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In The Audit, comedian Dave Anthony and screenwriter Josh Olson audit a variety of online classes, docuseries, and other media products created by noxious political figures and boil them down to the good stuff. By which they mean… the bad stuff.
With the rise of MasterClass, TED talks, and celebrity biographies, the country’s political elite are bombarding us with information so we can be just like them. But who has time to devote to all that self-congratulatory navel-gazing?
That’s where The Audit comes in. Dave, Josh and a rotating coterie of guest hosts will consume depraved educational content for the time-pressed listener, then regurgitate a short-form review detailing the sociopathy and insanity baked into the messages. It’s like listening to someone present a book report — except all of the authors are deranged lunatics who are poisoning American culture.
[Auto Generated Transcript]
Dave Anthony 0:08
you're listening to Josh and Dave on the audit podcast which is on the lever which is a news what is it it's massive massive conglomerate of crazy leftist it is is taking on CNN it is taking on Fox News and it's a fighter lever the levers of lever is a fighter. Tenacious little scrappy. I call it a with a honey badger intensity
[MUSIC] 0:57
see those schools as a bag of grains or if they fail fast but I have to get you got your Trapper key But
this ain't the jam should David this is a yacht
Josh Olson 1:48
love it man. I really I really do. I love them. I love them every now and then. I love watching people come at Serota is like what is the guy's like, what do you what really don't all you do is what you do is criticize Pete Buttigieg like yeah, that's all. That's all he's ever done. It's
Dave Anthony 2:03
amazing. It's always amazing to me when people find someone who has had and it happens to you and I who's had a body of work in which they've achieved essentially their dreams. And then they go What have you ever done? Like literally literally living my dream? Like
Josh Olson 2:25
I swear to God it's not to get too much into Twitter bullshit, but you know I have in my profile it's been there for years Oscar nominated screenwriter and every now and then I'm like I should just take that down that's kind of obnoxious. And then 24 hours of that somebody and it doesn't matter it's like some somebody will be getting it over me about something and I get this from crazy right wingers I get it from crazy centrist Democrats. Invariably they'll they'll find some way to work. Oh, ask you to nominate screenwriter. Yeah. Look who didn't win an Oscar and you're like, Yeah, it's like a moth to a flame. Like somehow that I'm a thing that's in my profile is like, Oh, I'm destroyed. And there was something recently where someone was particular moaning about Serota. And I sort of chimed in and they're like, oh, look, another Ascon nominee. Sorry. I've done shit. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, this podcast is brought to you by the lever, the award winning reader supported investigative news outlet. If you'd like to support the show, there are a few ways you can do it. First, you can become a paid supporter to the lever. This will give you access to our bonus content to this will give you access to the lever premium, podcast feed, dammit. The extended interviews, tons of special bonus content. If you'd like to make a one time contribution that goes to me and Dave, and our support team, you can leave a tip at lever news.com/audit you'll see a button for the tip jar that'll take you to our Venmo page. You can also do that directly. We are at the audit at Venmo under businesses. Dave. The Federal shortage is over. No. The spirit was in me man. I wanted to speak in tongues before we get into it. Couple things actually a little bit of business from last week. Remember this guy.
[VIDEO] 4:22
Good morning, everyone. Only three years ago today I was sleeping on a piece of cardboard in a doorway on Golden Gate and hide in the tenderloin, severely addicted to heroin. I am living proof that there's a direct correlation between homelessness and substance use in the city. I do
Josh Olson 4:42
that with a clown named Tom Wolfe from our homeless episode, he was in the documentary and a listener named Kevin Jones wrote in was very familiar with this guy. Apparently he's he's he's well known up in San Francisco. But he sent us a profile from I think the San Francisco Chronicle and there's a lot of interesting details that are my favorite, though, is that during the six months that Tom Wolfe was on the streets, he actually still owned a home in Daly City. So I think the difference between being homeless and owning a home and just not staying in it i don't know I'm no expert, but I'm pretty certain that homeless means you got no home. So am I clear here? This is a fine point. If you have a home. You with me so far? You can't be homeless. The word homeless derives from the Greek homeless.
Dave Anthony 5:44
It is. It is problematic that he can be enhanced though.
Josh Olson 5:50
Well, yes. Well, no, but I don't know. Is he though, is he like, I guess?
Dave Anthony 5:56
He's not in a house. He's not
Josh Olson 5:57
in a house. But
Dave Anthony 5:59
so he is. Technically, not in a house. So? Uh, yes,
Josh Olson 6:07
I see. So that's certainly homeless and unhoused. I guess. He's got home. Yeah, he's got a home. Anyway, I love that. But anyway, we thought for a minute or two about why that we should talk about this. And I was like, you know, what we are, first and foremost, the one thing we have any kind of expertise is we are we are critics of media. I would say when you are a boy. And a big, big story broke just the other day. Last week, as you're listening to this in Vanity Fair. It's an amazing article highly recommended. I don't want to get too much into like, bringing out all the details because you just need to let it happen. Last illusions, the untold story of the hit shows poisonous culture by a woman named Maureen Ryan, who's got an upcoming book called Burn it down, which is all about kind of toxic Hollywood culture. And it's an amazing, amazing, amazing article that details just what a nightmarish work experience. The show loss was. And it's interesting for a lot of reasons. I think, David, I want to talk about it. Probably mostly just to go nein nein nein are we told you so? Because they both stopped watching that show very early on. I think How far did you make it?
Dave Anthony 7:26
I don't know about boba. You know, I have a tendency to keep watching something. And I think it's lost the plot just to see what it'll do. So I hung in there and I watched it through some stuff that I was just like, what is?
Josh Olson 7:40
Oh, well, because I did I gave up fairly early because after a few really good opening episodes, and I came to it because of to editorial Quinn was an amazing actor I've loved forever since for so long that we call the stepfather and the very great Harold Perrineau who I'd seen other things before them but ours is where he really blew up and then of course Romeo Juliet Besler means he's just fucking phenomenal actor and it became very clear to me after a little while that they were not and I hate when shows do this they're setting you up for a specific journey create creating a mystery that they want you to invest in. And I'm happy to invest in that mystery if I have a strong sense that you know where it's going and it became clear clear that they had no idea or was fucking going
Dave Anthony 8:32
the first season you couldn't figure that out right? Pretty soon into the second season. Yeah, I was like I may
Josh Olson 8:39
it may be that I made it partially into the second season that could be you're probably right it's been a long time but and I also started noticing and this got worse to that it really for its for its quote unquote diverse cast it really was just about these handful of white characters whom I found appealing by the way I don't want to make it look I'm smiling great social justice machine I the Sawyer guy. I've never gotten over it just there's something about him.
Dave Anthony 9:10
Well, he always seemed very
Josh Olson 9:13
good father was
Dave Anthony 9:16
well, yeah, he was a soap opera II Yeah, tight, like entry type situation.
Josh Olson 9:22
I just felt blame lead.
Dave Anthony 9:25
I felt the same way about the Kate character. Yeah, they were all I mean, Quinn was the only one and then the little weird others guy. Yeah. But other than that, it was very, but that's that was very TV at the time. Network TV at the time, very, very much. That sort of thing where the
Josh Olson 9:46
XY didn't watch and network TV but But what was interesting is if you read the article, and it is just absolutely abominable environment for writers, especially women, and
Dave Anthony 9:55
it's a it's an it's incredible. It's incredible, but not surprising, but it Incredible
Josh Olson 10:00
and that and that's the thing in reading it. And look, I don't I, there are plenty of things that are wonderful. There are plenty of great works of art that just fill your heart with joy and convince you that the people who made them must be you know, must walk with angels, in which they're absolute monsters. There's also things that look like there are perfectly plants that are complete chaos behind the scenes. I'm not saying you can always tell. But the thing with last is that none of these revelations are the specifics of them are astonishing, didn't know any of them. Nothing in this article was a surprise. And they sort of just think back to many conversations I had with friends who are like rabid fans of the show. And I've just sort of cackling in the fact that they're probably remembering those conversations too, and wanting to punch me in the face even harder. But it's, it's astonishing. And and David, I get it a little bit on Twitter talking about this, because one of the things you know how apparent I was this amazing black actor. And he came onto the show, shortly, a couple years after oz. And you know, they they Lord, they sought him out. Yeah, he sought him out. Yeah, they went after him. Yeah, he didn't come in just read for a part. They sought him out. And they told them, they wanted to do big things with his character. And you know, here's a guy who, you know, I doubt Harold Perrineau was being asked to come in to audition for things. I think that's how you got him at this point is you went to him civically. And you know, he's a black man in America and had some thoughts on the subject and wanted to make sure that the show was was true to him and his experience. And they then proceeded to just sort of backburner him and not do much with them. And then they get to the thing with his son, do you want to?
