Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the startling level of dishonesty that some Americans appear to be fine accepting from their leaders and try to figure out how we got to this point and what effect or what effect this will have on our ability to have a functioning government of the people, by the people and for the people.
And later on, we're going to take a look at OPEC's recent oil production cut and consider how Americans should be reacting to this. You know, should we be really upset? You know, is this something we just throw our hands up and say, oh, well, or what?
Joining me today is a man who can string so many takes together back to back. You could call it Machine Gun Funk, Tunde, Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to show the people how you got so notorious BIG I.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Guess I live for the funk and I die for the funk.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Now we're recording this on October.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: You're dating us, by the way. It's like 30 years old now, that.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Song, it's all dating us, man.
Now we're recording this on October 11, 2022. And over the past week or so, we've seen Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker be accused of on one, at one point paying for an abortion. And then we've seen him deny it, going as far as to say he doesn't even know the accuser. And then we've seen the accuser follow up essentially with receipts in order to try to prove the allegation. And then we've also seen reporting that the accuser actually is a baby mother of Herschel Walker, which would seem to prove that at minimum he knows her.
And we've seen, as this has gone on, we've seen many Republican leaning voters in Georgia appear to kind of shake this all off and reaffirm their support for Walker. I mean, it just, you know, staying on the on course, so to speak.
Now, I'm not sure it's worth mentioning that Walker is campaigning on a pretty extreme anti abortion platform because honestly, hypocrisy here is not even the real shocker. What I think is more interesting here is just the level of brazen dishonesty that occurred after the allegation. So really setting aside the allegation and what he's accused of doing, but just that the response was just so immediate to dishonesty, easily provable things as well. And how easily that Appears to have been shrugged off. So, Tunde, seeing how the Walker situation has played out, how concerned are you about how insignificant personal characteristics like honesty seem to be in terms of how people are deciding what politicians they support?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: I guess we're talking about politicians talking about personal characteristics like honesty. So I'm not gonna. I don't wanna be the guy dying on the Hill to defend the history of polit and honesty or dishonesty now.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: But the distinguishing piece, though, is that there used to at least be an attempt to try to appear to be honest, you know, and so it's now not even like, we're not even. Look, that's not even part of the game.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: You know, I'm just laughing. Cause I'm like, yeah, what's worse? When someone tries to appear some way and they don't act that way, or when they just are honest about not acting that way?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Well, I agree with you that both are bad. But one says more about the. One says that the audience is expecting honesty, and the other says that the audience is not even expecting honesty. Like, they're not. Honesty is not even a consideration if it's so willingly.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: That actually is a very good way.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Cause I'm not even talking about.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: I would like to have this discussion and Walker not even really be a big part of it because. Or at least as much as possible, because I'm really looking at how the voters are able to shrug this off so easily.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think that's. That's a very kind of. I guess, different. Nuanced in a different way to approach the answer. Right. To your initial question. Because you're right, I didn't think of it that way in terms of the, you know, what is the audience looking for? And obviously, those who perform to the way that the audience wants generally will rise to the top in a. Especially a political situation. Right. In terms of political parties and all that. So.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: And they're responding to cues from the audience.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's. That's kind of what I'm saying is that. That's why I like the way it ended up framing the way you ended up framing the question. Because. Well.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: What it allows me to say is. Yeah. What it allows me to see is that to your point, like, it's not about Herschel Walker or anyone in particular as an individual, let's say, in politics at this moment, it's about this theme that there are a lot of people being rewarded for blatantly lying and saying things that are easily unprovable. So let's just take Herschel Walker out of it. There's several candidates running for office right now who have lied about their military service. For example, yeah, they served in Afghanistan and they had, you know, saw combat and all that. And I saw one guy who's running, I think in your state in Ohio, unfortunately.
But, you know, I mean, and not to take away from his service. Right. I mean, he was basically doing logistics and loading, I think just cargo on planes in Kuwait. Right.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Just part of the team.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Correct. Not to disrespect his service at all. Like you said, that's being part of the team and he's important. You know, the whole military apparatus is important from, from every supply line and all that. So again, yeah, there's nothing to disrespect that but the, the need to feel that you need to prop yourself up by lying and saying you did this and that. And then to your point, something like when and where someone served in the military is pretty, you know, that's something that's not difficult to get. You know, you can ask the military, did this person serve here? They say yes, and they tell you what branch and when they served and all that. So again, it's, it's, you know, and, and that's why to me, when you started winding up, the question that the thing I thought of was the firehood of falsehoods. You know, when we talked about the Russian style propaganda and show probably a year ago.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: And this idea that once you start throwing so many lies out there and also lies that are easily disprovable, but you're forcing your audience and your kind of base to have to pick a side. And the thing that I can not help but to bring up was the initial. Right after Donald Trump's initial inauguration and again, not to make this about him per se, but the idea that an easily provable thing or disprovable, which was the size of the inauguration crowd, remember.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: It was day one of his administration where a real line in the sand was drawn about you're going to be on my side or not on my side based on, you know, things like that. I say the crowd size was the biggest. If you don't, you're lying and you're fake news. And, and then.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, you're.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: But let me just finish this one.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: You know, but it wasn't that you're lying, it's that you're against me. And so you're.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And it becomes a personal thing.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Person. And as opposed to like you can't make a decision based on what's true or to make a decision based on whose team are you on.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Correct. And. And that becomes. And then the audience is forced to have to make that distinction. Do they want to be in the cool kids club or not? Right. And where I was going to go, and then I'll hand it off, is. And then it's about the people surrounding that leader or whoever is saying that. Right. So it was very. I remember then, within a week or two, remember Kellyanne Conway, who at the time was, I guess, the main spokesperson for the president United States, was on one of the major news shows and interviewed.
And the guy asked her because, remember, no one was used to seeing this yet in American politics at this level.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Because there were pictures. Yeah. Like, it was like people showing pictures, like, how come?
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's again, looking back, the intellectual class was already losing when they're trying to prove all this stuff and all that. But. And remember, she said this very distinctly. Well, we have alternative facts. Remember that? And it was just an interesting. I never heard anyone ever, like a serious person is representing, let's say, a president United States say that in public. And as no one pushed back on that and the leadership of, you know, that party and no one. And the public didn't say, okay, you know, we need people that actually tell the truth.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: The public didn't punish them and they were rewarded, basically.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Right. So that's, that's, to me, in, I wouldn't say the modern era. Right. But I would say in just the recent years, that's when it went into overdrive. And I think that's an example, like we've talked in other discussions, leadership's important.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, well, that's. And again, it's to refocus this, and I'm glad you helped me flesh that out at the very beginning, that the real show here, the real thing you need to look at here is not the liar. It is the people who are receiving the lies, processing the lies and saying, hey, I'm cool with that.
