July 7, 2025 • 59 mins
Dexter White returns to discuss why what you thought you hated inStar Wars: The Acolyte wasn't anything different than why you thought you hated Trump's Budget Reconciliation bill or any other "Outrage Du Jour." We have a growing divide in political commentary that has trapped an entire locus of people on the left and the right to ensure there is no center.
Show Notes:
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Show Notes:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hello, and welcome to the Gold, Goats and Guns Podcast
for July second, twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Alonga.
We have a lot to talk about. It is episode
two twenty two, and I have with me frequent guest
and collaborator on all things gold, Ghats and Guns, Dexter White. Dexter,
How are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Tom? How you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm doing pretty well. I had a lovely chat last
night with Joe Mattsley, the writer from Sargate SG one
and Dark Matter and a couple of other shows and
about Babylon about two things very near and dear to
my heart, Babylon five and Star Wars. And it was
a lovely space and it's It's available on Joe's feet
(00:57):
this morning if you want to listen to it, if
you care. Me geeking out about all things science fiction.
But it was interesting. It's interesting that it came up
because you texted me over the weekend to tell me
about you having watched Star Wars The Acolyte, which was
a show that I couldn't stand, or at least I
just gave up with. I gave up on after three episodes.
(01:19):
It was the only actual Star Wars project that's come
out that I've actually not finished, and you had a
surprising take on it and dovetailed nicely with some of
the stuff you talked about in your article for this
month's Gold, Ghost and Guns newsletter. And this is part
of the read this is the insighting incident and story
terms for this podcast. So why don't you just take
it from there and you know, tell me what you
(01:41):
were what you were thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, I I had fallen into the influence of this
screaming whining masses of Reddit, I guess or wherever. I mean.
It really wasn't for me anything specific. I just kind
of took the crowds for it that the Accolte was
unwatchable garbage. And I watched the first episode and it
(02:06):
was at the time it came out, and it didn't
really grab me, and uh, and I usually don't just
you know, I don't know whatever it is the first episode,
timing and just some of the choices they made, I
was like, Okay, forget it. And then the screaming started
with episode two and onward and I just dropped it
(02:26):
and I never went I never looked back. And then
for no particular reason other than you know, boredom. I guess.
Over the weekend, I was like, yh s grit, I'll
watch it, see it, you know, see what happens. What's
the worst it could be. I rewatched from the beginning
of the first episode. I was like, well, you know,
it's not terrible. I was like, I wish they hadn't
killed carry Inn moss Off in the first episode, because
I hadn't you know at the time, like you don't know,
(02:48):
it's a flashback or sorry kid, spoiler alert, but nobody
watched it, or we'll watch it, so I guess we
don't have to worry about that too much. But she's
in more than one episode and she dies and first sorry,
But I muscled through that, and I watched the second episode,
which is was the source of much historyonics and the
(03:11):
reason I had never watched the rest of it, and
I just I watched the whole thing and it was
you know, I won't I won't say it's the greatest
piece of sci fi or Star Wars I've ever seen,
but the relevant takeaway for me was like, wow, I
I could think of a lot of things to criticize
in it, but almost none of what was the popular
(03:31):
uprising was the reason why I thought it was weak,
and in fact, there were some many things in it
that were just completely opposite the so called you know,
public you know, this decision of what it's you know,
net worth was and I I just kind of pondered
that as I finished it, you know, and so for me, uh,
(03:53):
I don't know, to refresh the audience. There was a
The most memorable phrase with the the criticism was lesbian
space witches. Now, the phrase lesbian space witches is kind
of fun to say, and we can both admit that
it has a certain natural nometic value. And it took
(04:16):
off and I think everyone who heard it just repeated
it six or seven times. And this was what was
wrong with you know, lucasfilm under Kathleen Kennedy. I pondered
a different aspect to this, which is just that it
was another example something we see frequently in our politics.
(04:37):
It was another example of people just externalizing and projecting
their kind of base anger about a thing onto the
latest version of a thing without really interacting with it whatsoever.
And that I think is becoming alarmingly constant in our society,
(04:57):
to the point where I really I think it's a
big part of why we can't talk to each other anymore.
It's we're not We're not just not listening. We're simply
not actually reacting to the matter at hand. We're we're
just kind of waiting for the other person to stop talking.
If we even do that before, we just belch out
just the static analysis.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I agree. And this is one of those things
that I started seeing this with in relation to Star Wars,
you know, back in twenty seventeen, or the initial backlash
against the Last Jedi, and and it was it wasn't
the criticisms of the things in the Last Jedi that
(05:40):
were my were that were interesting to me. I mean,
that's fine, if you don't like the movie, you don't
like the movie. I'm you know, still I'm still a
kid who believes that, you know, all Star Wars post
Return of the Jedi is a gift right at heart.
Some gifts suck and some gifts are great, just the
way it is. But what I noted in my because
(06:03):
I'm I, I interface a lot more with the regular
geek culture than you do on a regular basis. It's,
you know, it's what I do on YouTube to to
kind of relax and unline from from what we do
for a living, right, and all this politics and markets
and all this other rotten nonsense, and I just want
to be able to like zone out and you know,
watch some great stuff about some stuff on YouTube about
(06:23):
shit that I care about. And I couldn't do that anymore.
It was so obviously clear that the hate towards Star
Wars and and other fandoms and others and other and
other things. It was it was clear that it was
being purposefully amplified, and that there was a kind of, uh,
(06:46):
there was this polarization that was being created, and this
they were anxiety pimping, to use your phrase, dexter all
of us and gas lighting us into you know, you
either love the old trilogy, you're a good Star Wars
fan or a bad Star figure this or that, and
the whole thing was designed to just destroy anything that
people love. That's what I saw and how I just
(07:08):
wanted most of then I think that just reached reached
the crescendo with the Accolte.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So I have a question. So with Force Awakens, which
is the first of the sequel trilogy, there was a
combination of perhaps uh honest criticism whatever at least like people.
People had issues with Ray, they had issues with maybe
her having too much power for what they saw her
go through, so they went through the Mary Sue criticism.
(07:35):
There was what I've considered at the time and still
considered to be the entirely fake issues around Finn because
he's black. And I was just like, you guys are
just somebody is trying to just stir up trouble based
on something that no one gave a shit about, Like
there's been black characters in Star Wars from the beginning.
Like it's just dumb, and I felt like it was contrived.
(07:57):
But the race stuff was, you know, was well, whether
we agree or not on it, it doesn't matter like
people meant what they said about it. You know. That's that.
But what are you talking about relation to Last Jedi,
which was the middle film? Are you not talking about
that sort of Mary Sue issue? You're talking about something
else orcific?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I'm talking about how it divided the fan base
and then and there were people who loved it and
there were people that hated it, and and you and
I are on opposite.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Side elementally, though, what is it was?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was the level of amplification of the opposite side
of the of the hate because after Force Awakens, while
there was you know, undercurrents that people weren't happy with
things right, And I even saw some of this with
Rogue One. I remember Jack Pisobek during when Rogue One
came out, tried to gin up that this was gin
(08:49):
up controversy, that it was a multi culty cast and
it wasn't very good, and you could I could tell
that guy was running an operation. Then that's one That's
when my Spidey sense went off about him not being
what I think.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You know, I just yeah, anyone criticizing Rogue One is
an idiot. He doesn't understand story, because that thing was
basically the best Star Wars film of all ten. If
we're gonna be honest, it's very very close to that,
which is different than saying it's your favorite. But if
you you know, the more you know about story and filmmaking,
it's pretty hard to just deny that this one is
(09:21):
cut the best and is the best.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
But I agree from elementally, I agree with you. Star
Wars is still my favorite because I'm still a ten
year old boy and mine too.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
But I'm just saying from a filmmaker standpoint here.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Of course I agree with you, and so the division
and the fan base over Blast Jedi. It's not that
the criticisms of the movie aren't aren't valid. You and
I have gone back and forth for eight years now
about that movie, and we are on opposite sides of
the fence, And are I know.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That we're on opposite sides of the fence, because I
highly doubt that my criticisms of episode eight are you're
talking about? Is really simple? I just thought the editing
sucked fair.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But what I'm getting at here is that it the
those criticisms then became a whole thing about Kathleen Kennedy
is destroying the franchise and it's Jake Skywalker.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And I'm asking which which criticisms are you talking about?
For episode eight versus seven?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It was the handling of Luke in particular, and then
how that was all amplified into see, they can't even
they don't love they don't love the original canon at all.
They don't love the original characters. They are trying to
tear it down and they're trying to do and so
the the the voices that were that were there to
(10:44):
amplify that those criticisms were everywhere, and I know that
there was just an insane amount of fake influences on
you two who had inside knowledge about what was going on.
It was everywhere, dude, it was insane, and YouTube was
throwing them at me every day. And I kept saying,
not interested in that guy's channel, not interested in that
(11:06):
guy's channel. To go away for three days and come
right back again.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And there was some recycling of the whole Ray and
Finn criticisms from the seventh from episode seven, Sure there were,
but I also think that so what year was that
twenty seventeen?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
When that was December twenty seventeen is when that came
out to twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And that this is also just literally we all have
forget that YouTube didn't always work the way it works today.
But like this was also sort of the apex of
the the ramp, so to speak, of the algorithm influencer culture.
Like this is when everyone had gone out and bought
a you know, a cam and a and a ring light,
(11:46):
and it was it was a little more of like
the gold Rush period. So there was a there was
definitely a reason why every twenty you know, every every
third Nerd was copying, you know, the same exact rant
because it was it was getting you.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Followers and and it was getting you money.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And this is this is really what this podcast is about,
is that that we created this entire influencer set that
now they have a business model and they have to
keep they had to keep that business model running, right,
And so let's you know, we don't really need to
go any farther about Star Wars. It's just emblematic of
one aspect of this. We saw it there and and
I've seen it and we've seen it now in a
(12:27):
lot of other areas, and so we also see it
in our politics. At least that's what you were talking about. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The truth the truth of and Or is that the
criticisms of and Or were that it was totally outside
of the canon, that it had totally ridiculous characters, that
it was terrible, that blah blah blah was all woke,
it was all about lesbianism, and it's like none.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Of that was You meant, you met the alcohlate, you
met the Acohl. You just smirks the greatness. Yeah, good.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Sorry. The criticism of the Acolyte at the time was
all of that. And I'll put it this way, the
anti woke voices glommed onto it simply as the springboard
for anti woke rant and number six twenty six, you know,
and there's a lesser known you know, the fact that
(13:23):
the witches were even in it, I think was part
of the reason why this you know, like Psawk doesn't
understand a lot of what was in Rogue one, given
his comments, and a lot of these people criticizing the
Accolte didn't understand that the witches weren't just a thing
made up for the purpose of this this this episode
or the series, you know, right, like, they don't understand
(13:45):
that it's in canon, so to speak, and because they didn't,
it was very jarring for them, and then they freaked out.
And yet it turns out that this series is actually
very respectful of canon. Now we can We're not going
to do that in this episode, but we can. We
you and I went through it all and we agreed.