Dave Anthony 11:41
Well, let's but let's say why they backburner him, because they told him when he brought it up. And they said, well, people can relate to the other characters. Yes. People can relate. Now I, having been a huge fan of Oz was very excited to see him on a TV show and really would have been very happy if he was the lead of the last like, he was one of my favorite actors, if not my favorite actor on the show on us. Yeah, and I'm a super white guy. Yeah. I just like good acting.
Josh Olson 12:18
Yeah. I mean, I would say it's close up for me. It's between him and JK Simmons. And it's kind of hard to say JK Simmons was your favorite actor on oz? Because he was such a he's a Nazi who routinely raped other men against you? I mean, it was really hard to love him. But yeah, he had he had turned over like, the fucking superstars. Yeah. And, and he had a kid on the show, I guess. I mean, I was gone by the time this started happening. And then the kid disappears. And again, Oh, yeah. Details too much of this article.
Dave Anthony 12:51
I, I remember this episode. So clearly, because as a writer, there was like this raft situation and he gets saved, and he can't get to his kid. And they and then He only says, Once, you know, I need to find my kid. And then it's never comes up again. And I remember. And, you know, these are things you think, is it because I'm a writer, or is it because I'm just watching TV? But I might going why isn't he talking about his kidney more like now it's just, it's it's it's jarringly odd to watch.
Josh Olson 13:29
And that's, that's bad writing first and foremost. And and I do wonder, because I never I don't want to leap to immediate conclusions. And it's like, is it just bad writing? And they were just busy on other things? Or was it really that they just don't give a shit about a black kid and his father, you know, and that's how and I his his point, and he makes it very eloquently because he's not even. It's not even though he's accusing them of that. He's just saying, I don't want to be part of something where a black boy is being devalued and a black father's relationship with his son is being just ignored. He's not attributing motivation to them. And of course, you don't want to do that as an actor. You don't want to play a character whose son has just been vanished for him and you don't think I mean, that alone is fucking insane.
Dave Anthony 14:14
Well, it's very it's very indicative of what is going on in the room and what's happening with his character and that they have sidelined him and they want to get to the important conversations of Sawyer stealing a motorcycle or whatever the fuck he did his past life. You know, the stuff that really doesn't matter. Where's the pressing? I don't think they had any idea how how the disappearance of his son on the island was a pressing and constant thing in the back of every viewers mind. That's, that's so you are. You were always like, where's the kid like it never went away and, and that that kid's disappearance was always bizarre, and the last lack of screen time for the father was bizarre it was all if you were watching the show, unless you had, there are people that were very, they know what they're going and like, super crazy defensive. But you know, like the way people defend the Democratic Party or whatever, but but they, they weren't. They were, clearly it seemed to me very personal. Because I always remember this, this story from Deke Deke wolf story of Lanark because I used to watch lawn order. And one time there is a assistant DA, and the end of an episode, the middle of the season, like, I won't wanna say, like episode six of a 24. She just gets hit by a drunk driver and dies. And there's no, there's nothing leading up to it. It's just, she's dead. And it turns out that she had gone in and said, I feel like my character wouldn't do this. Right? Can we talk about it, and his response was to kill her. Right. And that's the only other time I felt like something was very off was with this character. Just vanishing. And, and, and the kid like them just not doing anything with so it was like, because it's
Josh Olson 16:14
one thing to sort of like, I get it, you sort of think of your characters and what you're interested in and you think of the actors that are playing them, but just like, there's a writer, the creator, you need to step back and like, how is this playing? You know? And then you find out what happened to the kid, which is really insane. Because he just needed to hit a growth spurt in between seasons, right? And I kept thinking of chapters on all shows there were well yeah, but so do you remember row indicate what was it? Oh, yeah. It was hilarious because the season two of Rome started about a week after the end of season one. And this kid who was just delightful little like seemingly 12 year old Moppet? You know, a week later on the shows timeline is now like six for going Hey, Mom. What are you gonna do? How you did it? You're like, you're fine with it every now and then it's like, oh, but you're fine with it. But here's the thing. Rome was set in a version of reality. Yes, last. Tell me. I'm wrong. had magical elements. Didn't they do time travel bits in it? Yeah,
Dave Anthony 17:17
I said they did it later. But I don't care.
Josh Olson 17:19
You I gotta show really,
Dave Anthony 17:20
he could you could have just had him walking on the island fall into a hole. They pull him out. And he's 10 inches larger. Yeah, that would have been fine. Clearly,
Josh Olson 17:30
you're not planning anything that's not gonna fuck any continuity up. And it's insane. Because like later on here, they're doing episodes where it's like, oh, now we're gonna put makeup on this actor to make them look older. What a fucking God said to have a character who actually looks like five years older version of himself a week after. And then just think about just the thing that I kept getting hung up on read this is like, you've got the fucking opportunity to do this. It ain't the wire, you know, you're gonna have to explain it. But yeah, it's this magical world, you this amazing opportunity, or a father and son who've been through all this stuff and bonded as tightly as any parent child can. He's taken away from and he gets them back. But you've missed like five years of development together. I mean, I'm getting misty eyed just thinking about that. The incredible dramatic power that that they just skipped out on because I guess they didn't give a shit and they were tired of they were just sort of, I guess what alienated by Harold Perrineau every now and then going hey, could we maybe give me something to do on this show?
Dave Anthony 18:30
Well, there was a real there was a real casual racism, jokey racism it's from reading the article you just come while there is there is also a if seems a undercurrent angry at having to employ or bring in anybody who's not white being being told what to do is what it seems like being the studio telling people what to do, who to hire, who to write that comes across
Josh Olson 19:05
all sorts of other voices on the show, regardless of there's one about the very much two writers who wrote an episode that I guess it was like a fan favorite, big time and then the way they just kind of immediately marginalized by Lindelof and cuse
Dave Anthony 19:17
took credit for it. Yeah, yeah. He literally took credit for writing it and they didn't
it very interesting. Then thinking about it, you know, all these years later
what what's his name? I always want to call him the same as a soccer player, not accuse Lindorff Lindelof he has a little more human response to the accusation.