And I think you bring up a good point in terms of talking about people being dishonest about their military service, because about stuff like that, it really does show what they think is acceptable in light of their intended audience. And so you're already seeing politicians basically adjust to this reality and saying, hey, no, even if something can be demonstrably proven false quickly after I say it, not like five years from now, but quickly, within a week or within a couple of days or within a couple of hours, this can be demonstrably proven false with documentary evidence. I will stake out this side and force. And I think you made an excellent point the way you presented it, and force my people not to choose between truth and false, but to choose between me and the other side, so to speak. And whether it's true or not in that kind of calculation is irrelevant because it's only about which side are you on. And that, I think, is how you can end up in this type of situation. So, I mean, you drilled it down pretty quickly in terms of how you get there, because it is saying, hey, just like opinions can kind of change and be different amongst other people, what they're essentially saying is that facts, we're going to treat facts like that. And the fireholder fire hose of falsehood was another good pool, I thought, I didn't think about that. But how that really and what that is. We did a couple of shows on this, we mentioned it and everything, but just the Russian propaganda model that has evolved in this era where you cannot control all of the sources of information. So old propaganda that we're used to seeing, where we're used to seeing involved state control of or whatever entity, one entity control of all information sources. On the age of the Internet, that's not possible anymore, no matter what. Even, you know. So what the new model is for propaganda is actually, it's, it's flooding the zone with, you know, is kind of what. So you put so much out there that you disorient people to where north and south are. And so you basically are saying, just roll with me because there's so much information out here. And hey, I'm, you know, you're not necessarily saying this, but I'm the one that's made this, this, this, this scenario so confusing because I've thrown out just, I've fired the fire hose of falsehood. I've thrown so much stuff out there that most people can't navigate to, to, to the true north or whatever. So, hey, just roll with me. Don't even try to, don't even try to make sense of all this stuff. Just roll me. So I thought it was really, really interesting that you brought that up because that's a, that's that's really insightful.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what, as, as I hear you finishing the thought there, I think that's what leads to more tribalism and just a lack of trust between citizens of said country. Right. Like, let's say, obviously we're in the United States, but I think any nation is at risk when these forces really begin to dominate. Because to your point, right, like people like simplicity and the world's complex and getting, you know, constantly getting more complex with our technology and kind of global trade and the fact we have all these demographic shifts all over the place constantly. So if you make it even more frustrating and harder for people to discern truth from lies, then naturally the brain kind of wants to shut a lot of it off and will look for the simplest common denominator. And that's usually where strong men, like we've talked about in other discussions, can ascend. Because then it's easy to point out as to some superficial reason why everything's bad. Oh, all these Jews running banks around the world are the reason why everything sucks. You know, the classic trope of, you know, the kind of international global banker Jew that's, that's one that's been great for a few hundred years. You know, here in the United States, culturally, right, for a certain period of time, it was easy to disrupt the narrative anytime just by bringing up something about Negroes, right back in the day, oh, this Negro assaulted a woman and all of a sudden, you know, everything would stop in the town and they would go look at that guy and go lynch somebody. And that was a way to kind of get the population, you know, if you wanted to distract them and get them off your back as a leader or politician, that was an easy way to do it. And so, yeah, it was a dance even more. You know, with all the Internet and all the different ecosystems as we normally call them, people even crave a little bit more stability and simplicity in their life. And that's why I'm not blaming necessarily. You know, it's interesting. It's a symbiotic relationship, right. I don't want to sit here and blame voters and the population because, you know, in a sense I just feel they're my fellow citizens, maybe I'm too nice.
But also, like you said, the politicians are also responding to that. So, you know, it's a little bit of a kind of symbiotic relationship between the two and.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Well, no, and that's how I frame this as more of issue of, hey, maybe we should start paying a little more attention to this and try to figure out how we can unravel it. Because right now, like, it's, this is self feeding, it's feeding itself in a. And it's going in a more and more negative direction as it goes. And so there needs to be an intervention at some point because, yes, what this, this does lead to, you know, that kind of authoritarian type of presenter, such situation, because it's not meant. And it does create disunity in a nation, because it's not meant to build the nation. It's meant to. To allow one or one group to have and get an unshakable grip on power. And it is effective at that. And so that's. What is it. Because what it does is it says, hey, basically, no matter what I do, you know, hey, these other people are not an option. You know? And so, yeah, and that's.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: I think that's the whole point of it, as you bring that point up, because I thought your introduction of Herschel Walker is actually pretty good. Because if we look at the current makeup of that political race in the Senate, it's a good contrast because his opponent, a man by the name of Raphael Warnock, on the surface, they have a lot of similarities. They're both from Georgia, both black American men, both have their Southern roots and all that. But the interesting thing, like, I was reading about Herschel Walker, and there's some interesting stuff about when we talk of getting back to lies.
For example, he has a company called Renaissance Man Food Services.
He touted it as the Mini Tyson Foods and also said that the company controlled multiple chicken processing plants. And I'm quoting from something I'm reading about him here. However, in a 2018 declaration submitted in a legal case against his company, Walker acknowledged that the company did not actually own any chicken processing plants and partner with a plant. Blah, blah, blah. License his name. And here's another one. In 2009, Walker told the Media Renaissance had over 100 employees. In 2018, he said it had over 600 employees. But in a 2020 filing to the US government, they claimed they had only eight employees. My point is, is that this is an example, right? Like, how many celebrities license their names for stuff and they don't really, you know, they're not sitting there operating the business. Many do.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: There's no need to lie about that. How many people have one employee or 10 employees or 50,000 employees, whatever cares, right? Like, so my point is, I'm not making fun of, like, belittling Herschel Walker, that he only has eight employees. The point I'm making is why lie about it, right? It shows a lot about someone's character that they need to, whether it's grandiosity or something, to kind of pump themselves up. And then.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Well, to that point, though, because one of the things. And I think, again, like people, there's level of dishonesty permeate society, you know, through. Since. Since you've had the. Since, since you had two people. Well, somebody's. There's somebody that's lying. But what's interesting in the context of this conversation is that a lot of the times and we've seen in our politics, people, the people who would.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Would do.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Would. Would lie like that, would generally stay away from those kind of. Would stay away from seeking out political office a lot of times, because once they got, once that stuff got called out, they would kind of get pushed back to the side. Like, look, man, we're not, we're either a political party. We're not going to hitch our wagon to you, man. Look, you're lying all the time or, or things like that. And so it was one of those things that, yeah, you've always had con men and business people, but we don't have the con men or the. Or the people that are out there just telling lies. You know, just as a matter of course, the Madoffs weren't saying, hey, I'm going to run for governor, and then be like, yeah, yeah, like those people would be like, yeah, you're in business. Hey, everybody, be careful in business. So, I mean, that, to me, is what I think is what we're seeing that is drawing alarm because again, people aren't clearly, at least in some circles, aren't being punished for this in political circles anymore.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah, no. And so you've got that as one choice for voters in Georgia and the other is a guy who is a Democrat. So let's obviously say that. But he appears.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: It's over.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, exactly. It is over. Right. But I mean, what I'm saying is not to kiss his backside. It's just he appears on the surface to be a calmer individual. He doesn't have the history of lying in his record. You know, for all intents and purposes, he seems that, you know, the.
