January 15, 2025 • 61 mins
Is America truly a democracy, or are billionaires pulling the strings behind the scenes? Dive into the fiery confirmation hearing of Pete Hexick, President Trump's controversial nominee for the Department of Defense. We delve into the explosive exchanges during the hearing, as Democrats like Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, and Tammy Duckworth scrutinize Hexick's qualifications and past statements, including those on women in combat roles and alleged workplace misconduct. I provide a candid assessment of Hexick's responses, arguing whether he stands up to the scrutiny or falls short of expectations within the broader debate about women's roles in the military.
The conversation takes a sharp turn into the murky waters of American democracy and the influential power of billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg over public policy. We uncover how their financial clout diminishes the regulatory power of institutions meant to safeguard the public, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I'll expose the strategic erosion of trust in government agencies and the unaccounted role of tech companies in spreading misinformation, shaking the democratic norms we once held dear. This leads to a reflection on whether American democracy is morphing into an oligarchy, with profound implications for the future.
Finally, the episode tackles the intersection of sports, social evolution, and politics, particularly concerning the inclusion of transgender athletes in traditional sports categories. This spurs a discussion on the political climate post-Trump's re-election and the unsettling capitulation of tech and media giants to his administration's whims. From Mark Zuckerberg's controversial actions to Jeff Bezos's involvement and ABC News's legal entanglements, we'll consider how Trump's influence reverberates across industries. The potential rise of authoritarianism and its impact on democratic integrity will be laid bare, making for a thought-provoking and comprehensive exploration of these pressing issues.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Darrell McLean show.
I'm your host, darrell McLean,happy to be back with you guys
Been a bit under the weather,unfortunately, for the last few
days.
A lot of things have been goingon and I've been wanting to
talk to you about a lot of it,so I'm going to try to go back
to the old formula where,instead of posting once a week,
(00:21):
I do multiple shows, showsthroughout the week, because the
news cycle is going fast.
But anyway, great, let's getinto our episode.
So, first off, a few weeks agoI did a show about some of the
cabinet picks that PresidentTrump had picked, and today the
(00:44):
Senate did a confirmationhearing for Pete Hexick.
And, of course, there were somefiery moments and some testy
exchanges between certain people.
I cannot play all of thefour-hour hearing, but here's
just a snippet of this.
(01:06):
Mr Hicks, I do not believe thatyou are qualified to meet the
overwhelming demands of this job.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Department of Defense under Donald Trump will achieve
peace through strength and, inpursuing these America First
national security goals, willremain patriotically apolitical
and stridently constitutional.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
You said in your statement you don't want
politics in the DOD.
Everything you've said in thesepublic statements is politics.
I don't want women.
I don't want moms.
What's wrong with a mom, by theway?
Once you have babies, youtherefore are no longer able to
be lethal.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've never disparaged women serving in the military.
I respect every single femaleservice member that has put on
the uniform, past and present.
My critiques, Senator, recentlyand in the past and from
personal experience, have beeninstances where I've seen
standards lowered.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Would you use our military to take over Greenland
or an ally of.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Denmark Senator.
One of the things thatPresident Trump is so good at is
never strategically tipping hishand, and so I would never, in
this public forum, give one wayor another direct what orders
the president would give me.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
in any context, that sounds to me that you would
contemplate carrying out such anorder to basically invade
Greenland.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Many of your work colleagues have said that you
show up for work under theinfluence of alcohol or drunk.
I know you've denied that, butyou would agree with me right
that if that was the case, thatwould be disqualifying for
somebody to be secretary ofdefense Senator.
Those are all anonymous, falseclaims and the totality.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
They're not.
They're not anonymous.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The letters on the record here on the record people
who report to me with namesattached to them.
Senator Cain or I guess Ibetter use the senator from
Virginia starts bringing up thefact that what if you showed up
drunk to your job?
How many senators have showedup drunk to vote at night?
Have any of you guys asked themto step down and resign from
(03:06):
their job?
And don't tell me you haven'tseen it, because I know you have
.
I don't want a long answer yesor no.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
have you led an audit of any organization of which
you were in charge?
Senator?
In both of the organizations Iran, we were always completely
fiscally responsible for themoney that we had.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
Yes or no?
Did you lead an audit and or no, did you need an audit?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes or no?
What are you afraid of?
You can't answer this question.
Yes or no?
Did you need an audit?
Do you not know this answer?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Senator, every part of my leadership of these
organizations.
I'm not a perfect person, butredemption is real and God
forged me in ways that I knowI'm prepared for, and I'm
honored by the people standingand sitting behind me and look
forward to leading this Pentagonon behalf of the warfighters.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Thank you so that was a four-minute snippet of what
was a four hours 24 minutes andfive seconds of a confirmation
hearing, and let me tell youexactly what happened.
If you're a Republican, youwent out of your way to say that
(04:16):
Pete Hexick was qualified andyou asked him questions to prove
his qualifications.
And if you were a Democrat,they went out of their way to
say that he was not qualifiedand to impugn his character, his
motives, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
A small example of a Republicantype question, with the caveat
(04:58):
of this you had the formerrunning mate of Hillary Clinton,
tim Kaine, saying he's notqualified.
Democrat Elizabeth Warrengrilling him.
Of course she's going to sayhe's not qualified.
Veteran and Senator as well,tammy Duckworth, you're not
qualified.
(05:19):
And it kind of standardboilerplate things Republicans,
of course, because he's aRepublican nominee, they blasted
him.
Senator Mullins blast what hecalled a liberal hypocrisy.
(05:39):
Tim Kaine was very aggressivein his grilling in the eight
minutes or so he got, and so Iwill say this just in my simple
view of what I saw I think Peteperformed very well.
(06:07):
I think he answered questionsforthright and honestly and I
think, when it comes to theparticular job, he's as
qualified as anybody else wouldbe at the job.
Um, I think some of thestatements that he makes you
know before he became thedefense secretary.
(06:31):
I think in larger context he'smaking a moral critique,
ideological critique, aboutwomen on the battlefield and
things in that nature.
And let me tell you those areconversations that we do have,
you know, in the armed forces.
I'm no longer in the armedforces, but those are
(06:53):
conversations that have been hadand will be had.
It's a bit disingenuous to tryto wrap this particular nominee
(07:15):
as if he's some sexist becausehe doesn't think that women
should be on the front line incombat.
He did not say that they shouldnot be in the military or they
do not serve a place in themilitary.
The statements were purelyabout the combat uh arena.
So very, very fiery exchange,uh, but also A bit of a I'll
(07:45):
just say criticism, some unfair,on one side and a bit of
coddling and hand-holding on theother side.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
With every single day on the battlefield, you
understand what happens on thefront line where our troops will
be.
How many push-ups can you do?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I did five sets of 47 this morning.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
What do you think our most important strategic base
is in the Pacific?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
In the Pacific Guam is pretty strategically
significant.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
How many rounds of 5.56 can you fit into the
magazine of an M4 rifle?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Depends on the magazine, but standard issue is
30.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
And what size round is the M9 Beretta standard issue
?
Sidearm for the military fire A9mm Senator, what kind of
batteries do you put in yournight vision goggle?
Speaker 8 (08:42):
Duracell.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
So right there you're representing qualifications
that show you understand whatthe warfighter deals with every
single day on the battlefield.
You understand what happens onthe front line, where our troops
will be, how many push-ups canyou do so in any way.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And let me just say this last thing as a personal
preference type of situation,and it may be a bit too close to
the nose, but I try to be verytransparent with you guys here
(09:22):
Peake Exit has been as having adrinking problem.
I am not going to Pretend Likethat is not a Commentary.
That is said about a lot ofMilitary members, former and
present, including yours truly.
(09:45):
If he functions, if he does thejob, if he's qualified, if he
is able to control himself whenhe's on the job a lot of that
stuff I think it's a bunch ofcrap.
I think that he is not onlyqualified to do the job.
(10:09):
I think that he is DonaldTrump's pick for the job and I
think they need to go on aboutit and not hold up this process.
He is a highly educatedindividual.
He held a significant rank inthe United States military.
(10:33):
The only problem that I wouldhave what I fully do believe he
would be able to adapt to isthat he's never led an
organization as big and asmassive as the Pentagon.
(10:53):
But he is as qualified asanybody else who's qualified,
who did not hold the rank of ageneral or an admiral, and I
think that he may have somepersonal character flaws, but I
(11:18):
do want to stress thisSomebody's personal life does
not always mean that they areincompetent in their
professional life.
I think that he showed well inthose four hours.
I think he answered thequestions as truthfully and as
honestly as he could.
(11:38):
He will make a fine secretaryof defense in the Trump
administration.
As good as you could get asbeing a separate secretary of
defense Much better thansomebody like Mike Pompeo.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
The IDF has been forced to admit that they have
been running a propagandachannel on Telegram aimed at
Israeli citizens that featuredsnuff films of Palestinians
being murdered, dehumanized asinsects and vermin, their bodies
desecrated and the destructionof Gaza glorified.
Analyst Nox Bilal has beentracking the content on the
channel.
According to Bilal, on 72versions you could find this
video of buildings in Gaza beingdemolished.
(12:23):
Each time one is reduced torubble, the twirling menorah on
the screen gets another candle.
