
see, I'm not practiced for it'scomplicated stuff.
Because this is the stuff whereI want help, and I want experts
to help. Because we need I'm acommunications guy. I'm the I
know how to talk. I know how towrite. I know how to research.
I actually studied mediaresearch. But when it comes to
economy and and the waycommunities interact with the
(46:16):
economy, that stuff getscomplicated because, you know,
money doesn't just so I can talkabout all these things. Like,
money is not a thing, but Idon't know enough about it, the
whether money is possible.Right? So honest.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Oh, yeah. Which which is which is important. And so
what about, like because I knowthat, I think it was in the the
article about the small youknow, your small town article
we've been focusing on. But itseems like in what you put forth
in your solutions, it wasreally, I mean, I think it came
(46:54):
back to just focusing locally,like supporting local
businesses. You know, even doinginterviews like this, writing
your blog, right?
This is information warfare.It's what we're participating Is
in, if there's a war on hope,there's a war on the average,
you know, common person inAmerica, like, how can we have
conversations? How can wepublish substacks that help
(47:16):
inform people of the war, teachthem the tools of the war, and
give them a little bit of abattle plan, right? I think that
it's really important. That'swhy I was really happy that you
responded, and the invitation tocome on the show, because what I
see is that you're trying toyou're trying to carve this out
of stone, right?
You're trying to figure out to,like, kind of slowly etch away
(47:37):
and create this picture forwhat's happening, but how we can
get how we can get out of this.Because it's
Speaker 2 (47:43):
You know what, Seth? I think I do have an idea. We we
need the the audience to startputting pressure on on creators
like you and me to to reach outto other creators and work
together when they see this,what I would call, vertical
alignment where fuck the cultureshit. If you see that another
(48:04):
person agrees with the the waythat the economy is deliberately
being dismantled, you we theyshould get on the line and start
talking and focus on gettingtheir audiences aligned because
we need to do something aboutthis.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Yeah. No. I agree. I absolutely agree. Well, because
I again, if if you kind of lookat it, you look at a lot of what
we talked about, learnedhelplessness, the social
engineering, it's, you know, thethe division, the distractions.
You could really boil a lot ofthat down to information war
and, you know, psychologicaloperations and social
(48:44):
engineering, right? That we'veyou know, without digging into
what hands are pulling thestrings, I mean, if you go back
and just read Edward Bernays,you can see it's like, okay,
they know how to engineer ourculture. They know how to
engineer the way people think. Ithink they've engineers- That's
Speaker 2 (48:59):
actually after the algorithm. The algorithm.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah. We've got friggin', we got supercomputers
getting us angry at each otherfor profit.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Exactly. Exactly. And so, as we're wrapping up here,
what's your I guess if you hadto distill your overall message,
and kinda leave people withsomething to to think on, what
would that be?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
The war's vertical. You need to stop fighting left
versus right. Verticalwar.com.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Actually, I'll open it up real quick.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
It's a splash page that goes to my substack, you
can put your email in there too.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
Oh, okay. Interesting. Okay. So, I want to
pull a few websites. So this isone.
I'll make sure these links arein the show description. So
verticalwar.com. Is your
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Big focus.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yep. Twitter, right? Or sorry, X. I still call it
Twitter. I think X is kind ofpart of that stripping of what's
human and turning us into digitsand letters.
So Twitter, it's common rebelseventy '6. Let's get some
followers for you on there. Andthen the main thing is just
your, as I mentioned, yourSubstack, which I highly
encourage people to check outyour Substack, to subscribe, to
(50:21):
support you on there, because,yeah, actually, I like your
little icon here, you're, thetruth bullet, right? That's it,
that's information war, right?The truth bullet.
Like, it's not, it's not gunsand ammo, it's ideas and
narratives and everything.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Got that right.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yes. Well, Ethan, it's been a real pleasure
speaking with you. I appreciatewhat you're doing. Think if more
Americans, like, followed yourpath and said, you know, you're
noticing, you're seeing thishappening, and it's okay, what
can you do about it? And theystarted Substax or, you know,
created blogs or became more,I'm nervous about saying you
(51:03):
become more engaged in socialmedia, because it's such a
difficult thing.
There are opportunities there,but in general, I just, I
appreciate that you're someonewho is observing what's
happening around you, and you'reasking the questions of, Why is
this happening? Who's doing it?Where does this go? How do we
fix it? Which is reallyimportant.
(51:23):
I think a lot of people havejust become very distracted. And
even if they're not justdistracted, they're just
overwhelmed by, what you youknow, the financial persecution,
just the struggle that they'regoing they're going through. So
I really appreciate what you'redoing. I'm happy to hopefully
help drive some people to youryour substack and and follow
what you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
I'm just a normal guy at a gas station. You guys could
do it too.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Well, Ethan,
thanks again, for coming on.It's been great speaking to you.
And keep I at what you're doing,man.
It's a great, great collectionof information you're putting
together.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Appreciate it. I will go away.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
All right, man. Take care.
Welcome to Man in America, a voice of reason in a
world gone mad. I'm your host,Seth Holehouse. Let me ask you a
question. When you drive throughsmall town or Middle America,
you're driving through stripmalls and the Walgreens and the
Starbucks and the Applebee's onthe corner, is this the America
(00:38):
that you remember? Is this theAmerica of your childhood?
