The Floundering Empire (AE264)

0:00Sam Mecnister Something beside me A light to the caracene And the places are real anymore And the faces don't say anything And the sign in the light of the mind-blown sphere. It's a game. Let's just cry. Let's just cry. Welcome to American Exception. I'm Aaron Good. Today's episode is free for everyone thanks to our American Exception Podcast subscribers. If you want access to all of the American Exception Podcast episodes

1:02so you can better understand the deep politics and history of the US Empire, subscribe to the American Exception Podcast on Patreon. The URL is patreon.com slash American exception. Either way, please kindly like this video and subscribe to this American Exception Channel. Bryce Greene and great to be back with you. It's good to be here, Aaron. So it's August 26th as we're recording this. Many crazy things going on in the world that we're going to try to get into some of them today. And maybe we'll just start with the Iran War. Iran rejects a new proposal to resume negotiations. There are back channel talks going on. But with Scott Bessent threatening economic D-Day, which is different from the original D-Day in that there aren't any troops trying to land on the shores of Iran, which you almost wonder why Bessent would name at that, because it kind of calls attention to the fact that,

2:03hey, you're not really storming the beaches or anything. What are you doing? And it's sanctions that they're hoping will win the day. But they have a weaker hand now than they did before when they tried to sanction Iran for decades. How do you see this playing out in the near to medium term? I think it's going to be an absolute disaster. I mean, it's been a disaster in the last several months, and there's no end in sight. You can start from the fact that this war was started as a sneak attack, ostensibly to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capability. Well, I mean, you run it back, and Trump was actually saying that the war was started so we can help the Iranian protesters overthrow the government. I think people forget that. Well, Rumiya said it was because Israel was going to attack. And then Rumiya later said his position was going to attack. And then other people say that the counterattack would mean that the US was preempting their counterattack. Preempting a counterattack. Yeah, and so that has obviously been a failure. The Iranian government is stronger than it's ever been, both internally, like one of the domestic arena, but also externally on the international arena.

3:06It also has the ability to demand things from K. It's demanding tolls where they were never demanding tolls before. But some leftists recently were paddled all across the internet. They were spanked on social media just for trying to talk shit about Iran's Iranian political prisoners, who they don't name by name. So the tide has turned, in many ways, now you can't even do fake left stuff without getting castigated, which is a good sign. Well, inside of Iran, the reports are, it's not an open society, right? So you're not going to get a full wave of information. But it seems like the regime is just tightening control. The dimensions of dissent have narrowed and they're on a wartime footing. And rightly so. They don't want the hundreds of Masad Asians that are almost certainly in the country wrecking their war effort, which obviously makes sense.

4:07So in that front has been a failure. But on its own terms, degrading the Iranian Missile Capability, that hasn't worked. As soon as the war started, the Americans expended a good deal of ammunition, while also launching a lot of their interceptors, which could mitigate any response from Iran. But I think as we're seeing, it's been reported in the Western press pretty openly, that the Americans have about a quarter of the interceptor stockpile that they started the war with, a quarter. And this is not just in the Middle East, this is all over the world. This is why Ukraine right now has no response to Russian missile attacks. All the Russian missiles just get through. They ask for more interceptors. The US is like, well, we simply don't have any nor do we have the industrial capability to build more. So you guys are just cooked. And there's the same going on with the American military bases. Iran is decolonizing the region by getting the US to abandon its military bases. That's why the USS Abraham Lincoln was in such a dire straits.

5:10I mean, we've all seen the pictures of the soldiers, we've read the descriptions of these guys eating like dog food basically. On their side, I wouldn't serve them on dom that they had to eat. Yeah, yeah. And they've been on this boat for, and they have not docked, have not made a port call in like 260 days or something. Longest ever in history. But they're doing this because the bases in Bahrain are unusable. And now they have to go all the way to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to resupply. And those supply chains have to stretch back to, you know, wherever, you know, either the American homeland or wherever they're sourcing their stuff. These supply chains are stretched, so the US doesn't really have the ability to project its power. Furthermore, I mean, the straight-up foremove. They say there was reported that the Trump administration didn't expect Iran to close the straight-up foremove. I, you know, I could believe that Trump didn't know that, but I don't believe that anyone else around him didn't know that. Well, he sort of cut everybody else out of the decision-making process who had half a brain, or who wasn't totally owned by, you know, Zionist neocons.

6:18Yeah, I suspect that people were just manipulating Trump to go into this war, come with me. And what ended up happening, of course, is that Iran closed the straight. And now the US has shifted its war aims to reopening the straight, which is something that's never going to happen. Because why would they? They can't happen if they sign an agreement to ignore Iran. I don't even think it's going to, I don't think that Iran would ever sign an agreement that would lessen their current control over the straight. I think they might be more amenable to letting people know. But the agreement gives them control over the straight, and the US agreed to that. Yeah, and the US is horrible. The US is horrible. The US signed the terms of surrender. It's just their saying they're just, they just pretended they didn't. Yeah, but that's not that phase of the war is what it seems like, because Israel was getting pounded. And if it continued, it would, it would mean that it ended Israel basically. And so they, they had to sign a humiliating surrender. And so the MOU terms are crazy. They're like, and that's all that Iran is basically saying there's no reason to negotiate because we've already got a deal.

7:22And this is, this is going to be the deal and you have to stop, you have to stop all the hostilities in the region. Well, that's what they want. That's what they can't do. Even though they agreed to do it. Because the, like the MOU doesn't include like back to the status quo for the straight-of-arm lose, which is what I mean. It says that Iran gets them, Iran has control of it. Exactly. They're never going to give it up. So on that line alone, this war has been a complete failure. But also, I mean, just zooming out on a global perspective, it just shows that America's, I mean calling it a paper tiger might even be a bit much. Like paper is too strong for what the US military is doing. They do not have the ability to protect a military basis, project the power. And they don't have the ability to do war. Like the fact that they can't use their interceptors and build more interceptors. The fact that they can't go and bomb Iran because Iran's air defenses are way too strong. We got a glimpse of this during the Biden years when Biden tried to attack Ansar Al-Ala, the Houthis in Yemen.