You know, there's a lot of real missed opportunities because
(14:07):
of how respectful it Like, there's actually a really cool
story in there that did not come out, and that's
really what's unfortunately wrong with the Acolyte is it's it's
it's written in a very unenlightened style, meaning the writer
just it's just not that good. The writing's not good.
And then if the writing's not good, you know, if
it on the page, it ain't on the stage. And
(14:28):
the editing is okay on an episode by episode basis,
but you know, it has an overall timeline fundamental problem
with the way the eight episode arc runs. Anyway, All
of that, though, is just to say that the thing
is different than the criticism, and it turned into a
(14:52):
witch hunt, to be a to use the pun, because
the people, you know, the people who were there ready
to pounce, were just looking for their springboard. And I
don't know how much of it was per se YouTube related,
and I will say that my thoughts of how prevalent
this is certainly goes way beyond YouTube, especially when we're
(15:13):
going to talk about politics. But you know, this is
a real issue, and I think just like maybe the
first run of it was the ham fisted criticisms of
Finn being black in episode seven in The Force Awakens,
because that was obvious nonsense in the sense that nobody
(15:35):
who was saying that was legitimately even watching the damn movie.
It was like they saw their moment to be an
agent provocateur.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yes, I can tell you when I give you a
perfect example, since we have a perfect antipode to the accolade,
which is and Or right, and how and Or is
now universally praised. But when and Or first came out,
I was there on YouTube, and I can tell you
that all of the YouTube influencers were all on the
same page with the same lame criticisms about its slow
(16:08):
and the editing and this and that, literally verbatim. It
was like they were all part of the mainstream media
talking about how our democracy, that this is such a
threat to our democracy. You've seen those videos, those memes
of like every local television station anchor saying the exact
same words. Well, I got news for you, John Campia
and Grace Randolph and this one and that one. All
(16:29):
we're doing that over and Or and I'm like, oh, fuck,
a whole lot of you folks right here right now.
And that's when I knew. That's when I had to
really confirm for me that this was this was being
driven by something else, and it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Was I'll postulate that this spaghetti throwing exercise that happens
at the first episode of every one of these things
is probably a permanent feature in the sense that they're
always going to try it because they don't care what
the content is at all. They just know that it's
It's kind of like, oh, well, we can trigger the
water cooler and see what happens, and then if if
(17:07):
it takes, if our criticism takes and you know, basically
trolls everybody well, and it sticks, then oh, then we're
off to the races. Because I don't I don't think
it's fundamentally for any of the pieces we could talk
about or have talked about, or any pieces coming in
the future of important really what that thing is. I
think it's just, look, hey, we have another thing to
(17:30):
throw a spaghetti at.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Right, and so let's now ship that into the politics,
and let's ship that into the you know what you
were again what you wrote about in this month's newsletter,
where you were talking about the same kind of thing
happening in terms of you know, Trump's policies and the
and handling of the Iran Israel dust up. I hate
(17:54):
to even call it a war at this point because
it only lasted twelve days, you know, all of that
stuff and go through because it was really clear in
the article you wrote that you have these same criticisms
of now Tucker Carlson and others, and I have the
same I'm getting that same criticism I had that she
(18:14):
had that same criticism for other people in the alternative
media space who are on the pro Russian side or
the pro running side.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I lumped together Mark Levin, Tucker Carlston, Dave Smith, and
MTG or Marjorie Taylor Green because all of them simply,
you know, they all just sold their you know, spoke
their books, sold their book. What's what's the cliche everyone
always says about gold Cellars.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
They they talked their book, talk their book.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I feel like it's it's worth explaining in advance that
for the especially for people who were like challenged in
sarcasm and irony, that when I go on a podcast
and I and I make fun of people for saying
they're people because they don't believe in kicking puppies, that
if you can't understand that dripping sarcasm and irony are
(19:09):
part of the program here. Like I mean, I'm just
going to tell you find something else to listen to.
So one of the aspects of libertarianism that I've had
a problem with for a long time is that libertarians
hold themselves up as saintly not all you know, not
so much the left libertarians. But there's this this tranch
(19:30):
of libertarianism that I think this smirches the morally correct
position that war is on balance immoral. That's something I believe,
no irony. But when somebody makes the center of their
personality this statement, well, I'm just anti war man. There's
(19:54):
nothing easier to be against. There's nothing less. You have,
no less skin the game. That's like And again, that's
like being against kicking puppies, which is why sometimes you
have to tell libertarians who are sanctimonious that you love
to kick puppies, just to see what they say and
just and agree and amplify and then say no, I
(20:17):
actually have a puppy kicking team and into But to
be more direct, when you're talking with an anti war libertarian,
take the side that war is the solution to the problem,
and see how much their brain can actually produce a
refutation of the statement, rather than just literally sinking immediately
(20:39):
into personal insult. But more to the point unfocused comments
like just it's all nonsense, and this is, unfortunately for
Dave Smith and increasingly Tucker Carlston, the real root of
their worldview. I think Dave Smith applies it more Honestly
(21:02):
is not the right word, but he rigorously is better.
I mean, Tucker, though in this recent history, was just
it almost seemed just fully irrational. And then on the
other side of it, I mean, do I really have
to explain the mirror reflection of what Mark Levin believes
and how he acted when this happened. I mean, I
(21:23):
guess for the benefit of the talk. Here's a little secret.
Mark Levin is pro destruction of Iran, however it happens
whoever you know, and because he believes the destruction of
Iran is to the benefit of Israel. I don't think
we need any more details than that. I think people
are probably familiar with that, and for people who like
(21:44):
to avoid Mark Levin, which I understand, he was predictably
in that modality during the recent Twelve Day War surprise surprise.
But my point is in the art more broadly, was
just because war is not usually a good idea, and
(22:08):
just because the situation sure as hell seemed like we
were getting dragged into it by Israel, not even against
our will, but sort of by pure surprise in the sense.
And there's some things I'll get to in a second
about why I believe that, and people are free to
believe something else, because ultimately this comes down to a
situation where the facts we are presented with none of
(22:30):
us can really have much confidence in them. Like one,
it's a war. They're lying to us certainly about tactics,
Like you don't say, hey, we're going to fly the
planes up the middle of the Persian Gulf at six
twenty four PM, Like you don't say that because if
you're not lying, they could shoot your planes down. So
and you know, there's a reason why Israel is telling people, hey,
(22:52):
you can't upload videos of the missiles hitting the neighborhood.
It's because they're time stamped. And most people don't wait
an hour before they take pictures of events. They boom,
there's an explosion, and forty five seconds later they're filming,
and then they upload a time stamp video. This is
very helpful if you're shooting ballistic missiles into a neighborhood
(23:14):
and then someone you know puts a geotag time steer like, oh,
we basically almost hit what we're inimming for. Okay, move
it two clicks to the left, you know, right. So,
so obviously the facts, the specific tactical facts, will be
false more than they're true. But we don't have to
(23:36):
act like we can't deduce some things and use reasoning,
you know, use reason to try to figure out what's
going on. And we also don't have to reduce everything
to like reducti ad libertarium, where we just we just say, oh,
war is wrong and if this happens, it's World War
three and there's no other possible welcome. It's like Jesus
(23:58):
fucking I mean really, and that's what we get. And
then God forbids you want to have a complicated, you know,
just a little more nuanced view of the entire situation,
then you're either a warmonger or you know, an anti
war libertarian. You can't be someone who's like, hey, dude,
(24:21):
this isn't just this ab diad that you people have
been stuck in for thirty years.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right, yes, And this is the lesson I've been trying
to teach about, and I've been trying to teach I've
been using trying to use Star Wars to teach this
person for a long time now. And you know, I've
got news for you. It's not sticking. It's getting worse.
And the reality is is that we're being gassoled on
(24:49):
both sides into believing things that are not true. And
the goal here is not to absolve Israel or Iran
or anybody else of their perfidy, their crimes, this anything else.
It's to you know, discuss what actually happened, to the
best of our ability, and why it happened, and what
(25:13):
it all means. And that's where we need to be
as opposed to screaming at each other about our you know,
about our fee fees, like it's not our job as analysts.
And certainly this is something that I've been been screaming
about online on Twitter at all sides of the community
(25:36):
for months, going, Look, you're suppose you're supposed to be
an expert. You're supposed to know better. Tucker Carlson, I'll
call them out, Daniel McAdams, Doug McGregor, all these people
I have. I listened to them. I'm like, you're supposed
to be an expert. You're supposed to be able to
step back and assess the data and the information and
give us that information and then let us figure out
what's going on from there, as opposed to you know,
(25:59):
taking us side.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, well it is the trap. The medium is the trap.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
This is an autonomic thing. And when I wrote in
the beginning of the article, I might just read from
it because it's uh so, I say, it's called grace
under pressure. I'm talking about states of mind, and you know,
a state of mind separate from our stress hormones. It's
(26:27):
called grace under pressure. Paren It's not just a rush
album Tom situational awareness, what have you. It eludes most
of us to be sanguine amidst crisis is a heavy
lift because the usual state is something else. The narrowing
of awareness hyper focus on what the limbic system is
deemed threatening, a retreat to the most efficient circuit, also
(26:48):
known as our biases. Whether this is an insult or
not depends on our actual values in education. Regardless, when
the adrenaline dumps, there is no contemplation. We can pretend
we are rational being but under stress instinct rules martial arts.
Martial artists learn patterns. Combat veterans rely on gross motor skills,
because under extreme duress, precision and improvisation both go out
(27:12):
the window. That is what governs the commentary in the
article my talking about Accolyte, and honestly, the way I
increase inly view the entirety of our political discourse. It's
that there's no hope of philosophy because all there is
is autonomic response, and that is a function of the
fact that we are not fully informed. We cannot take
(27:35):
the facts and manipulate them into a display of causality
of our own you know that our own mind can
can you know? And then argue about it with other
people who have different interpretations of that. We're given summaries.
The summaries are often false, and then we're encouraged to
make hyper quick analysis and everything becomes a step function,
(27:58):
and that you're on team zero and you're in team one,
and there's no middle. It's all just burned away and
we can't keep doing this, or we were just living
in a cartoon. It's it's not worth doing. I know
Tucker Carlson is selling a lot of alp his new
you know, nicotine pouch, and I know he doesn't have
(28:22):
a Fox check, and I know, Dave Smith is probably
making more money than he's ever made before after being
the whipping boy, not so much the whipping boy who lost,
but just you know, the whole Douglas Murray event has
made him much more of a household name than he
was before, for sure, just because some arrogant britt was
arrogant to him, which I guess is a great way
(28:43):
to get rich. And Mark Levin just screams like a
lunatic and that's his you know, that's his book, man.