The America where you knew theowner of every shop on Main
Street, where the guy that ranthe local hardware store knew
your name and knew your dog'sname and would ask you how
you're doing when you go inthere? Because that's not the
America that I'm seeing. It'sthe America I remember. I grew
(01:00):
up in a very small town calledPlain City, Ohio, which has now
grown a lot larger. It's outsideof Columbus, Ohio.
But the America I remember wasbeautiful. You knew everybody.
There was a community. You know,whether it was, you know, my
best friend's dad owned thelocal, you know, auto shop, and
if I had car troubles, I'd gotake him, you know, to for him
(01:22):
to look at the car, or, youknow, someone else that owned
the local Amish cheese shopwhere we'd go get our cheese and
meats, that were, you know,locally produced. But that
America, it seems like itdoesn't exist anymore.
Or if it does, you find theselittle slices of it. You find
this cute little town somewherein, you know, kind of middle of
nowhere, Pennsylvania. Like, oh,wow, this is kind of neat.
(01:43):
There's a cute little coffeeshop, and there's a little deli,
but that's disappearing. Andit's really sad, actually,
because we're fighting so muchfor this America.
But it feels like the soul ofwhat represents America has been
strip mined, has beenobliterated. And that America is
(02:04):
turning into something wheresmall towns or medium sized
towns, you go in there, and allyou've got are ugly strip malls,
retail chains that you see inevery other city, a few small
local businesses, a bunch ofsmall local hair salons or nail
salons, of course. But thequestion is what's really
happening? And so my guest todayis a guy named Ethan Faulkner.
(02:27):
Now he runs a Substack that'scalled the Common Sense Rebel,
which I'll make sure that linkis in the description.
And my wife discovered hissubstack somehow, and she sent
it to me and started reading it.And I was like, I'm very
fascinated by this guy and whathe's writing about. And he's got
this really interesting, justreal perspective on what's
(02:51):
happening in America. And onearticle that he wrote, which
we're gonna be focusing a lot ontoday, is basically how the core
of America, these smallbusinesses and everything are
being gutted. And it's it'sintentional.
I mean, it describes whathappens when a Walmart moves
into a town. How does thataffect the local businesses?
What happens when the localpharmacy is replaced by a CVS?
(03:14):
How does that change the prices?What happened when Amazon came
on the stage?
And initially, it was a greatthing. All these brick and
mortar businesses now had thisamazing website to sell their
products to consumers all acrossthe country. There's a huge
audience there. But what happenswhen Amazon takes all the data
(03:35):
from that company and sees, oh,wow, this company is selling
staplers. So we're gonna nowmanufacture Amazon Basics
staplers.
We're gonna put those staplersin there, we're and gonna put
them in the top spot, so thatother local business no longer
can sell his staplers becauseAmazon is manufacturing these
Amazon Basics staplers in bulkin China, underpricing the local
(03:57):
competitor, and pulling them outof business, especially
considering that local businessperson is paying upwards of 30
percent or more of a fee toAmazon to use their platform. So
this is a very serious topic,and what I like about Ethan is
that he's just a simple Americanguy, right? He's just a man in
(04:17):
America, right? And he's a gasstation attendant. It's a
beautiful story, here he is,he's worked at a gas station for
the past ten years, and he'sobserving all these changes in
his local community.
He's observing the change in thesentiment of the people coming
into the gas station. He's seenthem become more confused, more
angry, more divided. And thenhe's also watching right around
(04:41):
the area of this gas station.He's watching, Oh, this small
local business is now gone. It'snow a CVS.
That small diner is now gone.It's a Starbucks. Oh, that other
place that, you know, shut downafter a fire, it never reopened.
Now there's a Walmart, there's aWalgreens, a CVS. There's all
these big corporate chains thatare coming in.
(05:03):
This is a really importantdiscussion. It's not some grand
profound discussion where we'rekind of digging into the
Committee of three hundred andthe bloodlines. It's not about
that. It's the simple thingshappening in this country. It's
a sober look at what's happeningto the America that I remember
it used to be.
And in fact, that's a big reasonfor this show and part of why I
(05:27):
even called it Man in America,is it's just a quest. It's a
journey to understand what isAmerica? What was America? What
was America like in thethirties, in the forties, in the
fifties? What was life likethen?
What is life like now? Try togain some perspective. Because
(05:48):
I've got children, I've gotfamily, I want to see a future
that's worth living and fightingfor. But if our future is that
all the small local businessesare closed down, and we have
these, these big industrial boxstores selling us stuff made in
China, and we're basically justkind of living under a corporate
(06:08):
oligarchy or something. That'snot the future that I want.
I want a future of small townsand local entrepreneurs that are
running these beautiful littlecoffee shops and, you know,
mechanic shops and, you know,just there's community. And
that's, that's what I want. Idon't want you know, go get my
groceries at Walmart, like whichI don't. Like, I go as much as I
can, I go to the local farmmarket, we get our milk at the
(06:30):
local raw milk farm? That's whatI want.
And so, this is just gonna be adive into this. And again, Ethan
is just I think this is kind offun, actually. It's a great
interview, and he hasn't done alot of interviews. He's a
brilliant writer. His substackis just like prolifically
amazing.
And so, you can see it's like,this guy really shines with
words. And so, I reached out tohim, and he's like, Cool, great.
(06:55):
So this, I think, is one of hisfirst interviews he's done like
this. And I think we're gonnahave some fun. And I think it
just we're gonna do is just havea sober discussion about what's
actually going on here inAmerica, and what we can do
about it.