Josh Olson 19:48
Yeah, conclusive swatches just like that ever happened bullshit. Fuck that, but they're both bad like Lindell is not he's just doing what you do and you're in his situation and I think he's just trying to you know, he probably Willie sees sees the you know, the realizes the light at the end of the tunnel is probably a train headed his way. And he's trying to make amends. But you know, Is he is he actually going out? Is he contacting all those people in the article who are talking about the terrible things that were done to them? Is he making an effort to personally connect with him? Or is he just talking about what it sounds like I was young, I've learned my lesson. And by the way, he was older. And this is the thing I'm seeing anybody with one exception, our friend Leslie leaves, who has been on the show a long time ago on the show, is the only person I've seen mentioning this. But like, for all this talk about how we sort of more enlightened, no one nobody wants to either, because so many people love this fucking show number you and I were not fans and we even talked for a while about maybe doing a break from westlichen doing a miniseries about it was like, it would just get us killed. There was a current show, and people loved it. And you were dealing with racial issues in a way that were very that if you love the show, and somebody came at you can really set you off, but fucking Watchmen, this is not watchmen is not a show from a guy who has achieved enlightenment that he did not have on loss. It's it's, there were two things, there's so many things that did. But the things that made me crazy, we're one, this whole notion, first of all that all your characters now cops in the show that has made it very clear it was going to be about sort of the black experience as post Black Lives Matter and so forth. And you have an amazing black cast. And the cops all wear masks and hide their identity because one time, a few years back a bunch of them got killed by bad guys. And the show in the show treats that as a completely reasonable sympathetic response as though the fact that cops are sometimes in danger, justifies them hiding their identity, guys, pre those video cameras, that the whole war, if a cop was gonna beat the shit out of you or kill you and possibly be seen, they would turn their fucking badges around so you couldn't see who they weren't. Yes. It's like this is your and yeah, it's like it's pure fascism. And then they did this thing that really made me crazy from the beginning, where they had this character and I've been obsessed with Bass Reeves for decades. I tried a long time ago with Morgan Freeman to get a mini series going he was going to produce bass where he was if you don't know you will soon was one of the greatest lawmen and the Old West he was an escaped slave, who the story is very either beat his master half to death or he beat his master to death, ran off to the Indian territories, lived with the Indians for a while and became a US Marshal. He was an ambidextrous dead shot. He was so fearsome that nine times out of 10 when, you know some bandits or whatever wanted been fed up bass reasons after him, they went, Oh, fucking they turn themselves in. He's one of the great American fucking heroes of the Old West. And there is I think, what's his name? The guy that is Yellowstone is going to be doing a mini series about him, which I mixed, it'll be well written. And I feel like there are other creators who might be better suited to take this guy on. But we'll see. I mean, maybe, you know, I'm not that guy. You don't have to be, you know, of the group to write about the group. I just think there are other people. But and I say that as somebody who tried there's a white guy who tried but they opened with him there was this What did they call him the black hood or something that resists the first mass superhero, the old west, and it's revealed that he's batteries. And the reason batteries is wearing is hiding his identity is because of course, as they stayed if everybody you know, people found out it was a black man doing this, he wouldn't last a day. And you're sitting there gone. We know that's not true. The real Bass Reeves died, a very happily of old age did not have to hide his identity. And in fact, his identity was the thing that made him you know, people knew who the fuck he wasn't, they turn themselves in. So it's just this weird, thoughtless revision, is kind of mindless to like kind of mindless liberalism, because it's like, I'm not about to say that the Old West was not a bastion of racism. But
Dave Anthony 24:04
to say there were tons there are tons of black cowboys.
Josh Olson 24:07
Exactly. Yeah. And you're kind of you're kind of erasing them and you're making him more of a coward. Because it's like yeah, we know for a fact he didn't have to wear a mask because he didn't wear a mask. The Lone Ranger is fictional character. I'll accept that he's gonna wear a mask Yeah, not and then the shit where the cops and and it was just bonkers and it was like he kept I don't know. It's really frustrating. And I would hope that as the last discourse progresses, people are gonna get around to rethinking that show because it really was kind of ugly.
Dave Anthony 24:42
And I'm ranting a thing of the thing about you know, and then wasn't just you know, this the treatment of the a couple of black writers in the show was horrendous. The discussion of how to kill off a character of black character on the leave the show Mr. Eko who? I think it was cute. Who's who said, you know, let's hang from a tree and put his dick in his mouth, which is just like, oh, so
Josh Olson 25:06
to be clear, it's a little unclear. And everybody acknowledges it's not entirely clear if he said that or if he said it in different contexts, but that that that was said in the implications of that kind of hanging in a lot of people were very upset. But it's not 100% Clear. If he was talking about doing that with the character, or I don't know, but But yeah, there was a lot of very uncomfortable kind of racist.
Dave Anthony 25:26
That's not what I took away. I took away that he said it when I read it,
Josh Olson 25:30
okay. You know, they may say a little bit later that it wasn't 100% certain, but but that it had been said, just not quite clear what the context was. And again, to be fair, you'll you know, better than I do writers rooms are, you know, they need to be safe spaces in the sense that you need to be able to kind of say everything, and anything, because you're in the process of writing and people, you know, et cetera. But but there is definitely there's, there's a line. And a lot of the writers in this article, talks about hazing. And there's a difference between being in a writers room where people can say anything, and in the writers room where you feel unsafe. Yeah.
Dave Anthony 26:02
I don't think you can say anything in the writers room anymore.
Josh Olson 26:06
Because I would, I would imagine that that's mostly
Dave Anthony 26:09
I had it. I had an experience in the last year I wrote on where we're talking about having a character who was a teenage sex worker, kid, and one of the other writers said, well, we can't do that. And I said, why? And he was, well, he won't be likable. And I said, why don't we just look at it from a non Judeo Christian perspective? And just write him and then I had to apologize. Because I had apparently said, apparently said, she's, you know, a right wing, Judeo Christian, blah, blah. And it was just I was just, I was just befuddled. What's
Josh Olson 26:48
the idea that a sex worker is intrinsically unlikable?
Dave Anthony 26:51
Yeah, that was the point. But I do want to
Josh Olson 26:56
Well, there's that famous. I mean, there's, there's some, there's some truth to that. There's the famous Richard Gere, Julia Roberts movie, hideous, awful woman. I think it's called Julia Roberts plays an incredibly unlikable sex worker that you're not rooting for at all. That people love that movie. Jesus Christ.
Dave Anthony 27:18
A lot. Yeah. If you know, what we have in society is also reflected in those writers rooms. So it's all you know. It's not like friends, when you could literally just say, whatever the fuck you wanted. And
Josh Olson 27:30
that's it. I can't recommend the article enough. I'll be interested to read the book, my one, just from what I'm looking at, and I'm just, you know, a little battle scarred and a little weary. My hope is that she's taking on the entire culture. There's a just a couple of subtle hints. Really? What
Dave Anthony 27:49
it seems like it yeah, I
Josh Olson 27:51
want to be wrong about this. I feel like her focus is going to be on sort of patriarchal and misogynistic behavior, which I need to be clear is a real fucking thing in our business. But there are horrible, horrible, horrible women as well in this business with incredible amounts of power. And yes, it can be dangerous, as much as
Dave Anthony 28:12
Elon Elon being a great example. And she got to stay on the air a year and, and continue on and, and say goodbye to everybody. And, you know, she was a fucking monster. Yeah, absolutely. No, I
Josh Olson 28:27
mean, here's, here's the Harel split. I mean, these these go after the patriarchy by all means, because these are women engaging in behavior that they're they've modeled on patriarchal toxicity. But it's not just men. And that's the thing. And I've been in rooms with incredibly powerful women. Who knew all there was to know about Harvey Weinstein and were happily working with him not out of fear. But out of out of, you know, greed. That could have easily not yet worked with him. I didn't I my agents knew for years. Don't Don't put me up for anything. With with Miramax. And I won't I won't pretend to know everything I didn't know about the horrific sexual abuse. I just knew that they were fucking horrible people. Nobody came out of an experience with Harvey, unscathed. But so you could choose to actually have a career and not work with this guy, especially if you're a powerful woman. So I'm hoping that she goes there as well because a lot of and also a lot of the people who prop up some of these monsters are women who are complicit again, the fact that a lot of them are women who are victims as well of this shit but just
Dave Anthony 29:39
there's there's a there's a thing about Hollywood that and just like you know, any powerful thing. People are attracted to this town because they're predators and monsters and you can get away with shit more here and they know that and, and you can be the worst human being And I mean, you know, Bill Cosby is the greatest example. You can be. And Weinstein, this is a two like ultimate example for years. We all knew. Yeah, we all know. So, you know, it's like you can get away with it as long as you're making money.