But we're not learning anything. And I mean, what are
we going to vote for? You know, what is the
left going to be willing to vote for at the
(29:03):
end of this process? I mean New York City might
be a screaming warning of how you know, I don't
think most people in New York City are communists, but
I think that when people are sick of the system,
they'll vote for the thing they think that will most
(29:23):
damage the system. I think that very much explains twenty
sixteen with Trump, I agree, and twenty twenty we're going
to have to suspend judgment. I have a feeling we're
going to be learning more about things that we've been
told are conspiracy theories about that election going forward and
then twenty twenty four. Frankly, it was equally about Trump
(29:46):
and also about the insult of being living under an
obviously senile president and being told you can't say that,
which you view to be plainly true. Because people who
hated Trump who voted for him this time just because
they could not handle being told that Biden wasn't senile.
(30:08):
Now they're not a lot of people, but and there
are more people who were Republicans who were sort of
never Trumpers, but not in like the Bill Crystal type.
They just were like, you know, embarrassed by Trump, so
they couldn't they go to libertarian. But this time they
voted Trump because they wanted the Democrats to lose viscerally.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So right, well, it's like and that was and now
you can understand why they pushed why it was pushed
to deny the concept of men and men versus women,
and the whole the whole trans movement was in many
ways is about that same thing. The way it was politicized,
which is to deny you know, people their ability to
(30:45):
state which is that is true, dude, that's a dude
over there, dude, And like you know, and we're and
we're not allowed to talk about that, and then viinally
people are like, no, no, we're going to talk about it.
And the question I have for everybody, and I think
I know you do too, which is, you know, where
do we wind up if we're gonna just if we're
(31:07):
going to allow ourselves to be in that that false
eye ad in this case of Israel bad or on good?
And I mean this sincerely, like, can't they both be bad?
Can't they both be great? You know? Can't they both
be and you can have sympathy?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Can't they both be honestly working within a rational framework
that benefits themselves, right, you know, even if it doesn't
benefit us, like and and and does that always have
to be considered bad? Now? Terrorism is bad. Blowing up
square blocks of cities while pretending you're doing surgical strikes
is bad. But they're they're also not events that are
(31:47):
isolated on you know, a timeline. Now, I you know,
I don't want to justify either, but I will tell
you I come down more on I'm I'm I'm I'm
sympathetic to what Israel needed to do post October seventh
at a strategic level, and I'm not sympathetic on how
(32:08):
they achieved it tactically, but I understand why they They said, Okay,
we are not going to tolerate the existence of Hamas
or his blah anymore, and ultimately, we're not going to
tolerate the people who pull their leashes being alive if
we can kill them. I get that. I think that's
a rational framework. It's not what I would have if
(32:28):
I were in charge of the US government encourage them
to pursue. But that doesn't mean I don't understand it,
and being told I have to pretend to not understand
it in order to, you know, be a righteous member
of team one versus Team two, like not interested. Sorry,
that's not who I am. It's it never was. And
if you thought it was, you just you don't know me.
(32:50):
And that's fine. You know, the internet's a big place.
There's other shit to read, right well, I, like, I
promise you there's not. You're not going to run out
of words out there.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And this is what has you know,
it's begun to government thinking much more than it used
to as well. And you know, as I watched this
play itself out, and you know, it's funny, I was
doing some stuff this morning for the for our patrons,
and I, you know, just to clear the error with people.
(33:22):
I said, you know, I'm actually part of the reason
why I'm you know, I'm less sympathetic to Iran that
I would have been, you know, six eight, nine months,
even a year or two years ago. It's simply because
at the end of the day, when push came to
shove and they were punching them out, they folded. And
they told us for years that they were going to,
you know, give us this this grand retribution for the
(33:45):
evil that is Israel, and then they turned out to
be a frankly, a paper tiger. And I'm like, for
me looking at the grand chess board and wanting to
see a path to how can we get to global
peace and disempower the people who created this freaking false conflict,
or not false conflict, but this conflict built along false parameters.
(34:11):
I'm I'm genuinely angry about that because I know how
unbelievably destabilizing that is in the long term for all
of humanity. And I'm like, dude, you were supposed to,
you know, stand up to these people, and then you
folded like a cheap suit and okay, well there it is,
like you know what am I supposed to say?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So my job in this gold, Goats and Guns enterprise
is to interrupt you here and point out that that's
the wrong time to do a moral analysis. You know,
we're trying, well, they're being because Iran lost, Like this
isn't the kind of analysis we're not doing advocacy.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
No, no, don't let me, let me, let me, let me,
let me do a better.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Let me just one second. The reality is is that
and this I think confuses people with our things sometimes
is you know, we do like a real politic, actual
view of the world projection thing. And most of what
that's going to be going forward is going to recognize
(35:15):
that Iran lost, the IRGC lost, the proxies are neutralized.
That changes the situation. And it is not a moral
judgment whatsoever. Now we you know, you and I may
have different we may have the same, what it does
not come into it. We refuse to live in a
state of denial about what just happened, which seems to
(35:38):
be increasingly desired by people. And and nothing is better
than people who willfully believe propaganda that says, you know,
Iran took out the entire Israeli Air Force. It's like, buddy,
did not happen, right, you know, so we got to
live in reality and there's no reason to put a
moral judgment on it. And you know, I would just
(35:59):
point out, you know, like what you were saying is, look,
Israel's not the only thing that needs a punch in
the mouth in the world. And in fact, Iran needed
a big punch in the mouth too, because upon creation,
the first thing they did was go put their business
where it didn't belong, you know, in pursuit of something
that you know, Israel and Iran were pretty close in
(36:21):
the seventies and even frankly most of the first part
of where what the Mullas were doing, Israel wasn't happy
about it. But listen, Israel and Iran were working together
in Iran contrast, so people don't know what they don't.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Know, right, Well, again, you're correct, that is that was
my position during all of this, And what I was
actually doing was jumping to the end to say, if
you want, you know, my if you want to feel
comfortable with my Olympic reaction and my grander view of
the game board, this is part of the reason this
is part of my frustration and why I'm like, no,
(36:56):
I really did want you know, I said in the beginning,
like my alt my my my optimal outcome for this
is a tie and a lot of injuries, meaning I
don't I want them both to be you know, like
to get your shots in boys, get it over and
done with, and then let's see where we are and okay, good,
you're done. Now, great one, can't you know? Great? Who
(37:18):
loses in that? And the old the old agitators, the
old agent provocateurs that have been these that that that
thrive on chaos are the ones that lose in that situation.
So at the end of the day, I'm I'm cautiously
optimistic that strategically and tactically that or strategically that we're
(37:39):
moving in the right direction and I don't have to
take a sign here, And that's that period, and I'm
I'm I'm good with that outcome. And that apparently makes
that apparently is beyond the pale in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
I think a lot of people, you know, are younger
a than than we are in a lot of this space.
And there's sort of a cartoon version of Israel in
their head mixed with the one thing I'm going to
push back on on people is like the idea that
this is all in service of greater Israel, and Israel
is going to take over basically half of a Rack
(38:17):
and a little of Lebanon. And there's a bunch of
maps you could go find, but you know they're not
necessarily contiguous with existing borders. But imagine in Israel, you know,
six or eight times the size that it is now,
and that that's the secret agenda. Okay, don't buy it.
I'm more interested about interested about what just happened in
(38:38):
this you know, drastic weakening of Iran and the IRGC
specifically in imagining what the world looks like. And this
is not to forgive anything that Israel has done. And
this is the thing I have to repeat over and
over because people don't seem to get this is I'm
just predicting where I think this goes because of the
magnitude of the shift and power, and I think Israel
(39:02):
just one period, that's what I think. I could be wrong.
And believe me, when they restart the hostilities a week
from Thursday and I look like an idiot, I expect
that that's a possibility. But at the same time, my
you know, my ultimate call here is that Trump has
(39:23):
initiated a change which has also perhaps in concert with
BB or simply that BB read the room, which is
kind of where I come down on it. But again,
we don't know. Everyone who's like, well, I know what
BB and Trump we're talking about. No, you don't.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It's like I want to know too, And if you
have tape, let me hear it. It's probably AI. But
we don't know. We can only look at what's happened.
And you know, I think that what's happened here is
that Israel's going to have a far less reason and
also far less excuse and far less patients held by
(40:04):
others for pulling any more shit. Once these this serious
nidas against its existence is removed, is is going to
have no choice but to be a better member of
the neighborhood going forward. And so too, will that be
a condition of any negotiated recognition of Saudi or whatever
the Abraham accords, you know, future elements that that clearly
(40:30):
are coming and are clearly being worked up. There's going
to be a negotiation here, and that's a different world
than the world we've lived in, and that's a world
I see coming into being. And that's not in any
way an endorsement of how we how what we got here.
I'm just you know, the RGC has been for a
very long time been held up to be something it's not.
(40:52):
People don't understand. The ERGYC is more than anything, a
theocratic terrorist organization that's well funded masquerading as a military.
And the reason is is that the conventional I mean
think of this like Turkey in many ways, like the
Turkish Islamic state that imagined by erduwan Is, has had
(41:12):
to do a lot of work to get its army
in line because its army is very secular comparatively speaking.
When the revolution happened in Iran, something similar happened, and
that the IERGC kind of rolled up all these street
gangs who were on the side of the true theocrats
and created this organization where they you know, it's the
(41:35):
brown shirts, it's the enforcers, but very religious, and they
empowered them and the people do not like them. And
now a hell a lot of them are dead and
all of their proxies are dead, and the Iranian military,
the so called whatever, you know, the guys who run
the Bluewater Navy as opposed to the Brownwater Navy that's
run by the IRGC. Listen, there is we have a
(41:58):
setup inside the country for the people of Iran to
tell us what they want, and the IRGC being weakened
considerably is going to be a part of that. The
RGC was never a legitimate warfare operation. They did not
observe the rules of war. They you know, they attacked
non combatants, they attacked terrorists, They attacked countries that they
(42:19):
theoretically weren't at war with, like the United States. They
killed marines in Beirut. They killed all of our servicemen
in Iraq. You know, they were giving all the Shechite
militias EFPs, which are the penetrators. Now I'm going to
tell you I understand a little bit more why Iran
is sabotaging US presence in Iraq because it's on their border.
(42:43):
I can. I'm not saying I support them killing US
troops in any way, but I think it's a more
rational operation for them to be doing it. Like there's
a military explanation for it. The force projection they imagined
into primarily soon you know, areas like Lebanon to say
(43:05):
nothing the fact that Lebanon was majority Christian not that
long ago. This stuff was never about Israel, you know,
it was about their own version of these law. It's
was about the Islamic revolution as understood in Iran, and
more broadly for you know, the expansion of Islam, but
(43:25):
obviously for them, the expansion of Shia Islam. And that
that ain't our fight.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
No, not our fight, not our fight at all. And
and and that's a that's a workable outcome for me.
And I'm okay with that. And you know, one of
the things that that was eye opening for me was
on the night of the initial attack on Iran that
(43:52):
we found out that they were the Israelis had an
entire drone factory under the IRG season. You know, they're
the entire time that they pulled off combined arms operations.
None of that happens without help on the ground in
Iran by Iranians.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Oh no. No. Israel has proven that they are capable
of intelligence operations that frankly only exist in movies for
the CIA, Like the CIA can only pull off those
operations inside Hollywood and County.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Right, But I mean, I'm okay with believing that even
either version of that story. But it's something too aldt
least consider and to discuss, right and have a rational
discussion about, as opposed to, Oh, no, you're just you know,
making excuses for Israel or you just sound you know,
like a like a shill for these people. I'm like, no,
(44:51):
they like this is these are the these are the facts,
and if you want to ignore those facts, that's your prerogative.