8:24And lots of the full force of the American military, there are people who are making jokes like, the Houthis are about to learn why Americans don't have health care. And it turns out it's for nothing because the full might of the American Navy could not even dislodge a little bit of the Houthi missile placements. And certainly didn't dislodge them politically. And they're way, they're so much weaker and so much smaller than Iran. The idea that the army that couldn't beat Ansar Al-Ala is then going to go and fight Iran is laughable. And here we are laughing. And I mean, to top it off, what drags this from humiliation territory to absolute disaster territory is the question of the oil. America's strategic oil reserves, the stockpiles, they're down to their lowest point. I think ever, like since they were, since they've been a thing and they've been doing this because when you draw down,

9:27it lessens the shock of higher oil prices, which means that Americans are paying, they're paying higher gas prices, but it's not astronomically higher as market rates would demand. One of that strategic stockpiles gone, well then it's going to be a pretty disaster. It's there to keep the strategic oil reserves are being drawn upon to, I mean to one effect is to have oil prices below in the US, but the US produces enough oil for gasoline at least that it doesn't need to be doing that. It's really to keep the energy, the oil prices from exploding in the countries that are in the dollar system basically, because they've already had these issues with Japan and their bonds and the sort of alchemy that they're trying to work out the little schemes to keep this thing going. But the material basis of it, which is basically unlimited cheap energy, relatively cheap energy, affordable energy, and energy that's under control of like the Western system, this is coming to an end now, and it's going to change the whole calculus.

10:30Yes, and there's really nothing they can do about it except make a deal with Iran. And there's a good reason that Iran rejected the deal. Iran has no choice in the matter. They have no choice but to treat America as a hostile, unreliable, lunatic adversary and treat Israel as the same, because I mean they've tried to go shoot it, they've tried, they've really tried everything. They go back to the Obama. They negotiated an agreement that both parties signed. Exactly. And it was just immediately abandoned, which is amazing that Trump is not getting more. Are the Democrats really going after him for signing something and then lying about it? They're not from what they see. No, they're not. They're going to have a hard time signing it. That's what the parties are. They're both such so so so lavishly devoted to Zionism. I mean that's what it has to come down to I think with this because just sign the thing. It's the only way to stop it. What's stopping it from signing it? Well it means the end of the greater Israel project. Yeah, it does.

11:30I mean that's a sign it, but like honor the thing you sign is what I mean. Yeah, because a few days ago I think that the the MOU it expired like that. I think it was 60 days. Yeah, it expired and the US didn't implement it. And now Iran is talking about. I don't know. I don't know how official they made this clear to their like the negotiating partners, but they said, well, we're calling for a maximums program. We're calling for Israel to get out of Lebanon, Israel to get out of Palestine, Israel to Indoginicide. We're calling for American bases around Iran to be vacated. We're calling for permanent Iranian control, the straight-of-form moves. Otherwise you guys can f off and we're going to continue doing this. One of the big things that was pretty shocking to people and I'm again, I'm hazy on the sourcing, but it's, I think a major development is that Iran was talking about keeping up offensive operations. I think this actually came from Israeli intelligence maybe, but Iran is contemplating offensive operations

12:37to ensure that like the Americans don't come back, to ensure that this isn't a period where like the Americans can rebuild their military industrial base and rebuild interceptors and rebuild their naval capacity, which would be impossible, A, to begin with. But also, Iran has no choice but to continue to make the objective conditions that prevent the Americans from launching this nicotine or preventing the Israelis and Americans from wanting to launch a nicotine against Iran again. That makes perfect sense to me. And if they're not developing a nuke right now, they're more to see or more things about them talking about pulling out of the MPC at a moment's notice. Like as soon as there's any renewed hostility, kinetic action against them. And there's this item which you can look at in a number of ways and I would be skeptical of some of these actors, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in particular.

13:41But the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, Iran has been, has reportedly been invited to join this. And this, it isn't all these countries interest to do this because really the enemy that they have to deal with is the West, with its Zionist beachhead and then US military bases. So what do you make of this? Do you think that Iran could put that this, do you think that this is some kind of trap or scheme for the West basically or is this real? I mean, is this, is this going to become a real thing that ends up evicting the West people, the Western white people out of West Asia, to getting the Europeans out of West Asia basically? It's hard to say because it's along the existing fault lines that are developing along the like the Western axis. Saudi Arabia, they don't seem to want to be pummeled by Iranian missiles.

14:47They don't seem to be. Hey, they're other movie missiles. Like they don't seem to want that. In fact, that's why they stopped the war with Ansar Allah. Was it five years ago, six years ago? Yeah, they stopped no sense, made no sense for them to pick a fight with them right about now. Yeah, as soon as soon as the, the Houthis got the ability to strike Saudi oil fields, the Saudis, they recalibrated and they said, well, maybe we should make peace. And so there's a good reason for them to not want this maximum war with Iran. Same with Turkey. We've seen Israel start ramping up their insane rhetoric against Turkey, claiming them of moving their military installations in Syria closer to Israel's military installations in Syria. And people are like the Israeli far right there, talking about Turkey as the next target of greater Israel. Turkey, I mean, they're not stupid. They see that. You know, they're no angels. They're no like anti imperialist, you know, saviors, but they see what's going on.