Josh Olson 30:15
Yeah. And I will. I don't know of any violent sexual predators in our business, who are women? I don't know, equate, but I know plenty who enable it, or have known. And then think about your stuff. Like, I mean, it's just mind boggling that that, you know, Hillary Clinton was accepting advice you're taking money from and taking advice from Harvey Weinstein, on how to make Bernie Sanders look bad to black voters. And, and you vet these people, when you're taking that kind of money for over a year a politician, you vet these people, it's like, it's not conceivable that you don't know they're awful and what they're up to. One of the thing too, I also, what you won't get in the article, although he is mentioned that there was a writer on the show who left after the second season, his name is Javier grito Marsh WA. I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. I think I am. Great TV writers, there are a ton of things. And he's in fact, I follow him on Twitter is where I first saw the article when it got released. And he talked, he wrote a piece to seven page statement on the article, which is a central reading, and it's all about his experiences there. It's validating everything in the article and talking about his own. What he feels is his own complicity in keeping quiet. He said something really interesting in it. He said since quitting the show at the end of its second season, I've mostly played along with the useful hypocrisy that last was successful, because of two geniuses whose behavior behind the scenes was every bit as delightful as it is in conventions, interviews and talk shows. I call this hypocrisy useful, because it allowed me to continue to work after last without career ending retribution. It also allowed these two writers show runners to rise to great wealth and cultural influence. That's a really interesting piece. If you go to his Twitter account, it's o k BJG. M, at OKB JGM. certain places, there's a link to this piece, and you can read it, or check our show notes for this episode. But it really is interesting. He's just upfront about that hypocrisy. He talks later on about even after this article has come out even after writing this, he still has to look over his shoulder, you constantly feel that I read it and I'm like, It's so fucking true. There's so much in this business where you just have to watch what you said publicly. It's we're a very public industry. There's very powerful people who will. We are most of us made to understand that we are no matter how good we are pretty much replaceable. And it can be terrifying just to come out and speak simple truth. I mean, it's one thing to like, you know, during the Harvey thing, people were like, oh, yeah, you knew why didn't you say something? I'm like, Yeah, I'm a screenwriter who's never fucking worked with Harvey Weinstein in my life. I'm gonna go on Twitter and go by the way, he's a serial rapist, that's gonna go really fucking well. And the reason when stuff like that comes out, you see as collective sigh and so many people finally get to like, come out and go. You get this just tidal wave of people telling stories. But it's really hard to speak simple truth in this business about anybody who's, you know, above you in the hierarchy. Because unless you're prepared to go kind of all the way or unless you're prepared to just deal with the consequences that can be very serious. It's just easier to shut the fuck up.
Dave Anthony 33:43
Yeah, well, I mean, look at the women who were blacklisted by Weinstein. I mean, you know, that's what happens. Yeah, I get it. He you don't speak up. And he if he had there's a good chance his career would have been over he just those two guys calling around and telling people not to hire. When you when you're looking at writers? You call up the previous showrunner and go how are they? Everybody knows that. That's how the business works. Yeah, I've gotten calls I've gotten calls from people and they've been like, what's it like to work with this person in the room? You know, like you get those that's really want to know. Yeah, and you know, it's
it's hard that those aren't the people that should be doing it the people who should be doing it are the people who oversee the shows in and they know what's going on. Everybody knows what's fucking going on. There's no nobody's confused about a toxic environment. Nobody is everybody knows there's a toxic environment.
Josh Olson 34:41
Yeah. And if you don't, then you can also be tough, tough road to navigate. I'm sure I mean, we both know people who are showrunners are very good. Who like I friends we know for a fact. Right? You know, we'll take a note from you know, a bus driver. If it's if it's good, you know, and then there Are show runners who will not take input even from fucking writers. And yeah, you know, 100% damage you if you try to do that, and it's like, you can't always tell what room you're in.
Dave Anthony 35:11
Yeah, you can't until you're in there and you're working in it. And I mean, you know it like there's there's show runners that you know, are like Mike rice is like, a great guy to work for everybody loves to work for him. He'll listen to everybody. But you know, the other side is like, there are showers and everybody knows, like, God, do you really want to take that job? Yeah. Well, I have to and then you know, you're going into hell, hell. And I know, I know, one person who was being two shows were vying for her. And both were toxic environments. And they were there, outbidding each other to get her and she was just like, she had her decision came down to which one will destroy me less. Yeah. And made her career it made her career to get on that show. But, I mean, that was that was what the choice was, and everybody knew what the one of them actually ended up getting fired public, very publicly, taken off his own show. You know, like, imagine how bad you have to be to get public and taken off your own show. Yeah, just after reading this, and everyone should read this article, because it's really, it's really well done. And if you did watch loss, it'll make a lot of things make a lot of sense. You know,
Josh Olson 36:31
it's also she admits she's a writer is she does an incredible job. She acknowledges that she's friends with Lindelof. And she talks to him about this. Yeah. And like, that's, that's, it's pretty ballsy. Yeah. It's it's pretty
Dave Anthony 36:44
ballsy. I was. Yeah, I was very impressed with her writing, because she she actually has a conversation with him about it, the end of the chapter, and you're just like, how fucking awkward must that have been? Yeah. Because she could have just walked away and been like, Okay, well, I told the story, but she went back to him. I mean, that's, that's some serious like, investigative writing.
Josh Olson 37:04
Ya know, it's, it's great. And it is such a clear picture. And I think also have yours pieces must read as well to sort of fill in some of those blanks, but gives you just such a picture of kind of the culture of fear. And a lot of it's understandable, you know, but it also but it hurts everything is forget, forget the people you're living in. From here, you don't care about like how the people who create your favorite shows are created or favorite movies, that's fine, but it actually impacts creativity and impacts quality of what you're watching. Because if there is that fear, if you're afraid to speak up, just creatively to people if you're afraid to give them input that could improve things, you're gonna get bad. Bad content, as they say, and I I have seen people a long story, we'll tell it some other time. But it's like short version. I've been in a room when Jim Cameron was screening an early cut of a movie of his looking sincerely and completely and solely for editing notes to make it shorter, what doesn't work, and not able to get it from anyone in the room, because they're all just so used to being in this environment. And one person speaking the truth to them. I've been in the room with them a few times. It's the happiest I've ever fucking seen them. And I'm not about to go like poor Jim Cameron. And the guys do it. All right. But there's a there's a situation where like, one of the most powerful filmmakers in the world has to really struggle to get people to tell them the truth about their work, because there's so much fear that has been into people's heads. And, yeah, I mean, we all we all pay the price for it. But anyway, it's an incredible article. I don't know, I can go on for hours about it. But
Dave Anthony 38:37
it's not. It's a good. It's a good little example of what's going on in our society, you know?
Josh Olson 38:43
Yeah. Well, let's let's jump in, because we've got a great one here. Wait, let's let's bind you to that. Because we're gonna we're gonna play this video. Next week. You got a very special episode. We're not going to tell you too much better yet. But we are going to tell you the story of our eye opening visit that we took the other day. Dave, do you want to tell them where we went? Yesterday?
Dave Anthony 39:14
We went to Prager, you.
Josh Olson 39:17
We went to Prager, you. And let me tell you something, folks, even though the Prager U website. You can't find Prager, you go under the way to make sure I Prager, you guess who found Prager, you, Josh, and we went and we went and it was interesting, but you're gonna have to wait until next week to hear about that. But this week. So incredibly excited. Naomi Klein is just I mean, she doesn't need an introduction does she know, but I think you got to read some of her books. You got to read no logo, the shock doctrine, of course, and then her book on the green New Deal, are all pretty essential, but she's got a new one that just came out hadn't come out when we recorded this called doppelganger a trip into the mirror world. She says that she says it's an attempt to create a usable map of our moment in history. And it uses a personal situation as a leaping off point. And it's pretty funny because it's the fact that people often mix her up with anti Vax conspiracy wacko Naomi Wolf. And we realized and this is understandable we did that episode Fresnel wolf a while back and Naomi Klein came up in one of us I won't say who called her Naomi Wolf. But she uses that the fact that people do that all the time, and leaps off into kind of a much larger subject. But anyway, she we were gonna we had to do one on Praeger us stuff on climate considering that's their primary mission, I would say, wouldn't you? Yes to spread climate disinformation. So we thought let's let the greats to walk us walk through with us. So what to do it
[MUSIC] 41:08
if you finally had enough of him being college, left wing, get yourself a real degree from Prager University.
Josh Olson 41:26
Let's jump into the first one, let's just get right into it. This is Richard Lindzen he's like a major climate change denier takes a ton of money from various groups, we got a piece from carbon brief that described them instead, a pervasive aspect of Lynn's presentation was the conflation of uncertainty with ignorance in his view, because we are uncertain about some aspect, we therefore know nothing about it. And any estimate of it is mere guesswork. It gets a ton of money from oil and oil interests to testify and to write articles. And he wants to describe Exxon as the only principal oil and gas company.