And the same and on both sides, I mean, I'm again,
none of this is and a way of absolving anybody
of their crimes. Everybody's got crimes here. And what are
(45:14):
what are we as outside observers, what should we be
looking for? What should we want to see out of this?
And if we can't be and if we and if
we don't want to be active combatants in it, which
we shouldn't be, then as observers, what do we want
to see as the outcome? And how can we, you know,
ensure that this thing, once it's over and burns itself out,
never comes back. Yeah, and you know what you said
(45:36):
about what you said about this is what I've wanted
from the beginning. I want the Iranian people to choose
their government, and if they decide to choose to stay
under the theocracy, well that's their choice. But you know,
you don't get to have a nuclear weapon. That's that's
my line in the sand. And that's and that and
that statement for me personally comes down to the desire
(45:58):
to see civilian populations no longer being blackmailed by government
organizations who you know, steal people's money and wealth and
power and then use it for their own personal purposes.
That's a general statement, and that's where libertarians should be
should be on all fronts. And what I'm seeing is
(46:19):
a whole bunch of libertarians arguing for the proliferation of
nuclear weapons so that civilians can be blackmailed. And I'm like,
that's that don't seem like the non aggression principle to me, motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now. It's just they think the NAP means you can't
interfere with another country's gaining of the nuclear weapon. And
I personally am not. You know, I'm not a libertarians
that don't really care about these angels on the head
of the pin of the NAP dancing. I just don't
give a shit. But I also just you know, back
(46:51):
in the era of mutual self sabotage and the libertarian
movement between the left libertarians and the you know, the
Trotskyites and everyone else, this whole idea, There was always
this thing where when you were in a room of libertarians,
where people were just doing argumentum at absurd like of
course it's okay if a person owns a nuclear weapon,
(47:11):
not a sou or an individuals like shut the fuck up,
like seriously, like this is It's not that the scope
of that kind of argument is obviously false. It's that
that argument type is obviously false, Like sitting around for
an hour engaging in logical fallacies is not a good
(47:32):
use of your time. And the nap is more useful
about governing reaction than because if you believe you're going
to prevent action by everybody believing this thing, you're just
fundamentally naive about how the world works. And that's just
there's no other way around it. And that's kind of
where you know, this whole thing is politics has no
(47:57):
time for you to go through your stages off right.
And not that I'm endorsing Koobler Ross or any one
of these types of social science like frameworks, ever, another
thing you should expect from me not to do. However,
we're all familiar with the stages of grief concept. The
first one, the first stage and the only one I'm
going to talk about, is denial. And that is what
(48:20):
happens when you live your life only running on your
limbic system, because you're you're going through, you know, a
sense of cognitive dissonance, and something happens like Israel pulls
off a successful operation and you can't handle it because
your entire world us predicated on them not being able
to take out Iran. Well, guess what, buddy, they just
(48:42):
took out Iran and then we went in and put
the cherry on the cake, and you can believe that
Iran has was not damaged at all and it was
all a stunt. We'll see and someone's gonna be right
and someone's going to be wrong. Yes, I understand we're
being lied to. I led with that. But when you
look at all of it, and you'll get the balance
(49:02):
of what you see. Ask yourself, do you feel like
a ran is winning? Like? Is that the overall takeaway
from all the pieces? And all the pieces are you
know worthy of doubting each piece? But when you look
at them all and you know you're making a judgment
call here, and I said, I believe this, and you're like, oh,
desk full of shit. Fine, I'm full of shit on that,
(49:23):
and you might be full of shit on this. We
look at all the pieces on the desk, is the
takeaway that a ran just kicked everybody's ass? Because if
that is, that's the takeaway, I'm going to tell you
you got to listen to something more than telegram because
you're plugged in to an information warfare channel that's lying
to you and you're not getting any oxygen in the mix. Yep, agreed,
(49:48):
And that's something we all have to be fastidious about.
That is not me judging you that. That's me saying
I consciously consume a lot more stuff than I want to,
from a much more more varied sources than I want to,
only not because I want to listen to friggin' redditor's talk,
for God's sakes, but because the more channels you look at,
(50:11):
the more you can understand how the information warfare itself works. Yes. Yes,
the more bullshit you consume that's flavored differently, the more
you realize it's all bullshit, And the more you realize.
Then you see the matrix. You see what both sets
of actors are doing to their minions. We're just this
(50:31):
episode is all about telling you to stop being a minion, right,
and you know, not just you the listener or metaphorically.
I'm not trying to insult people. I'm just saying that
this is a serious problem in political movements in America.
There's just way too many people who are not using
their brains. They're using their instincts, and it is hard
to be a philosopher and a bar fight. I get
(50:54):
that we have to try.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yes, I think that's a perfectly good way to wrap
this up. Honestly, I don't think there's very much more
to be said about this. You have to remind yourself
to just I think the forty eight hour of the
seventy two hour rule is a is a really good one.
Look when big things happen, take your time, take a
(51:20):
deep breath, and don't react. I can tell you, as
you know, where at the in the space that I
occupy right now, this meager is that is that amount
of influence has I can tell you that my phone
was ringing off the hook for the first three or
four days of this, and I'm like, nope, not taking
(51:41):
a not not not doing a thing, not jumping on
a not jumping on a live stream, not doing this,
not doing that. And there have been many calls, many
calls for that, and I'm like, over the years and
the old the longer we do this, the more I
realize that there's a lot more value in taking your
time and watching the way things play out. For example,
just the last last last note, you and I were
(52:03):
discussing what was happening in this in that twelve day
conflict on day two, and you made you made the
observation like, you know, let's see what iron does. But
if they don't, you know, come back over the top
with you know, a massive barrage, then we have to
wonder if this thing is not already on its way
to being finished. And that was a very interesting it
(52:26):
was and that was an important observation. And it was
like and I said to myself, Okay, even more reason
why I'm going to invokee the seventy two hour rules.
It was the forty eight hour rule. I'm going to
keep watching this to see how this plays out.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Well, what what that was based on, very simply was
a decapitation strike of a unified enemy doesn't do what
a decapitation strike of a tyranny does. And what what
that said to me is that there were there, There
was there was daylight between the energy c and the
(52:58):
regular military. And once IRGC command was wiped out and
military command was wiped out, the regular military and listen again,
I don't know what. I don't know how many launchers
were hit. I don't know how many bottlenecks. These really
figured out that if all the missiles are in the
cave and they collapse the front of the cave and
then wipe out the three launchers outside the cave. You know,
(53:19):
I don't know about the fixed versus truck mounted blah
blah blah. I don't know. I don't have facts that
I believe, right, I've seen as much bullshit AI and
ARMA footage being played as Arma as a video game
that's often used. It's very realistic or realistic enough, although
it's to me very obvious. But you know, there's a
lot of fake stuff. It's just fake and but but
(53:41):
strategically speaking, or sorry, tactically speaking, the absence of a
barrage told me like they either can't launch because of
Israel just gamed it that well, or more likely there's
a command break because the command is not sitting over
a unify enemy, because listen, it's not like a mystery
(54:03):
who would have done that to them? If you have
no comms and all you know as an Iranian field
commander is that Israel did all this stuff, you probably
should have a basic plan of like shoot missiles towards Israel.
That's my move if I don't hear from command, And
if you had a unified enemy, wouldn't they wouldn't that
be their kind of normal baseline training response for this
(54:25):
kind of day, that the day that they've said they
you know, they've they've literally told us for how many
years that that would be their plan should this day come.
I don't think that was a secret to anyone inside
the Iranian command, and they did not do it right,
not to the degree that you would have. So they
were either lying about their capabilities, which they should have been.
(54:45):
The exaggeration is a valid form of, you know, deterrence.
But you know, and yes, the Israelis lied about how
much damage they took, and yes, the Americans helped and
lied about helping all these things be true, but ultimately
you know, you know, Tomm, you're right. Well, I said
it at that moment because I was like, this response
(55:06):
is not enough to be They're not in the game.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
They're just not and and the thing and the and
and to put a final point on that, all of
these lies that you uncover, right, people don't does not
mean that the opposite is true. Just because then lied
about you know, how much damage they took or how
(55:32):
much damage they did, or Israel lied about how much
damage they took, and bah blah blah, just because those
just because you uncover those lies does not automatically mean
that the converse is true. That's the false. To quote
Dexter again, if not A then b bullshit. That we
have been led to the intellectual false, intellectual paradigm that
(55:56):
we've all been led into believing and and reacting to,
and that has to end if we want to have
we all have a return to rational discourse. Because to
cap off this podcast, we started with Star Wars, right,
we started with the Acolyte. What happened? We started with
the Last Jedi? What happened? The last of the backlash
of the Last Jedi was so overwhelming that Solo underperformed,
(56:19):
and Solo was a perfectly good movie. By the way,
Dexter and I agree about this, by the way, the Acolade.
By the time The Acolte came out, no one watched.
Skeleton Crew came out a couple of months later. Great
little show with a great message for kids and adults
to watch together. Good show, well written, well acted, well directed, well,
(56:42):
all of it good, you know, good execution. So you know,
just because X happened does not mean that all of
Disney's Star Wars sucks. Just because why happened doesn't mean
Israel bad, Iron good, or Iron good Israel bad. None
of that, or the or the converse. None of that
(57:03):
means anything. You know, evidence of absence is not the
absence of evidence or the other way around.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
So yeah, but it's time to put the skull bong down.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
No, I mean, yeah, absolutely, that's uh, well, I guess
we'll leave it there.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
So no, but you know, I think that that's uh.
You know, this is going to be a continuing journey,
not a not a stop at the train. You know,
it's it's we have to keep I mean, ultimately, what
we're trying to do. I think with our non financial commentary,
which interfaces with our financial commentary, is is always just
(57:40):
trying to point out that this, this story that seems simple,
is seldom simple, and you need to I'm not saying
don't rely on your habits, but tune what your habits
are and be willing to, you know, defer filling in
gray space because you know the AI is getting better,
the lies are going to keep coming, and the level
(58:02):
of lying may continue to shock us. All I don't
I don't have I'm not willing to predict that it's
going to get better. I mean, I wish I could.
I wish I could, I wish we you know, the
only the alternative is maybe we all get a little
smarter and we get a little harder to have our
legs pulled, and maybe that demoralizes the people who want
(58:25):
to lie to us at scale enough to give us
an alternative. That's all I got for you. But that's
what I'm advocating for.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yep. And the more of us that do it, the
harder it will be for them. The gaslights.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
Yeah, we don't want to be in wally.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah, we don't want to be there.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Can't pee the end goal?
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yep? All right, man, Thank you so much for that. Dexter,
as always, you got us. You can find him at
Dexter K White on x, slash Twitter or whatever, and
you can find me at the APL seventeen twenty eight.