A guy who made it out of, you know, as it. Grew up in public housing, put himself through university and then also went to seminary school and is now the. As a senator. He still serves as the senior pastor for the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was Martin Luther King's church. And my point is, is that a lot of the voters who are voting for Herschel Walker feel and call themselves values voters lead with a lot of times their religion, Christianity on their sleeve and all that. And that's fine.
I don't have an issue with that. My point is that if you just look at the two men on paper, you would say, actually the guy that's a Democrat probably shares more of the values of the people who say that they like Herschel Walker. But the, but the result of this type of partisanship that we've seen in recent kind of generation or so in American politics is that the people who say they like Herschel Walker have been driven to such partisanship that they won't even listen. The fact, like you just said, the fact that Raphael Warnock is a Democrat is enough for them to say, I can't even give him a chance.
It doesn't even matter what is on Herschel Walker's record as long as he's.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Not a Democrat or what's on Warnock's record. It basically boils down everything.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: He's not on our team to the letter, how good he is, he's a pastor, all this and he doesn't threaten people.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Small business owner, all these things. None of that stuff matters because he has a D next to his name. And that point is made without regard for saying like you're in, you're always professing your independence and how you're a registered independent. So that is not about a sales job for Warnock. But again, it shows. And I think where we're going with this is hyper partisanship. Hyper partisanship is likely to be the only explanation that you can really, really flesh out in terms of understanding how the, the how all of these kind of three dimensional analyses, you know, who's this person, what's their background like, you know, what's their, what's their character like, get boiled down to a very two dimensional thing of what is it a D or an R? And that's it. And anything else, if it's an R, it, all of these, anything else doesn't matter at that point. If it's a D, nothing else matters at that point. And that's how decision making is being made. And that's how it can be. Well, yeah, you can lie, you can do whatever you want. And as long as you still have that R next to your name or whatever the case, then the voters will not look at that critically. The voters will in fact find ways to excuse it away in order to support, like you said, the team.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I appreciate you referencing me as an independent because I often.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Sometimes figured if I wasn't, if I didn't do it, you were going to do it.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: No, it's just I probably wouldn't have. But I'm glad you did because, you know, I've been a registered independent since I First in my early twenties, registered to vote. I mean, that was kind of my thing, right? I was like, you know, this isn't Crips and Bloods here. I'm an American first. And that's my point. Like, if I'm looking at the Georgia Senate race just as an independent person, I'm looking at one guy who, as I just read off a few of many, I didn't want to spend too much time. Lies that were told in public and then the fact he's got a diagnosed mental disorder, like, and again, I'm not here to belittle or make fun of him at all. I'm just saying I wouldn't want him flying a plane I'm in, right? I wouldn't want him as the pilot. What if he has a, you know, a personality switch mid flight? I mean, there's some important things here to consider. So the going back to some of the historic stuff though is, you know, we were warned about these things. And I know you like when I go back to some of my ranting about the founding fathers, but our great first president, Mr. George Washington, warned us about this and in his farewell address, you know, sometimes I don't like to read the quotes because it's such old English that.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's hard to parse out what he means. You got to read it like twice to kind of get like.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Exactly. But, but it's just, it's this idea what his concern was. And remember, think about back in the day, right? You just had a revolution and you had not only a revolution to get us away from the British, but you had a lot of interference from foreign nations, particularly Spain and France. So in a way it wasn't that difficult to how some people feel today that, you know, we have some foreign influences trying to distract us and maybe steer how we do things geopolitically. And we also have some heightened tensions and just like in the late 1700s, right? Demographic shifts, immigration from people coming to the country, so on and so forth. So I'll read a quote here from George Washington's farewell address. He says, quote, it serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.
Talking about political partisanship is what he's getting at. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption. It's amazing after the last decade that reading that from George Washington, I mean, you talk about Insurrections and riots. Let's not even go there. But it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Remember, the campaign manager of the previous president was found guilty by a jury of being a foreign agent to those Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, remember Paul Manafort. And he was pardoned by President Trump. So basically, he was put in prison for doing exactly what George Washington warns. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption. So. And that's one of many examples, you know, let's not get into Michael Flynn and some of the others. So, you know, and again, I don't want to make it about personal, but again, when you look at these things, you ha. You can't deny that they are actually, you know, there. I guess. And if you do deny it, then I guess you need to just make sure that the other side is so bad that none of this matters.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Well, that's the objective, basically. And that's what Washington warned us. You know, like, that's. To me, that Washington's farewell address addresses this issue so directly, is something that really. And I'm glad that you brought that tie in here, because we are seeing the manifestation of this now. In Washington's time, he saw the rise of two different parties, the Democratic Republican Party, which was the party Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party. Hamilton, John Adams and so forth. And the petty disputes, the inability to work together, things like that. And what basically he was warning like these, these. The results of these things, when they get to a certain point, are things that are foreseeable because they play on our human nature. And so Washington basically was calling this out and saying, hey, this is going to weaken the nation, like you said, you pointed out, you mentioned specifically insurrection, foreign influence, and so forth like that, because what you end up doing, what ends up happening from our human nature, if these things are not kept in check by the leaders of the people in the parties, then they override. It becomes party over American. And it's easy for humans, who we all compartmentalize everything, to get into a mindset of, well, whatever issue, whatever my pet issue is that I'm very passionate about or concerned about is so important that nothing else matters. And so I have to put forth or support this person or this party because they will take care of my one issue and nothing else matters. And it's easy to get there, basically, because of the way our brains work, when partisanship is allowed to kind of go to its logical conclusion. And it's not constantly reinforced that actually we're all Americans first That the other party isn't the enemy. But the other party may have different ideas, but they are also pulling in the same direction. They're on the same team, so to speak. That's the American team. So Washington identified all of these things and warned us about them. Now, people cite this from time to time throughout history because partisanship has ebbed and flowed. But ultimately what we're seeing now and is an example of this, and it creates basically a win at all cost mentality. Because the other side is demonized. Is part of the partisanship is to demonize the other side and just frankly, win at all cost mentalities are corrosive to democracy because democracy ends up being the cost. Because ultimately if it's win at all costs, then the votes matter less.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting because as you're talking, it, you know, comes to mind, and we've said this before, right. The American experiment truly is that. And that's why it's. It's. I mean, I think it's hard for us to appreciate that because we are all Americans and grew up here and born here and, you know, all that. But if you look at human history, the idea of a democracy or constitutional republic that has a democratic chassis, Democratic for the people that want to get very technical about it. Right. These things don't tend to last too long throughout history. Actually, the 250 years or roughly of our country's existence is, I think, one of the longest, if not the longest.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Let me say something real quick. I'm sorry, just it's when people point out, they say, oh, it's not really a democracy.
It's kind of. It's a technical point, but it's a silly point because what they're saying basically is that, oh, we as Americans don't get together and vote on the budget each year.