15:50And then Pakistan is, it's a similar thing. I mean, Pakistan is like, you know, four governments in a, in a trench code. So I, and I don't have a clear understanding of their political processes that led to this. But it makes sense for these. One way to look at is like these, these former Mick Gihad sponsors. These former, like Mick Gihad partners. I mean, that's the truth of it. Our three of these countries were are up neck deep in al-Qaeda chicaneery. I mean, the, the Fetsula, Gulen and all of this and Saudis, of course, and Pakistan, the Saudis were like the two groups that were left out of the 9-11 commission report. They were sensitive, but there were ties between them and the hijackers, which have never been explained, and which honestly have to be related to the Western liaisons. Within those, within those, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. So all these countries, they have a role in like, at the end of the day, especially, especially on like the Syrian Mick Gihad, it was aimed at Iran ultimately.

16:52Like the reason, the reason for the redirection from, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria was so that Syria could fall. And once Syria falls, that makes it easier for the Israel and America to attack Iran, which is exactly what happened. And to have less to fear about going into southern Lebanon. Right, right, right. And that's exactly what happened. It didn't work out a long time ago back in like 2000s and 7 or so. It doesn't six or seven. Like Stuy Hersh's report in the New York was about the redirection. And it was basically like the Neon cons got thwarted. They got thwarted about attacking Iran. And so that was planned B, you know, but the whole intelligence community say what you were about them, but they're not stupid in the same way that the Neon cons are stupid and single-minded. Like they, they crafted an NIE that said Iran's not producing a nuclear weapon. You had Briginski talking to the Senate about what a disaster it would be to start a war with Iran.

17:53And so their response was Macjiha. They went back to Macjiha, which was an amazing thing because we just spent the last five years fighting the global war on terror against Al-Qaeda and so on. So it was really amazing that like they would immediately turn around because it's never really been about Al-Qaeda. Obviously, Western sock puppet and they proved it by redirecting them. You can't redirect people that are not your sock puppets. You can't redirect your enemies to go and attack your enemies. Yeah. But we can't point out the obvious. Yeah. So this, so this, this, a trac of Saudi, Pakistan, Turkey. Like it could be buyers remorse. Like they could be like, well, we tried to throw a lot in with the US, Israeli, Israeli-led Western order. And we did all this stuff and turns out it's actually a disaster for all of us. So maybe it's time to make nice with Iran and have our region manage our own affairs. This was kind of the logic behind the Saudi Iran, not a friendship pact, but kind of like a...

18:57But I'm not sure. They had no, the Chinese organized the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between them. Right. And that was probably, I mean, that was definitely along the same logics, right? The Saudi's being like, well, we don't want to destroy our region for no good reason. Might as well find a way to co-exist. The Israelis and Americans worked hard to of course stop that. And that's what led to this current war. But those sentiments didn't go away, right? They, they, the calculus has only changed more in favor of rapprochement. And this could be an example of that. There are deep states in all these countries and they all have, you know, multiple factions vying for control of the state at any given time. Some of them were aligned with the US, some of them less. This could be the basis for like, you know, springing a trap, but it also could be the basis for serious long term peace. Or yeah, I mean, a shift in real. And there could even be realist elements of the US who are, who have extrapolated where this is headed and come to conclude that like the stability of this region could be more important.

20:10And the US national interest and like having them united against this current problem. If there are some people in the West who are starting to understand the Zionism is a huge problem for the US. And that like it, that were in a disastrous state of affairs that's basically irreversible. Then they would, we would have reason it's in the US national interests for the, for the West Asian to kick the West out of the, of West Asian. Because this is, it's destroyed our political system, you know, in the last, since the mid 90s when the, the focus of US foreign policy has been to make sure that the West Asia is safe for greater Israel basically. It's been a disaster. The US empire is on the verge of collapse because of, because of the Neocons. And it would make, if there were any realists here, they would actually say, you know what? Is weird as it is, this was better for us than what we're trying to do to keep a foothold there is, is going to be impossible. I don't know that there's anybody who's that forward thinking, but you know, I mean, there's a good chance that this is actually just the national interest of these countries finally coming to bear because there's not enough power to make them act against their regional national interests, etc.

21:25So this, it's, I don't know how to play out, but it's, it's fascinating to watch. It's talking about you some US domestic politics. Oh my gosh. Here's Cory Booker. And there Cory Booker is confronting the really serious problem in the United States, just Hassan Piker and his dangerous and hateful language targeting Jewish Americans, suggesting that Jewish Americans bear responsibility for hatred violence directed against them is wrong dangerous and anti-Semitic. Well, in this issue, are they even, is he even accurately describing anything that Piker was saying? No, not even, not even close. I wonder what he asked to do to gain the support of Oakland County's Jewish community. Yeah, he has to drop his critiques of Israel. That's what it is. Now, is Oakland County's Jewish community in unison making this demand of Abdullah Sayed? No, of course not.

22:34But if there isn't opposition from Jewish figures in this community that are loud about the, the divergence between this representative and their own desires, then the media narrative will set in. Even if they don't realize that this media narrative presents Jews as single-minded and singularly invested in the continuation of the Israeli apartheid. I don't know how, however, I don't know how many different ways I can explain this. I don't know how people don't recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews. You're running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as basically Jewish ISIS.

23:41And you're saying as Jews, this is all we care about. You're making anti-Semitism words. Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers endorsing a one-year moratorium on new data centers. Look at that. Look at that. They are positioning themselves and reacting to the popularity of our policies, our positions. Look at that. Yeah, Ben Jacobs says Ben Jacobs reports on Jeremy Moss's take. Adam Johnson says, I'll translate for those unfamiliar with these serious outreach threats. Moderate on Israel support apartheid in the army of genocide, albeit some mild scolding about Netanyahu or else I will withhold my support and help Rogers.