The caption reads burn Gazadown.
You can also find some of theimages that horrified the world
but apparently delighted theIsraeli audience of 72 virgins.
The IDF atrocity.
Tiktoks are not a bug but afeature of this system, not just
allowed but encouraged.
After all, this entire 72virgins channel was sustained
(12:45):
and populated with multipleposts daily, including
confidential operational details, for months by the very unit
dedicated to putting out theversion of the war and the
messaging on the war that theofficial powers that be want to
see propagated.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Now, way back in the day, way back in the day, there
was a historian who I liked.
He was very witty, charming,funny, brilliant, but also he
was his generation's version ofOscar Wilde.
His name was Gore Vidal, andwhen Gore Vidal would talk about
(13:28):
economics, he would say inalmost a warning-like way we
have to do this economically, wehave to do this.
We have to do this becauseotherwise there's going to be a
revolution coming and they aregoing to come and take it from
you Now.
(13:53):
We are now been blessed to bein the year of 2025.
Been making his rounds on FoxNews, on CNN, on MSNBC, on HBO
Real Time with Bill Maher, andhe has been issuing a dire
(14:14):
warning and I think this is veryinteresting.
So I'm going to somewhat lethim talk and I'm going to also
come in with my socioeconomicanalysis on this situation as
well.
Speaker 8 (14:33):
A lot of these tech billionaires are kind of
following or trying to playcatch up, I guess, with Elon
Musk and making inroads with thenew administration and the best
trade of 2024 was Elon Musk put$250 million into the Trump
campaign and since then thevalue of his companies and his
stake in those companies is upby about $140 billion.
So that's about a 5,600% return.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And that's not any change in Tesla in the output.
Speaker 8 (14:59):
Nothing to do with the company, nothing to do with
their operating margins, theirinnovation, their sales.
It's based on a generalassumption that America has
become a full kleptocracy, likeRussia, that the largest,
deepest pocketed customer in thehistory of our modern economy.
The US government willeffectively is now, or
effectively is now, pay to playand will shuffle contracts,
monies and impose regulatorypunishment on the competitors.
(15:20):
To the companies who do notinvest in the Republican Party
or in his inaugural campaign isevidenced by the fact that very
few of these tech executivesinvested in the inaugural
campaign fund for Biden, andthey are all doing it for Trump.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So look, this is Scott Galloway, and Scott
Galloway is a professor at NYUand he's also an entrepreneur
and author, so he regularlytries to go on these programs
and issue these kind ofproclamations, and a lot of
times, even though on a morallandscape, I'm more conservative
(15:56):
than him, I think he hits thenail on the head.
The problem is and this is frommy analysis, of course is that
America has always um reporteditself to be a representative
Republic.
(16:18):
You, you, you vote uh to youralderman, your state senator,
your mayor, your governor, yourfederal representatives, your
(16:38):
president, and they come up witha solution in the form of
public policy to address yourconcerns, with Elon Musk
dropping this much money into aparticular campaign and with his
(17:03):
him getting a massive return oninvestment.
And what I have seen labeled andI like the labeled the great
capitulation I will we'll getover that later of all these
(17:24):
billionaires, from MarkZuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Bill
Gates, to the multi-billionairethat owns the LA Times, all
going down to Mar-a-Lago.
And then the multi-millionaireswho are also in the media,
(17:48):
headed up by Mika Brzezinski andJoe Scarborough for Morning Joe
, who went down to Mar-a-Lago,hadn't seen Trump went in
whatever to kiss the ring inorder to give their network the
height of independent media,which is access journalism.
(18:09):
This, the mask is off.
That America one America is nota democracy.
But we say democracy is small dit's republic is small d it's
(18:30):
republic, but the mask offmoment is that no, no, no, this
is not.
It does not function as ademocracy, nor does it function
as a republic.
What it functions, as he usedthe word kleptocracy, I like the
word oligarchy or plutocracy.
I think in the end I'll justdefine what these two different
(18:51):
terms mean, or maybe the three,just for argument's sake.
A paper had already been doneyears ago by Princeton who said,
effectively, america was aplutocracy, and what's always
happened is that people in powertry to pretend like there's not
(19:14):
a pay for play type of gamegoing on here and when Elon Musk
left, unquote, the left andwent to the right and funds this
type of campaign a Trumpiantype figure who is very brazen
(19:34):
and transactional, and rememberthat famous clip where Donald
Trump even said I know thesepeople.
You give them money and they'lldo whatever you want.
Right, no-transcript?
Flanked by other billionairesBasically buying US not only
(20:00):
foreign policy, but US domesticpolicy, us public policy.
That's what the visaconversation was about.
That's what the chipsconversation was about.
Is people did not recognizethem and a lot of people did.
Is that the whole game was?
(20:24):
There are certain billionairesgetting involved in this form of
government so that they canstop regulation in the companies
that they own, can stopregulation in the companies that
they own.
That's why most of them, if youhave been paying attention over
the last few weeks, have beengoing after the one government
(20:51):
institution that is supposed towork and does work for you and
for me the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau.
Consumer Financial ProtectionBureau that looks at
corporations, looks if there hasbeen fraud against the consumer
, and sometimes you don't evenknow it and all of a sudden
you'll get a check in the mailand now, all of a sudden, you
(21:19):
have seen the march of thebillionaires going on the Joe
Rogangan uh show and the blah,blah blahs and talking about the
consumer protection bureau, theconsumer financial protection
bureau, and that's the newboogeyman, because that's what
they want to take down.
They want to.
They want to take all the powerout of that, just like they
took all the power out of theEnvironmental Protection Agency,
just like they took all thepower out of the Better Business
(21:39):
Bureau, just like they took allthe power out of the unions.
I'm reminded of a lecture Iheard years ago from the former
Defense Secretary, donaldRumsfeld.
Defense Secretary DonaldRumsfeld and Donald Rumsfeld was
talking about when PresidentRonald Reagan put him over a
(22:01):
government organization andDonald Rumsfeld started to run
the organization and he thoughthe was doing a great job.
And he got a call from thepresident and President Reagan
was giving him the businessabout the way the organization
is being run.
And Donald Rumsfeld brought upthe numbers and basically said
(22:23):
that the organization wasrunning successfully and
President Reagan said that's theproblem.
I don't want it to runsuccessfully.
And that has somewhat alwaysbeen the game.
You get certain people over aninstitution that they don't
(22:44):
believe in and they make sure itdoes not work to erode public
trust in the institution, andthen the public will then call
for the institution to bedisbanded because the
institution is incompetent.
This is three dimensional chessthat is being played, and now I
(23:05):
think a lot of people arestarting to catch on.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
Skeptocrat and if you don't think this, this hurts
everyone.
This raises prices and for thelittle guy or the companies that
don't want to engage in thistype of pay-per-play, it hurts
them.
This will increase prices andweaken our democracy.
This is absolutely no differentthan how Putin became the
wealthiest man in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Do you think this is a long-term change in the
political direction of thesetech companies, or would they
shift course when thepresident-elect leaves office?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean there's two things goingon here.
Speaker 8 (23:34):
This is good for shareholder value, for Meta to
not have to live up to thestandards of traditional media
companies.
News Corp decided to circulatemisinformation around Dominion
voting machines, despite thefact they knew that was false
information.
They were sued because itresulted in economic harm
against Dominion and they werepunished through the tune of
about three quarters of abillion dollars.
What happened score on Fox wasa dumpster fire compared to the
nuclear mushroom cloud of whattook place on Meta.
(23:55):
Yet Meta is immune.
So what you have is thesecompanies that are circulating
or kind of a misinformationLollapalooza, quite frankly, are
just running away with it interms of profitability, in terms
of shareholder value.
So they're totally driven byshareholder value.
They're doing their job.
We're not doing our job interms of electing
representatives who have thebackbone to stand up to attempts
to weaponize the government andstill believe in a democratic
america where there'scompetition, where
(24:17):
misinformation, where a lack oftruth, a lack of trust in our
institutions remain pillars ofour society.
That seems to be, that seems tobe eroding, but they will.
They will go where the puckgoes and that is whatever
increases the value of theirshares so what he's talking
about.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Just in case anybody didn't see, is this great a
visage to go see the president,like Bill Gates, mark Zuckerberg
, et cetera, et cetera.
Mark Zuckerberg is aninteresting person.
I'm going to do somewhat astory on that.
(24:52):
In short, maybe on the uh,future episode.
Uh, because Mark Zuckerberg wasfull of shit, um, and never
trusted him as a person, justfrom, just from what I knew.
But uh, the, the, the analysisof Mark Zuckerberg goes as such.
(25:15):
When Barack Obama rose to wasrising to prominence.
He took in Mark Zuckerberg andMark Zuckerberg somewhat chased
the Democratic Party's tail andhe was the Elon Musk of his time
.
So, even though Elon is older,he was the Elon of that period
(25:40):
of presidential precedent.
Facebook chased Barack Obama'stail.
Trump won, facebook keptchasing Barack Obama's tail and
so did Meta, and then the JoeBiden administration comes
through.
Facebook stays in that oldBarack Obama coalition model.
(26:00):
Elon comes in, buys Twitter,now X from Jack Dorsey, etc.
And he becomes the Zuckerberg.