It's a republic because a republic, you have officials, representatives who vote on these things for the people. But it's a democracy in this sense because the officials of the republic, the representatives, are elected democratically. So that's why when Tunde said it's a constitutional republic with democratically elected officials, that's what he's saying. We call it shorthanded democracy because we select the officials who are going to represent us democratically, which isn't a given, by the way, because even in this country at various points, the senators might have been selected by governor not based on popular votes. So we have a democratic system. And a lot of times that's kind of thrown around again, just to kind of Highlight differences. But it's like, look, people are getting voted on and like, yes, it's a republic, but democratically elected officials. But sorry, sorry for that.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: I mean, your point is well taken for the civics lessons because again, a lot of people don't realize how powerful that is, what you're saying. I mean, the House of Representatives literally is as it's defined, right? They represent a district of people within the country. We vote for that said congressperson and they to go to D.C. and cast votes on our behalf. And that's the whole thing about the danger of things like the January 6th insurrection, right.
Traditionally, the idea of a democracy is that you solve your problems that way. Argument voting. Yeah, correct. Debate voting for people to go on the floor of Congress and debate issues.
And it seems like a large part of our country has lost patience with that. And remember, or they've been told that.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: The other side is so bad. They've been told repeatedly that the other side is so bad that you can't compromise with them. You can't. The other side is the enemy, so to speak.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: And remember the famous quote from the 1800 German military philosopher, War is politics by another means. I mean, that's a great way to look at something like the January 6th insurrection, which is, okay, well, if I can't win it and then if I can't steal it in the courts, then I'm just going to send a mob to go intimidate people and try and do it that way. And so that is the danger we have here. And I think this kind of energy, and that's why I don't want to pick at Americans either, right? This kind of energy exist within any human society. There's always going to be people that want to disrupt the narrative, people that don't agree with where the greater population's going into what direction, all that kind of stuff.
And so. But I think the difference here is for the first time in our lifetimes, let's put it that way, this type of energy has taken over one of the two major political parties at the top level. And it's not to say that, you know, extremists or friends don't exist on the Democratic side. What I haven't seen is I've seen it happen now in Republican primaries. So this isn't about Democrats where someone will lose literally by 90 points. I saw this in one of the Republican primaries and a loser who only got 9% of the vote is saying, I'm not conceding. You know what I mean? Like, this kind of attitude now of just being undemocratic. Like, I'm not gonna accept that my opponent has a legitimate reason to be in power after the voters already cast their votes and voted for that person. And this is happening within, like, one party apparatus itself now, not just against another party.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, it's, it's. It shows that that kind of mentality, as you said, has kind of just become acceptable in that party. And that's dangerous because. And there's another thing that, you know, that Washington went into and that I see as well, and that is the what, what this does. Like, if you want to get the practical con, you know, like we can, from an esoteric level, you say, oh, we got to protect the, you know, our democratic system, and, you know, things like that. And yes, that's all very important, but there's a more like concrete and close, you know, close in proximity problem here. And that is, is that this level of partisanship basically makes accountability. It makes it impossible to hold government officials accountable, because every issue is boiled down into some abstract issue like good and evil or freedom and liberty. And it's never about, well, did you steal something? Well, did you do what you said you were going to do? Did you lie? Did you. It's never about what you actually do. It never is. It's only about these kind of abstract issues, which are evergreen, that you can bring up and say every, you know, with any. In any context, oh, well, vote for me. It doesn't matter that I committed fraud, because the other people are against freedom.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: And so the other people have a satanic cabal that, at its extreme, at.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Its extreme, but basically it makes accountability. The people who are harmed by this are anyone who looks for accountability. And if we're going to have a republic where we have elect, we have representative representatives that represent us, we need them to be accountable to us, the people. But if. If we cannot, if they're not accountable to us, because no matter what they do, the salient issue for the voter is just some abstract thing, then there is no accountability. You can literally do whatever you want to do. And if anybody questions what you've done, you just say, oh, well, the other side is evil. And you know, what was interesting to me about this, or one of the things that stood out to me is like, we've seen a couple examples of this recently where this, we see this in action, so to speak. Like, I look at, for example, the, the. The migrant flights that Ron DeSantis did where he took migrants that weren't in Florida. Like, he's the governor of Florida. He took migrants that weren't in Florida, made a big show of flying them to Florida and then flying them immediately to Martha's Vineyard. Why would he do that? Why would he do something like that? That's not something for Florida. But what he's doing basically is he's.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: He's a small government conservative. That's right, exactly. And he respects states rights.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: He is, he's doing things that will get people's passions fired up because it's, again, it's about the partisanship. It's about keeping people fired up so that if he's accused of anything, he can point and look at that and say, look, I gave you your feel good there. Don't be mad. Whatever I did, I wasted millions of dollars of state money. Doesn't matter. I gave you your feel good there. Don't hold me accountable for that. On the flip side, I look at like, and I'm giving this example, but I think that it was good that this person was held accountable. And I'm going to talk about Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York. I think it's good that he was held accountable for bad actions, but he didn't have that kind of support, basically in New York, where he could turn around and say, oh, yeah, I know I'm being very towards people and I've done some terrible things, possibly illegal, but hey, I'm better than the other guys or the other people are so bad. You got to stay with me. Anyway, he didn't have that argument. People would have laughed at if anyone tried to make that argument. And so when his bad actions were exposed, he was forced out. That's the kind of accountability you can have if hyper partisanship isn't running away, at least within your side, because it's like, way, man, yeah, the other side, I may not agree with them, but you're doing terrible things here. You gotta go. And so we need our politics to work like that because that is the constant reinforcement of the signal to our politicians that, hey, you got to. At least. You got to. You got to at least play the game. Like, you can't just be a bad person and then just own it. You have to try to be good. You have to try. You have to build up goodwill doing good things. Not build up goodwill, just hurting other people that we don't like. And so the, we need the accountability again, because without the accountability, the signal to the politicians is that it's, it's open field, open season. You can do whatever you want as long as you go at the other side.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: But I think that's what, as you're talking, this makes me realize, this is what makes this such an experiment. Right. Because I think the human, most people, you know, in human history have shown that they want to be tribal. I think the part of this is just.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's built into it to some degree.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: We have a responsibility because, you know, how many people I talk to that consume, let me put it that way, they consume that type of media that we're talking about that is hyper partisan and they do things like reward people like our governor that you mentioned for doing things like we did with the migrants.
Because it makes one feel good emotionally to see that he stuck it in the eye of, you know, the libs and put these people in Martha's Vineyard and all that. My point is, is that it's, it's, that's why it's symbiotic, as I said at the beginning, that the politicians are responding to something. And what we had at one point was an establishment in the Republican Party that was able to keep that type of energy at bay.
And personally, I always wondered when that agreement between the people that had that energy in the base and the establishment would break. Because in my lifetime, from Ronald Reagan on, I saw them throw dog whistles and promises to that type of, that specific group of energy in the Republican Party.