You can find us at patroon slash Gold Ghats and
Guns and Gold Ghots and Guns dot com. Be while
you take care, we'll talk soon. Keeper stick on your guys,
(59:10):
m
Hello, and welcome to the Gold, Goats and Guns Podcast
for July second, twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Alonga.
We have a lot to talk about. It is episode
two twenty two, and I have with me frequent guest
and collaborator on all things gold, Ghats and Guns, Dexter White. Dexter,
How are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Tom? How you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm doing pretty well. I had a lovely chat last
night with Joe Mattsley, the writer from Sargate SG one
and Dark Matter and a couple of other shows and
about Babylon about two things very near and dear to
my heart, Babylon five and Star Wars. And it was
a lovely space and it's It's available on Joe's feet
(00:57):
this morning if you want to listen to it, if
you care. Me geeking out about all things science fiction.
But it was interesting. It's interesting that it came up
because you texted me over the weekend to tell me
about you having watched Star Wars The Acolyte, which was
a show that I couldn't stand, or at least I
just gave up with. I gave up on after three episodes.
(01:19):
It was the only actual Star Wars project that's come
out that I've actually not finished, and you had a
surprising take on it and dovetailed nicely with some of
the stuff you talked about in your article for this
month's Gold, Ghost and Guns newsletter. And this is part
of the read this is the insighting incident and story
terms for this podcast. So why don't you just take
it from there and you know, tell me what you
(01:41):
were what you were thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, I I had fallen into the influence of this
screaming whining masses of Reddit, I guess or wherever. I mean.
It really wasn't for me anything specific. I just kind
of took the crowds for it that the Accolte was
unwatchable garbage. And I watched the first episode and it
(02:06):
was at the time it came out, and it didn't
really grab me, and uh, and I usually don't just
you know, I don't know whatever it is the first episode,
timing and just some of the choices they made, I
was like, Okay, forget it. And then the screaming started
with episode two and onward and I just dropped it
(02:26):
and I never went I never looked back. And then
for no particular reason other than you know, boredom. I guess.
Over the weekend, I was like, yh s grit, I'll
watch it, see it, you know, see what happens. What's
the worst it could be. I rewatched from the beginning
of the first episode. I was like, well, you know,
it's not terrible. I was like, I wish they hadn't
killed carry Inn moss Off in the first episode, because
I hadn't you know at the time, like you don't know,
(02:48):
it's a flashback or sorry kid, spoiler alert, but nobody
watched it, or we'll watch it, so I guess we
don't have to worry about that too much. But she's
in more than one episode and she dies and first sorry,
But I muscled through that, and I watched the second episode,
which is was the source of much historyonics and the
(03:11):
reason I had never watched the rest of it, and
I just I watched the whole thing and it was
you know, I won't I won't say it's the greatest
piece of sci fi or Star Wars I've ever seen,
but the relevant takeaway for me was like, wow, I
I could think of a lot of things to criticize
in it, but almost none of what was the popular
(03:31):
uprising was the reason why I thought it was weak,
and in fact, there were some many things in it
that were just completely opposite the so called you know,
public you know, this decision of what it's you know,
net worth was and I I just kind of pondered
that as I finished it, you know, and so for me, uh,
(03:53):
I don't know, to refresh the audience. There was a
The most memorable phrase with the the criticism was lesbian
space witches. Now, the phrase lesbian space witches is kind
of fun to say, and we can both admit that
it has a certain natural nometic value. And it took
(04:16):
off and I think everyone who heard it just repeated
it six or seven times. And this was what was
wrong with you know, lucasfilm under Kathleen Kennedy. I pondered
a different aspect to this, which is just that it
was another example something we see frequently in our politics.
(04:37):
It was another example of people just externalizing and projecting
their kind of base anger about a thing onto the
latest version of a thing without really interacting with it whatsoever.
And that I think is becoming alarmingly constant in our society,
(04:57):
to the point where I really I think it's a
big part of why we can't talk to each other anymore.
It's we're not We're not just not listening. We're simply
not actually reacting to the matter at hand. We're we're
just kind of waiting for the other person to stop talking.
If we even do that before, we just belch out
just the static analysis.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I agree. And this is one of those things
that I started seeing this with in relation to Star Wars,
you know, back in twenty seventeen, or the initial backlash
against the Last Jedi, and and it was it wasn't
the criticisms of the things in the Last Jedi that
(05:40):
were my were that were interesting to me. I mean,
that's fine, if you don't like the movie, you don't
like the movie. I'm you know, still I'm still a
kid who believes that, you know, all Star Wars post
Return of the Jedi is a gift right at heart.
Some gifts suck and some gifts are great, just the
way it is. But what I noted in my because
(06:03):
I'm I, I interface a lot more with the regular
geek culture than you do on a regular basis. It's,
you know, it's what I do on YouTube to to
kind of relax and unline from from what we do
for a living, right, and all this politics and markets
and all this other rotten nonsense, and I just want
to be able to like zone out and you know,
watch some great stuff about some stuff on YouTube about
(06:23):
shit that I care about. And I couldn't do that anymore.
It was so obviously clear that the hate towards Star
Wars and and other fandoms and others and other and
other things. It was it was clear that it was
being purposefully amplified, and that there was a kind of, uh,
(06:46):
there was this polarization that was being created, and this
they were anxiety pimping, to use your phrase, dexter all
of us and gas lighting us into you know, you
either love the old trilogy, you're a good Star Wars
fan or a bad Star figure this or that, and
the whole thing was designed to just destroy anything that
people love. That's what I saw and how I just
(07:08):
wanted most of then I think that just reached reached
the crescendo with the Accolte.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So I have a question. So with Force Awakens, which
is the first of the sequel trilogy, there was a
combination of perhaps uh honest criticism whatever at least like people.
People had issues with Ray, they had issues with maybe
her having too much power for what they saw her
go through, so they went through the Mary Sue criticism.
(07:35):
There was what I've considered at the time and still
considered to be the entirely fake issues around Finn because
he's black. And I was just like, you guys are
just somebody is trying to just stir up trouble based
on something that no one gave a shit about, Like
there's been black characters in Star Wars from the beginning.
Like it's just dumb, and I felt like it was contrived.
(07:57):
But the race stuff was, you know, was well, whether
we agree or not on it, it doesn't matter like
people meant what they said about it. You know. That's that.
But what are you talking about relation to Last Jedi,
which was the middle film? Are you not talking about
that sort of Mary Sue issue? You're talking about something
else orcific?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I'm talking about how it divided the fan base
and then and there were people who loved it and
there were people that hated it, and and you and
I are on opposite.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Side elementally, though, what is it was?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was the level of amplification of the opposite side
of the of the hate because after Force Awakens, while
there was you know, undercurrents that people weren't happy with
things right, And I even saw some of this with
Rogue One. I remember Jack Pisobek during when Rogue One
came out, tried to gin up that this was gin
(08:49):
up controversy, that it was a multi culty cast and
it wasn't very good, and you could I could tell
that guy was running an operation. Then that's one That's
when my Spidey sense went off about him not being
what I think.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You know, I just yeah, anyone criticizing Rogue One is
an idiot. He doesn't understand story, because that thing was
basically the best Star Wars film of all ten. If
we're gonna be honest, it's very very close to that,
which is different than saying it's your favorite. But if
you you know, the more you know about story and filmmaking,
it's pretty hard to just deny that this one is
(09:21):
cut the best and is the best.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
But I agree from elementally, I agree with you. Star
Wars is still my favorite because I'm still a ten
year old boy and mine too.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
But I'm just saying from a filmmaker standpoint here.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Of course I agree with you, and so the division
and the fan base over Blast Jedi. It's not that
the criticisms of the movie aren't aren't valid. You and
I have gone back and forth for eight years now
about that movie, and we are on opposite sides of
the fence, And are I know.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That we're on opposite sides of the fence, because I
highly doubt that my criticisms of episode eight are you're
talking about? Is really simple? I just thought the editing
sucked fair.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But what I'm getting at here is that it the
those criticisms then became a whole thing about Kathleen Kennedy
is destroying the franchise and it's Jake Skywalker.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And I'm asking which which criticisms are you talking about?
For episode eight versus seven?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It was the handling of Luke in particular, and then
how that was all amplified into see, they can't even
they don't love they don't love the original canon at all.
They don't love the original characters. They are trying to
tear it down and they're trying to do and so
the the the voices that were that were there to
(10:44):
amplify that those criticisms were everywhere, and I know that
there was just an insane amount of fake influences on
you two who had inside knowledge about what was going on.
It was everywhere, dude, it was insane, and YouTube was
throwing them at me every day. And I kept saying,
not interested in that guy's channel, not interested in that
(11:06):
guy's channel. To go away for three days and come
right back again.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And there was some recycling of the whole Ray and
Finn criticisms from the seventh from episode seven, Sure there were,
but I also think that so what year was that
twenty seventeen?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
When that was December twenty seventeen is when that came
out to twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And that this is also just literally we all have
forget that YouTube didn't always work the way it works today.
But like this was also sort of the apex of
the the ramp, so to speak, of the algorithm influencer culture.
Like this is when everyone had gone out and bought
a you know, a cam and a and a ring light,
(11:46):
and it was it was a little more of like
the gold Rush period. So there was a there was
definitely a reason why every twenty you know, every every
third Nerd was copying, you know, the same exact rant
because it was it was getting you.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Followers and and it was getting you money.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And this is this is really what this podcast is about,
is that that we created this entire influencer set that
now they have a business model and they have to
keep they had to keep that business model running, right,
And so let's you know, we don't really need to
go any farther about Star Wars. It's just emblematic of
one aspect of this. We saw it there and and
I've seen it and we've seen it now in a
(12:27):
lot of other areas, and so we also see it
in our politics. At least that's what you were talking about. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The truth the truth of and Or is that the
criticisms of and Or were that it was totally outside
of the canon, that it had totally ridiculous characters, that
it was terrible, that blah blah blah was all woke,
it was all about lesbianism, and it's like none.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Of that was You meant, you met the alcohlate, you
met the Acohl. You just smirks the greatness. Yeah, good.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Sorry. The criticism of the Acolyte at the time was
all of that. And I'll put it this way, the
anti woke voices glommed onto it simply as the springboard
for anti woke rant and number six twenty six, you know,
and there's a lesser known you know, the fact that
(13:23):
the witches were even in it, I think was part
of the reason why this you know, like Psawk doesn't
understand a lot of what was in Rogue one, given
his comments, and a lot of these people criticizing the
Accolte didn't understand that the witches weren't just a thing
made up for the purpose of this this this episode
or the series, you know, right, like, they don't understand
(13:45):
that it's in canon, so to speak, and because they didn't,
it was very jarring for them, and then they freaked out.
And yet it turns out that this series is actually
very respectful of canon. Now we can We're not going
to do that in this episode, but we can. We
you and I went through it all and we agreed.
You know, there's a lot of real missed opportunities because
(14:07):
of how respectful it Like, there's actually a really cool
story in there that did not come out, and that's
really what's unfortunately wrong with the Acolyte is it's it's
it's written in a very unenlightened style, meaning the writer
just it's just not that good. The writing's not good.