24:48This is a variation on Hakeem Jeffries's further conversations threat. There are pro genocide uncommitted movements everywhere for those with eyes to see. That's precisely what is going on here. These guys are shamelessly saying that they are uncommitted. They're uncommitted to Abdul Al-Sahed because of the lesa anti genocide position that is broadly popular. And these guys can't contend with that reality. They want to opt to take a less popular and immoral position. A position that he does not hold. It's totally ridiculous and we should not let these people forget. We should not let others forget what shameless positions that they are holding on to in this pivotal moment where the Senate majority hinges on this seat and they are casting that aside.

25:56Because while not all Jews in Michigan are single handedly or single mindedly in unison holding up the continuation of Israel's apartheid as a major reason as the why they will withhold their support. There are those who are doing that. And we must not let people forget that reality. What Hassan is saying is very reasonable and things that even like liberal Zionists have said for years. Hassan said that if Americans is responding to this guy saying that there's no reason for American Jews to not put Israel first over America. And Hassan is making the reasonable point that if everyone is conflating American Jews and Israel and if American Jews say that well we identify with this genocidal freak state, then the retaliation against this genocidal freak state isn't going to come against Israel.

27:01It's going to come against American Jews. Which yeah, yeah, duh. And this isn't surprising. But for some reason, for some reason this innocuous comment, maybe it's the timing, maybe they all these freaks got a memo. But the entire like democratic establishment is lining up to condemn Hassan in the strongest of terms including Abdul Elsie Saeed, including the guy who... He's a schmuck though, isn't he? I mean, he was better than the one woman. So it was happy to see the one really terrible woman lose. But he's not a very courageous truth teller in any way, shape or form. I thought he has a more serious record. He's been more like principled on begasset issue obviously. And he has campaigned with Hassan in the past. And he's been pelted with questions like, do you condemn Hassan Piker? And for the longest time he's been like shut up.

28:02Like this is stupid. What's the worst thing that Piker has said that people could really say, oh yeah, he said this. I mean, the big thing that people point to is that America deserved 9-11. Which I mean, I mean, you don't have a visible point. It's a very argue. I would say it's unwise to say because you don't really benefit. And plus it's an attack on civilians and the system. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But you think, if you just understand, like, Indonesia 1965, you know, the US orchestrating the genocide of like, essentially, I mean, it's a crime on scale with genocide. Yeah. Like half a million to three million people, then if you only knew that, you'd think, man, America deserves to have something terrible happen to it. That's a defensive position. I'm just saying, I'm not saying it's the argument I want to spend time making. But it's like, and it was a years ago and like, he's terrified. It's not 11. He's on by Neopods. Yeah. And plus like Hassan is a Twitch streamer. So they say, they say shit on the on the stream.

29:02That's like, okay, well, you could take that out of context and it'd be really bad. But also many of the people who are attacking him, like, if we drop like, Sarah and gas over Moscow, they'd be cheering. They'd be like, yeah, Russia deserved this. So I don't really take that criticism seriously. This, what Hassan said about like American Jews is far more innocuous. We've been like anything about 9-11. But you have a glory book or you have, you know, I'll say you have a bunch of congressional people, people coming out of the woodwork to say, well, I condemn Hassan in the strongest terms. And there is no place for any of these to me. It's just concern trolling and it's fake and it's very clearly driven by the Israel lobby. Very clearly, I mean, what I said about is that this is, like an insane strategy for Democrats that they want to win. You know, they could have just ignored this and maybe, you know, condemned privately if they really cared. And they could have said, well, the economy is going to shit. Trump is going, Trump is getting us into a war that's about to make your lives so much worse. Unemployment is increasing dramatically.

30:04No one's getting hired. We're in an economic bubble. We need to do something about this. But instead, they're like, no, we're condemning Hassan for anti-Semitism that isn't even real. And I've never seen them mobilize on an issue quite this fast against Hassan for other issues. So it's all just ridiculous. It's all just blatant lying. It's just lying. You can should be told that their political beliefs make them responsible for hatred or violence directed against them. Well, that's not at all what Pikeer said from what I understand. No, it's not what he said. He knows, Booker knows this, but it's more important to serve his masters. Right, right. And like he didn't even say that they're responsible for it. That like it's your fault that you're going to get killed. It's just a this rhetoric. It redirects attention from Israel to American Jews. And if you care about the health and safety of American Jews, that's not a good thing.

31:04It's a Nazi formulation, by the way. It's just a hallmark of fascism. It's one of the sort of checklists on fascism to argue that the state is the sort of metaphysical embodiment of the nation. Like that is a fascist formulation, right. And that is basically what American Jews are trying to do, as I am this anyway, when they say these things. When they say you can't criticize Israel because that's the homeland for the Jewish people. Then that is such a fascist formulation. But since we've been stupified about even knowing what fascism is, thanks to people like Tim Snyder, who's a professional fascist, who pretends to be a fascist expert, we're so cognitively adult that we can't even words don't even mean anything. Our rhetoric is nonsensical and stupid beyond imagining. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

32:04It's actually blowing my mind. Like I said that this election season, this midterm season, is like a slam dunk. Like a slam dunk. The most slam dunk in this slam dunk since 2018, right. Like 2018, he had the blue wave where people were responding to Trump's first term, and his first two years being a disaster. Okay, yes. 20s, 26th, we're in the same position. Except that these guys, like Cory Booker, are trying to throw it. They're trying to like make the campaign about Hassan Piker, make it about a Twitch streamer. And they're going harder against the left flank of their own party. Then they are making serious plans to confront Republicans or have an agenda for if you do take the house or if you do take the Senate, well, what are you going to do? Like they don't care about that. What they care about is protecting the right wing of their party from any insurgent. And well, this is how you get stupid statements like this.