But when they, during the primaries, let's say, and during the campaigns, but when they got into office, they then, you know, Ronald Reagan was this way. George H.W. bush and George W. Bush were this way. The three Republican presidents up until Donald Trump in my lifetime, which gave the dog whistles in the primaries and the campaigns. But when they got into office, it was like, all right, I'm president of everybody. You guys with that, with that energy, got to stay in the corner.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: You know what? I joke about that, by the way, they would double cross them. They would, yeah, yeah, I got you, I got you. I don't like those people either. But then when they got in office, they'd be like, you know what? Hey, we got it. We're going to govern for all Americans.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And then I'm actually, because I would say this, because this is before my lifetime, but reading history, it started with Richard Nixon. Yeah, right. He did it, you know, after George.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Wallace, rhetoric would be very illiberal. But then when he got into office, now he's, he's a bad example, though, because he literally, you know, committed crimes trying to get in office. But partisanship didn't save him either, though.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: But he's an interesting example, though, in the space of just this, the Southern Strategy, and the idea that once George Wallace lost and Nixon needed to get his electoral votes, he did all the segregationist type of talk. He picks guys like Spiro Agnew who are well known race baiters in politics. But then when he's in office, what happens under the Nixon administration? I mean, they formed under Nixon the minority business enterprise. If he was serious about being a segregationist in 1968, if he, you know, when he's in office, inaugurated in 69, he could have started rolling back a lot of civil rights legislation. And by the time he was out in 74, it was solidified. So you're right that there is a group of Americans and they're not, you know, huge group, but they're loud enough. Right. And passionate enough that felt offended by things like that and felt that they were lied to. And I think what we saw was, and this is why I say the last 10 to 12 years has been interesting because that alliance between that part of the Republican base and the establishment broke for good after the 2008 era. And the Tea Party was the first grassroots energy that represented it and actually was able to put people with this type of mentality into positions of power in a major party in our country.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Which is there's no equivalent in the Democratic side because as much as the establishment Democrats have been painted by Republican or right wing media to be called far left and crazy, like they have done a better job of keeping their actual crazies at bay and not getting into the halls of Congress at the top level. I'm not saying that there's. Yeah.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Like there's not people in the Democratic Party. Well, hold on, hold on. They're not people in the Democratic Party like, that are prominent in leadership, talking about, yeah, we need to nationalize. Oh, we need to get rid of, you know, capital, you know, like that's where that extreme is.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Or just denying things. Like, I mean, think about it.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: Or denying things.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: We had an attack on the U.S. capitol that happened. Right. The whole Republican establishment in 2021 said, we're not even going to support investigating this and how it happened.
I mean, like, I used to work in a big office building for a big multinational company. I'm sure if someone ran in that building and attacked it, the company would say, shoot, we got to investigate what happened.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: I mean, it's just basic stuff.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: So what I. The last thing I do want to talk about, about this though, is, is if, do we think there is a way back from this extreme? Because obviously moving towards, moving away from accountability, even in a, if we have a two party system, even if it's just one party moving away from accountability, the ability to hold people accountable is very, very dangerous. Because that is how you slip into governments that are no longer representative.
If you just follow that out. If the people are not able to hold accountable the leadership for whatever the leadership is doing, because there's always some abstract thought that the leadership can, can bring up to get everybody all lathered up again, or they can create goodwill with, oh, well, here, let me get them all fired up on this migrant issue that, you know, is not even like, I'm gonna go do things in other places just to keep them fired up.
If the people can't hold the elected officials accountable without that accountability, you do break from the idea of a representative government. You get more into the concept of a government that just does what it wants to do and the people are no longer involved in that. And so that is a problem that would be a concern. So if we're looking for a way.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Down, you know where you end up, bro, I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. But you end up back at King George, correct? I mean, you end up with what Washington told us and feared is that, you know, because guess what, right? The king is not accountable to anyone. That's the whole point of a monarch. Yeah, well, that's right.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: And see, the thing is, we have to understand is, and this is again a human component thing, there are always going to be people, and this is in politics and business and in any setting, who want money, who want power, who want access, things like that, and who don't want to pay the cost, so to speak. Everybody's. Hard to tell. You pay the cost to be the boss type of thing. Well, there are always people who are like, no, I don't, I want all that stuff. With great power comes responsibility. No, I just want great power, no accountability, none whatsoever. And so what these things are, what we're seeing here are hacks basically to the human psyche, to the human, to the sociological experiment that we all live in, where you can get money, you can get power without the accountability that normally accompanies it. And so we have to figure out a way to break that. And so, I mean, at a political level, you would think the easiest solution is not a solution, but the condition that needs to change is that there are electoral consequences for whatever your actions are. Again, if they're if you do good actions, then you have good electoral consequences. And if you have bad actions, you have bad electoral consequences, not that your electoral consequences are based solely on the letter next to your name. So that I think is where you have to start with in terms of you're going to find a solution. That's the condition that's creating the problem. What are your thoughts on solutions? How do we get back from this extreme? And we're never going to get rid of it, by the way, like this is part of our humanity. But if we heed the warnings of George Washington, we know, like right now we're at a pretty extreme place that we need to at least get back from. And if it affects, it affects just one half of one party, if it affects just one party, that's still affecting America. I mean, and that, that's we're all Americans and so we all, it's all something we all need to be worried about.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I don't know what the answer is. I'm actually, I think that if we look at the patterns and the cycles of human history, this doesn't end well in the short run.