Dave Anthony 42:08
By the way, if anybody wants to, if you see someone talking about climate change, and you think that they're like this de Smog Blog, the smog.com has a great database of who everybody is and who they work for, and where their money comes from, to dispense disinformation. So you can always go look up these people and you'll have everything you need to know who they are.
Josh Olson 42:37
So, here we go, let's do climate change. What do scientists say, with Richard Lindzen?
Speaker 6 42:45
I'm an atmospheric physicist, I've published more than 200 scientific papers. For 30 years I taught at MIT, during which time the climate has changed remarkably little.
Josh Olson 42:59
Well, right there, it's like, why do we have to pay attention to this? What year is this video, though? This is from 2016. See, that's
Naomi Klein 43:10
where I think he's in a little bit of trouble right. Now, to include the die off of the Great Barrier Reef, the tipping of the Amazon into not, you know, lots of it not being a rainforest anymore, but actually not sequestering carbon but emitting it. What happened after 2016 hurricane Maria hurricane Irma, I mean, like, just the heat dome. The Pakistan floods, like a lot has happened since 2016, which is, I mean, the climate was changing before 2016. But this is this is a harder argument to make post 2016 For sure. But yeah, it we like loading up the credentials upfront to just kind of get people to, to just defer human as opposed to the vast, vast, vast majority of his colleagues who think he is a, you know, an abomination.
Josh Olson 44:19
2016 enough, it happened just on a you know it Dave and I both live in Los Angeles. And I mean, every year, I will say this, the last two years or so hasn't been quite as bad. But pretty much every year the fires get noticeably closer to my house. I get you know, to the point that we have conversations about it. That's just that's just one aspect of life here. So it seems that like you're you're in risky territory, making videos where you can say I haven't I haven't seen any change in the climate. Right away. You're you're risking the fact that yours to be your audience live somewhere where they have.
Dave Anthony 44:57
Yeah, I think like even from just a personal perspective of like, you know, when I lived in New York people be like, oh, yeah, that used to freeze over every year. You know, there's just if you're of a certain age now you remember what the climate used to be like, and it is now very different.
Speaker 6 45:14
But the cry of global warming has grown evermore shrill. In fact, it seems that the less the climate changes, the louder the voices of the climate alarmists get. So let's clear the air and create a more accurate picture of where we really stand on the issue of global warming. Or as it is now called Climate Change. There are basically three groups of people dealing with this issue. Groups one and two are scientists. group three consists mostly at its core of politicians, and environmentalists, and media. Group one is associated with the scientific part of the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, working group one. These are scientists who mostly believe that recent climate change is primarily due to man's burning of fossil fuels, oil, coal and natural gas. This releases co2 carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and they believe this might eventually dangerously heat the planet. Group two is made up of scientists who don't see this as an especially serious problem.
Dave Anthony 46:29
He just says they can be groups. That's why it's not. He's not talking about the number in the groups. He's just like, there's two groups.
Josh Olson 46:38
Yeah.
Dave Anthony 46:42
Do you think that go? Like he has this idea? He's going to talk about climate change? I mean, do you think he brings it to Prager you? And they're like, Well, you can't say percentages, let's just talk. Let's just use the word groups. I mean, they have to have like a propaganda expert there who's feeding this stuff to present it in a certain way. So it does sound reasonable. What he's just said to someone who doesn't know. Yeah, I
Naomi Klein 47:05
mean, this is, this is the strategy. You know, I don't I don't think Prager deserves the credit for having designed this strategy. They're just
Josh Olson 47:12
not at all no.
Naomi Klein 47:14
That kind of, you know, doubt is our product borrowed from the tobacco industry by the fossil fuel industry. And, you know, where you really see it is the Heartland Institute, which a lot of these guys are associated with a lot of these so called, like, dissident scientists, right? So the Heartland Institute is a free market think tank with a, quote, free market that hosts this annual climate change denial conference, I've been to it. It's insane. It's people like this, who get trotted out to just just sprinkled down around, it's all it all contradicts, like, you'll have one person say climate change is happening. But it's not that bad, we can just get air conditioning, and then there'll be somebody else who says, like, it's sunspots, and then they'll be somebody else who is like, you know, a retired astronaut who's just like it, you know, it's not happening, things are actually getting cooler, and somebody else says, like, carbon is good for you, you know, like, it's, we're gonna have more plants, and there's no attempt to resolve any of it. It's just like, let's throw stuff at the wall to confuse people. And they even
Josh Olson 48:24
say, by that, though, you've been I mean, is there. They can't try to grapple with the idea of all these people being in the same room and talking to each other. Like, they believe what they're saying.
Naomi Klein 48:37
It's a lot of old men who think like this guy, you know, and they're like, there's like a lot of hobby, like weather hobbyists. And there's just like a small handful of actual scientists, all of whom are funded by fossil fuel companies in one way or another. And I think it's a bit of an ego trip, right? Because they've published this rival IPCC report. So you have this IPCC report is 1000s, and 1000s, of scientists, all kind of aggregated, and it's actually very conservative, because it because when you collaborate on that scale, you're going to it's going to round down to the, you know, the most conservative estimates of outcomes. And also, it has to be approved by governments. And so they I forget what it is, but they changed like one letter in the acronym. So that gets sort of confusing. But the main thing to understand is like, the Heartland Institute is not a science, like it's not a scientific organization. Like their goal is just to like, you know, impose austerity and privatize public services. And what they realized was that climate change was a huge threat to that, you know, far right kind of Chicago School, economic agenda because you do need to regulate you do need, you know, you need governments to be able to govern. And so their whole project of dismantling the public sphere is threatened by the reality that we are actually overheating the planet and endangering the support systems for life on this planet. And that means we actually have to like intervene in a pretty forceful way, which makes their heads explode. So they found like the three scientists who can say it's not happening, so that they can, but that's not the goal. The goal is not science, like it would be very, and that's where Prager fits the science of it. They, they care about the implications of the science, because all their other stuff than is, you know, falling apart in their head, the science of climate change is real, right? And then actually, government and all of their scare tactics around socialism and the rest of it, you know, become a lot less appealing. I would argue, yeah.
Dave Anthony 50:57
And sure enough, here's a, there's a quote from him speaking at the Heartland Institute in 2009. So there he
Speaker 6 51:05
is, I belong to we're usually referred to as skeptics, we note that there are many reasons why the climate changes the sun,
Josh Olson 51:13
they refer to themselves as skeptics,
Naomi Klein 51:15
thank you. I just got into like an argument with with my publisher, because I use the phrase denial to describe the denial, you know, their climate change deniers, and it was like query because they like to refer to themselves as skeptics. And I'm just like, I will die on this hill that is that. Yeah, we're all skeptics,
Josh Olson 51:40
because I had read something recently where there was some concern about calling the deniers because it, it smacked of Holocaust denial. And there was a whole no no kerfuffle about how wrong it is to equate one way or the other. And really, yeah, they're they're deniers. But no, even even as a kid, I remember I would turn on the news. I wouldn't turn on the news. I was a kid. But you know, so the news would be on. And they'd be doing a piece on on the environment in the 70s, early 80s. And I remember there being a moment I started noticing that they started doing this thing where they would like, bring in somebody for an alternative viewpoint. And it always struck me as very odd that they don't, you know, they don't do this with everything. And why do you need an alternative viewpoint, and then it would be some person spouting stuff that was clearly wacko. And even as a kid, that seemed like a really bad idea to me, and it's one of those things where I go like, Well, I knew something because just giving those people a podium seems to have been a very, very bad idea. I think we're now paying for it. Because I guess the argument was, well, the scientists will destroy them in open debate, and yet, they didn't. or destroy them. An open debate isn't the point. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 52:56
Clouds oceans, the orbital variations of the Earth, as well as a myriad of other inputs. None of these is fully understood. And there is no evidence that co2 emissions are the dominant factor. But actually, there is much agreement between both groups of scientists, the following are such points of agreement. One, the climate is always changing to co2 is a greenhouse gas without which life on Earth is not possible. But adding it to the atmosphere leads to some warming. Three, but
Josh Olson 53:35
it's good, but if the whole planet was covered in water, we dies sort of by writing about the same thing.