So, I hope you enjoyed theinterview with Ethan. I'll make
sure that his links are in thedescription below. And just a
(07:15):
reminder that if you're watchingthis show on Rumble, thank you
very much for supporting a freespeech platform. Just remember
to hit the thumbs up button. Goahead, do it right now.
It'll feel good. Alright, hitthat thumbs up button, and also
make sure you're subscribed tothe channel. And I also
appreciate the comments youleave too. I read almost almost
all of them. I don't alwaysrespond.
(07:37):
I'm not good at responding tothings, but I do read a lot, and
I really appreciate yourcomments, good or bad. So
anyway, let's go and dive intothe interview with Ethan
Faulkner. Ethan Faulkner, man,it's good to have you on the
show. I'm a big fan of yourSubstack, and it's always nice
to put a face behind something.And it's also nice to have
someone that will step in frontof a camera instead of hiding
(07:58):
just behind some anonymous, youknow, name online, and and here
you are in the flesh.
So, Ethan, it's it's good tohave you on, man.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
It's nice to meet you, man. One of my first
interviews, I'm excited to behere.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well, good. Good. I'm glad that hopefully I can kind
of pull you into this space alittle bit because you've got
your actually, I'll it up herereal quick, but you have a
brilliant Substack. I mean, thisthis is your main homepage for
it. And, I'll let people exploreon their own.
I'll make sure that your link isin the description. It's
(08:31):
commonsenserebel.substack.com.And there's a lot that we can
dive into, but there's oneparticular article that my wife
sent me that really, reallystood out. And it's this post
that says, your town isn'tchanging. It's being
deliberately murdered.
And so so I'll read the intro,and I'll let you just kind of
take it wherever you want. Butit says, for ten years, I've
(08:54):
watched from my gas stationregister as corporate chains
replaced every small business.This isn't progress. It's
corporate occupation, and I havethe receipts. So instead of me
reading it, you know, I've gotthe author here.
So why don't you just walk usthrough what your what your kind
of the story that you'repainting, or the the story that
(09:15):
you're writing in this articlehere?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah. So I grew up in a really, really small town. So
this is actually the town nextdoor because even though I
watched changes happen here,like, a bakery burned down,
nothing ever got replaced, I'veseen the the small corner market
get even smaller. Where I reallysee the changes is is in this
(09:38):
this small city next door calledWareham. And I'm that's actually
exactly the town I'm talkingabout, and that's where I've
been working at the gas stationfor ten years too.
So, practically, we've hadWalmart move in, Target move in,
Wendy's move in, Popeyes chickenmove in, all on top of places
(09:59):
that used to be businesses thatweren't changed. And that's just
in one corner of the of the citythat I work in. So that's what
inspired it. And I call itcorporate deserts. They're
corporate deserts because youit's a desert because you want
to get resources and you want toto get nourishment.
(10:23):
Right? But when you go to theWalmart or the Target, you might
get that instant gratification,but the money that you're
spending doesn't go into yourlocal economy even to the same
extent as, like, an O'Reilly'sAuto Parts or, like, a smaller
chain. Those the bigger thechain is, the bigger their
supply chain in general or allyou know, there's lots of
(10:48):
elements to business. The moneygoes out of your account,
period.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So I'm gonna quickly read through just this little
kind of intro section, becausethis is what really hooked it
for me. It says, my gasstation's on a main road. When I
started this job a decade ago, Iwas surrounded by a community.
There was a family owned bakeryon the corner, a local hardware
store run by a guy named Mark,two independent pharmacies and a
(11:14):
diner where you can get a coffeefor a buck. Today, the bakery is
a CVS, the hardware store is askeleton hollowed out by a new
Walmart neighborhood market thatopened two miles away.
The diner is a Starbucks. Thepharmacies are both gone,
replaced by a single massiveWalgreens. This isn't change,
it's not evolution. It's theresult of a deliberate,
(11:36):
systematic or systemic andpredatory campaign. Your town
isn't changing, it's beinghollowed out.
And the people doing it arecounting on you being too
distracted by their politicalpuppet show to notice. And,
like, that's that's really it,man. It's like, so many people
are just distracted with thebread and circuses.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And I feel like you're saying the word systemic
reading it right there. Thatword is gonna trigger some
people. Don't systemic. Whatdoes that mean? Right?
What it means is it's that is aa side effect of the system.
It's an emerging factor. That'sall it means.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And so and what's crazy is that, you know, my wife
and I, we we really try hard toshop at local businesses. We try
hard to buy made in America. Andthere's a there's a little, kind
of coffee shop, farm type thingclose to us. And it's kind of
sad because you walk in there,and it looks like mean, it is.
(12:32):
It's this little local coffeeshop, you know, owned by people
that live here and everything.
But you go in there, and theyhave all these nice seasonal
decorations, you know, likelittle pumpkin things, or for
Christmas, they've got ornamentsand wreaths, and But you look at
the back, and almosteverything's made in China. And
it's just like, Ugh, why can'tthese be sourced from local
artisans? And I feel like thatthat's just something about our
(12:54):
country that has changed somuch. Think you do a great job
highlighting it in the articlethat it's like the soul of our
country are is the people. It'sthe small little shops, the
small local barbershop or thehardware store we go in.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I call them the producers. They're the
producers.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Exactly. That's a great word for it too, because
they produce real things. Theydon't just produce products,
they produce community, whicharguably is more important than
products. They producerelationships and fulfillment.