Because, you know, I've heard so many people, honestly, and people I care about and who I have genuinely good relationships with, but they consume a lot of that media and this partisan type of media and it's not even just on the right. I mean, I've got friends that are on the left too that consume hyper partisan left stuff and they think every Republican is a racist, that is, doesn't have any sympathy for a 10 year old that gets raped and has to have a baby, all that kind of stuff. And so I think that, and what I find interesting is that most of them will tell me, oh, it's so divided, we're so divided now. And this is how you lead to things like, you know, the Balkans or the Holocaust or whatever the historic example is. And then while I'm hearing them talk, I'm thinking, yeah, but you look at the other side like they're the devil. You don't practice what you're trying to preach to me here. You know, you don't stop and just say, hey, what's really going on here? So that's my concern is that, you know, we're in this era where everybody's kind of a victim and everybody thinks that they're under assault and attack. And to your point, right, when you feel that way, your reason and your ration, and you're looking at the other, your fellow kind of man as a Good person or an individual. Yeah, that's. That's worthy of being there. Right. Like, that's what I mean by. We're at the point where people will, Will. Will look at someone who's in office and if it's not on part of their team, they'll say the fact that they're there is illegitimate. You know, I mean, it's like not even that. I can just disagree.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: Well, that. But that even that still is more of a phenomenon that's happening on the right.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: You know, the illegitimacy of your opponent. They're not even them. Their exercise of power is illegitimate. That's still that we have to be careful not to. An attempt to try to appear fair, to not do false equivalencies. The problem is, you've said this already. We're seeing this problem more on the right. It's not that it's inherent to the right, but right now that is where they've gone more into the extreme, or as you've said, I think even better, they've allowed the extreme that exists in every faction to have more of a. Have more vote, be more vocal and have more of authority. And I mean, I think that Americans, honestly. And then this is dangerous to go down this road. But it seems to me that Americans need to be more discerning, or maybe they need to be helped to be more discerning, because we know this, your focus is your reality. And so what we have is our media is actively trying to. Or at least many media sources, not all media, but many, many media sources are actively trying to divide Americans. How do you know that? How can you evaluate whether a media source, wherever you're getting your information, is actively trying to divide Americans? Well, again, if you go back to the concept of your focus is your reality, if someone is more often than not trying to focus you on how Americans are so different or how the other side is so different from you, they're directing your focus on differences, which means that that way your, Your reality will become. That's dividing you because they're focusing you on how you might be 90% alike, but if the focus is on the 10% of difference, you're gonna. You're in your perception, it's gonna be in your reality, it's gonna be very different. If someone, on the other hand, is more often than not trying to focus you on how we as Americans are similar, we have common interests and so forth, then you're. They're trying to. To unite Americans. And so if we don't Want to be defi. Divided. Maybe we should pay more attention. We Americans should pay more attention to sources of information that aren't actively trying to divide us by focusing on our differences and not focusing at all or in large part on what we have in common or what our common ground is. And so now that's going to be difficult because we have a market driven information system. And so people are going to give.
The market is going to reward people who can tap into our lizard brain more.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Well, and it's also, I think we've identified this with a lot of other type of, whether it's sleep or, you know, things like that. It's. We have much less control of ourselves than we believe. You know, just depending on just how we're born, our childhood, how our brain evolved in the first 10 years of our life. So, you know, it's.
That's what I'm saying, like, and that's why I think about it. I mean, America is interesting in how we set up because we don't have, we talked about, you know, other systems of government, like parliamentary systems, like, we basically have formed a political system that falls literally on those two fault lines because we only have two major parties.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: And so one is occupying that one part of the way people think and the other is occupying the other. And I guess this whole conversation is really about how do the two coexist not only under normal circumstances, but under these kind of stressed times when you have these kind of hyper partisan influences. And so, you know, just to finish that initial question you said, though, I'll just say this. I think this ends badly, unfortunately. I think that, you know, because if you look at, let's say the 1850s partisanship, you know, during that era, indeed by the 1860s, we had a civil war. If you look at the kind of xenophobia, partisanship of the 1920s into the 30s, you know, that. And that's not just here, but globally that kind of culminates in World War II. So I just think that, you know, unfortunately, you know, history won't repeat itself necessarily, but there'll probably be some event over the next decade or two that is painful for everybody. And just like in other historic moments, you know, it doesn't mean that everyone changes their mind after these events, but what happens is people tend to retreat because they're just tired of conflict. And I mean, without, let's say, it being a war. We saw this a bit in the 1970s, after the cultural wars of the 1960s here in the U.S. but also.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: Even McCarthyism in the 50s, civil rights in the 60s.
[00:51:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, so by the time 70s and 80s, people are kind of like, when you and I grew up, it was kind of calmer because I think everybody just, even though things like racism didn't go away, it's just people were just, all right, we're just tired of kind of fighting this way. Let's just all kind of accept these new norms. And that's where things like political correctness come in. Right. Like, I'm just going to accept that. I'm going to not stick it in everyone's eye because we see where that can lead to long term in terms of dysfunction of the, of the overall population.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: The people who want to stick it in people's eye all the time are punished electorally because it's like, look, man, we've done that.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we're tired of that.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: We're tired of, you know, always, we always got to, we don't need to always stick it to somebody.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: Someone needs to make sure the trains run on time.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Well, and I think what you raised there is a good point. And you know, I'll just say this to close on this, on this topic, but it, what matters in a lot of these instances is whether the perceived enemy of kind of the agitated groups in the country, whether their perceived enemy is external or internal. The air, the times when you pointed to where they're like, things ended very poorly. The perceived enemy was internal, like people felt like their adversary or not even their adversary, like their enemy was internal. And so, and there wasn't anything else that came along to kind of distract everybody or focus them on a common external enemy. And so what we have right now is possibly related to the demise of the Soviet Union and the way that the war, the quote, unquote, war on terror went where we kind of went in, but we were fighting nameless, faceless people that didn't really occupy a bunch of so much of our fear. But there isn't a external enemy right now for Americans to kind of mutually agree upon. And so it's for people who need an enemy, for people who need an adversary to overcome. Most of that's being pointed internally. So that is why you're not wrong when you say that the way the kind of numbers match up here, like it looked like we would need to feel the pain before we could move on to a new kind of order, a new kind of normal. I'm still hopeful that we don't, you know, I'm hopeful that we can figure out a way to get this under control, where every issue doesn't just devolve into D or R. Because, I mean, we should want our leadership to be the best of us, you know, like we should want to send our best people, our, our most un. Incorruptible, you know, our, our smartest, you know, things like that. And. Right. Partisanship doesn't allow for that, basically. Because the best of us don't even want to get involved in that, you know, because it's just, it's a, it's the thing where it's going to tear. It's just, it's corrosive. It tears you down.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: If you don't, if you don't give the partisanship red meat, then you're not going to get invited on the right cable shows.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. Which is. That's going to make money and stuff, you know, so, but I mean. So basically, I think there is a way back, basically. But you're probably right in the sense that the way that the scenario is shaping up right now, it would be difficult for us absent some intervening factor that allows us to kind of focus our energy on, not on each other and not focus only on how we're different. That would allow us to get there kind of smooth and in a seamless way. The second topic we wanted to discuss today is, and we won't spend a ton of time on it, but the opec, their sudden cut of oil production at a time when it could really hurt our country and a lot of economies around the world. It's not just the United States that are out upset, like, yeah, hey, what's going on? Opec? What's your reaction to this? You know, is this how, how angry or concerned should we be about this? And, and also just how sudden it is and how, you know, it's. It's like we don't have any control over this.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the last part is well said. Right. We don't have control. I mean, that's what. Kind of like going back to the first conversation, I guess that's what happens when you got to play ball with other people. Right. It's not everything goes your way all the time. And so, yeah, we got opec, which is the cartel of nations that produce a lot of oil. Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is the official full name of opec. And so it's a group of countries that through their coordination, whether increasing or decreasing the supply, the global supply of output of oil, you know, they can control oil prices. And so it's a response to the moves that were led first by our Federal Reserve, but then followed up by the European Central bank, the bank of Japan and several other large central banks around the world of raising interest rates to fight the inflation that's been hurting kind of the global economy and populations around the world. So.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: And they don't want oil prices to come down, correct?
[00:56:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So one of the, one of the victims of that has been the price of oil.