On the right, he startscensoring voices on the left.
(26:21):
He starts hyper-focusing onstories.
He's more active, so he startscalling out governments a lot of
times wrongly, uh, and he useshis platform to hyper, hyper
(26:42):
focus the voices of opinionsthat he agrees with.
He.
He lets that.
He um unleashes the bands.
Uh's quote unquote free speech.
Uh, back on the platform.
Free speech um meaning the freespeech that agrees with
(27:04):
whatever I, the billionaire,thinks.
Uh.
Donald trump wins due to, inpart, of um elon censoring a
certain amount of content, inthe same way that Zuckerberg has
been accused of censoringcontent from the right.
Elon puts $240 million intoDonald Trump's campaign and now
(27:29):
he has a seat at the table inthe exact same way that
Zuckerberg used to have a seatat the table.
So what is that saying?
It's saying that billionairesare buying seats at the table by
using their money and what theyhave on them besides money,
(27:49):
which is power, which is in theZuckerberg sense.
It was Facebook being an enginethat released information
because they could platform andde-platform people as like they
chose, while not being anofficial news organization.
And elon did the same thing forthe right.
(28:11):
Uh, and you see it openly.
And now elon has kind ofstarted to signal to all the
other billionaires you need tocome over here, because there's
gains to be gotten.
Um scott galloway also went on.
(28:31):
Um I?
Um went on morning, joe, youknow, with um, joe scobberl and
mika brzezinski and and um, andhe left another dire warning
(28:59):
Okay, and this was like droppingalmost a bomb because, like I
said Morning, joe, mikaBrzezinski, etc.
Joe Scarborough are the heightof access journalism.
Here we go.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get
no incremental happiness, etcetera, joe Scarborough, are the
height of access journalism.
Here we go Once you get above acertain level of wealth, you get
no incremental happiness.
So why on earth would you notgo back to a tax policy of the
60s, 70s and 80s where, sayabove, pick a big number, 10
million you actually pay morethan 10%, maybe more than 20%,
maybe more than 50%, because thedifference between $30,000 a
year for a household and $50,000is enormous to the well-being
(29:39):
of that household.
Kids in low-income householdshave higher resting blood
pressure, but the differencebetween making $10 million a
year and $15 million a yearoffers you no happiness.
But these individuals haveweaponized government and we
risk revolution.
Whether it's CEOs beingmurdered in the street, whether
it's a Me Too movement that hadrighteous components of it, or
(30:00):
Black Lives Matter.
What are these movements?
They are targeting the wealthy.
We are in the midst of a seriesof small revolutions to correct
income inequality.
We put an insurrectionist and arapist in office is because,
for the first time in ournation's history, a 30-year-old
man or woman isn't doing as wellas his or her parents were at
(30:21):
30.
Why?
Because the majority ofhouseholds are having the oxygen
sucked out of the room, suchthat a small number of
individuals and a small numberof companies can be worth more
than nation states.
It is out of control.
Our tax policy has gone fulloligarch.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So just for some clarity, so what he's talking
about when he said that thehappiness doesn't change on a
certain income level.
There was a study that came outyears ago and the study
basically showed it was onhappiness, depression, anxiety
and it uh, it tied it tofinances and what it actually
(31:02):
showed.
The study was very interestingand it showed that people who
made $75,000 a year and that wasthe market, $75,000 a year was
the marker Were no different inhappiness, stress, etc.
(31:22):
Did somebody that made 1million dollars, 2 million
dollars, 5 million dollars, 350million dollars, once somebody
made $75,000 a year, that theythat um, I don't know if it was
an internal thing that they feltlike they had made it that they
(31:44):
were.
They were no different.
And the people that made underthat marker um had a lot of
anxiety, had a lot of depressionabout their finances, etc.
And that was inside of thefinancial happiness index.
(32:04):
So you didn't notice, in thatparticular thing he went from
the word.
When he was talking to AndersonCooper on CNN, he used the word
kleptocracy.
When he was talking to MikaBrzezinski and Joe Scarborough,
(32:26):
he used the word oligarchy, andso I'm just going to give you a
brief definition of thedifference.
So oligarchy is defined as asmall group of people having
(32:47):
control of a country,organization or institution.
Institution, a country governedby oligarchy would be the
english uh aristocraticoligarchy of the 19th century.
Uh, for a historical example, aoligarchy is a is uh from the
ancient greek term, and it'sfrom rule by the few.
(33:11):
The rule command over everybodyelse.
The oligarchy is a form ofgovernment in which the power
and the form of government whichis in power rests with a small
number of people.
These people may or may not bedistinguished by one or several
characteristics, such asnobility, fame, wealth,
(33:37):
education, or corporate,religious, political or military
control.
Now, throughout history, thepower structures considered to
be oligarchs have often beenviewed as coercive, relying on
public obedience or impressionto exist.
Public obedience, ourimpression to exist.
(33:59):
Uh, aristotle pioneered the useof this term as a meaning to
mean rule by the rich,contrasting it with uh
aristocracy, arguing thatoligarchy was the perverted form
of a aristocracy.
So, so that's just a short,short, short version of the term
(34:23):
.
Now, countries that we today,somewhat distinctively, will in
the political span, will'll sayoligarchies, would be the
Philippines, the RussianFederation, iran, ukraine, the
(34:45):
United States is in there and,of course there's going to be
different meanings for that.
I told you that Princeton cameout with a study that said
America was actually aplutocracy, and a plutocracy is
(35:09):
a society that is ruled orcontrolled by people of great
wealth and income.
The first known use of the termin English was actually in 1631
.
Unlike most political systems,plutocracy is not rooted in
(35:31):
actually any establishedpolitical philosophy and
actually any establishedpolitical philosophy.
So so the term plutocracy isgenerally used as a pejorative
(35:52):
to describe and warn against aundesirable condition.
Throughout history, politicalthinkers and philosophers have
condemned plutocrats forignoring social responsibilities
and using their power to servetheir own purpose and thereby
increasing poverty and nurturingclass conflict and corrupting
societies with greed andhedonism.
(36:13):
So examples of the plutocracy,the historical examples would be
the Roman Empire, in somecity-states in ancient Greece,
the civilization in Cartridge,the Italian merchant city-state
of Venice, florence, gina, theDutch Republic, florence, gina,
(36:35):
the Dutch Republic, thepre-World War II Empire of Japan
.
And, according to Noam Chomskyand Jimmy Carter, the modern
United States resembles aplutocracy.
Also believed the US to bedeveloping into a plutocracy.
One modern form example of aplutocracy, according to a lot
(37:08):
of critics, is the city ofLondon, also called the square
of mile of ancient London.
So that is the differencebetween an oligarchy and a
plutocracy.
Now he used the term kleptocracy, which is more or less the same
(37:35):
but a bit different.
So when you get to akleptocracy, it is a society our
system ruled by people who usetheir power to steal their
country's resources.
Uh, government by people whouse their power to steal their
country's resources.
What it means in simple termsis this it referred to, as in a
(38:04):
lot of places, as a theocracy.
It is a government whosecorrupt leaders kleptocrats use
political power to exhort thewealth of the people and the
land they govern.
So again, they use thepolitical power to exhort the
(38:26):
wealth of the people and theland they govern, typically by
embezzling or misappropriatinggovernment funds at the expense
of the wider population.
Now, one feature of thepolitical-based socioeconomic
thievery is that there is oftenno public announcement
explaining or apologizing formisappropriations, nor any legal
(38:50):
changes or punishment leviedagainst the defenders.
Kleptocracy is different from aplutocracy, which is the rule by
riches and oligarchy ruled bythe elite.
In a kleptocracy, corruptpoliticians enrich themselves
secretly, outside the rule oflaw, through kickbacks, bribes
(39:14):
and special favors from lobbyistcorporations.
They simply direct state fundsto themselves and their
associates.
Also, kleptocrats often extortand export much of their profits
to foreign nations inanticipation of them losing
power, of them losing power.
(39:39):
So I, like I said earlier, Iwanted to give you a definition
of the three so that you wouldhave a sense of what they are
and you can decide what youthink.
America, in this, in thisiteration of what we're going
through, we are, I I think, atthis point in time, there needs
(40:01):
to be not just a politicalconsciousness but a class
consciousness, because I thinkthat's what's going to save us.
Even today's conservativemovements actually have roots in
a capitalist backgrass againstthe new deal.
So during the new deal, uh,right-wing business people were
(40:25):
furious that their authority wasbeing challenged in the
workplace and society, so theystarted the organization, and
that's the story of the originof what actually is the modern
conservative movement.
Um, yeah, really need people togo and check this out.
(40:48):
Okay, just about how thesemovements started.
Speaker 7 (40:56):
If you're a right-winger, you're angry at
the government.
This is a right-wing obsession,as you know.
Anything goes wrong, it's thegovernment.
It's a wonderful arrangementfor big business Wonderful.
Over the last five years ofcrisis, for example, the
overwhelming majority of peoplewho've been fired from their job
(41:17):
have been fired by a privatecapitalist employer and the
overwhelming majority of peoplehave been thrown out of their
home by foreclosure, had theforeclosure process begun by a
private capitalist banker.
And who are the people angry at?
The government?
They leap right over the peoplewho actually screwed them to
blame someone else.