33:05Yeah, I mean, they've already proven that they would rather lose with corporate Democrat than win with somebody like Bernie Sanders. So the party over again, like propitiously. And pretty much irredeemable. But in that vein, let's go and put some more nails into that coffin here. Jared Kushner recently met with APAC Shakur, aka Keem Jeffries. He held this meeting. It's very good. I know this isn't it. This is this Kushner talking about meeting with NetNial. But Kushner did meet with Jeffries recently. And subsequently, Jared Mosquitz was tapped by the Democratic leadership to lead Middle East and North Africa subcommittee. What a good objective person who cares about the U.S. national interest to do this. And he says here, Jared Mosquitz tweeted, thank you to APAC Shakur and Gregory Meeks for this important responsibility to help lead Democrats policy in the Middle East and North Africa on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

34:07So yeah, here we are. Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, Keem Jeffries, obviously a goon, obviously a paid APAC shield, obviously a paid corporate shield. And he is the one of the least charismatic, like has the least sauce and juice of a human being as you could possibly like he's approaching has dirt levels of charisma. Like it's it's pretty insane. But he but he does his job, right? He does his job on behalf of his corporate paymasters to ensure that the Democratic Party remains a vehicle for Zionism, a vehicle for like empire. And he seems to be very content with that. And it's very disappointing that he has so much power that he's able to command that people like like Zoraan Mamdani, for example, enforced him to be. And he's a speaker again, him as speaker would even have to weigh in on that. He could have just said, look, I'm the mayor of New York and I'm worried about New York.

35:09He didn't even have to give such an answer to base himself like that. Yeah, I mostly agree, although I'm more sympathetic because he's at their mercy. Like he's at the mercy of the New York state political machine and governor Kathy Hoko on the state legislature, which is deeply connected with a Keem. If they superzy this billionaire who lady who owns the who runs the NYPD, which by the way is a strange occupation for an oligarch, you know woman to have like, oh, I want to be the super cop. That wallasing, bromant look at me. So ridiculously fascist. Yes, but but they have the ability to shut down any progressive agenda that Zoraan would want to implement. Like they have the the state house has the ability to cut off funding spigots. They have the ability to cut off certain revenues, which would endanger the progressive project of doing anything good in New York. And of course, the police commissioner, they have the ability to do, I mean, they have the ability to do quite a bit. But one of the things they could do is just throw a wrench in his political machine.

36:11And so he's at their mercy, so to speak. And like he can either go to war with them and get nothing done in New York, or he could acquiesce and maybe try and get something good done in New York. I mean, look, man, it's the debate about the whether or not there's some things that you just shouldn't compromise with and putting in a saying that a guy who is owned by Zionist, like he came and Jeffery saying that, oh, yeah, he should be the speaker of the house. That's where he's gone. That's where I can't rationalize that even by the out of the polity. He could have just not said anything, which would have been which would have been pathetic, but at least it wouldn't have been as bad as what he did say, which is I think. Well, it depends on the conversation. He should have been that as acceptable. He shouldn't have endorsed him as the speaker of the house. When he's not popular with the party, he should have said they need to find someone. He should have not said anything or should have said they need to find someone who the people of the party actually support. Yeah, and like that would have been obviously ideal.

37:12But I think the reason that he did say something is because that he was told to. And if he was told, like if you don't do this, you don't get your grocery stores, you don't get to freeze the rents, you don't get the buses, you don't get any of that stuff. Well, now that's a theory, but I think it's more consistent with like Zoran's history, the political machine in New York and who these guys are and how they're able to operate. Now, we can debate about whether or not they're like getting even getting into that position. Is that indicative of broader political failures of the left? I mean, very obviously, yes. But you know, I think it speaks more to the power of these individuals and how despicable they are that they're able to have such an influence over an ostensible progressive. Like elected. And that's that's I think the biggest thing here. We can talk about whether or not mom Donnie is a sell out or not, but I don't really have. Well, he just really joins the he joined the mafia thinking that he was going to change the mafia.

38:15Yeah, but I think that's the case of any media politician. That's not how it works. That's not how it organized a criminal organization works. Like you join a criminal organization. You don't reform to make them good. Yeah, well, he's made his deal with the devil. But if he's there and the bigger thing is that Zionism's position globally and politically seems to be collapsing over on the verge of it. It might be more spectacular and sudden than we think. I don't know, but at that point, you know, then maybe the people who are total cowards like, you know, mom Donnie will suddenly realize they have a little more leeway to do things without consequences, which they seem to want to. I think there's a lot to be said about understanding Zoran's political constraints and asking what can he actually do versus what was he too lazy to do versus what does he not have the power to do?

39:18I think these are all important questions. When it comes to ideas about when do you compromise politically and so on? It's generally been whether it was stated explicitly or not is like, okay, but like you can't accommodate Nazis. And that's essentially what we're talking about now. But that's like all of America. But not really. It wasn't usually a corporate kind of sort of fascism in different ways. Sure, but not not Nazism in the, you know, since the end of World War II, it was not overtly. It's clearly an obviously Nazi and Nazi project that is that has that these guys are under their thumb. And that is something that you really can't accept and have any defense for yourself. Like you can't in my opinion at this point, it's too, I don't see how you can rationalize these things other than to say, yeah, this is the, we live under if it's not a five regime and what do you do? It's sad, it's pathetic, but what do you do? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't fully resign to it, which is why I do like, you know, organizing an activism. But I mean, the reality, like if you would, like what, what if you had like, you know, the most radical person there, what if you had, you know, like the most radical person was elected New York mayor.

40:35Is it worth throwing the way the progressive agenda to fight a fight that you can't win or is it worth accommodating the fascists so you can do something? I think that's a very good question. And the common fascists is like, they need to be specified that this is not just not even Mussolini fascism, this is the Hitler kind of fascism. We will exterminate the Uttar mentioned fascists. Yeah, because I mean, you're stingy. I think you don't compromise with it in this way. I think he's gone further than can be justified by, you know, expediency at this point, you know. And I mean, going after the people that are protesting at synagogues also, right, that's a kind of shit. That's also extremely weak and he should have just, he, you know, that was weak also. But he's trying to survive in a, you know, in a mafia like. Social media, which is the US political system. Yeah, and not to, not to, not to, like, overstress this comparison.