And if I can say that, you know, back in, let's say, June, early June, oil peaked around $112 a barrel. And by the time of their announcement, it was down in the high 70s, maybe around $80 a barrel. And now it's crept back up. You know, as of today, it's around almost $90 a barrel. So the idea of, like anything else, right, they don't like when their prices go down and they're trying to fight the move by the central banks.
However, you know, it appears too, that this is a little bit of coordination by these countries to do, you know, what I would say is, and this is just my observation on a geopolitical level, because it stands as a rational kind of move, which is, you know, oil, sorry, Russia is an ally of many of the OPEC nations. I'll read them off. Algeria, Angola, Congo, Ecuador, Territorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, either.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: Allies or they have similar enemies or overlooking.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So like Russia, for the first time in 2019, it wasn't well reported, you know, put two nuclear bombers in Venezuela. It's the first time that the Soviet or Russia had nuclear capabilities in the western hemisphere since 1962. So Venezuela is an ally, the UAE is an ally. Saudi Arabia plays games between US and Russia. Sometimes there are allies or sometimes they're not.
You know, we could say Nigeria is heavily influenced by both countries, Libya, Iran, for example. So these countries aren't countries that we find that we tend to cozy up to. And so if you look at between the sanctions and the huge losses that Russia's taken recently in Ukraine, Russia has to have outlets to finance itself. Because of the world sanctions, they can't sell their goods and services on the world markets like they used to. So there's another offshoot of something like this. By, by raising oil prices, they allow Russia to raise the price of their oil on the black market. Because if they can push, let's say, oil, OPEC can push oil back to $100 a barrel. That means Russia can sell it for $90 a barrel to whoever they want. Countries like Iran or, sorry, not Iran, but North Korea and other countries that are allies of Russia that will buy the, you know, and don't have to worry about sanctions from the US because we already sanctioned countries like.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: Well, and I mean, I think that's you, you point out that. And if you extrapolate that out, you know, Russia's been engaged in a war most of this year. So when the price of oil was 120 or 110, they were able to, they were in a better position to finance their, their, their war. Then when it drops to 70, they're like Russell's like, you know, they're running out of money to be able to finance their war. And so, yeah, it would stand to reason that they would have a huge interest in, and you never know what kind of horse trading is going on behind the scenes. A huge interest in getting that price of oil back up. And I think this is something that, I mean, Americans watch this now, the connection between the price of oil and the price that you pay at the pump is more tenuous than you would think is related to more factors. But ultimately there is a level of correlation regardless of if you get in and really crunch the numbers and so forth. So people see this like, oh, prices at the pump are going to go up. And then because so much of everything that we buy relies on a transportation infrastructure, it's like, hey, this is all the work we're doing to fight inflation. This is going to undermine it. And so it really is like, while our government and our central bank is doing so much to try to fight inflation right now, we're seeing foreign nations pull, you know, pull a trigger that's going to shoot the inflation back up or at least put pressure on it back up. And so it, to me, it's something that rightfully we could be angry about, but the question is whether we should. We, I mean, obviously we can, we can, you know, shake our fist at the clouds and at these other countries, but whether we should be angry at ourselves because this is not some new condition like there have been my whole life, I've heard politicians in Republican circles and in Democratic circles, different types of stuff, talk about how we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I think this is why, I think it's why it's a very concern or a very big concern. It's very concerning that other countries can do things that would have such a widespread and just overwhelming effect on our economic activity, on our economy. And so the Reason like people get into like the environmental discussion always devolves. Going back to the previous discussion we had devolves into this political thing where it's about partisanship and like, well, it's like, well, hold on, what about national security? What about just being able to not have OPEC wake up one morning and decide, hey, you know what, we want our profits to be higher, let's raise, let's get the price of oil up. And then that just has a cascading effect that devastates our economy or it puts very, very strong pressure on our economy and a lot in multiple negative ways. And so to me it's like we should be looking at ourselves here and saying, okay, well how do we allow, how do we allow something like this become such a partisan issue? I have a thought process on why, but I want to kick it back to you just because I introduced kind of a concept there, I'd get your reaction on.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: No, I think you're right. I think it's funny, a good throwback to the first part about the polarization now of topics like fossil fuels and the environment and all that don't allow us to see this greater picture because you're absolutely right.
There's a couple things here. I think what I said earlier about the reasons why OPEC did it, I would say are the first reasons it makes sense that Russia needs to finance itself. The OPEC countries, the ones that I named, clearly have an interest in not always doing the bidding of the United States. And this is regular geopolitics. I'm not mad at them. This is just the game and like you said, it's about us looking at it from a national security standpoint. So what?
[01:02:30] Speaker B: An economic security standpoint.
[01:02:32] Speaker A: Well, and that's what I was going to say like the second offshoot that they get that they benefit from which, which may or may not be a part of their strategy is the fact, like we talked about in the first part, half of the show is that the Western democracies isn't just targeted at the United States. If you think about, if we, if we believe then what I said about helping Russia, number one, they do this one month before the midterm elections in the U.S. understanding that U.S. voters may respond to an increase in gas prices here at the end.
[01:03:05] Speaker B: And you know, it'll in their interest, it's their interest as authoritarian governments that we have a non functioning democratic government. They want us to be divided. Like that's their interest is for us to be as divided as possible. Divided government, people Hate each other. That's what they want, generally speaking.
[01:03:24] Speaker A: Because our first part of this show today is not a secret around the world, right. That we have a hyper partisan environment. So. So, you know, and again, I'm not here shilling for Democrats to hold the Senate or the Congress. Right. But I'm just saying if I was wanted to disrupt America, I would make sure that the parties that win the midterm are opposite to whoever's in the White House. Right. It's just going to cause a little bit more gridlock. So that's number one. Number two is think about it, we're in the month of October, you're going into winter in Europe. So it's the same thing that energy prices in Europe get increased and what does it do? It disrupts the populations there to start hammering their leaders and starts getting them infighting more because they're paying more for stuff. Like you said, it's hampering the ability to handle inflation in a certain way, at least in energy prices. The interesting thing too, because I have so many Americans or I have so many people I talk to and I'm sure our fellow Americans, many of them believe that, well, if we would just use our strategic Petroleum reserve more and all this, and remember this is also a national security threat, they do things like this on purpose because unfortunately to me, I'm the type of person that says I'd rather suffer and pay more for gas because since March, the Energy department has released 160 million barrels of crude oil or over one quarter of our stockpile. Think about that. From March to now, we've used a quarter of the strategic reserve. That's really, you know, what the initial purpose of that was during the Cold War when they formed. That is that if we had World War 3 and that kind of Armageddon that we would kind of by buying oil from other countries and having this world market that we would force everyone to exhaust their reserves so we'd be the only ones left because you know how much jet fuel, fighter jets take.