If I were a corporate executiveor a banker, I'd be very pleased
(41:38):
with a system like this.
I kick you, you get angry atsomebody else.
I kick you again, you get memore angry at them.
This is wonderful.
Why should I ever stop kickingyou?
Or maybe it's immigrants orforeigners, or terrorists or
Muslims or who knows?
Scapegoats?
And the left, not to be outdone, no better able to understand
(41:59):
system, despite what it says,has its scapegoats the bankers,
the Federal Reserve bankers, theFederal Reserve, the big
businessmen or the governmentEver there, only now, in reverse
, the government didn't regulateenough, the government didn't
do enough.
It's the government.
(42:20):
Whoa.
Everything else other than ananalysis of the system.
The problem is the system, theway we relate to one another in
producing goods and services, indistributing them, in parceling
out the income that our outputenables us to have.
Oh no, no, we're not going tolook at all those relationships
(42:44):
Taboo.
We look for scapegoats, and itshows up not only in the way we
think, looking for who the badguys are right-wing bad guys,
left-wing bad guys.
We beat each other up over whothe real bad guy is.
Left-wing newspapers say it'snot the poor people, right-wing
newspapers say it is the poorpeople, and then we have long
debates about whether it is orit isn't the poor people.
(43:05):
This is bizarre, and if there'sno systemic critique, then
there needs to be no systemicresponse.
Nobody is going to say changethe system.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
The sickness is the system, and that was Professor
Richard Wolff here in that lastclip.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
And.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I played that clip because, like I said, I think we
need to start Moving beyond thepolitics Of democrat,
republican, libertarian and uh,constitutionalist Whatever else
you want to Label yourself as,green party, etc.
And we need to move To a bodypolitics, a uniparty, that the
(43:54):
center of the movement iseconomics.
My last word I was grateful tohave a show question today from
our long time subscriber andPatreon, gene, who says will the
(44:20):
Senate pass the bill preventingtrans people to play on the
girls team?
So he's talking about trans menand trans women are trans women
, I would say to pay play on, uh, cis women's teams?
Uh, the house passed that votetoday.
So if the bill goes through asit is, currently, I do not
(44:45):
believe it is going to pass theSenate.
Currently, I do not believe itis going to pass the Senate.
I'm going to also go ahead andanswer a question that you did
not ask, and I will say thatthere has only been one study on
this particular topic and Ithink it has to be a common
(45:13):
sense type of thing and eventhough life is not fair, I think
, as much as we can, we have totry to provide a sense of
fairness to the topic andbecause of that I do not believe
that is appropriate for anybodywho is not a biological female
(45:35):
to play in a sport thatbiological females are involved
in in, even if they have alreadybeen through the surgery and
puberty blockers et cetera.
Because I think once the bonedensity and the muscle mass and
(45:56):
everything is set, it is veryhard to call that back.
Um, when I was growing up in inhigh school in Jacksonville,
florida, I was involved in acombat sport known as amateur
wrestling.
We had a female on our team whois my very good friend, who I'm
(46:18):
still friends with.
Her name is Anastasia.
Because we did not have a girlsleague, anastasia had to
wrestle with the boys andsometimes she did beat the boys.
I do not think that it would bethe same and it would be
(46:38):
celebrated the same if there wasno boys league and there was an
all girls league and the boyshad to join the girls team.
I think there would be outrageand we would see it is
inappropriate and we may seethat somebody was trying to game
the system.
I use the elementary principlesof common sense.
(47:03):
If it does not work in onecontext, what makes you think it
is appropriate in a differentcontext.
It does not mean that it isfair, but not all things that
are correct and pragmatic aregoing to be at the level of
fairness.
(47:23):
Level of fairness, there's areason why in these sports, for
generations, for millennia, wehave women's track and men's
track and women's basketball andmen's basketball and women's
(47:46):
powerlifting and men'spowerlifting and women's
baseball and men's baseball andwomen's soccer and metal soccer
that we now are faced with a newphenomenon Because of social
evolution, and that is the transepidemic the trans movement, I
should say, and it does make ushave to decide how we're going
(48:12):
to deal with people who arehumans and therefore deserving
of respect, decency and dignity.
But we cannot give one grouprespect, decency and dignity by
letting them oppress and makeunfair requests of another group
(48:37):
.
I think the best way to dealwith this is to create another
league and let them equally,with decency and dignity,
compete against each other.
Now here's my last word, andthis is the great capitulation.
(49:00):
At a press conference inMar-a-Lago, donald Trump
described recent events fromTikTok CEO of Apple, secretly
Brian, and a co-founder, googleand other tech barons.
He said in the first term,everyone was fighting me.
He said, in this term,everybody wants to be my friend
(49:23):
For once, president Donald Trumpwasn't actually exaggerating.
Since Trump won re-election,this time with the popular vote,
(49:51):
many of the most influentialpeople in America seem to have
lost any will to disagree withhim or even stand up to him as
he goes about transformingAmerica into what a lot of
people believe will be the sortof authoritarian oligarchy that
he admires.
Call it the Great Capitulation.
Following January 6th, markZuckerberg, the Facebook.
Following january 6, markzuckerberg, the facebook uh
co-founder, suspended trump'saccount, but last month in
(50:14):
mar-a-lago, the wall streetjournal reported that um
zuckerberg stood hand on heartas the club played a rendition
of the national anthem sung byan imprisoned January 6th
defendant.
It's not clear.
Zuckerberg knew what he waslistening to.
He pledged a million dollardonation to Trump's inauguration
(50:36):
, as did the OpenIA CEO, samAltman, and Jeff Bezos from the
company Amazon, which has alsostreamed the inauguration on its
video platform.
Jeff Bezos is also obviouslythe owner of the Washington Post
(50:57):
, after Time magazine declaredTrump's person of the year.
The publication's owner and theSalesforce CEO, mark Benoff,
wrote on Twitter, now known as Xthis marks a time of great
compromise for our nation.
The owner of the LA Times, thebillionaire pharmaceutical and
(51:26):
biomedical entrepreneur, patrickSoon-Shiong, killed an
editorial criticizing Trump'scabinet picks and urging the
Senate not to allow recessappointments.
Most shocking of all, abc News,which is owned by Walt Disney
Company, made a craven decisionto settle a flimsy defamation
(51:50):
case bought by Donald Trump.
As you remember, a jury lastyear found Trump civilly liable
of sexually abusing the writer EJean Carroll.
In memorandum, the judge inthat case explained that, while
a jury did not find Trump hadraped Carroll, it was operating
(52:13):
under the New York criminal law,which defines rape solely as
vaginal penetration by a penisforcibly or I did find I should
say that he did forciblypenetrate EJ and Carol, but he
(52:40):
did so with his fingers.
The finding that Ms Carolfailed to prove that she was
raped within the meaning of NewYork penal law does not mean
that she failed to prove thatTrump had not raped her, as many
people commonly understood theword rape, wrote the judge
Indeed, as the evidence at thetrial recounted Below on air,
that a jury had found Trumpliable for rape.
(53:01):
Trump, who regularly threatensand sometimes filed defamation
cases against perceived enemiesin the press, sued and though
(53:31):
his case seemed absurdly weak,abc News actually decided to
settle in exchange for $15million and a donation to
Trump's future presidentiallibrary or museum for $1 million
in legal fees, and a publicstatement of regret from
Stephanopoulos and the networkDisplay of submissions are
limited to the tech industry andthe media industry.
Christopher Wray, the head ofthe FBI, agreed to step down
(53:53):
aside before the end of his10-year term, rather than to
make President Trump fire him towork with Elon Musk and Vivek
Ramaswamy, who, so-called theDepartment of Government
Efficiency, are dozed, seemposed to hack away at our
(54:14):
already, I'll just say,insufficient and bare safety net
.
And the New Yorker JonathanBlitzer wrote of a current
administration's refusal, atleast so far, to renew the
humanitarian parole ofimmigrants from countries such
(54:34):
as Venezuela and Haiti topossibly shield them from
deportation under the incomingpresident considers Trump a
fascist, and who has warnedabout the horrors of mass
deportation.
The atmosphere of Biden's WhiteHouse has struck several people
I spoke to.
(54:55):
With a cursory, sedate, blitzerwrote Different people have
different reasons for falling inline.
Some may simply lack thestomach for a fight or feel, not
unreasonably, that it's futile.
Our tech overlords, howeverliberal they once appeared, seem
(55:18):
to welcome the new Trump order.
Many hated wokeness, resentedthe demands of the newly uppity
employees who chafed at attemptsby Joe Biden's administration
to regulate crypto and AI Toindustries with the potential to
cause deep and lasting socialharm.
There are CEOs who got wherethey are by riding the Z-guise
(55:43):
that they can pivot easily frommouthing platitudes about racial
equity to slapping on a redMAGA hat when it's convenient.
Some Democrats appear to thinkthat they might steer those into
a productive direction and that, regardless, they'll get credit
for bipartisanship.
The electorate, after all, hasa readiness and rendered its
(56:08):
verdict on its resistance.
One of Kamala Harris' pollstersactually reported to Politico
recently and they warned theDemocratic National Committee
leadership againstpearl-clutching over Trump's
transactions, including thewidely unfit character ricksters
(56:29):
and characters he announced forhis administration.