But it's like, you walk into aWalmart or, you know, Best Buy
or any of these big, big, youknow, or a Walgreens, it's
(13:36):
soulless.
That's that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Because the producers are forced to work for for a a
company that doesn't have theirinterest in mind. So what's
where's the soul going? Youknow? If if somebody does have a
soul, you give them props. Like,I don't know.
I try my best while I'm workingat the gas station.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Exactly. And so what are, like Well, I guess you've
got some information in there,which I think is helpful. Let me
know if you want me to pull itup, because I can, because it's
more specific figures. But Iknow that you hit on some of the
information as it relates to howmuch money these companies like,
every basically, every dollaryou pay to a Walmart, how much
(14:19):
of it actually stays in yourcommunity versus when you just
have a small local business thatyou're when you pay that money,
you're actually putting moneyinto your community. So tell
tell us a little about that andhow how our money is actually
leaving these communitiesthrough these big corporations.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah. I think the best model so I already gave
you, like, half of the contrastwhen I explained how Walmart has
this big chain of businessexpenses. That's where all the
money so so the money spreads.Alright? And then the other side
of that contrast would be theones they only have one
(14:54):
business.
They're just one store. It'sowned by a few people. So when
you pay money to them, they'regoing to spend money their money
in the locally, most unlessthey're just gonna move the next
week. You know what I mean? Soit's it's really that simple.
And when I say that there's achain like, if you do a smaller
(15:16):
chain, it's because there'sthere's chains that operate
within regions, right, andsometimes within states. And so
you're keeping it closer tohome, that's what I mean. And
when you say America first,that's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And talk a little bit about the guess, it's almost
like antitrust, but it's I findthat doesn't really encompass
it. Because what happens whenthese companies come in and how
they're able to put the otherlocal businesses out of business
through loss leader products,through, you know, you know,
(15:51):
mass volume purchasing, they'venickel and dimed the factories
down to, like, almost losingmoney. Explain that, because
that's also really helpful inunderstanding, like, why these
small businesses, after, say,two years with Starbucks coming
in on a key corner, the localcoffee shop can't can't even,
continue.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Profit margins say that that is the easiest way to
secure money. So, like, thesuppliers want to to secure a
sale. So they offer lower ratesto people who can afford to buy
more. And that just makes sense.So this is something that this
is why we have government.
(16:31):
The only way to fix this is somesort of change. I don't know
what to say because you wantthese companies to succeed. I am
a capitalist. You're acapitalist. You know they wanna
make money, profit.
The incentive is to is to what'sthe word? Not just condense, but
(16:56):
just put all the power, all themoney into the same companies.
Right? Monopolies, really.Because that is the structure
that can make the most money cansecure the most money for the
suppliers.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And so, like, on your on your Substack, you've you've
gone I'll I'll pull it up againso people can see the just the
the kind of the the broad amountof content. You know, you're
you're covering everything fromEpstein, BlackRock, Vanguard.
You got an article. BlackRockand Vanguard own the Epstein
(17:30):
Network. I'm sure that's a goodone.
The Financial Coup, you know,there's a lot going into here.
But I guess it's like, you youknow, you're not just someone
who's commenting on small
Speaker 2 (17:39):
titles are half half clickbait. Half clickbait.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah. We kinda what I we kinda have to be. Right?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Mhmm. So, like, the idea of, like, the BlackRock and
Vanguard owned, the FC Network,I won't get too much into it,
but it's just the point thatthey have so much property.
Right? Their their asset firmsthat own so much shares, major
shares of so many companies,they had the major shares of all
the infrastructure that thatEpstein was working in. And
Speaker 1 (18:07):
so looking at what's happening to America in these
small towns and just the guttingof them, you imply, and you back
up this information too, thatthis is it's coordinated, it's
intentional. It's not anaccident. It's not just free
(18:28):
market capitalism evolving.What's the like, what's the
bigger plan here? And where doesthis lead?
Like, where do you see Americain ten years after this?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
That's interesting. I've been learning this stuff as
I publish it. Alright. I'm Ireally am a a normal guy who
really was into media, like butentertainment media mostly. It's
my background.
I did sales for a little bit.But then when the government
started to become so polarized,right, and I see my neighbors
(19:02):
start fighting each other,that's when I really got into
this. So I don't really knowwhat the plan is or if it's even
as an organization. I think isthat there doesn't need to be a
plan. It's individualincentives.
The system and it can still beon purpose, but the the
(19:23):
incentives are are structured ina way that everything aligns for
these this ideology. I call it aparasitic ideology to to persist
throughout time where where theywanna control populations
because they're easier tomanage, and they can do it.
They've been doing it throughdifferent so I track, like, Nazi
(19:48):
eugenics. It goes back evenfurther, but I'll start there.
And how that has changed overtime into, like, modern
psychology, where where whatthey do to try to control the
population is by having amonopoly on defining what what
is a real disease.
So, like, you have to have moneyto define these things. And so
(20:11):
they have control over overdefinitions of words and what's
a normal behavior instead ofjust killing people like they
used to. And, yeah, I don'tthink it needs there might be a
group of people who are justvery sadistic, having fun
coordinating, but I don't thinkthere needs to be. It's just if
someone is a whole lot of peoplehave incentives to make money,
(20:36):
We're fucked. I don't know whatto say.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting actually, because I
my wife and talk a lot aboutthese things, and that's kind of
if you look at where things leadto if left just to the, I guess,
to the laws of the current waythat our society works with,
which I think it's, you know,it's capitalism, but I almost
feel like it's become like cronycorporate, you know,
(21:01):
multinational capitalism, right?Where it's like, how can a small
local baker compete with the thethe massive global baking chain?