And then if the writing's not good, you know, if
it on the page, it ain't on the stage. And
(14:28):
the editing is okay on an episode by episode basis,
but you know, it has an overall timeline fundamental problem
with the way the eight episode arc runs. Anyway, All
of that, though, is just to say that the thing
is different than the criticism, and it turned into a
(14:52):
witch hunt, to be a to use the pun, because
the people, you know, the people who were there ready
to pounce, were just looking for their springboard. And I
don't know how much of it was per se YouTube related,
and I will say that my thoughts of how prevalent
this is certainly goes way beyond YouTube, especially when we're
(15:13):
going to talk about politics. But you know, this is
a real issue, and I think just like maybe the
first run of it was the ham fisted criticisms of
Finn being black in episode seven in The Force Awakens,
because that was obvious nonsense in the sense that nobody
(15:35):
who was saying that was legitimately even watching the damn movie.
It was like they saw their moment to be an
agent provocateur.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yes, I can tell you when I give you a
perfect example, since we have a perfect antipode to the accolade,
which is and Or right, and how and Or is
now universally praised. But when and Or first came out,
I was there on YouTube, and I can tell you
that all of the YouTube influencers were all on the
same page with the same lame criticisms about its slow
(16:08):
and the editing and this and that, literally verbatim. It
was like they were all part of the mainstream media
talking about how our democracy, that this is such a
threat to our democracy. You've seen those videos, those memes
of like every local television station anchor saying the exact
same words. Well, I got news for you, John Campia
and Grace Randolph and this one and that one. All
(16:29):
we're doing that over and Or and I'm like, oh, fuck,
a whole lot of you folks right here right now.
And that's when I knew. That's when I had to
really confirm for me that this was this was being
driven by something else, and it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Was I'll postulate that this spaghetti throwing exercise that happens
at the first episode of every one of these things
is probably a permanent feature in the sense that they're
always going to try it because they don't care what
the content is at all. They just know that it's
It's kind of like, oh, well, we can trigger the
water cooler and see what happens, and then if if
(17:07):
it takes, if our criticism takes and you know, basically
trolls everybody well, and it sticks, then oh, then we're
off to the races. Because I don't I don't think
it's fundamentally for any of the pieces we could talk
about or have talked about, or any pieces coming in
the future of important really what that thing is. I
think it's just, look, hey, we have another thing to
(17:30):
throw a spaghetti at.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Right, and so let's now ship that into the politics,
and let's ship that into the you know what you
were again what you wrote about in this month's newsletter,
where you were talking about the same kind of thing
happening in terms of you know, Trump's policies and the
and handling of the Iran Israel dust up. I hate
(17:54):
to even call it a war at this point because
it only lasted twelve days, you know, all of that
stuff and go through because it was really clear in
the article you wrote that you have these same criticisms
of now Tucker Carlson and others, and I have the
same I'm getting that same criticism I had that she
(18:14):
had that same criticism for other people in the alternative
media space who are on the pro Russian side or
the pro running side.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I lumped together Mark Levin, Tucker Carlston, Dave Smith, and
MTG or Marjorie Taylor Green because all of them simply,
you know, they all just sold their you know, spoke
their books, sold their book. What's what's the cliche everyone
always says about gold Cellars.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
They they talked their book, talk their book.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I feel like it's it's worth explaining in advance that
for the especially for people who were like challenged in
sarcasm and irony, that when I go on a podcast
and I and I make fun of people for saying
they're people because they don't believe in kicking puppies, that
if you can't understand that dripping sarcasm and irony are
(19:09):
part of the program here. Like I mean, I'm just
going to tell you find something else to listen to.
So one of the aspects of libertarianism that I've had
a problem with for a long time is that libertarians
hold themselves up as saintly not all you know, not
so much the left libertarians. But there's this this tranch
(19:30):
of libertarianism that I think this smirches the morally correct
position that war is on balance immoral. That's something I believe,
no irony. But when somebody makes the center of their
personality this statement, well, I'm just anti war man. There's
(19:54):
nothing easier to be against. There's nothing less. You have,
no less skin the game. That's like And again, that's
like being against kicking puppies, which is why sometimes you
have to tell libertarians who are sanctimonious that you love
to kick puppies, just to see what they say and
just and agree and amplify and then say no, I
(20:17):
actually have a puppy kicking team and into But to
be more direct, when you're talking with an anti war libertarian,
take the side that war is the solution to the problem,
and see how much their brain can actually produce a
refutation of the statement, rather than just literally sinking immediately
(20:39):
into personal insult. But more to the point unfocused comments
like just it's all nonsense, and this is, unfortunately for
Dave Smith and increasingly Tucker Carlston, the real root of
their worldview. I think Dave Smith applies it more Honestly
(21:02):
is not the right word, but he rigorously is better.
I mean, Tucker, though in this recent history, was just
it almost seemed just fully irrational. And then on the
other side of it, I mean, do I really have
to explain the mirror reflection of what Mark Levin believes
and how he acted when this happened. I mean, I
(21:23):
guess for the benefit of the talk. Here's a little secret.
Mark Levin is pro destruction of Iran, however it happens
whoever you know, and because he believes the destruction of
Iran is to the benefit of Israel. I don't think
we need any more details than that. I think people
are probably familiar with that, and for people who like
(21:44):
to avoid Mark Levin, which I understand, he was predictably
in that modality during the recent Twelve Day War surprise surprise.
But my point is in the art more broadly, was
just because war is not usually a good idea, and
(22:08):
just because the situation sure as hell seemed like we
were getting dragged into it by Israel, not even against
our will, but sort of by pure surprise in the sense.
And there's some things I'll get to in a second
about why I believe that, and people are free to
believe something else, because ultimately this comes down to a
situation where the facts we are presented with none of
(22:30):
us can really have much confidence in them. Like one,
it's a war. They're lying to us certainly about tactics,
Like you don't say, hey, we're going to fly the
planes up the middle of the Persian Gulf at six
twenty four PM, Like you don't say that because if
you're not lying, they could shoot your planes down. So
and you know, there's a reason why Israel is telling people, hey,
(22:52):
you can't upload videos of the missiles hitting the neighborhood.
It's because they're time stamped. And most people don't wait
an hour before they take pictures of events. They boom,
there's an explosion, and forty five seconds later they're filming,
and then they upload a time stamp video. This is
very helpful if you're shooting ballistic missiles into a neighborhood
(23:14):
and then someone you know puts a geotag time steer like, oh,
we basically almost hit what we're inimming for. Okay, move
it two clicks to the left, you know, right. So,
so obviously the facts, the specific tactical facts, will be
false more than they're true. But we don't have to
(23:36):
act like we can't deduce some things and use reasoning,
you know, use reason to try to figure out what's
going on. And we also don't have to reduce everything
to like reducti ad libertarium, where we just we just say, oh,
war is wrong and if this happens, it's World War
three and there's no other possible welcome. It's like Jesus
(23:58):
fucking I mean really, and that's what we get. And
then God forbids you want to have a complicated, you know,
just a little more nuanced view of the entire situation,
then you're either a warmonger or you know, an anti
war libertarian. You can't be someone who's like, hey, dude,
(24:21):
this isn't just this ab diad that you people have
been stuck in for thirty years.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right, yes, And this is the lesson I've been trying
to teach about, and I've been trying to teach I've
been using trying to use Star Wars to teach this
person for a long time now. And you know, I've
got news for you. It's not sticking. It's getting worse.
And the reality is is that we're being gassoled on
(24:49):
both sides into believing things that are not true. And
the goal here is not to absolve Israel or Iran
or anybody else of their perfidy, their crimes, this anything else.
It's to you know, discuss what actually happened, to the
best of our ability, and why it happened, and what
(25:13):
it all means. And that's where we need to be
as opposed to screaming at each other about our you know,
about our fee fees, like it's not our job as analysts.
And certainly this is something that I've been been screaming
about online on Twitter at all sides of the community
(25:36):
for months, going, Look, you're suppose you're supposed to be
an expert. You're supposed to know better. Tucker Carlson, I'll
call them out, Daniel McAdams, Doug McGregor, all these people
I have. I listened to them. I'm like, you're supposed
to be an expert. You're supposed to be able to
step back and assess the data and the information and
give us that information and then let us figure out
what's going on from there, as opposed to you know,
(25:59):
taking us side.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, well it is the trap. The medium is the trap.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
This is an autonomic thing. And when I wrote in
the beginning of the article, I might just read from
it because it's uh so, I say, it's called grace
under pressure. I'm talking about states of mind, and you know,
a state of mind separate from our stress hormones. It's
(26:27):
called grace under pressure. Paren It's not just a rush
album Tom situational awareness, what have you. It eludes most
of us to be sanguine amidst crisis is a heavy
lift because the usual state is something else. The narrowing
of awareness hyper focus on what the limbic system is
deemed threatening, a retreat to the most efficient circuit, also
(26:48):
known as our biases. Whether this is an insult or
not depends on our actual values in education. Regardless, when
the adrenaline dumps, there is no contemplation. We can pretend
we are rational being but under stress instinct rules martial arts.
Martial artists learn patterns. Combat veterans rely on gross motor skills,
because under extreme duress, precision and improvisation both go out
(27:12):
the window. That is what governs the commentary in the
article my talking about Accolyte, and honestly, the way I
increase inly view the entirety of our political discourse. It's
that there's no hope of philosophy because all there is
is autonomic response, and that is a function of the
fact that we are not fully informed. We cannot take
(27:35):
the facts and manipulate them into a display of causality
of our own you know that our own mind can
can you know? And then argue about it with other
people who have different interpretations of that. We're given summaries.
The summaries are often false, and then we're encouraged to
make hyper quick analysis and everything becomes a step function,
(27:58):
and that you're on team zero and you're in team one,
and there's no middle. It's all just burned away and
we can't keep doing this, or we were just living
in a cartoon. It's it's not worth doing. I know
Tucker Carlson is selling a lot of alp his new
you know, nicotine pouch, and I know he doesn't have
(28:22):
a Fox check, and I know, Dave Smith is probably
making more money than he's ever made before after being
the whipping boy, not so much the whipping boy who lost,
but just you know, the whole Douglas Murray event has
made him much more of a household name than he
was before, for sure, just because some arrogant britt was
arrogant to him, which I guess is a great way
(28:43):
to get rich. And Mark Levin just screams like a
lunatic and that's his you know, that's his book, man.
But we're not learning anything. And I mean, what are
we going to vote for? You know, what is the
left going to be willing to vote for at the
(29:03):
end of this process? I mean New York City might
be a screaming warning of how you know, I don't
think most people in New York City are communists, but
I think that when people are sick of the system,
they'll vote for the thing they think that will most
(29:23):
damage the system. I think that very much explains twenty
sixteen with Trump, I agree, and twenty twenty we're going
to have to suspend judgment. I have a feeling we're
going to be learning more about things that we've been
told are conspiracy theories about that election going forward and
then twenty twenty four. Frankly, it was equally about Trump
(29:46):
and also about the insult of being living under an
obviously senile president and being told you can't say that,
which you view to be plainly true. Because people who
hated Trump who voted for him this time just because
they could not handle being told that Biden wasn't senile.