41:37But I mean, consider what JFK had to accommodate in order to do anything, right? Consider what, what he had to accommodate and consider what happened when he didn't accommodate them enough. I mean, he was pretty accommodating to, you know, the, the empire at large. But that wasn't enough for them. And, you know, he got popped. And it's far easier to get to like the mayor or to not even, you know, kill him, but to ruin his life or to ruin his, like, 10 years mayor. It's far easier to do that than it is to organize a hit on the president. But I think looking at the administration of the, the Kennedys, you do have a high degree of sympathy for what they're actually up against. What they could reasonably do within the constraints of the American power structure. And, you know, you can go back and look with hindsight and say, oh, well, he could oppress more on this. Oh, he could have done more on this. Well, he really can in Ken, he's case because he got killed. Yeah, because he got killed. And he, he was saying, no nukes to Israel and registers a foreign agent and,

42:44uh, saw, let's solve the Palestinian refugee crisis. And he was trying to end the Cold War. And that really was going right at the apex of the empire because he realized structurally, as long as the Cold War was still this, like, this institution in the United States, this accepted, you know, bullshit, you couldn't really push back against all these crazy policies all around the world. You had to, and so he was going big. He went big and he was, he was succeeding. And so they just killed him and they killed his brother later. Yeah. He was going after the mob. He was going after the mob, like, actually going after the mob. He was trying to go after the Vegas mob and the teamsters, which was really the mob. Not like the sopranos bullshit that they put out there. That's more like the retail level. So it's like that. You can't compare him to Mamdani, which is why Mamdani, you know, but I'm done he is crazy as things are. It's not how the realm of possibility that he would eventually even even with his many compromises as he makes, they could, they could off into. Well, this is what I'm saying. Like, is it preferable for J. K to a pursuit of maximalist agenda that ended up, uh, that ended up in his death and subsequently the Neocontake over, or could he have done something different to avoid that outcome?

43:56I don't know the answer to this. Only there were tactical things like putting his brother in charge of the CIA instead of John McCone would have been a mistake, but these are more tactical things. Right. And these are all tactical questions about what mom, Donnie is doing what statements he chooses to make, what positions he chooses to fill. And who is who he chooses to endorse for a speaker of the house? I think these are all tactical questions. You're endorsing someone who's owned by Nazis. You're saying, I mean, I came Jeffries as this huge supporter of Zionism is functionally a not-sified political actor. And you're saying that the left, he's, I'm not saying you, I'm saying the people like anybody arguing for a hundred of me to speaker the house. It's saying that it's acceptable for these supposedly more people oriented, you know, democratic of the two political parties to have somebody who's functionally a Nazi in charge in terms of like what where his real loyalties are. I mean, this is, it's me. It's just, this is unacceptable at this point.

44:56But, you know, yeah, like people can people can disagree about tactics, but I mean, I think we both understand that the constraints exist. And for honest people calling out what it is is one of the most important things we can do. And it's very clear. I mean, like I agree with you that mom Donnie is capitulating to fascism. And I think even he himself would say that if you asked him, but the question is, well, what, what are the alternatives and what will the results of these alternatives be? These are kind of unknowables, but so I condemn, but not without degree of understanding. On a happier note. Not happier. No, bro. Yeah, let me say this. Let me try to let me try to rephrase this because I my parents are all from West Virginia, listen to country music all the time. And it's sad that Dolly Parton is dead, but when I this gives you a sense of how grim I take on is everything.

45:56She's the person who is well liked across American society. Even, you know, in a way that can remind you that there is some there are some aspects of this society that are where there are messages of people that are like life affirming. And not just the worst kind of like influencers and opportunists and greedy psychopaths and so on and so forth. And so it's been interesting to watch the response to her death on the social media. There aren't too many super critics of her that I can tell. Trump is going to put the flag at half mass, which is for him a rare victory to be able to do something with the public basically likes. Yeah, but yeah, what is what are you? Do you have any personal connection to Dolly Parton growing up in Indiana? Not really. I mean, I knew her just like through the cultural ether, right? She was on.

47:02What was it? I think I first saw her on Hannah Montana, you know that that Miley Cyrus vehicle. Yeah, canonically like like Dolly Parton is playing like her mom like Miley Cyrus's mom. And that's how I learned about her and then I started hearing about the music. But I will say she broke my heart. She betrayed any any any any clout that she got from, you know, the the workers anthem nine to five. When I think this was like 2019 or 2020 or something. She did a super bowl ad in which she remix nine to five to a song called five to nine. And it was a song that was celebrating the role of the gig economy in America. It was like it was like Uber and like DoorDash and like working five to nine. And talking about how great it is to have a second job. Yeah, why would she ever do that again, Dan? If you want to find this.

48:06You should play it. I know she had her political consciousness necessarily heightened at the end of her life in some ways. But right. Right. You know, she was a beloved cultural figure and someone who came from a very poor background. And I had a you know, was a had a voice. It was a good songwriter. You know, my whole family being from West Virginia, you know, we grown up in the 80s. Listen to some kind of old country music people like Deli Parton and Willie Nelson and so on. Which I was like a suburban kid. I preferred like rock and roll and so on. But you know, there aren't there. There aren't the people of the same kind of substances are so much these days. I feel like the I mean, I think it's every generation thinks that like the culture is going to shit. But I think the culture really is entered another like a layer of shit. A lot of them are kind of right. I can't why that really can't even be put into words in the US.