Right? And, of course, there areways, and I think that more
people are waking up to it, andthey're they're choosing to
support the local shop. They'rechoosing to, like, say, wow,
you've only got six ingredientsin your doughnut.
And, you know, Krispy Kreme'sgot 68 ingredients in their
(21:22):
donuts, right? So you're seeingsome of that happen, but it's
like, when I look at this, Ifeel like, okay, where it's
leading, if extrapolate, say,ten, twenty, thirty years down
the road, it's almost likeeventually you get to a point
where brands don't even exist.It's like you have this big
cement based building that justsays,
Speaker 2 (21:42):
oh my god.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know what I mean? And next to it is the big cement
building that says clothing. Andthen I
Speaker 2 (21:48):
already look at it like that Because the asset
firms own all of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
They do. They do.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Free of Blackrock Vanguard's history.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Exactly. And but actually, so I want to touch on
Amazon a little bit, becauseactually, I'll pull the article
back up because, let me find outwhere there's a part in here
talking It about really is. Letme see here. Yeah, here we go.
The Amazon spy now.
I'm just gonna read this littlesection really quickly, and
(22:22):
then, I'll let you respond toit. It says, Amazon is the apex
predator. It built the mainstreet of the twenty first
century and now functions as itsfeudal lord, waging war on the
very sellers it claims toempower. It's a three step
execution. One, the monopolytoll.
Amazon extracts a toll of 30% ormore from its sellers. This
(22:43):
makes real profitabilityimpossible. Two, the spy
network. Amazon spies on itssellers data, their sales, their
costs, or suppliers. Three, thecopy paste.
It then uses that stolen data tocreate its own competing Amazon
basics products, which it thenfor rigs the game, then places
higher in the search resultsthan the original product it
(23:04):
just copied. This is this is theheads heads I win, tails you
lose system. It's a closed loopof extraction designed to turn
every independent innovator intoa data point to be harvested and
then replaced. And this isreally such an important point,
because if you look at howAmazon has changed the
(23:24):
landscape, especially especiallyduring COVID, like, you know, if
you look at all the differentkind of, diabolical plans that
could have come out of theCOVID, you know, pandemic, I
think one of the biggest oneswas actually gutting America gut
gutting all these smallbusinesses in America. It's
similar to the Great Depression,right, which got rid of all
(23:45):
these independent banks.
The Great Depression, I think,was a manufactured crisis to
consolidate the banking industryin America. Other things as
well. The
Speaker 2 (23:53):
banks are fucked right now.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Oh, that's a that's a whole other topic too is what's
happening with Yeah. And so whatyou look at with Amazon, though,
it's like, how many peoplestopped going to a local store,
either because they were scaredor because the store was closed
and just ordered off of Amazon.But then you look at it and it
you made a good point, though.It's like, you look at the
Amazon basics stuff, and Ihadn't thought about it. I mean,
(24:16):
we have a bunch of Amazon basicstuff, like, know, if you need a
pair of scissors or something.
It's like, these these work.They got good reviews. And it's
Speaker 2 (24:22):
the old Walmart no name brand strategy.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Exactly. Online. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They save their money. You let it see for you
feel happier, but the the
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Actually, can you say it one more time? I think maybe
because you're leaning forward,your mic wasn't picking up. I
think your mic is yeah. Itwasn't hearing you go over your
hands.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
My bad.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Oh, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I said so, basically, they spend less money, so you're
happy as a customer, but that'sit's part of the the money going
out of America and also moreconsolidation of money going
into the same company. Creatingleverage over suppliers.
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Exactly. And so, well, hittingon the bankers, this is
something that I'd love to hearyour thoughts on. Because I've
also I'm very fascinated with,you know, just money and the
role that money's played in oursociety and what's happening
with with the banks and bankers.So when you say, you know,
(26:38):
basically, a kinda like thebanks are screwed. Right?
What what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So I guess they're not screwed. I mean, it's it's
fucked up is what I really meantto say. I didn't realize till
recently when I was looking intothe Patriot Act, how it enabled
a lot of the offshore bankingand too big to fail systems
where these banks literally cancommit felonies and just pay a
(27:09):
fine. And they can do offshorebanking to an extent that's
written in the legislation forpurposes of the government, but
it's all shadowed. You can't seeit.
So what else are they doing typethings? Yeah. I learned that
recently. It all happened rightafter 09:11. The day after.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah. Imagine that. How how convenient. One so one
thing I actually wanted to Ijust I was just kind of
thinking, I think it's animportant thing to touch on. So,
you know, you've worked you'reworking a register at a gas
station, right?
Which is, you know like, youcould say that it's similar to
(27:52):
being the guy that works at thelocal hardware store, right?
It's like such an embedded partof the community and kind of
providing one of the coreservices that makes a community
run. But it's also, I think itgives you a finger on the pulse.
And so, I can tell that you'requite observant. What have you
noticed in the behavior ofpeople over the last ten years?
(28:17):
Like, how has the behavior ofpeople changed? Because like, I
used to work in a mall when Iwas back in college, and I
worked in one little kiosk, andI love people watching. And you
can just sit and watch, and youcan see through you know,
whether through your salesinteractions or just watching,
you can see just the overallflow of behavior of people. But
what have you I mean, ten yearsis a long time to sit there at
the kind of that little nexuspoint of a community. What are
(28:39):
you seeing?