(30:08):
Now they're not a lot of people, but and there
are more people who were Republicans who were sort of
never Trumpers, but not in like the Bill Crystal type.
They just were like, you know, embarrassed by Trump, so
they couldn't they go to libertarian. But this time they
voted Trump because they wanted the Democrats to lose viscerally.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So right, well, it's like and that was and now
you can understand why they pushed why it was pushed
to deny the concept of men and men versus women,
and the whole the whole trans movement was in many
ways is about that same thing. The way it was politicized,
which is to deny you know, people their ability to
(30:45):
state which is that is true, dude, that's a dude
over there, dude, And like you know, and we're and
we're not allowed to talk about that, and then viinally
people are like, no, no, we're going to talk about it.
And the question I have for everybody, and I think
I know you do too, which is, you know, where
do we wind up if we're gonna just if we're
(31:07):
going to allow ourselves to be in that that false
eye ad in this case of Israel bad or on good?
And I mean this sincerely, like, can't they both be bad?
Can't they both be great? You know? Can't they both
be and you can have sympathy?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Can't they both be honestly working within a rational framework
that benefits themselves, right, you know, even if it doesn't
benefit us, like and and and does that always have
to be considered bad? Now? Terrorism is bad. Blowing up
square blocks of cities while pretending you're doing surgical strikes
is bad. But they're they're also not events that are
(31:47):
isolated on you know, a timeline. Now, I you know,
I don't want to justify either, but I will tell
you I come down more on I'm I'm I'm I'm
sympathetic to what Israel needed to do post October seventh
at a strategic level, and I'm not sympathetic on how
(32:08):
they achieved it tactically, but I understand why they They said, Okay,
we are not going to tolerate the existence of Hamas
or his blah anymore, and ultimately, we're not going to
tolerate the people who pull their leashes being alive if
we can kill them. I get that. I think that's
a rational framework. It's not what I would have if
(32:28):
I were in charge of the US government encourage them
to pursue. But that doesn't mean I don't understand it,
and being told I have to pretend to not understand
it in order to, you know, be a righteous member
of team one versus Team two, like not interested. Sorry,
that's not who I am. It's it never was. And
if you thought it was, you just you don't know me.
(32:50):
And that's fine. You know, the internet's a big place.
There's other shit to read, right well, I, like, I
promise you there's not. You're not going to run out
of words out there.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And this is what has you know,
it's begun to government thinking much more than it used
to as well. And you know, as I watched this
play itself out, and you know, it's funny, I was
doing some stuff this morning for the for our patrons,
and I, you know, just to clear the error with people.
(33:22):
I said, you know, I'm actually part of the reason
why I'm you know, I'm less sympathetic to Iran that
I would have been, you know, six eight, nine months,
even a year or two years ago. It's simply because
at the end of the day, when push came to
shove and they were punching them out, they folded. And
they told us for years that they were going to,
you know, give us this this grand retribution for the
(33:45):
evil that is Israel, and then they turned out to
be a frankly, a paper tiger. And I'm like, for
me looking at the grand chess board and wanting to
see a path to how can we get to global
peace and disempower the people who created this freaking false conflict,
or not false conflict, but this conflict built along false parameters.
(34:11):
I'm I'm genuinely angry about that because I know how
unbelievably destabilizing that is in the long term for all
of humanity. And I'm like, dude, you were supposed to,
you know, stand up to these people, and then you
folded like a cheap suit and okay, well there it is,
like you know what am I supposed to say?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So my job in this gold, Goats and Guns enterprise
is to interrupt you here and point out that that's
the wrong time to do a moral analysis. You know,
we're trying, well, they're being because Iran lost, Like this
isn't the kind of analysis we're not doing advocacy.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
No, no, don't let me, let me, let me, let me,
let me do a better.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Let me just one second. The reality is is that
and this I think confuses people with our things sometimes
is you know, we do like a real politic, actual
view of the world projection thing. And most of what
that's going to be going forward is going to recognize
(35:15):
that Iran lost, the IRGC lost, the proxies are neutralized.
That changes the situation. And it is not a moral
judgment whatsoever. Now we you know, you and I may
have different we may have the same, what it does
not come into it. We refuse to live in a
state of denial about what just happened, which seems to
(35:38):
be increasingly desired by people. And and nothing is better
than people who willfully believe propaganda that says, you know,
Iran took out the entire Israeli Air Force. It's like, buddy,
did not happen, right, you know, so we got to
live in reality and there's no reason to put a
moral judgment on it. And you know, I would just
(35:59):
point out, you know, like what you were saying is, look,
Israel's not the only thing that needs a punch in
the mouth in the world. And in fact, Iran needed
a big punch in the mouth too, because upon creation,
the first thing they did was go put their business
where it didn't belong, you know, in pursuit of something
that you know, Israel and Iran were pretty close in
(36:21):
the seventies and even frankly most of the first part
of where what the Mullas were doing, Israel wasn't happy
about it. But listen, Israel and Iran were working together
in Iran contrast, so people don't know what they don't.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Know, right, Well, again, you're correct, that is that was
my position during all of this, And what I was
actually doing was jumping to the end to say, if
you want, you know, my if you want to feel
comfortable with my Olympic reaction and my grander view of
the game board, this is part of the reason this
is part of my frustration and why I'm like, no,
(36:56):
I really did want you know, I said in the beginning,
like my alt my my my optimal outcome for this
is a tie and a lot of injuries, meaning I
don't I want them both to be you know, like
to get your shots in boys, get it over and
done with, and then let's see where we are and okay, good,
you're done. Now, great one, can't you know? Great? Who
(37:18):
loses in that? And the old the old agitators, the
old agent provocateurs that have been these that that that
thrive on chaos are the ones that lose in that situation.
So at the end of the day, I'm I'm cautiously
optimistic that strategically and tactically that or strategically that we're
(37:39):
moving in the right direction and I don't have to
take a sign here, And that's that period, and I'm
I'm I'm good with that outcome. And that apparently makes
that apparently is beyond the pale in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
I think a lot of people, you know, are younger
a than than we are in a lot of this space.
And there's sort of a cartoon version of Israel in
their head mixed with the one thing I'm going to
push back on on people is like the idea that
this is all in service of greater Israel, and Israel
is going to take over basically half of a Rack
(38:17):
and a little of Lebanon. And there's a bunch of
maps you could go find, but you know they're not
necessarily contiguous with existing borders. But imagine in Israel, you know,
six or eight times the size that it is now,
and that that's the secret agenda. Okay, don't buy it.
I'm more interested about interested about what just happened in
(38:38):
this you know, drastic weakening of Iran and the IRGC
specifically in imagining what the world looks like. And this
is not to forgive anything that Israel has done. And
this is the thing I have to repeat over and
over because people don't seem to get this is I'm
just predicting where I think this goes because of the
magnitude of the shift and power, and I think Israel
(39:02):
just one period, that's what I think. I could be wrong.
And believe me, when they restart the hostilities a week
from Thursday and I look like an idiot, I expect
that that's a possibility. But at the same time, my
you know, my ultimate call here is that Trump has
(39:23):
initiated a change which has also perhaps in concert with
BB or simply that BB read the room, which is
kind of where I come down on it. But again,
we don't know. Everyone who's like, well, I know what
BB and Trump we're talking about. No, you don't.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It's like I want to know too, And if you
have tape, let me hear it. It's probably AI. But
we don't know. We can only look at what's happened.
And you know, I think that what's happened here is
that Israel's going to have a far less reason and
also far less excuse and far less patients held by
(40:04):
others for pulling any more shit. Once these this serious
nidas against its existence is removed, is is going to
have no choice but to be a better member of
the neighborhood going forward. And so too, will that be
a condition of any negotiated recognition of Saudi or whatever
the Abraham accords, you know, future elements that that clearly
(40:30):
are coming and are clearly being worked up. There's going
to be a negotiation here, and that's a different world
than the world we've lived in, and that's a world
I see coming into being. And that's not in any
way an endorsement of how we how what we got here.
I'm just you know, the RGC has been for a
very long time been held up to be something it's not.
(40:52):
People don't understand. The ERGYC is more than anything, a
theocratic terrorist organization that's well funded masquerading as a military.
And the reason is is that the conventional I mean
think of this like Turkey in many ways, like the
Turkish Islamic state that imagined by erduwan Is, has had
(41:12):
to do a lot of work to get its army
in line because its army is very secular comparatively speaking.
When the revolution happened in Iran, something similar happened, and
that the IERGC kind of rolled up all these street
gangs who were on the side of the true theocrats
and created this organization where they you know, it's the
(41:35):
brown shirts, it's the enforcers, but very religious, and they
empowered them and the people do not like them. And
now a hell a lot of them are dead and
all of their proxies are dead, and the Iranian military,
the so called whatever, you know, the guys who run
the Bluewater Navy as opposed to the Brownwater Navy that's
run by the IRGC. Listen, there is we have a
(41:58):
setup inside the country for the people of Iran to
tell us what they want, and the IRGC being weakened
considerably is going to be a part of that. The
RGC was never a legitimate warfare operation. They did not
observe the rules of war. They you know, they attacked
non combatants, they attacked terrorists, They attacked countries that they
(42:19):
theoretically weren't at war with, like the United States. They
killed marines in Beirut. They killed all of our servicemen
in Iraq. You know, they were giving all the Shechite
militias EFPs, which are the penetrators. Now I'm going to
tell you I understand a little bit more why Iran
is sabotaging US presence in Iraq because it's on their border.
(42:43):
I can. I'm not saying I support them killing US
troops in any way, but I think it's a more
rational operation for them to be doing it. Like there's
a military explanation for it. The force projection they imagined
into primarily soon you know, areas like Lebanon to say
(43:05):
nothing the fact that Lebanon was majority Christian not that
long ago. This stuff was never about Israel, you know,
it was about their own version of these law. It's
was about the Islamic revolution as understood in Iran, and
more broadly for you know, the expansion of Islam, but
(43:25):
obviously for them, the expansion of Shia Islam. And that
that ain't our fight.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
No, not our fight, not our fight at all. And
and and that's a that's a workable outcome for me.
And I'm okay with that. And you know, one of
the things that that was eye opening for me was
on the night of the initial attack on Iran that
(43:52):
we found out that they were the Israelis had an
entire drone factory under the IRG season. You know, they're
the entire time that they pulled off combined arms operations.
None of that happens without help on the ground in
Iran by Iranians.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Oh no. No. Israel has proven that they are capable
of intelligence operations that frankly only exist in movies for
the CIA, Like the CIA can only pull off those
operations inside Hollywood and County.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Right, But I mean, I'm okay with believing that even
either version of that story. But it's something too aldt
least consider and to discuss, right and have a rational
discussion about, as opposed to, Oh, no, you're just you know,
making excuses for Israel or you just sound you know,
like a like a shill for these people. I'm like, no,
(44:51):
they like this is these are the these are the facts,
and if you want to ignore those facts, that's your prerogative.