Naomi Klein 53:43
One thinks group two are a bunch of idiots
Josh Olson 53:53
Yeah, it's worse than that. They're just idiots. I mean, they're paid. Like, aren't they? Yeah, is this guy really this dumb? Or is he just really this cynical?
Naomi Klein 54:03
I mean, this is the thing I mean, finish the rest of this terrible video, but like, you know, I do think it's, it's we are seeing less of this particular tactic around just like straight up denial, like it's fine the planets always, you know. And more, like really focusing on scare tactics about the implications of what this will mean to you. Right, like, like, like, they will take away your cars and your hamburgers, and they will lock you in your house. Like there's been a bit of a pivot since COVID. Where they're going from like, well, you experienced COVID lock downs, get ready for climate lock downs, which is a big, like Heartland time point. So yeah, I think I think we'll see less less of straight up denial because it's just too many people have direct experience with it, and more just like okay, climate change may be happening, but nope. What these socialists want to do about it is way worse than anything that climate change can do to you, you know? And more of kind of fascist take to like, like, Well, maybe it's just for people who are going to die and they deserve it.
Josh Olson 55:16
But then also, it's not just the right wing view. I mean, that seems to be very much the sort of mainstream liberal view to these days is let's, let's take it slowly, you know, we it gets treated as any other issue when, you know, it's a ticking clock. I mean, it's terrifying to me that, I feel like, we have a significant number of, for instance, Democratic leaders who, for all intents purposes, are climate change deniers. And this seems to be the real battle we're fighting these days is just saying you believe the science doesn't matter if your acts negate what you're saying. And it almost is starting to feel like these, these wackos on the right are serving the purpose of distracting us or somehow whitewashing the people in the quote unquote, senator who are continuing to endanger us and continuing to give out drilling permits and so forth and so on.
Naomi Klein 56:10
I you know, I agree, and that's kind of why debating the hard deny honors, you know, like, this is a bit of a waste of time, because the bigger the bigger threat, is this, the soft denial of a Joe Biden who's like saying it's happening, but hey, have, you know, have you have, I don't know how many more permits in the Gulf of Mexico? And, you know, let's open up Alaska. And, you know, because that's, in a way, it's harder to tackle when when people aren't saying the right things. Right. Yeah.
Josh Olson 56:44
Which it shouldn't be, you should be able to point to their actions somehow. And then yet, there seems to be this sort of disconnect somehow, between,
Naomi Klein 56:52
but you know, that they might be showing this stuff in schools still, it's possible, you know, like, like, I've definitely heard in like, oil will rich regions, like, you know, I'm in Canada, and, you know, in Alberta, like I've talked to like, Oh, you are Wow, okay. No, I'm not an Albert. I mean, I'm in British Columbia. But oh, spoke to gatherings of a public school teachers, for instance, in Alberta, who talk about how it's controversial for them to teach about climate change, because So kids, parents work in oil and gas, and it's seen as biased, right? So I could really be a video like this, playing quite well, because there's lots of precedent of the oil and gas industry trying to get their, you know, their little booklets and videos, into classrooms. And that is, you know, bridge too far. Like, if it says brought to you by Exxon. Yeah, you're not gonna you're not gonna play it. But this, you know, has enough, you know, of an arm's length from the industry that you could say, oh, this is just a different perspective. Right, right.
Josh Olson 57:59
Yeah, I mean, as we go, the videos are gonna get more recent, the next one is like a takedown of the green New Deal.
Speaker 6 58:05
atmospheric levels of co2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age, in the 19th century. For over this period, past two centuries, the global mean temperature is increased slightly and theoretically, by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit or one degree Celsius, but only
Dave Anthony 58:28
Okay, so that's actually a lot. Just throw it out there. That's, that's pretty that's a lot. Like they could just say, one degree Celsius, you're like God and salad. No, that's, that's right. Now we're like 1.5, but it's really not good. Right. So
Speaker 6 58:44
since the 1960s, have man's greenhouse emissions been sufficient to play a role. Five, given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature, or its impact can be made. The IPCC acknowledged in its own 2007 report that, quote, the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible. And quote,
Josh Olson 59:13
we get the most layman layman in this group, I think that's not the same thing as saying they don't know what they're talking about. They're just saying they can't be entirely specific. We're on a train, it's headed north.
Naomi Klein 59:32
Very beginning and kind of using scientific honesty against itself, right, because scientists are very careful. And to hedge and, and, and, and, of course, we can't predict long term climate states because we don't know whether we're going to cut emissions. And, you know, we and there's there there is uncertainty in models in terms of, particularly in terms of specific locations. but you can predict the trajectories and because of this kind of cherry picking, right that that was a 2007 report. I think scientists who've gotten had to get better at being a little bit more direct. Right. And, you know, when when IPCC reports are issued, now, they tend to use some pretty direct language. Right? I think the Secretary General of the UN talked about the an atlas of, of human suffering, to describe the one of the more recent reports. So yeah, they're getting a little bit better at comps, because of because of having so much taken out of context. Right? What scientists to be honest about uncertainty. It's kind of very similar to what happened with COVID. Right? Whenever you whenever you heard a medical expert, talk about uncertainties, and you saw it antivaxxers just sees
Josh Olson 1:00:54
that take it out. They don't know what they're talking about. Right? So listen
Naomi Klein 1:00:58
to my, you know, the local gym, you know?
Josh Olson 1:01:03
Yes. Who does know exactly what he's talking? He has no uncertainty.
Speaker 6 1:01:11
Most importantly, the scenario that the burning of fossil fuels leads to catastrophe isn't part of what either group asserts. So why are so many people worried, indeed, panic stricken about this issue? Here's where group three comes in. The politicians, environmentalists and media.
Josh Olson 1:01:34
Lets you guys, all of whom are what getting rich off of this somehow? I guess the party never understand is how what is the incentive for all these people? who tend to be motivated by money and power?
Dave Anthony 1:01:48
They do that well. That's the funny thing is that the deniers these guys are getting paid to say this, but then they go, Well, the scientists are being paid. And you're like, Yeah, cuz that's they, they have jobs. Right? And then, so they're lying. Right? But that's but there, it's the same thing with the right wing always what they're doing is what they accuse other people of
Speaker 6 1:02:12
global warming alarmism provides them more than any other issue with the things they most want. For politicians. It's money in power.
Josh Olson 1:02:22
How like, can anybody lay that out? How does that work? How is there money in power in saying, we need to start looking into alternative? power sources? Yeah,
Dave Anthony 1:02:33
shut up. I don't know how, if you know how much high school teenagers funnel to the politicians, but
Josh Olson 1:02:43
I mean, do you spend more time with anybody around these people and looking at I mean, or studying them? What can you square that circle? Can you make that make sense is just the most rudimentary argument?
Naomi Klein 1:02:56
Well, look, the money thing is ridiculous, obviously, because oil and gas companies donate a huge amount. And it isn't just the direct donations and the think tanks and the rest of it. It's also like the threat of attack ads and funding your rivals, which is a big, so So you, you know, you stick your neck out too far. And you know, it's not that you you don't get the check, it's that your rival get showered with cash.
Josh Olson 1:03:20
Right?
Naomi Klein 1:03:22
Um, you know, I guess they could make the argument that the power and this is where it comes to what I was saying before is like, you know, like climate, the climate emergency is an emergency. And it does mean that we need our politicians to use the levers that they have to take action. And I wish they did that more. I mean, what I see them as abdicate, I see them as abdicating their power in the face of that lobby. But I think if you were the Heartland Institute, you would say it's a paragraph because these politicians will actually have to govern instead of just, you know, deferring to the markets.
Speaker 6 1:04:05
For environmentalists it's money for their organizations, and confirmation of their near religious devotion to the idea that man is a destructive force acting upon nature.
Josh Olson 1:04:18
Or hear me out crazy idea. Some of us just want our kids to have a shot at dying peacefully of an old age.