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: Or tanks. You know, it's like, so if, if so part of the strategy is these countries, OPEC and Russia understanding that our politicians will bend to pressure and that if we just have an extra dollar at the pump, we're gonna complain and that is gonna force our politicians to release things like the strategic. Now we've got three quarters left of what we had a year ago. So yeah, yeah, that's my point.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Like I'm to make them make short term decision, to have short term decision Making, you know, because that's, that's what it's. Cause they're, they're concerned that the voters will punish them for the actions, ultimately the actions of opec. I mean, and honestly, man, like, we've heard this before because OPEC has screwed over the US before in the Western, you know, like in the 70s were notorious for, for that kind of stuff. And so, you know, to me, I think that what we're able to use this as though is an illustration of, okay, how does something become partisan? You know, how does something become overly hyper partisan? And this issue is one that we can see it like where industry and lobbying was used to turn this into, or to create, make this a hyper partisan issue where national security, you know, the overall US national security takes a backseat to just whatever side you're on, you know, and so we have Americans that are against energy independence because of, because of the letter that is supporting that or that's saying, hey, no, we got to protect the oil companies. And the oil companies are in bed with the OPEC because that's how they get their sourcing. And so instead of us looking at this and saying, hey, all right, obviously we're not getting rid of oil altogether, but let's reduce our foreign dependency so OPEC, on a whim, can't send our economy into a tailspin or force us to go into our strategic reserves, which are there not just because OPEC raised the price of oil, as you point out correctly. So it's basically, this is an example of how, okay, yeah, we talked earlier about how partisanship basically makes accountability nearly impossible. Now we're seeing how partisanship can be used as a tool by interest groups to make sure that the public acts in the interest group's best interest, but not in the American public's best interest. And so to me, it's all, it's related in the sense that, hey, oh, yeah, we're concerned that America might make this move that is good for America but might be bad for our bottom line. Well, hey, let's just, let's turn it into a political, a partisan issue that'll stop it in its tracks and Americans won't be able to do anything.
[01:07:50] Speaker A: Because that's a great point, bro, because I think about, as we're talking, I'm thinking about things like solar panels, right?
[01:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: Like, seriously, not to joke around. And this isn't about this, to your.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: Point, because it got what, what relation does solar panels have to your Democrat, your party, your Democratic or Republican Party? None.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: And that's my Point. Because the environment has become polarized politically. That means if I talk about solar panels, there's a whole swath of this country that's going to just put me in the mental filing cabinet, that I'm just some lefty reflexy and that flexi. Yeah.
[01:08:23] Speaker B: And without hearing your point that we're.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: Making here is, you know, first of all, I started thinking about this. They call it fossil fuels for a reason. Again, people, you know, you got to know a little bit more to understand it. Right.
[01:08:36] Speaker B: They're finite.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Until we find life on another planet. Earth is the only planet that has things like coal, oil, clay, you know, things like that. Because they're all. Pete. You know, moss thing is not moss, but. But Pete.
And things you find in bogs, because that's all organic material. So it takes millions of years after animals die and plants die. You know, it's kind of cool if you get into the nerdy part of it. The burning of a fossil fuel is the last remnant of energy from the sun.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: Because what happens is animals that eat plants and plants that take photosynthesis, that's all energy from the sun. So the. The burning of the fossil fuel is the last remaining organic energy left in that thing.
[01:09:20] Speaker B: That's why millions of years.
[01:09:21] Speaker A: The sun, millions of years ago. That's actually pretty interesting. You got to get into all that. But. But the bottom line is that it takes millions of years to produce. We're extracting it out of the Earth faster than the Earth can produce. Right. And so it stands to reason that probably within 100 years, the way we're using fossil fuels will probably use it all up. So that's what I'm just saying is that this isn't a liberal, conservative thing and all that. It just makes sense, number one, to start looking at other sources of energy. And especially since you got things like the wind and the sun that seem to not stop, and that's why they're called renewable. Right. And.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: And then sun stops, we got much bigger problems. Yeah.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: And then on top of it. That's what I mean. Then you throw on top of it this idea like we're talking about this national security risks and all this has nothing to do with being liberal. I didn't mention climate change once in this conversation. Right.
[01:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: It's just about kind of just common sense. Like this seems to be the way that things should go with the technological advancements we've had in the last 100 years.
[01:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: And oil's dirty. You know, Remember when the cat blew off in the Gulf of Mexico here off of Florida, the Transocean thing, that's not going to happen with solar panels. So you know, I can hear about all this stuff. Oh, they create more pollution, all that. Of course they do. We can't, we can't exist on this earth in the way that we do without creating some pollution or something negative to the earth unless we want to go back to hunter gatherers. So I think everybody needs to accept that both on the left and the right.
[01:10:42] Speaker B: But this idea that our footprint though.
[01:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, I'm just saying that we're not going to like, we still need petroleum to make plastic, for example, and plastic doesn't biodegrade. Every piece of plastic ever made in the last hundred years is still on Earth right now. And that's just a fact that, you know, we got to live with. So the, the bottom line is this is where I think it's funny tie in the first part of partisanship into a discussion about OPEC and energy. I never saw the connection, but I see it here because what the connection is is our inability to get past these simple partisan arguments about things like how to deal with our energy infrastructure is allowing other nations, and I dare say something, you know, nations that shouldn't be pushing us around, let me just put it that way, to do so.
[01:11:33] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it keeps us dependent on them, you know, and meaning that we have to play ball with them and do things, horse trade with them in ways that we may not like because we have consciously decided that we would like to remain dependent on them. And so until we decide to make the other decision. And yeah, partisanship, hyper partisanship is a part of that because it allows us our decision making or it forces our decision making basically into, out of our brains and into, you know, our passions, so to speak. So and you know, those passions are, are generally aroused on abstract things, not on what somebody's actually doing, but who somebody is like, oh, this person is this, so therefore I hate them or whatever. And so, so yeah, I mean it's, we can wrap from there, man. But I mean, I think that the biggest thing here is that we've seen this before and each time it happens it seems like people get, you know, oh, how could they do that? Why would they, why aren't they doing this? And it's like, look, they do this whenever they want. We've given them the keys to be able to drive over us, you know, and so maybe we can try to look at, okay, well how about we take away the keys to let them drive over us. We have some level. We'll be purchasing oil in some ways into the future, but maybe not dependent on that for all of our transportation, for all of our ability to move goods around, for our ability to power our homes. Like, if we're dependent on it for all of that stuff, we're in a much worse spot than if it's something to supplement our existing energy infrastructure that would keep going whether they're there or not. So. So, yeah, I mean, I think just.
[01:13:05] Speaker A: Buy Exxon and Chevron, run stock and get the dividend and one or the other, you know.
[01:13:12] Speaker B: Well, you better put your disclaimer in there that you're not giving financial advice at this point.
[01:13:15] Speaker A: No, no, I'm not.
[01:13:17] Speaker B: So. But I think we can wrap from there, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I See It. Subscribe to the podcast, Rate it. Review us. Tell us what you think. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[01:13:27] Speaker A: I'm tuned to.
[01:13:28] Speaker B: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