How have people changed in thepast decade?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Interesting you asked that. That's the whole reason
why I made my sub sec. It'sbecause I was I was sick and fed
up of watching. Everyone'sconfused, and they're reciting
lines from scripts half the timetrying to explain the reason why
things are going on. That that'show I feel, and it's been
getting worse and worse.
(29:04):
Like, you can blame immigrantsfor some things, and you can
blame freaking whatever you wantabout the ICE things going on
for but we need to realize thatit's the knocks coming from from
not the government side. Like,you know what I mean? So what
(29:26):
I've seen I'm gonna talk aboutpeople. They're angry. They
don't like the prices, butthey're still buying it.
And and they always have anexcuse for who to blame, and
it's always someone different.No one can agree on who who it
is. And you can put some blamein certain corners for
(29:48):
politicians. Absolutely. But youneed to think about their
incentives and the incentiveswe've allowed for in the system.
How do we elect a any type ofleader who actually puts our
interests first when there arepeople with bags and bags of
(30:10):
money begging for their votesevery day, and it's allowed.
Like, we legally have, like,avenues for that. It just seems
difficult.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And so you mentioned people are confused, they're
upset, things are getting moreexpensive, they're angry. What
about hope? Like, do you thinkthat are you seeing an overall
just hopelessness in people?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes. I say there's three, there's three layers to a
prison. I tried to write it alldown in like a, kinda like a
creating a new universe becausebecause the they have so much
control over language. We kindahave to take it back. Like,
there's three layers.
The top one is economic terror.Like, the fact that if you don't
(31:03):
go to work, you can lose yourjob. But, like like, say you are
on your way to work and you youpop your tire. If you have a
nice boss, they'll give you aslack, but, like, they don't
have to. They can just not payyou for that day.
And, like, so that's theeconomic terror. Every day,
you're worried about money. Andthen there's the great
distraction, which is what Ithink is the idea of turning
(31:26):
issues that are really aboutclass class issues, about the
wealth disparity and andextraction, what I call
extraction from the theproducers, the working class.
They they try to pin it on onother working class people. So
(31:47):
that that's the example for,like, ICE where, like, people
doing their jobs, the Democratsgetting mad at them, and then
also immigrants who are justtrying to make a living.
Most of them people getting mad.It's like, yes. Those things are
affecting the current norms, andit's costing money. But the idea
(32:07):
is we're shifting blame from thepeople profiting off of it to
the people who are just tryingto participate and produce. And
it seems to be almostintentional not just because of
confidence.
It's kind of like one of thosethings where they don't have to
coordinate because all theincentives combine because the
(32:29):
companies have the incentives tomake money and the politicians
have the incentive to getelected. And it's so easy to get
people into identity politics.And I don't mean just like the
color of your skin. I mean,people identify as as liberal or
conservative, and they want torecite lines that that make sure
(32:52):
they don't divert from what theythink that means, and that works
in the favor of these people whoare just offending off of it.
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the last?
Do you think there's threelayers, right? Oh, yeah. What
was the final one?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Learned helplessness. Learned helplessness. You the
first thing you brought up, it'slearned because we I think when
we're younger, we have biggerideas, and we don't we don't
feel like we have to submit towhat's normal. That's why I
think it's learned. And we thinkthat we have to play play within
(35:02):
what we hear on TV and howeverybody else is acting to
things instead of thinkingdeeper.
That's why I think it's alearned helplessness. It's it's
not nests. Like, revolutionshappen because that helplessness
reaches a breaking point. Idon't want that to happen. Yeah.
That's do stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
That's an interesting point in looking at that, that
revolutions happen happen whenhelplessness reaches a breaking
point. And that's actually I'dprobably say it's probably true
in many ways. I know a lot ofrevolutions rev sorry,
revolutions have beenmanufactured, you know, for
certain reasons, and they'vebeen part of social engineering
and regime change operations.But I do think that that's
(35:43):
actually it's a really importantpoint that when people look for
the avenues to change, alright,it's almost like it's similar to
someone who say is trying tolose weight, right? Say they've
tried 10 different diets,they've tried working out, they
tried all these different thingsand nothing is working, they
become, they're just like, Screwit, doesn't matter, right?
(36:05):
Like, and maybe they're gonna gothen get some very extreme
surgery, right? Because it'slike, I've tried everything, I
can't fix it, So let's move tolike the more extreme thing. And
I think it's actually similar tolooking at the fabric of our
society, and this learnedhelplessness is that I am
wondering, where does this lead?Because I think a lot of
Americans, they think a lot ofAmericans thought, Okay, let's
(36:28):
put Trump in office. Obviously,enough to vote him in.
They say, Okay, we're gonna putTrump in office, he's gonna fix
all these things, right? He'sgonna fix the economy. He maybe
he's gonna, you know, shut downthe Federal Reserve, he's gonna
do all these things. Now,granted, he's done some things,
he's, you know, secured theborder, and he's helped kind of
correct the transgender sportsissues, and it's like, okay,
(36:48):
there's some things that he'sdone, but I mean, have you
noticed, say in the past sixmonths, have you noticed that
people are just like, all of asudden, this weight is off their
shoulders, and now they're,they're like inspired, they feel
like they're living in thegolden age?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah. I don't think so. And I don't know if it's
really Trump Trump's faultnecessarily. Because once you're
you're in there, he says he'sgonna drain the swamp. Right?