The voters, she said, don'tcare about who Donald Trump is
putting in the cabinetCollectively.
All these elite decisions tobow to Trump make it feel like
the air is going out of the oldliberal order.
In its place, it will besomething more of a ruthless and
(56:54):
um nichian.
The individuals have and hasthe intrinsic moral right to
live his life in a special andfulfilling way, without
subordinating to the universalcollective.
Mark anderson, the softwareengineer and the venture
capitalist at the forefront ofsilicon valley it's right where
(57:17):
lurch wrote on twitter last weekpervos of extra guilt must not
steal that from you.
Even powerful people who didnot vote in favor of this harsh
new world Can find theirconsolation in it.
Thank you for tuning in and Iwill see you on the next episode
(57:40):
.
Welcome to the Darrell McLean show.
I'm your host, darrell McLean,happy to be back with you guys
Been a bit under the weather,unfortunately, for the last few
days.
A lot of things have been goingon and I've been wanting to
talk to you about a lot of it,so I'm going to try to go back
to the old formula where,instead of posting once a week,
(00:21):
I do multiple shows, showsthroughout the week, because the
news cycle is going fast.
But anyway, great, let's getinto our episode.
So, first off, a few weeks agoI did a show about some of the
cabinet picks that PresidentTrump had picked, and today the
(00:44):
Senate did a confirmationhearing for Pete Hexick.
And, of course, there were somefiery moments and some testy
exchanges between certain people.
I cannot play all of thefour-hour hearing, but here's
just a snippet of this.
(01:06):
Mr Hicks, I do not believe thatyou are qualified to meet the
overwhelming demands of this job.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Department of Defense under Donald Trump will achieve
peace through strength and, inpursuing these America First
national security goals, willremain patriotically apolitical
and stridently constitutional.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
You said in your statement you don't want
politics in the DOD.
Everything you've said in thesepublic statements is politics.
I don't want women.
I don't want moms.
What's wrong with a mom, by theway?
Once you have babies, youtherefore are no longer able to
be lethal.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've never disparaged women serving in the military.
I respect every single femaleservice member that has put on
the uniform, past and present.
My critiques, Senator, recentlyand in the past and from
personal experience, have beeninstances where I've seen
standards lowered.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Would you use our military to take over Greenland
or an ally of.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Denmark Senator.
One of the things thatPresident Trump is so good at is
never strategically tipping hishand, and so I would never, in
this public forum, give one wayor another direct what orders
the president would give me.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
in any context, that sounds to me that you would
contemplate carrying out such anorder to basically invade
Greenland.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Many of your work colleagues have said that you
show up for work under theinfluence of alcohol or drunk.
I know you've denied that, butyou would agree with me right
that if that was the case, thatwould be disqualifying for
somebody to be secretary ofdefense Senator.
Those are all anonymous, falseclaims and the totality.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
They're not.
They're not anonymous.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The letters on the record here on the record people
who report to me with namesattached to them.
Senator Cain or I guess Ibetter use the senator from
Virginia starts bringing up thefact that what if you showed up
drunk to your job?
How many senators have showedup drunk to vote at night?
Have any of you guys asked themto step down and resign from
(03:06):
their job?
And don't tell me you haven'tseen it, because I know you have
.
I don't want a long answer yesor no.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
have you led an audit of any organization of which
you were in charge?
Senator?
In both of the organizations Iran, we were always completely
fiscally responsible for themoney that we had.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
Yes or no?
Did you lead an audit and or no, did you need an audit?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes or no?
What are you afraid of?
You can't answer this question.
Yes or no?
Did you need an audit?
Do you not know this answer?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Senator, every part of my leadership of these
organizations.
I'm not a perfect person, butredemption is real and God
forged me in ways that I knowI'm prepared for, and I'm
honored by the people standingand sitting behind me and look
forward to leading this Pentagonon behalf of the warfighters.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Thank you so that was a four-minute snippet of what
was a four hours 24 minutes andfive seconds of a confirmation
hearing, and let me tell youexactly what happened.
If you're a Republican, youwent out of your way to say that
(04:16):
Pete Hexick was qualified andyou asked him questions to prove
his qualifications.
And if you were a Democrat,they went out of their way to
say that he was not qualifiedand to impugn his character, his
motives, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
A small example of a Republicantype question, with the caveat
(04:58):
of this you had the formerrunning mate of Hillary Clinton,
tim Kaine, saying he's notqualified.
Democrat Elizabeth Warrengrilling him.
Of course she's going to sayhe's not qualified.
Veteran and Senator as well,tammy Duckworth, you're not
qualified.
(05:19):
And it kind of standardboilerplate things Republicans,
of course, because he's aRepublican nominee, they blasted
him.
Senator Mullins blast what hecalled a liberal hypocrisy.
(05:39):
Tim Kaine was very aggressivein his grilling in the eight
minutes or so he got, and so Iwill say this just in my simple
view of what I saw I think Peteperformed very well.
(06:07):
I think he answered questionsforthright and honestly and I
think, when it comes to theparticular job, he's as
qualified as anybody else wouldbe at the job.
Um, I think some of thestatements that he makes you
know before he became thedefense secretary.
(06:31):
I think in larger context he'smaking a moral critique,
ideological critique, aboutwomen on the battlefield and
things in that nature.
And let me tell you those areconversations that we do have,
you know, in the armed forces.
I'm no longer in the armedforces, but those are
(06:53):
conversations that have been hadand will be had.
It's a bit disingenuous to tryto wrap this particular nominee
(07:15):
as if he's some sexist becausehe doesn't think that women
should be on the front line incombat.
He did not say that they shouldnot be in the military or they
do not serve a place in themilitary.
The statements were purelyabout the combat uh arena.
So very, very fiery exchange,uh, but also A bit of a I'll
(07:45):
just say criticism, some unfair,on one side and a bit of
coddling and hand-holding on theother side.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
With every single day on the battlefield, you
understand what happens on thefront line where our troops will
be.
How many push-ups can you do?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I did five sets of 47 this morning.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
What do you think our most important strategic base
is in the Pacific?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
In the Pacific Guam is pretty strategically
significant.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
How many rounds of 5.56 can you fit into the
magazine of an M4 rifle?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Depends on the magazine, but standard issue is
30.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
And what size round is the M9 Beretta standard issue
?
Sidearm for the military fire A9mm Senator, what kind of
batteries do you put in yournight vision goggle?
Speaker 8 (08:42):
Duracell.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
So right there you're representing qualifications
that show you understand whatthe warfighter deals with every
single day on the battlefield.
You understand what happens onthe front line, where our troops
will be, how many push-ups canyou do so in any way.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And let me just say this last thing as a personal
preference type of situation,and it may be a bit too close to
the nose, but I try to be verytransparent with you guys here
(09:22):
Peake Exit has been as having adrinking problem.
I am not going to Pretend Likethat is not a Commentary.
That is said about a lot ofMilitary members, former and
present, including yours truly.
(09:45):
If he functions, if he does thejob, if he's qualified, if he
is able to control himself whenhe's on the job a lot of that
stuff I think it's a bunch ofcrap.
I think that he is not onlyqualified to do the job.
(10:09):
I think that he is DonaldTrump's pick for the job and I
think they need to go on aboutit and not hold up this process.
He is a highly educatedindividual.
He held a significant rank inthe United States military.
(10:33):
The only problem that I wouldhave what I fully do believe he
would be able to adapt to isthat he's never led an
organization as big and asmassive as the Pentagon.
(10:53):
But he is as qualified asanybody else who's qualified,
who did not hold the rank of ageneral or an admiral, and I
think that he may have somepersonal character flaws, but I
(11:18):
do want to stress thisSomebody's personal life does
not always mean that they areincompetent in their
professional life.
I think that he showed well inthose four hours.
I think he answered thequestions as truthfully and as
honestly as he could.
(11:38):
He will make a fine secretaryof defense in the Trump
administration.
As good as you could get asbeing a separate secretary of
defense Much better thansomebody like Mike Pompeo.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
The IDF has been forced to admit that they have
been running a propagandachannel on Telegram aimed at
Israeli citizens that featuredsnuff films of Palestinians
being murdered, dehumanized asinsects and vermin, their bodies
desecrated and the destructionof Gaza glorified.
Analyst Nox Bilal has beentracking the content on the
channel.
According to Bilal, on 72versions you could find this
video of buildings in Gaza beingdemolished.
(12:23):
Each time one is reduced torubble, the twirling menorah on
the screen gets another candle.
The caption reads burn Gazadown.
You can also find some of theimages that horrified the world
but apparently delighted theIsraeli audience of 72 virgins.
The IDF atrocity.
Tiktoks are not a bug but afeature of this system, not just
allowed but encouraged.
After all, this entire 72virgins channel was sustained
(12:45):
and populated with multipleposts daily, including
confidential operational details, for months by the very unit
dedicated to putting out theversion of the war and the
messaging on the war that theofficial powers that be want to
see propagated.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Now, way back in the day, way back in the day, there
was a historian who I liked.
He was very witty, charming,funny, brilliant, but also he
was his generation's version ofOscar Wilde.
His name was Gore Vidal, andwhen Gore Vidal would talk about
(13:28):
economics, he would say inalmost a warning-like way we
have to do this economically, wehave to do this.