Speaker 6 1:04:27
For the media, it's ideology, money and headlines. doomsday scenario cell, meanwhile over
Josh Olson 1:04:35
but they don't I mean, the media is not they don't cover this story. They don't be famously do not go near climate change stories. And even when they are climate change stories, they just make them about a railway crash and don't discuss any other aspect of
Dave Anthony 1:04:51
I mean, I directly asked Chris Hayes on Twitter, I say you guys don't cover climate change. And he said, it doesn't get rated
Naomi Klein 1:04:59
that was the You
know, Chris, he was like just being honest, it was like,
Dave Anthony 1:05:10
he was Yeah. He was being honest. But it's also like, you know, that's what people have to acknowledge, like, because he did a really great episode on with a New York, some sort of planner, talking about how climate change was gonna affect New York. And it was fascinating. It was really good and in depth. And part of it was like, we've already written off large sections of Queens and Brooklyn to climate change, they're already lost. And that's when I asked him that question, and it's a waiting cover on a podcast, but And my response was, you have to find a way to make it palatable for people you don't just giving up isn't enough, but, you know, then I, you know, then you're talking to his boss. No, but
Naomi Klein 1:05:53
that was a really interesting exchange. And, and I do think that, I mean, I feel bad because I do think he does more than pretty much anybody else on cable news. And he was, it was useful to have that, you know, admission. And, and, ya know, I think he did like some town halls not long after about the Green New Deal. But yeah, and then, I mean, like what you were saying, Josh, like, even when it is a climate story, there's still this feeling of, it's somehow opportunistic or untoward to point out that this hurricane strength probably has to do with and that is, that's changing a little bit. But still, not enough.
Speaker 6 1:06:42
Yeah. last decade, scientists outside of climate physics have jumped on the bandwagon publishing papers, blaming global warming, for everything from acne to the Syrian civil war, and crony capitalism.
Dave Anthony 1:07:03
Well, one is absolutely true, like, like, a big part of the Syrian war was was the drought like it led to, and droughts have led to Chaos for centuries. Like that's just the thing. They've they've ended civilizations like, but if you compare it to acne, it's like, okay, well,
Josh Olson 1:07:21
but that's one of the things they do all the time. It's again, it's just wonderful Praeger you tactics is they'll always throw in a ridiculous thing. You can always find somebody who disagrees with you who said a ridiculous thing. And then you just lump them in with everybody else. So you're Yeah,
Naomi Klein 1:07:34
exactly. I would like to find that reference. Yeah.
Josh Olson 1:07:41
I do want to know,
Speaker 6 1:07:45
the grabbed for the subsidies that governments have so lavishly provided, unfortunately, group three is winning the argument, because they have drowned out the serious debate that should be going on?
Josh Olson 1:07:58
No, no, no, first of all, not wanting to debate and, and there shouldn't be a serious debate going on about whether or not this is happening.
Naomi Klein 1:08:08
Well, we may be winning the debate, or most certainly losing the war
Josh Olson 1:08:11
like that. Yes. Thanks. Thank you. Yes, much better
Naomi Klein 1:08:14
between words and action when it comes.
Speaker 6 1:08:18
But while politicians, environmentalists and media types can waste a lot of money, and scare a lot of people, they won't be able to bury the truth. The climate will have the final word on that. I'm Richard Linson,
Josh Olson 1:08:36
said he's 100% correct on that. Yes. Unfortunately,
Naomi Klein 1:08:39
you should just have him being swept out to sea.
Josh Olson 1:08:44
Yes. I mean, that's the horrifying thing you wish you could disconnect yourself from if somehow we could just watch this happen somewhere else. I would like to watch that happen. But the problem is up, I do get to watch that happen. And it's happening to all of us, unfortunately.
Dave Anthony 1:09:02
So acne has been connected to climate change, oh, by the by a dermatology study. Now, I brought this up. This is one of my big points about the politics and climate change is is the more that climate change becomes obvious. The more they have to use guys like this, the more they have to fund politicians who are fringe and crazy because they are denying reality. So it leads to just leads to us having more and more extreme crazier politicians, which is where you have fascism popping up.
Naomi Klein 1:09:41
That's true. That's true. I mean, it sets the stage for you know, Marjorie, Taylor Greene and just people who are absolutely willing to say anything about anything, anything. But are also you know, Marine LePen in France, you There's not a climate change denier, she's just a fascist she's, you know, she's Yes. And she says like, this is part of the reason we need to like batten down the borders and not let any of these which is the form like I think, I think we'll look back on this stage of climate denial with some nostalgia and hope so
Josh Olson 1:10:19
Oh, wait, no, you're not saying what? Oh. Oh, she, there's a second there. She's
Dave Anthony 1:10:28
one of she's one of me. My group Josh.
Josh Olson 1:10:32
There was one second there. I was like, Oh, he's just a basic person. He said, There's no, she's not.
Let's just let's jump into the green New Deal. And this one is called. This is called What's the deal with the green New Deal? And this guy is Alex Epstein. And Dave, you said you're checking him out? Or do you do you know him? Naomi, do you know of him? I look for the record. I mean,
Naomi Klein 1:11:07
he started his own organization. And something called the Center for industrial progress. A real go getter. Right, go go start your organization to give yourself a little platform there. Past fellow of the iron Rand Institute
Josh Olson 1:11:30
and the Cato foundation. I mean,
Naomi Klein 1:11:33
yeah, the package deal for sure.
Dave Anthony 1:11:36
Yeah, got got gets money from the Cokes?
Josh Olson 1:11:39
Although he repeatedly says he doesn't work for them, but he just keeps popping up at organizations that take money from them.
Naomi Klein 1:11:45
And he seems to do consultation work.
Dave Anthony 1:11:51
Yes. And he's the guy. He's the guy that if you need someone to come up and in on your news program, who will say something just completely ridiculous. You know, you can always bring him in to counter any sort of normal scientific.
Naomi Klein 1:12:06
Yeah, it's it's definitely a niche market that he has identified. And he Yeah, yeah. And philosopher, scientist, and
Josh Olson 1:12:16
you can only do that on the right, I can't start doing that and just start spouting sort of leftist talking points and end up getting paid to do anything is sort of the sad thing. Brian, our wonderful research guy also dug up some stuff. Apparently, in college, he wrote a series of articles for the Duke review. That show he quote considered non western culture, specifically African cultures inferior, and homeless people worse than useless a couple of good quotes. I submitted that because of the bad ideas he promoted. Dr. King is responsible for a great that as Martin Luther King, is responsible for a great part of the destruction that has occurred in America today, especially among black Americans. And he's also it has often said that America was built on the backs of slaves. This is simply false. So this is this is completely legit completely not racist. Alex Epstein asking the question, what's the deal with the green New Deal?
[VIDEO] 1:13:20
We face an existential threat. Life as we know it is on the line. We have 12 short years to change everything, or it's game over. This is the terrifying scenario that's used by many leading politicians to justify a green New Deal, an unprecedented increase in government power focused on the energy industry. The core idea of a green new deal is that government should rapidly prohibit the use of fossil fuel energy and impose 100% renewable energy, mostly solar and wind. This may sound appealing, but consider what it would entail.
Josh Olson 1:13:57
Today. Firstly, for me, is that a fair assessment? Would you say of the green New Deal?
Naomi Klein 1:14:02
I mean, I don't know. Like it's not just energy. Its transportation and agriculture and its buildings. It's it's I mean, he's referencing an IPCC report that said that if we are going to keep warming increases below 1.5 degrees, which we really should do, and which our governments said they would endeavor to do in Paris when they when they negotiated the Paris accord. It would require fundamental tritanus a, quote, fundamental transformation in virtually every aspect of society, it's my husband's screensaver. It's just sciences leading us to some radical places, you know, that's like that was the argument I made with this changes everything like it's either we change or everything changes, but one way or another, everything's gonna change and that is why it's up People who come out of these free market think tanks who are most freaked out because it shatters their worldview. And they see that, you know, he and he shows his cards right. He describes it as government overreach. I described it earlier as just governing in the face of an emergency that requires some pretty dramatic action. But yeah. And I mean, there's also like, Michael Mann, climate climate scientist talks about how there's a procrastination penalty. Right, we've been getting this message. Yeah, our governments have been meeting since the Rio Earth Summit. At the end of the at the end of the 80s, right, or was Rio 1992. That was when the IPCC was formed. And, you know, since way before Greta was born, our governments have been meeting and talking about lowering emissions and proceeding to allow emissions to increase year after year after year. And so then what you need to do in the face of that is more of a disruption of society, you can't just ignore the evidence and do the exact opposite, and expect to then just have a little gradual shift, you know, 30 years down the road. And so I think they're getting more and more panicked.