But the swamp is is it it's likewhen you drain the swamp, who
fills it in? More people withthe same incentives. Yeah. Like,
(37:26):
he can even if they'reloyalists, I know what to think
about it. I just I think I needto do more research on systems
because or find people.
You have a big audience who whowho are into systems reach out
to me because I know how to towrite write in a way that gets
(37:48):
people to listen. And I do thinkthat we can fix the way things
work within government. If if wecreate a, like, a third voting
block that puts pressure on onboth parties to pick a candidate
that will because, like, theRepublican Party has already
proven to us that they canchange their platform if they
(38:11):
see a voting block.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But they kinda So if we create a a more narrow voting
block that's less about relyingon on a person, which is, like,
Trump had good ideas, but it's awe need to focus on on shared
values. And he tried to do that,but we need to reach across the
(38:37):
lines where we can easily, whichis poverty. Because social
issues are all exasperated. WhenI say social issues, I mean,
yeah, culture, like, you feelinglike you're not allowed to to to
talk about your religion aspublicly is is a social kind of
issue and so is, like, I don'tknow if being open about being
(39:01):
gay, I guess. But all everybodyfeels more stressed out, is more
agitated when they have lessmoney, and more crimes happen
when they have less money.
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah. No. It's a good point. It's a good point. And
how does that so how does thatfit into the war on hope?
Right? We talked earlier aboutpeople being hopeless. And I
know that you have a whole kindof section of your sub sack
where you highlighted the war onhope, which I think is it's
similar to the learnedhelplessness, but like talk a
(39:36):
little bit about hope, and therole of hope in a prison and the
role of hope in a free society.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Alright. We we feel like they're we're in a
deterministic system when welose hope. Because the idea of
of a deterministic system meansit's going to happen no matter
what. Deterministic systemscan't be fixed, but they can be
broken. And what I mean by thatis there's not going to be a way
(40:09):
to do this without some somesort of pain.
But the hope comes from the ideathat you can construct a
difference after the I call it asalvaging. Right? So, like, that
you go through tragedies in lifesometimes, but you can you can
(40:32):
just mope about it or whatever.But if you move past it, the
best things to do is to not justforget about it. It's to salvage
what you learned and buildthings from it.
So we don't have to look so soupset at at the system. We need
to look at what's making usupset, take learn from it, and
(40:56):
create something new. And that Ithink hope is as simple as
realizing that our our our painis the is the quickest not the
quickest, but the most sincereway to to finding a solution.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
It's kinda like a necessity is the mother of all
invention. Right? And it's like,if you've got if if you're you
know, if if you cut your arm andyou're bleeding out, you're
gonna very quickly find asolution for it, even if it's an
old rag on the floor or atourniquet with a necktie,
right? And it's a good point,yeah, that pain does that. And
(41:33):
I'm curious where yeah, wherethis leads to, right?
Because it does seem like a lotmore people in this country are
experiencing pain than before.And not just pain as in, like,
physical pain, just suffering,just mental suffering,
struggling. And if you look atthese statistics, right, which
(41:54):
I've done a lot of of dives intothis, you look at, you know,
credit card debt, you know,people that aren't paying their
loans, people that are livingpaycheck to paycheck. These are
all things that are, you know,near record high for this
country. And yeah, like, that'sit's a good point.
It's like, that that sucks. Itsucks for people that are
working two or three jobs,forced to put their kids into
(42:16):
daycare, both parents areworking, still barely getting
by. And so maybe that becomehelps become a catalyst for some
sort of division
Speaker 2 (42:25):
or
Speaker 1 (42:25):
some I work sort with those people.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I literally have coworkers like that. Yes. And
when I try to talk to them aboutthese social issues, they're
they're happy that I am, butthey're just like, I can't.
Like, stop talking to me aboutit. Like, I know you're trying
to do good things, but I don'thave enough, like, mental
capacity for this.
They're so that's that's totalthat's the economic terror
layer. That's not even theydon't have time to be helpless.
(42:49):
They just feel worn out. Like,there's there's so many things
that get in the way of of us.What's the word?
Unifying and actually creating avoting block for the producers.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And so what do you think the solution is for this?
I mean, as you've mentioned, youa potential political solution,
but on the ground, right, in ourday to day life, in our own
communities, like, what is thesolution? Because I don't want
(43:27):
to end up at a place where,again, you've got the big cement
building that just says, Food,and that's it. Or coffee. You
know what I mean?
Like, how do we -How do we kindof take the direction that we're
headed and change it in apositive way?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I was looking into the lots of different ideas. It
comes down to a lot ofalternative systems. What I mean
by that is so welfare programsexist for a reason, but we've
been seeing abuse through thesystem and also cuts where cuts
(44:06):
shouldn't be happening. So it'sboth sides issues. So we should
not trust the government forwelfare.
We should be creatingalternative systems that help
our communities because we care.And I know there's incentives
there for profit. And so, like,I'm not sure what to do. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
And what about actually, where was it? I think
it was is it this article whereyou're talking?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Because there's stuff to do, but it it requires, like,
a army of people. Exactly.That's exactly what it is. The
engine protocol.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yes. The engine
Speaker 2 (44:47):
protocol. Tells you everything.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Oh, there we go. Yeah. The engine protocol. Yes.
Okay.
So yeah. The the reference forbuilding our way out. So is it
okay. What is the engineprotocol? Walk me through
Speaker 2 (44:58):
lot. Oh, god. It's a lot. Like, those are PDFs at the
top. You don't have to openthem.