We have to do this becauseotherwise there's going to be a
revolution coming and they aregoing to come and take it from
you Now.
(13:53):
We are now been blessed to bein the year of 2025.
Been making his rounds on FoxNews, on CNN, on MSNBC, on HBO
Real Time with Bill Maher, andhe has been issuing a dire
(14:14):
warning and I think this is veryinteresting.
So I'm going to somewhat lethim talk and I'm going to also
come in with my socioeconomicanalysis on this situation as
well.
Speaker 8 (14:33):
A lot of these tech billionaires are kind of
following or trying to playcatch up, I guess, with Elon
Musk and making inroads with thenew administration and the best
trade of 2024 was Elon Musk put$250 million into the Trump
campaign and since then thevalue of his companies and his
stake in those companies is upby about $140 billion.
So that's about a 5,600% return.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And that's not any change in Tesla in the output.
Speaker 8 (14:59):
Nothing to do with the company, nothing to do with
their operating margins, theirinnovation, their sales.
It's based on a generalassumption that America has
become a full kleptocracy, likeRussia, that the largest,
deepest pocketed customer in thehistory of our modern economy.
The US government willeffectively is now, or
effectively is now, pay to playand will shuffle contracts,
monies and impose regulatorypunishment on the competitors.
(15:20):
To the companies who do notinvest in the Republican Party
or in his inaugural campaign isevidenced by the fact that very
few of these tech executivesinvested in the inaugural
campaign fund for Biden, andthey are all doing it for Trump.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So look, this is Scott Galloway, and Scott
Galloway is a professor at NYUand he's also an entrepreneur
and author, so he regularlytries to go on these programs
and issue these kind ofproclamations, and a lot of
times, even though on a morallandscape, I'm more conservative
(15:56):
than him, I think he hits thenail on the head.
The problem is and this is frommy analysis, of course is that
America has always um reporteditself to be a representative
Republic.
(16:18):
You, you, you vote uh to youralderman, your state senator,
your mayor, your governor, yourfederal representatives, your
(16:38):
president, and they come up witha solution in the form of
public policy to address yourconcerns, with Elon Musk
dropping this much money into aparticular campaign and with his
(17:03):
him getting a massive return oninvestment.
And what I have seen labeled andI like the labeled the great
capitulation I will we'll getover that later of all these
(17:24):
billionaires, from MarkZuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Bill
Gates, to the multi-billionairethat owns the LA Times, all
going down to Mar-a-Lago.
And then the multi-millionaireswho are also in the media,
(17:48):
headed up by Mika Brzezinski andJoe Scarborough for Morning Joe
, who went down to Mar-a-Lago,hadn't seen Trump went in
whatever to kiss the ring inorder to give their network the
height of independent media,which is access journalism.
(18:09):
This, the mask is off.
That America one America is nota democracy.
But we say democracy is small dit's republic is small d it's
(18:30):
republic, but the mask offmoment is that no, no, no, this
is not.
It does not function as ademocracy, nor does it function
as a republic.
What it functions, as he usedthe word kleptocracy, I like the
word oligarchy or plutocracy.
I think in the end I'll justdefine what these two different
(18:51):
terms mean, or maybe the three,just for argument's sake.
A paper had already been doneyears ago by Princeton who said,
effectively, america was aplutocracy, and what's always
happened is that people in powertry to pretend like there's not
(19:14):
a pay for play type of gamegoing on here and when Elon Musk
left, unquote, the left andwent to the right and funds this
type of campaign a Trumpiantype figure who is very brazen
(19:34):
and transactional, and rememberthat famous clip where Donald
Trump even said I know thesepeople.
You give them money and they'lldo whatever you want.
Right, no-transcript?
Flanked by other billionairesBasically buying US not only
(20:00):
foreign policy, but US domesticpolicy, us public policy.
That's what the visaconversation was about.
That's what the chipsconversation was about.
Is people did not recognizethem and a lot of people did.
Is that the whole game was?
(20:24):
There are certain billionairesgetting involved in this form of
government so that they canstop regulation in the companies
that they own, can stopregulation in the companies that
they own.
That's why most of them, if youhave been paying attention over
the last few weeks, have beengoing after the one government
(20:51):
institution that is supposed towork and does work for you and
for me the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau.
Consumer Financial ProtectionBureau that looks at
corporations, looks if there hasbeen fraud against the consumer
, and sometimes you don't evenknow it and all of a sudden
you'll get a check in the mailand now, all of a sudden, you
(21:19):
have seen the march of thebillionaires going on the Joe
Rogangan uh show and the blah,blah blahs and talking about the
consumer protection bureau, theconsumer financial protection
bureau, and that's the newboogeyman, because that's what
they want to take down.
They want to.
They want to take all the powerout of that, just like they
took all the power out of theEnvironmental Protection Agency,
just like they took all thepower out of the Better Business
(21:39):
Bureau, just like they took allthe power out of the unions.
I'm reminded of a lecture Iheard years ago from the former
Defense Secretary, donaldRumsfeld.
Defense Secretary DonaldRumsfeld and Donald Rumsfeld was
talking about when PresidentRonald Reagan put him over a
(22:01):
government organization andDonald Rumsfeld started to run
the organization and he thoughthe was doing a great job.
And he got a call from thepresident and President Reagan
was giving him the businessabout the way the organization
is being run.
And Donald Rumsfeld brought upthe numbers and basically said
(22:23):
that the organization wasrunning successfully and
President Reagan said that's theproblem.
I don't want it to runsuccessfully.
And that has somewhat alwaysbeen the game.
You get certain people over aninstitution that they don't
(22:44):
believe in and they make sure itdoes not work to erode public
trust in the institution, andthen the public will then call
for the institution to bedisbanded because the
institution is incompetent.
This is three dimensional chessthat is being played, and now I
(23:05):
think a lot of people arestarting to catch on.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
Skeptocrat and if you don't think this, this hurts
everyone.
This raises prices and for thelittle guy or the companies that
don't want to engage in thistype of pay-per-play, it hurts
them.
This will increase prices andweaken our democracy.
This is absolutely no differentthan how Putin became the
wealthiest man in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Do you think this is a long-term change in the
political direction of thesetech companies, or would they
shift course when thepresident-elect leaves office?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean there's two things goingon here.
Speaker 8 (23:34):
This is good for shareholder value, for Meta to
not have to live up to thestandards of traditional media
companies.
News Corp decided to circulatemisinformation around Dominion
voting machines, despite thefact they knew that was false
information.
They were sued because itresulted in economic harm
against Dominion and they werepunished through the tune of
about three quarters of abillion dollars.
What happened score on Fox wasa dumpster fire compared to the
nuclear mushroom cloud of whattook place on Meta.
(23:55):
Yet Meta is immune.
So what you have is thesecompanies that are circulating
or kind of a misinformationLollapalooza, quite frankly, are
just running away with it interms of profitability, in terms
of shareholder value.
So they're totally driven byshareholder value.
They're doing their job.
We're not doing our job interms of electing
representatives who have thebackbone to stand up to attempts
to weaponize the government andstill believe in a democratic
america where there'scompetition, where
(24:17):
misinformation, where a lack oftruth, a lack of trust in our
institutions remain pillars ofour society.
That seems to be, that seems tobe eroding, but they will.
They will go where the puckgoes and that is whatever
increases the value of theirshares so what he's talking
about.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Just in case anybody didn't see, is this great a
visage to go see the president,like Bill Gates, mark Zuckerberg
, et cetera, et cetera.
Mark Zuckerberg is aninteresting person.
I'm going to do somewhat astory on that.
(24:52):
In short, maybe on the uh,future episode.
Uh, because Mark Zuckerberg wasfull of shit, um, and never
trusted him as a person, justfrom, just from what I knew.
But uh, the, the, the analysisof Mark Zuckerberg goes as such.
(25:15):
When Barack Obama rose to wasrising to prominence.
He took in Mark Zuckerberg andMark Zuckerberg somewhat chased
the Democratic Party's tail andhe was the Elon Musk of his time
.
So, even though Elon is older,he was the Elon of that period
(25:40):
of presidential precedent.
Facebook chased Barack Obama'stail.
Trump won, facebook keptchasing Barack Obama's tail and
so did Meta, and then the JoeBiden administration comes
through.
Facebook stays in that oldBarack Obama coalition model.
(26:00):
Elon comes in, buys Twitter,now X from Jack Dorsey, etc.
And he becomes the Zuckerberg.
On the right, he startscensoring voices on the left.
(26:21):
He starts hyper-focusing onstories.
He's more active, so he startscalling out governments a lot of
times wrongly, uh, and he useshis platform to hyper, hyper
(26:42):
focus the voices of opinionsthat he agrees with.
He.
He lets that.
He um unleashes the bands.
Uh's quote unquote free speech.
Uh, back on the platform.
Free speech um meaning the freespeech that agrees with
(27:04):
whatever I, the billionaire,thinks.
Uh.
Donald trump wins due to, inpart, of um elon censoring a
certain amount of content, inthe same way that Zuckerberg has
been accused of censoringcontent from the right.
Elon puts $240 million intoDonald Trump's campaign and now
(27:29):
he has a seat at the table inthe exact same way that
Zuckerberg used to have a seatat the table.