49:10Yeah. Yeah. Rip even even even you know, criticism's aside, rest in peace, Dolly. Yeah. I did. Did you ever go to her theme park in like Tennessee? I would know what I knew of it. I love it. They opened up in the 80s, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty all right. It was kind of like kind of cheery, kind of fun, kind of kind of like leaning into the dolly as an icon goddess thing. Is holiday world still near you in Indiana? Oh, yes. Santa Claus Indiana. Have you been there recently? Not recently. When I went there as a kid, I was. I was like my least favorite theme park. It had a very nice water park like Splash and Safari, but like the actual dry, coaster park. I thought it was awful. I thought all of the rides were bad. Yeah, I know, but it's like it's the only one around there. Like six flags is kind of far away. I'd rather drive like this sort of far away.

50:11Yeah, yeah. I'd rather drive like several hours to King's Island or Cedar Point or something if I'm going to do that. But that makes more sense. But holiday world is right there. There's still there. There's still open. As far as I know. I haven't looked into it. Let me look at it right now. Holiday world. I should have gone to Dollyworld, Dollywood if I could have. Oh, yeah. It's still still alive. Okay. I don't know why I'm saying that makes me feel good, but it does. Even though it's a kitschy as hell and very low rent kind of a museum park. I'm from Indiana and so that was all there was. But Louisville, I do realize there's one other thing that we didn't really speak to much about, which is the Ukraine situation. Oh, yes. Which is fascinating in that it makes the guy just went to the CIA director just went to Moscow, right? You mentioned that briefly earlier. But he apparently was not well received upon leaving.

51:11They reportedly took the flags down of the US flags at the US Embassy. I don't know if that was the Russian saying like a sign of Russian disapproval or if that's the US being angry about the fact that they can't, they couldn't persuade Russia to do what they wanted on Ukraine and Iran maybe. So they're like, we're going to take our flags down. We're going to go home. I don't know. But man, have you heard anything else about this, the CIA guys trip? Yeah. So John Radcliffe. There are reports that like, you know, he met Russian intelligence companions and talked about, you know, an arrangement for Russia to stop supporting Iran, which I think it's very clear that they're doing and giving them, you know, targeting information. And they can ship over the Caspian Sea and so on too. Yeah, yeah. And in exchange for some grand bargain in Ukraine, because say the elephant in the room is that America does America and the Europeans.

52:14So America has ultimate leverage over whether or not the Ukraine war continues. But they can say, well, I mean, on the Ukraine side, like, you know, I guess Russia could just give up and say we're going to have NATO in our border and, you know, screw us. But they're not, but they're not going to do that. And everyone knows you're not going to do that. And so the Americans and Europeans, they can either prolong the war in turn Ukraine into more of a basket case, or they could say, no, enough enough. We, we got to end this. And there's women now. They're, they're drafting women. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you've seen all the videos of these, these young men getting abducted off the streets and press gang into these death squads. They're not death squads. They're, they're squads that go to their deaths. Suicide squad. Suicide squad. That's the word. Yeah. And like, it's horrible. And the recent polling shows that most Ukrainians, at least at, you know, several months ago, most Ukrainians want to swift into this war.

53:15Even if it means giving up territory. And that territory is territory that hasn't been part of Ukraine. At this point for over a decade, like, like 12 years, like the Donbass hasn't been integrated into the country in 12 years, sending you a generation of your young men to die so that they can have this. Does it make sense? Does it make sense to them? Does it make sense to me? Does it make sense to the Russians? But it makes sense for the Western logic of continuing to weaken Russia, trying to overextend and unbalance Russia. But that's going to end up as a complete disaster because just like in Iran, the Americans are out of interceptors. They have no interceptors to give to Ukraine so that if Ukraine, for example, starts a campaign of bombing Russian oil refineries inside of Russia, and then Russia decides to retaliate by bombing more infrastructure in Ukraine, Ukraine cannot defend itself against those attacks.

54:20That's exactly what we're seeing over the last several months. Ukraine launched attacks onto these refineries. Russia started launching attacks onto Ukrainian gas stations, civilians on both sides are getting killed in higher numbers, but on Ukraine, they have no defense. They have no defense against this. And now it's real strategic death. And no real strategic death. And they acknowledge that the reason that they started the attacks against the refineries, it wasn't because, well, this will disrupt their logistics, and therefore weaken their battlefield effectiveness. No, they said explicitly it was a way to, like, it was a psychological operation against Russian elites so that the Russian elites would then see that there's a higher cost for war rather than it being abstracted away to the front lines. And, you know, the hope was that if Russian elites see this, they would pressure Putin more to end the war. It's a total misreading of the situation, like kind of, like, laughable misreading of the situation, but that's where they are.

55:21It was the same with the, was it the, the, the Kursk incursion a while ago where they sent a, you know, a bunch of shot troops to push into Russia. Yeah, ridiculous. Or the counteroffensive, the great counteroffensive of, was at 24 or 23, where, you know, they, they poured men resources. It's through a counteroffensive that ultimately did nothing and cost a bunch of lives and cost a bunch of material. It's that same loop. I think this is, this is written about pretty well at the responsible state craft. It's like the never ending myth of a Ukrainian imminent breakthrough. And we've been seeing those headlines for years and years and years. But Radcliffe's trip to Moscow, I would have thought that it would have come with like a serious way to end this conflict. It's hurting the US. Russia has a position. In fact, there was even a New York Times article of all places advocating that, like Trump moved to make peace in Ukraine.