But basically, it goes intoworkers' co ops, which is the
idea that you're you're notyou're more of a stakeholder
than a shareholder in thecompany. And that means that
there aren't no shareholders.The people who get incentives to
(45:22):
to vote on what happens are thepeople who actually work inside
the company. And then there'sideas for, like, land trusts,
ideas for, like, taking landthat isn't being utilized by the
community and creating, like,housings to compete with Bill. I
(45:48):
see, I'm not practiced for it'scomplicated stuff.
Because this is the stuff whereI want help, and I want experts
to help. Because we need I'm acommunications guy. I'm the I
know how to talk. I know how towrite. I know how to research.
I actually studied mediaresearch. But when it comes to
economy and and the waycommunities interact with the
(46:16):
economy, that stuff getscomplicated because, you know,
money doesn't just so I can talkabout all these things. Like,
money is not a thing, but Idon't know enough about it, the
whether money is possible.Right? So honest.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Oh, yeah. Which which is which is important. And so
what about, like because I knowthat, I think it was in the the
article about the small youknow, your small town article
we've been focusing on. But itseems like in what you put forth
in your solutions, it wasreally, I mean, I think it came
(46:54):
back to just focusing locally,like supporting local
businesses. You know, even doinginterviews like this, writing
your blog, right?
This is information warfare.It's what we're participating Is
in, if there's a war on hope,there's a war on the average,
you know, common person inAmerica, like, how can we have
conversations? How can wepublish substacks that help
(47:16):
inform people of the war, teachthem the tools of the war, and
give them a little bit of abattle plan, right? I think that
it's really important. That'swhy I was really happy that you
responded, and the invitation tocome on the show, because what I
see is that you're trying toyou're trying to carve this out
of stone, right?
You're trying to figure out to,like, kind of slowly etch away
(47:37):
and create this picture forwhat's happening, but how we can
get how we can get out of this.Because it's
Speaker 2 (47:43):
You know what, Seth? I think I do have an idea. We we
need the the audience to startputting pressure on on creators
like you and me to to reach outto other creators and work
together when they see this,what I would call, vertical
alignment where fuck the cultureshit. If you see that another
(48:04):
person agrees with the the waythat the economy is deliberately
being dismantled, you we theyshould get on the line and start
talking and focus on gettingtheir audiences aligned because
we need to do something aboutthis.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Yeah. No. I agree. I absolutely agree. Well, because
I again, if if you kind of lookat it, you look at a lot of what
we talked about, learnedhelplessness, the social
engineering, it's, you know, thethe division, the distractions.
You could really boil a lot ofthat down to information war
and, you know, psychologicaloperations and social
(48:44):
engineering, right? That we'veyou know, without digging into
what hands are pulling thestrings, I mean, if you go back
and just read Edward Bernays,you can see it's like, okay,
they know how to engineer ourculture. They know how to
engineer the way people think. Ithink they've engineers- That's
Speaker 2 (48:59):
actually after the algorithm. The algorithm.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah. We've got friggin', we got supercomputers
getting us angry at each otherfor profit.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Exactly. Exactly. And so, as we're wrapping up here,
what's your I guess if you hadto distill your overall message,
and kinda leave people withsomething to to think on, what
would that be?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
The war's vertical. You need to stop fighting left
versus right. Verticalwar.com.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Actually, I'll open it up real quick.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
It's a splash page that goes to my substack, you
can put your email in there too.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
Oh, okay. Interesting. Okay. So, I want to
pull a few websites. So this isone.
I'll make sure these links arein the show description. So
verticalwar.com. Is your
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Big focus.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yep. Twitter, right? Or sorry, X. I still call it
Twitter. I think X is kind ofpart of that stripping of what's
human and turning us into digitsand letters.
So Twitter, it's common rebelseventy '6. Let's get some
followers for you on there. Andthen the main thing is just
your, as I mentioned, yourSubstack, which I highly
encourage people to check outyour Substack, to subscribe, to
(50:21):
support you on there, because,yeah, actually, I like your
little icon here, you're, thetruth bullet, right? That's it,
that's information war, right?The truth bullet.
Like, it's not, it's not gunsand ammo, it's ideas and
narratives and everything.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Got that right.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yes. Well, Ethan, it's been a real pleasure
speaking with you. I appreciatewhat you're doing. Think if more
Americans, like, followed yourpath and said, you know, you're
noticing, you're seeing thishappening, and it's okay, what
can you do about it? And theystarted Substax or, you know,
created blogs or became more,I'm nervous about saying you
(51:03):
become more engaged in socialmedia, because it's such a
difficult thing.
There are opportunities there,but in general, I just, I
appreciate that you're someonewho is observing what's
happening around you, and you'reasking the questions of, Why is
this happening? Who's doing it?Where does this go? How do we
fix it? Which is reallyimportant.
(51:23):
I think a lot of people havejust become very distracted. And
even if they're not justdistracted, they're just
overwhelmed by, what you youknow, the financial persecution,
just the struggle that they'regoing they're going through. So
I really appreciate what you'redoing. I'm happy to hopefully
help drive some people to youryour substack and and follow
what you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
I'm just a normal guy at a gas station. You guys could
do it too.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Well, Ethan,
thanks again, for coming on.It's been great speaking to you.
And keep I at what you're doing,man.
It's a great, great collectionof information you're putting
together.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Appreciate it. I will go away.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
All right, man. Take care.
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