And the same and on both sides, I mean, I'm again,
none of this is and a way of absolving anybody
of their crimes. Everybody's got crimes here. And what are
(45:14):
what are we as outside observers, what should we be
looking for? What should we want to see out of this?
And if we can't be and if we and if
we don't want to be active combatants in it, which
we shouldn't be, then as observers, what do we want
to see as the outcome? And how can we, you know,
ensure that this thing, once it's over and burns itself out,
never comes back. Yeah, and you know what you said
(45:36):
about what you said about this is what I've wanted
from the beginning. I want the Iranian people to choose
their government, and if they decide to choose to stay
under the theocracy, well that's their choice. But you know,
you don't get to have a nuclear weapon. That's that's
my line in the sand. And that's and that and
that statement for me personally comes down to the desire
(45:58):
to see civilian populations no longer being blackmailed by government
organizations who you know, steal people's money and wealth and
power and then use it for their own personal purposes.
That's a general statement, and that's where libertarians should be
should be on all fronts. And what I'm seeing is
(46:19):
a whole bunch of libertarians arguing for the proliferation of
nuclear weapons so that civilians can be blackmailed. And I'm like,
that's that don't seem like the non aggression principle to me, motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now. It's just they think the NAP means you can't
interfere with another country's gaining of the nuclear weapon. And
I personally am not. You know, I'm not a libertarians
that don't really care about these angels on the head
of the pin of the NAP dancing. I just don't
give a shit. But I also just you know, back
(46:51):
in the era of mutual self sabotage and the libertarian
movement between the left libertarians and the you know, the
Trotskyites and everyone else, this whole idea, There was always
this thing where when you were in a room of libertarians,
where people were just doing argumentum at absurd like of
course it's okay if a person owns a nuclear weapon,
(47:11):
not a sou or an individuals like shut the fuck up,
like seriously, like this is It's not that the scope
of that kind of argument is obviously false. It's that
that argument type is obviously false, Like sitting around for
an hour engaging in logical fallacies is not a good
(47:32):
use of your time. And the nap is more useful
about governing reaction than because if you believe you're going
to prevent action by everybody believing this thing, you're just
fundamentally naive about how the world works. And that's just
there's no other way around it. And that's kind of
where you know, this whole thing is politics has no
(47:57):
time for you to go through your stages off right.
And not that I'm endorsing Koobler Ross or any one
of these types of social science like frameworks, ever, another
thing you should expect from me not to do. However,
we're all familiar with the stages of grief concept. The
first one, the first stage and the only one I'm
going to talk about, is denial. And that is what
(48:20):
happens when you live your life only running on your
limbic system, because you're you're going through, you know, a
sense of cognitive dissonance, and something happens like Israel pulls
off a successful operation and you can't handle it because
your entire world us predicated on them not being able
to take out Iran. Well, guess what, buddy, they just
(48:42):
took out Iran and then we went in and put
the cherry on the cake, and you can believe that
Iran has was not damaged at all and it was
all a stunt. We'll see and someone's gonna be right
and someone's going to be wrong. Yes, I understand we're
being lied to. I led with that. But when you
look at all of it, and you'll get the balance
(49:02):
of what you see. Ask yourself, do you feel like
a ran is winning? Like? Is that the overall takeaway
from all the pieces? And all the pieces are you
know worthy of doubting each piece? But when you look
at them all and you know you're making a judgment
call here, and I said, I believe this, and you're like, oh,
desk full of shit. Fine, I'm full of shit on that,
(49:23):
and you might be full of shit on this. We
look at all the pieces on the desk, is the
takeaway that a ran just kicked everybody's ass? Because if
that is, that's the takeaway, I'm going to tell you
you got to listen to something more than telegram because
you're plugged in to an information warfare channel that's lying
to you and you're not getting any oxygen in the mix. Yep, agreed,
(49:48):
And that's something we all have to be fastidious about.
That is not me judging you that. That's me saying
I consciously consume a lot more stuff than I want to,
from a much more more varied sources than I want to,
only not because I want to listen to friggin' redditor's talk,
for God's sakes, but because the more channels you look at,
(50:11):
the more you can understand how the information warfare itself works. Yes. Yes,
the more bullshit you consume that's flavored differently, the more
you realize it's all bullshit, And the more you realize.
Then you see the matrix. You see what both sets
of actors are doing to their minions. We're just this
(50:31):
episode is all about telling you to stop being a minion, right,
and you know, not just you the listener or metaphorically.
I'm not trying to insult people. I'm just saying that
this is a serious problem in political movements in America.
There's just way too many people who are not using
their brains. They're using their instincts, and it is hard
to be a philosopher and a bar fight. I get
(50:54):
that we have to try.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yes, I think that's a perfectly good way to wrap
this up. Honestly, I don't think there's very much more
to be said about this. You have to remind yourself
to just I think the forty eight hour of the
seventy two hour rule is a is a really good one.
Look when big things happen, take your time, take a
(51:20):
deep breath, and don't react. I can tell you, as
you know, where at the in the space that I
occupy right now, this meager is that is that amount
of influence has I can tell you that my phone
was ringing off the hook for the first three or
four days of this, and I'm like, nope, not taking
(51:41):
a not not not doing a thing, not jumping on
a not jumping on a live stream, not doing this,
not doing that. And there have been many calls, many
calls for that, and I'm like, over the years and
the old the longer we do this, the more I
realize that there's a lot more value in taking your
time and watching the way things play out. For example,
just the last last last note, you and I were
(52:03):
discussing what was happening in this in that twelve day
conflict on day two, and you made you made the
observation like, you know, let's see what iron does. But
if they don't, you know, come back over the top
with you know, a massive barrage, then we have to
wonder if this thing is not already on its way
to being finished. And that was a very interesting it
(52:26):
was and that was an important observation. And it was
like and I said to myself, Okay, even more reason
why I'm going to invokee the seventy two hour rules.
It was the forty eight hour rule. I'm going to
keep watching this to see how this plays out.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Well, what what that was based on, very simply was
a decapitation strike of a unified enemy doesn't do what
a decapitation strike of a tyranny does. And what what
that said to me is that there were there, There
was there was daylight between the energy c and the
(52:58):
regular military. And once IRGC command was wiped out and
military command was wiped out, the regular military and listen again,
I don't know what. I don't know how many launchers
were hit. I don't know how many bottlenecks. These really
figured out that if all the missiles are in the
cave and they collapse the front of the cave and
then wipe out the three launchers outside the cave. You know,
(53:19):
I don't know about the fixed versus truck mounted blah
blah blah. I don't know. I don't have facts that
I believe, right, I've seen as much bullshit AI and
ARMA footage being played as Arma as a video game
that's often used. It's very realistic or realistic enough, although
it's to me very obvious. But you know, there's a
lot of fake stuff. It's just fake and but but
(53:41):
strategically speaking, or sorry, tactically speaking, the absence of a
barrage told me like they either can't launch because of
Israel just gamed it that well, or more likely there's
a command break because the command is not sitting over
a unify enemy, because listen, it's not like a mystery
(54:03):
who would have done that to them? If you have
no comms and all you know as an Iranian field
commander is that Israel did all this stuff, you probably
should have a basic plan of like shoot missiles towards Israel.
That's my move if I don't hear from command, And
if you had a unified enemy, wouldn't they wouldn't that
be their kind of normal baseline training response for this
(54:25):
kind of day, that the day that they've said they
you know, they've they've literally told us for how many
years that that would be their plan should this day come.
I don't think that was a secret to anyone inside
the Iranian command, and they did not do it right,
not to the degree that you would have. So they
were either lying about their capabilities, which they should have been.
(54:45):
The exaggeration is a valid form of, you know, deterrence.
But you know, and yes, the Israelis lied about how
much damage they took, and yes, the Americans helped and
lied about helping all these things be true, but ultimately
you know, you know, Tomm, you're right. Well, I said
it at that moment because I was like, this response
(55:06):
is not enough to be They're not in the game.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
They're just not and and the thing and the and
and to put a final point on that, all of
these lies that you uncover, right, people don't does not
mean that the opposite is true. Just because then lied
about you know, how much damage they took or how
(55:32):
much damage they did, or Israel lied about how much
damage they took, and bah blah blah, just because those
just because you uncover those lies does not automatically mean
that the converse is true. That's the false. To quote
Dexter again, if not A then b bullshit. That we
have been led to the intellectual false, intellectual paradigm that
(55:56):
we've all been led into believing and and reacting to,
and that has to end if we want to have
we all have a return to rational discourse. Because to
cap off this podcast, we started with Star Wars, right,
we started with the Acolyte. What happened? We started with
the Last Jedi? What happened? The last of the backlash
of the Last Jedi was so overwhelming that Solo underperformed,
(56:19):
and Solo was a perfectly good movie. By the way,
Dexter and I agree about this, by the way, the Acolade.
By the time The Acolte came out, no one watched.
Skeleton Crew came out a couple of months later. Great
little show with a great message for kids and adults
to watch together. Good show, well written, well acted, well directed, well,
(56:42):
all of it good, you know, good execution. So you know,
just because X happened does not mean that all of
Disney's Star Wars sucks. Just because why happened doesn't mean
Israel bad, Iron good, or Iron good Israel bad. None
of that, or the or the converse. None of that
(57:03):
means anything. You know, evidence of absence is not the
absence of evidence or the other way around.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
So yeah, but it's time to put the skull bong down.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
No, I mean, yeah, absolutely, that's uh, well, I guess
we'll leave it there.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
So no, but you know, I think that that's uh.
You know, this is going to be a continuing journey,
not a not a stop at the train. You know,
it's it's we have to keep I mean, ultimately, what
we're trying to do. I think with our non financial commentary,
which interfaces with our financial commentary, is is always just
(57:40):
trying to point out that this, this story that seems simple,
is seldom simple, and you need to I'm not saying
don't rely on your habits, but tune what your habits
are and be willing to, you know, defer filling in
gray space because you know the AI is getting better,
the lies are going to keep coming, and the level
(58:02):
of lying may continue to shock us. All I don't
I don't have I'm not willing to predict that it's
going to get better. I mean, I wish I could.
I wish I could, I wish we you know, the
only the alternative is maybe we all get a little
smarter and we get a little harder to have our
legs pulled, and maybe that demoralizes the people who want
(58:25):
to lie to us at scale enough to give us
an alternative. That's all I got for you. But that's
what I'm advocating for.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yep. And the more of us that do it, the
harder it will be for them. The gaslights.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
Yeah, we don't want to be in wally.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah, we don't want to be there.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Can't pee the end goal?
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yep? All right, man, Thank you so much for that. Dexter,
as always, you got us. You can find him at
Dexter K White on x, slash Twitter or whatever, and
you can find me at the APL seventeen twenty eight.
You can find us at patroon slash Gold Ghats and
Guns and Gold Ghots and Guns dot com. Be while
you take care, we'll talk soon. Keeper stick on your guys,
(59:10):
m
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