56:22Like now is the time for Trump to make peace in Ukraine. Both sides agree that it's necessary and both sides can walk away saying that they, you know, did their job. Trump should do this. So I thought that this would have been what Radcliffe would have been doing. But no, it turns out that he went there to say, don't mobilize. Yeah, don't mobilize. Don't mobilize. Stop helping Iran. And otherwise you will be hit with like this economic D day sanction that we're talking about against Iran. I was told that the Rubell was already rubble by Joe Biden. So what more do they, what more do they expect to do? And any, let's say, let's say there is a world in which, you know, the US could destroy Russia's economy. It's taken down the US with it because the energy prices that Russia, the energy that Russia supplies the rest of the world are part of why energy prices aren't higher than they are now.

57:26Right? Like the Europeans are still buying Russian oil. The visa V like, you know, the Russians are selling it to Indian and the Indians are selling it to the Europeans. And you know, now other methods like that. If you lock that down, I mean, there goes Europe, there goes European industry and the cost of energy in the US increases as well. That doesn't just mean the price of gas. I mean, the cost of everything that requires gas to move, which is everything. It's a total disaster. Why would like, why would they do that? But that's apparently what Ratcliffe went to Putin and the gang to talk about. And they left empty handed. In fact, I made a comment that they were probably laughed out of the country. They're probably like, like, how do you even take that seriously? How does a Russian diplomat take seriously the threat of a guy with zero cargen as hand is like going all in on like a seven of clubs in a two of spades? Like it's just no point. Why would you do this?

58:26Yeah, I mean, that kind of is the way to describe the whole Ukraine position in this war. I mean, said it. There's also the fact that as with the MOU in Iran, there were agreements signs that should have prevented this war from happening the Minsk Accords. But they, again, the US side, which is the regime in Kiev that we installed in there. They refused to honor those agreements. And they were slaughtering Russians by the thousands, by the thousands in Dombas. I think the Russians and this was, you know, I am as this has gone on. I was always a little bad. I didn't follow the lead up to the to the to the beginning of the special military operation. Or I would have been more aware of what was going on. Consortium news actually had good coverage of it. And I just wasn't paying that much attention to it. But I now I'm of the mind that that I agree with Mirzheimer that Putin really had no choice but to launch this war. And he actually did everything to make it to try to reach out diplomatically to say the situation has to change because it's totally unacceptable to us.

59:33And just to you know to keep the war from happening and then the US rebuffed him ignored him. And then he invaded the country and got encircled Kiev basically. And then with Drew as a sign of goodwill to foreign negotiate, you know, as part of these negotiations, which should have ended the war really early. And then the West stopped that from happening. And so it's just so there's such a treachery on the part of the of the West. And the main thing that Ukraine has going for it is that Russia has thus far not elected to turn Ukraine into Gaza because they're not Nazis, you know, although Ukraine has a fair amount of actual Nazis. And the Russians have fought a war. I think that when all is said and done a major conflict by a bigger industrial power, I can't think of one that has been as cautious in terms of like it's inflicting casualties on civilians. And if the US were in a similar position, they really would have turned Mexico into Gaza, you know, if this were a situation where hostile government was installed in Mexico, they would have destroyed Mexico City, etc.

1:00:41I mean, we invaded Mexico City back in the 1800s just so we could steal California. And so on. So it's like the just the absurd contours of the debate and the discussion around this. And again, as I say, the they're talking about they've been launching drones and other things using the soil of the Baltics, you know, flying through the airspace on other NATO countries to attack Russia. And there's and making drone components and so on in other countries that go into Ukraine to attack Russians. The Russians may have there's talk about them potentially attacking NATO countries. But the more realistic thing is that what is attacking a NATO country would risk nuclear war, then why not just destroy Ukraine? Like if it ultimately, if the alternative is like risk nuclear war by attacking a NATO country, why why does Russia not just destroy Ukraine out right? And I think that they're moving more in that direction, but not really, but with their with their attacks.

1:01:43Project Ukraine has been a disaster from the start, like you've been saying. And there the only way out has been a deal, right? The only way out has been some sort of deal between the US, the European and Russia. Either that deal is going to be done with Ukraine as a completely destroyed rough state with no ability to, you know, be a functional economy and with millions of people already having left or that deal is going to happen before that. But a deal will have to happen because the US unless the US is going to nuclear war. Like and that's the only that's the only other option. It's a deal or nuclear war and the US for a while was very committed to just escalating towards nuclear war. But you know eventually reality will catch up with them. And I think that's kind of what the Radcliffe meeting symbolizes, but because the fact that he's going over there, I think is a good sign that he's more serious about talking, but what he said while over there kind of destroys those hopes.

1:02:54Yes, it's a I don't think that they're going to find a friendly audience over there. And it's both Iran and Russia recognized by and large that the US is agreement incapable and so they're having to adjust their strategies to deal with that reality. Okay, until next time, Bryce. Thanks very much. Yeah, until next time, Aaron. All right, please. Thank you for tuning in. I also want to express my deep appreciation to all of our American exception subscribers on Patreon. Please do consider subscribing to the American exception podcast on Patreon. The URL is patreon.com slash American exception. American exception exists thanks to our Patreon subscribers on YouTube. We will never be viable. You may notice that we have dropped the devil's chess club title from these episodes after David Talbot had to leave our team due to his second more debilitating stroke.

1:04:02I kept the devil's chess club name and theme song and intro. I didn't want to close the book on David's partnership with Bryce and me. I had hopes that he would return David and I planned to write two books together after 2024 one on the ultra Zionist neo con takeover of US foreign policy and another on the RFK assassination. It now seems very unlikely that David will return to podcasting or to writing as such it didn't make sense to keep using the devil's chess club brand. Still to pay homage to David and the outstanding books that David wrote with his wonderful research assistant Karen Croft. We're going to keep using the devil's chess club theme song intro for our video episodes. David, if you're listening, know that we miss you very much. Finally, and again, please do consider subscribing to the American exception podcast on Patreon. The URL is patreon.com slash American exception. Subscribe so that American exception can continue to mind the darkness.