So what is that saying?
It's saying that billionairesare buying seats at the table by
using their money and what theyhave on them besides money,
(27:49):
which is power, which is in theZuckerberg sense.
It was Facebook being an enginethat released information
because they could platform andde-platform people as like they
chose, while not being anofficial news organization.
And elon did the same thing forthe right.
(28:11):
Uh, and you see it openly.
And now elon has kind ofstarted to signal to all the
other billionaires you need tocome over here, because there's
gains to be gotten.
Um scott galloway also went on.
(28:31):
Um I?
Um went on morning, joe, youknow, with um, joe scobberl and
mika brzezinski and and um, andhe left another dire warning
(28:59):
Okay, and this was like droppingalmost a bomb because, like I
said Morning, joe, mikaBrzezinski, etc.
Joe Scarborough are the heightof access journalism.
Here we go.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get
no incremental happiness, etcetera, joe Scarborough, are the
height of access journalism.
Here we go Once you get above acertain level of wealth, you get
no incremental happiness.
So why on earth would you notgo back to a tax policy of the
60s, 70s and 80s where, sayabove, pick a big number, 10
million you actually pay morethan 10%, maybe more than 20%,
maybe more than 50%, because thedifference between $30,000 a
year for a household and $50,000is enormous to the well-being
(29:39):
of that household.
Kids in low-income householdshave higher resting blood
pressure, but the differencebetween making $10 million a
year and $15 million a yearoffers you no happiness.
But these individuals haveweaponized government and we
risk revolution.
Whether it's CEOs beingmurdered in the street, whether
it's a Me Too movement that hadrighteous components of it, or
(30:00):
Black Lives Matter.
What are these movements?
They are targeting the wealthy.
We are in the midst of a seriesof small revolutions to correct
income inequality.
We put an insurrectionist and arapist in office is because,
for the first time in ournation's history, a 30-year-old
man or woman isn't doing as wellas his or her parents were at
(30:21):
30.
Why?
Because the majority ofhouseholds are having the oxygen
sucked out of the room, suchthat a small number of
individuals and a small numberof companies can be worth more
than nation states.
It is out of control.
Our tax policy has gone fulloligarch.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So just for some clarity, so what he's talking
about when he said that thehappiness doesn't change on a
certain income level.
There was a study that came outyears ago and the study
basically showed it was onhappiness, depression, anxiety
and it uh, it tied it tofinances and what it actually
(31:02):
showed.
The study was very interestingand it showed that people who
made $75,000 a year and that wasthe market, $75,000 a year was
the marker Were no different inhappiness, stress, etc.
(31:22):
Did somebody that made 1million dollars, 2 million
dollars, 5 million dollars, 350million dollars, once somebody
made $75,000 a year, that theythat um, I don't know if it was
an internal thing that they feltlike they had made it that they
(31:44):
were.
They were no different.
And the people that made underthat marker um had a lot of
anxiety, had a lot of depressionabout their finances, etc.
And that was inside of thefinancial happiness index.
(32:04):
So you didn't notice, in thatparticular thing he went from
the word.
When he was talking to AndersonCooper on CNN, he used the word
kleptocracy.
When he was talking to MikaBrzezinski and Joe Scarborough,
(32:26):
he used the word oligarchy, andso I'm just going to give you a
brief definition of thedifference.
So oligarchy is defined as asmall group of people having
(32:47):
control of a country,organization or institution.
Institution, a country governedby oligarchy would be the
english uh aristocraticoligarchy of the 19th century.
Uh, for a historical example, aoligarchy is a is uh from the
ancient greek term, and it'sfrom rule by the few.
(33:11):
The rule command over everybodyelse.
The oligarchy is a form ofgovernment in which the power
and the form of government whichis in power rests with a small
number of people.
These people may or may not bedistinguished by one or several
characteristics, such asnobility, fame, wealth,
(33:37):
education, or corporate,religious, political or military
control.
Now, throughout history, thepower structures considered to
be oligarchs have often beenviewed as coercive, relying on
public obedience or impressionto exist.
Public obedience, ourimpression to exist.
(33:59):
Uh, aristotle pioneered the useof this term as a meaning to
mean rule by the rich,contrasting it with uh
aristocracy, arguing thatoligarchy was the perverted form
of a aristocracy.
So, so that's just a short,short, short version of the term
(34:23):
.
Now, countries that we today,somewhat distinctively, will in
the political span, will'll sayoligarchies, would be the
Philippines, the RussianFederation, iran, ukraine, the
(34:45):
United States is in there and,of course there's going to be
different meanings for that.
I told you that Princeton cameout with a study that said
America was actually aplutocracy, and a plutocracy is
(35:09):
a society that is ruled orcontrolled by people of great
wealth and income.
The first known use of the termin English was actually in 1631
.
Unlike most political systems,plutocracy is not rooted in
(35:31):
actually any establishedpolitical philosophy and
actually any establishedpolitical philosophy.
So so the term plutocracy isgenerally used as a pejorative
(35:52):
to describe and warn against aundesirable condition.
Throughout history, politicalthinkers and philosophers have
condemned plutocrats forignoring social responsibilities
and using their power to servetheir own purpose and thereby
increasing poverty and nurturingclass conflict and corrupting
societies with greed andhedonism.
(36:13):
So examples of the plutocracy,the historical examples would be
the Roman Empire, in somecity-states in ancient Greece,
the civilization in Cartridge,the Italian merchant city-state
of Venice, florence, gina, theDutch Republic, florence, gina,
(36:35):
the Dutch Republic, thepre-World War II Empire of Japan
.
And, according to Noam Chomskyand Jimmy Carter, the modern
United States resembles aplutocracy.
Also believed the US to bedeveloping into a plutocracy.
One modern form example of aplutocracy, according to a lot
(37:08):
of critics, is the city ofLondon, also called the square
of mile of ancient London.
So that is the differencebetween an oligarchy and a
plutocracy.
Now he used the term kleptocracy, which is more or less the same
(37:35):
but a bit different.
So when you get to akleptocracy, it is a society our
system ruled by people who usetheir power to steal their
country's resources.
Uh, government by people whouse their power to steal their
country's resources.
What it means in simple termsis this it referred to, as in a
(38:04):
lot of places, as a theocracy.
It is a government whosecorrupt leaders kleptocrats use
political power to exhort thewealth of the people and the
land they govern.
So again, they use thepolitical power to exhort the
(38:26):
wealth of the people and theland they govern, typically by
embezzling or misappropriatinggovernment funds at the expense
of the wider population.
Now, one feature of thepolitical-based socioeconomic
thievery is that there is oftenno public announcement
explaining or apologizing formisappropriations, nor any legal
(38:50):
changes or punishment leviedagainst the defenders.
Kleptocracy is different from aplutocracy, which is the rule by
riches and oligarchy ruled bythe elite.
In a kleptocracy, corruptpoliticians enrich themselves
secretly, outside the rule oflaw, through kickbacks, bribes
(39:14):
and special favors from lobbyistcorporations.
They simply direct state fundsto themselves and their
associates.
Also, kleptocrats often extortand export much of their profits
to foreign nations inanticipation of them losing
power, of them losing power.
(39:39):
So I, like I said earlier, Iwanted to give you a definition
of the three so that you wouldhave a sense of what they are
and you can decide what youthink.
America, in this, in thisiteration of what we're going
through, we are, I I think, atthis point in time, there needs
(40:01):
to be not just a politicalconsciousness but a class
consciousness, because I thinkthat's what's going to save us.
Even today's conservativemovements actually have roots in
a capitalist backgrass againstthe new deal.
So during the new deal, uh,right-wing business people were
(40:25):
furious that their authority wasbeing challenged in the
workplace and society, so theystarted the organization, and
that's the story of the originof what actually is the modern
conservative movement.
Um, yeah, really need people togo and check this out.
(40:48):
Okay, just about how thesemovements started.
Speaker 7 (40:56):
If you're a right-winger, you're angry at
the government.
This is a right-wing obsession,as you know.
Anything goes wrong, it's thegovernment.
It's a wonderful arrangementfor big business Wonderful.
Over the last five years ofcrisis, for example, the
overwhelming majority of peoplewho've been fired from their job
(41:17):
have been fired by a privatecapitalist employer and the
overwhelming majority of peoplehave been thrown out of their
home by foreclosure, had theforeclosure process begun by a
private capitalist banker.
And who are the people angry at?
The government?
They leap right over the peoplewho actually screwed them to
blame someone else.
If I were a corporate executiveor a banker, I'd be very pleased
(41:38):
with a system like this.
I kick you, you get angry atsomebody else.
I kick you again, you get memore angry at them.
This is wonderful.
Why should I ever stop kickingyou?
Or maybe it's immigrants orforeigners, or terrorists or
Muslims or who knows?
Scapegoats?
And the left, not to be outdone, no better able to understand
(41:59):
system, despite what it says,has its scapegoats the bankers,
the Federal Reserve bankers, theFederal Reserve, the big
businessmen or the governmentEver there, only now, in reverse
, the government didn't regulateenough, the government didn't
do enough.
It's the government.
(42:20):
Whoa.
Everything else other than ananalysis of the system.
The problem is the system, theway we relate to one another in
producing goods and services, indistributing them, in parceling
out the income that our outputenables us to have.
Oh no, no, we're not going tolook at all those relationships
(42:44):
Taboo.
We look for scapegoats, and itshows up not only in the way we
think, looking for who the badguys are right-wing bad guys,
left-wing bad guys.
We beat each other up over whothe real bad guy is.
Left-wing newspapers say it'snot the poor people, right-wing
newspapers say it is the poorpeople, and then we have long
debates about whether it is orit isn't the poor people.
(43:05):
This is bizarre, and if there'sno systemic critique, then
there needs to be no systemicresponse.
Nobody is going to say changethe system.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
The sickness is the system, and that was Professor
Richard Wolff here in that lastclip.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
And.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I played that clip because, like I said, I think we
need to start Moving beyond thepolitics Of democrat,
republican, libertarian and uh,constitutionalist Whatever else
you want to Label yourself as,green party, etc.
And we need to move To a bodypolitics, a uniparty, that the
(43:54):
center of the movement iseconomics.
My last word I was grateful tohave a show question today from
our long time subscriber andPatreon, gene, who says will the
(44:20):
Senate pass the bill preventingtrans people to play on the
girls team?
So he's talking about trans menand trans women are trans women
, I would say to pay play on, uh, cis women's teams?
Uh, the house passed that votetoday.
So if the bill goes through asit is, currently, I do not
(44:45):
believe it is going to pass theSenate.
Currently, I do not believe itis going to pass the Senate.
I'm going to also go ahead andanswer a question that you did
not ask, and I will say thatthere has only been one study on
this particular topic and Ithink it has to be a common
(45:13):
sense type of thing and eventhough life is not fair, I think
, as much as we can, we have totry to provide a sense of
fairness to the topic andbecause of that I do not believe
that is appropriate for anybodywho is not a biological female
(45:35):
to play in a sport thatbiological females are involved
in in, even if they have alreadybeen through the surgery and
puberty blockers et cetera.
Because I think once the bonedensity and the muscle mass and
(45:56):
everything is set, it is veryhard to call that back.
Um, when I was growing up in inhigh school in Jacksonville,
florida, I was involved in acombat sport known as amateur
wrestling.
We had a female on our team whois my very good friend, who I'm
(46:18):
still friends with.
Her name is Anastasia.
Because we did not have a girlsleague, anastasia had to
wrestle with the boys andsometimes she did beat the boys.
I do not think that it would bethe same and it would be
(46:38):
celebrated the same if there wasno boys league and there was an
all girls league and the boyshad to join the girls team.
I think there would be outrageand we would see it is
inappropriate and we may seethat somebody was trying to game
the system.
I use the elementary principlesof common sense.
(47:03):
If it does not work in onecontext, what makes you think it
is appropriate in a differentcontext.
It does not mean that it isfair, but not all things that
are correct and pragmatic aregoing to be at the level of
fairness.
(47:23):
Level of fairness, there's areason why in these sports, for
generations, for millennia, wehave women's track and men's
track and women's basketball andmen's basketball and women's
(47:46):
powerlifting and men'spowerlifting and women's
baseball and men's baseball andwomen's soccer and metal soccer
that we now are faced with a newphenomenon Because of social
evolution, and that is the transepidemic the trans movement, I
should say, and it does make ushave to decide how we're going
(48:12):
to deal with people who arehumans and therefore deserving
of respect, decency and dignity.
But we cannot give one grouprespect, decency and dignity by
letting them oppress and makeunfair requests of another group
(48:37):
.
I think the best way to dealwith this is to create another
league and let them equally,with decency and dignity,
compete against each other.
Now here's my last word, andthis is the great capitulation.
(49:00):
At a press conference inMar-a-Lago, donald Trump
described recent events fromTikTok CEO of Apple, secretly
Brian, and a co-founder, googleand other tech barons.
He said in the first term,everyone was fighting me.
He said, in this term,everybody wants to be my friend
(49:23):
For once, president Donald Trumpwasn't actually exaggerating.
Since Trump won re-election,this time with the popular vote,
(49:51):
many of the most influentialpeople in America seem to have
lost any will to disagree withhim or even stand up to him as
he goes about transformingAmerica into what a lot of
people believe will be the sortof authoritarian oligarchy that
he admires.
Call it the Great Capitulation.
Following January 6th, markZuckerberg, the Facebook.
Following january 6, markzuckerberg, the facebook uh
co-founder, suspended trump'saccount, but last month in
(50:14):
mar-a-lago, the wall streetjournal reported that um
zuckerberg stood hand on heartas the club played a rendition
of the national anthem sung byan imprisoned January 6th
defendant.
It's not clear.
Zuckerberg knew what he waslistening to.
He pledged a million dollardonation to Trump's inauguration
(50:36):
, as did the OpenIA CEO, samAltman, and Jeff Bezos from the
company Amazon, which has alsostreamed the inauguration on its
video platform.
Jeff Bezos is also obviouslythe owner of the Washington Post
(50:57):
, after Time magazine declaredTrump's person of the year.
The publication's owner and theSalesforce CEO, mark Benoff,
wrote on Twitter, now known as Xthis marks a time of great
compromise for our nation.
The owner of the LA Times, thebillionaire pharmaceutical and
(51:26):
biomedical entrepreneur, patrickSoon-Shiong, killed an
editorial criticizing Trump'scabinet picks and urging the
Senate not to allow recessappointments.
Most shocking of all, abc News,which is owned by Walt Disney
Company, made a craven decisionto settle a flimsy defamation
(51:50):
case bought by Donald Trump.
As you remember, a jury lastyear found Trump civilly liable
of sexually abusing the writer EJean Carroll.
In memorandum, the judge inthat case explained that, while
a jury did not find Trump hadraped Carroll, it was operating
(52:13):
under the New York criminal law,which defines rape solely as
vaginal penetration by a penisforcibly or I did find I should
say that he did forciblypenetrate EJ and Carol, but he
(52:40):
did so with his fingers.
The finding that Ms Carolfailed to prove that she was
raped within the meaning of NewYork penal law does not mean
that she failed to prove thatTrump had not raped her, as many
people commonly understood theword rape, wrote the judge
Indeed, as the evidence at thetrial recounted Below on air,
that a jury had found Trumpliable for rape.
(53:01):
Trump, who regularly threatensand sometimes filed defamation
cases against perceived enemiesin the press, sued and though
(53:31):
his case seemed absurdly weak,abc News actually decided to
settle in exchange for $15million and a donation to
Trump's future presidentiallibrary or museum for $1 million
in legal fees, and a publicstatement of regret from
Stephanopoulos and the networkDisplay of submissions are
limited to the tech industry andthe media industry.
Christopher Wray, the head ofthe FBI, agreed to step down
(53:53):
aside before the end of his10-year term, rather than to
make President Trump fire him towork with Elon Musk and Vivek
Ramaswamy, who, so-called theDepartment of Government
Efficiency, are dozed, seemposed to hack away at our
(54:14):
already, I'll just say,insufficient and bare safety net
.
And the New Yorker JonathanBlitzer wrote of a current
administration's refusal, atleast so far, to renew the
humanitarian parole ofimmigrants from countries such
(54:34):
as Venezuela and Haiti topossibly shield them from
deportation under the incomingpresident considers Trump a
fascist, and who has warnedabout the horrors of mass
deportation.
The atmosphere of Biden's WhiteHouse has struck several people
I spoke to.
(54:55):
With a cursory, sedate, blitzerwrote Different people have
different reasons for falling inline.
Some may simply lack thestomach for a fight or feel, not
unreasonably, that it's futile.
Our tech overlords, howeverliberal they once appeared, seem
(55:18):
to welcome the new Trump order.
Many hated wokeness, resentedthe demands of the newly uppity
employees who chafed at attemptsby Joe Biden's administration
to regulate crypto and AI Toindustries with the potential to
cause deep and lasting socialharm.
There are CEOs who got wherethey are by riding the Z-guise
(55:43):
that they can pivot easily frommouthing platitudes about racial
equity to slapping on a redMAGA hat when it's convenient.
Some Democrats appear to thinkthat they might steer those into
a productive direction and that, regardless, they'll get credit
for bipartisanship.
The electorate, after all, hasa readiness and rendered its
(56:08):
verdict on its resistance.
One of Kamala Harris' pollstersactually reported to Politico
recently and they warned theDemocratic National Committee
leadership againstpearl-clutching over Trump's
transactions, including thewidely unfit character ricksters
(56:29):
and characters he announced forhis administration.
The voters, she said, don'tcare about who Donald Trump is
putting in the cabinetCollectively.
All these elite decisions tobow to Trump make it feel like
the air is going out of the oldliberal order.
In its place, it will besomething more of a ruthless and
(56:54):
um nichian.
The individuals have and hasthe intrinsic moral right to
live his life in a special andfulfilling way, without
subordinating to the universalcollective.
Mark anderson, the softwareengineer and the venture
capitalist at the forefront ofsilicon valley it's right where
(57:17):
lurch wrote on twitter last weekpervos of extra guilt must not
steal that from you.
Even powerful people who didnot vote in favor of this harsh
new world Can find theirconsolation in it.
Thank you for tuning in and Iwill see you on the next episode
(57:40):
.
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