Josh Olson 1:16:16
Have there been any high profile kind of like Milton Friedman more shipping types of from from that world who have because I keep waiting for some of these people to kind of wake up and go, Oh, shit. Like, have there been any of those, those people in in any kind of high profile capacity have come out and just said, Look, my, you know, I'll meet you halfway. My ideas were great when the world wasn't falling apart. But it suddenly dawned on me that we're killing the planet.
Naomi Klein 1:16:42
I'm usually the revelate. I mean, there are obviously there are right wing people. Climate change is real and serious, but mostly what they propose is like a carbon carbon pricing scheme of some kind. Yeah,
Josh Olson 1:16:57
the free market will figure it out, right?
Dave Anthony 1:17:00
Why it can be fixed through tax cuts, everybody.
[VIDEO] 1:17:05
Today, 80% of the energy Americans use to heat their homes, farm their land, run their factories, and drive their cars, comes from fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas. Only 3.4% comes from solar and wind, despite decades of government subsidies and mandates to encourage their use. The reason we don't use much sunlight and wind as energy is that they're unreliable fuels that only work when the sun shines, and the wind blows. That's why no town city or country has ever come close to 100%, or even 50%, solar and wind.
Josh Olson 1:17:44
That's not the only reason. It's my understanding.
Naomi Klein 1:17:48
It's also not true. I think Denmark has areas that are very, I mean, they they produce so much wind energy.
Josh Olson 1:17:56
Yeah, I mean, he's just playing they do this. He's just playing on that that sort of a childlike sense that like, well, how can you do solar energy if the sun's down and if the winds not blowing,
[VIDEO] 1:18:08
and yet Green New Deal proponents say they can do the impossible. If only we give the government control of the energy, industry, and control of major users of energy, such as the transportation industry, manufacturing, and agriculture. All of this is justified by the need to do something about the existential threat of rising co2 levels. We're told on a daily basis that prestigious organizations like the United Nations have predicted mass destruction and death, if we don't get off fossil fuels. What we're not told is that such predictions have a decade's long track record of getting it wrong. And by wrong, I mean, completely missing the dartboard wrong. For example, in 1989, the Associated Press reported a United Nations prediction that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels. If the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. We're now two decades past 2000
Dave Anthony 1:19:10
Wait, yeah, that's not what that he's not.
You have to have be able to read stuff to talk about it. Like this.
Josh Olson 1:19:28
It doesn't see when it's going to happen.
Dave Anthony 1:19:31
Right. By this point, yeah. Let's slow it down or whatever.
Josh Olson 1:19:37
But he's playing. I mean, this is the problem with doing this stuff. I mean, now you're 45 minutes into this and I can tell you what to leave already. But we're, we're weeks into this gibberish. It's like you have to you have to wear a dress this kind of stuff. It's insane. That's not they didn't get disastrously wrong.
Naomi Klein 1:19:58
No Have they been, to the extent that they've been wrong, they've been too conservative that it's actually happening faster than a lot of the early models suggested. But you know, who actually knew, like, and was pretty much right on target was Exxon and shell, as we know, from, from, from the papers that have come to light their own in house climate scientists, we're, we're projecting, you know, the outcomes that we're that we're seeing now. So, yeah, I mean, I am exhausted by it, because it's and and it's worrying because it decently produced. And I know, there are other agenda, you're one of their other agendas is, you know, systematic defunding of the public's public sphere, including schools, right. And so you're very much overburdened teachers, and somebody gives them a slick video, and that's makes their life a little easier. And that's what this is really, really geared towards, right?
Josh Olson 1:20:59
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very much. So.
Naomi Klein 1:21:03
And the other thing, say is like that, you know, they harp on the subsidies for renewables, which are just a drop in the ocean compared to the direct subsidies that we
Josh Olson 1:21:15
get. Yeah.
Dave Anthony 1:21:16
I mean, how much would gasoline be if we weren't giving subsidies to these companies, you know, a gallon, like the, the amount of money we give to these companies, while they're making, I mean, the the most profitable companies on earth while they're making all that money is, I mean, it's insane.
[VIDEO] 1:21:32
2000 we're not missing any nations, and human beings are living longer, healthier and wealthier lives than ever before. But aren't things bound to get worse? Haven't scientists established that co2
Josh Olson 1:21:46
won't stop too long? That's not we're not living longer. Life expectancy in the United States is going down consistently.
Dave Anthony 1:21:55
Well, yeah, I When was this made this video?
Josh Olson 1:21:59
This is 20. This is 2019. So we're right. So probably
Dave Anthony 1:22:03
right at the cusp, but also, like, that's not true. 99 just talking about people who live in poverty and people who don't, right? I mean, there's billions of people who are not doing better. There's a lot of people who are doing really great. So you can't just like, take a big breath and go humans are doing better now. Because there's some real, real, horrifying issues.
Naomi Klein 1:22:29
And there are countries that are already at at their Pacific Island countries that are already facing extinction, and more people were displaced in Pakistan last year from the flooding and live in my country. You know, I mean, that's, that's a pretty serious impact. Yeah.
Josh Olson 1:22:51
But it doesn't affect him, doesn't affect him. So just for people who are watching this stuff,
Dave Anthony 1:22:58
this will probably be the first year that affects him, because he's in San Diego, and he's gonna have to pay more for his tomatoes.
[VIDEO] 1:23:04
Oh, well, maybe that'll turn them around. We're not missing any nations, and human beings are living longer, healthier and wealthier lives than ever before. But aren't things bound to get worse? Haven't scientists established that co2 is a greenhouse gas with a warming influence on the planet? Yes. But that's only a small part of the big picture. Although co2 causes some warming, it's much less significant than we've been told. Since we started using significant amounts of fossil fuels in the middle of the 19th century, we've increased the percentage of co2 in the atmosphere from point O 3% 2.04%, which correlates with an average temperature increase of about two degrees Fahrenheit. It also correlates.
Josh Olson 1:23:53
That's problem. Micro Correct.
Dave Anthony 1:23:58
Well, it's just like, we have the hockey stick, right? Like the we can, we can just look at basic graphs and see how hot it's getting. So this is just, he's just using numbers he can find that make it seem lower versus absolute garbage.
Naomi Klein 1:24:13
But you can definitely see the progression, right like that, like hard denial is going out of fashion. Prager you. And it's like, yeah, but nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here.
Josh Olson 1:24:25
Exactly. Yeah. When you start talking about carbon co2 emissions, and it's like, yeah, sure, it's, but it's not that
[VIDEO] 1:24:31
lates with significant global greening, because co2 is plant food, all of this
Dave Anthony 1:24:44
this is when you're like, it's for kids, right? This is when you can't believe what you're hearing. But when you're talking about a population that's been starved of education, and for so long, how many people do know about science that would listen to that and go Well, that's Not it's the a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Naomi Klein 1:25:04
Yeah. And I mean, look, this this came out like post sunrise movement occupying Nancy Pelosi is office and AOC introducing the green New Deal resolution and the first wave of student climate strikes, right. So they're kind of like they're worried about losing a generation who have gone off and researched this on their own, or they've watched documentaries, and they're organizing. And yeah, they definitely want to get their talking points into schools.
Josh Olson 1:25:36
Well, I feel like I mean, this is a horrible thing to say, it's like the one area aspect of the pushback that gives me hope, if you will, is is this is that generations version of the Vietnam War, except it's not going to take a couple of years to make it go away. And we're not going to get to go off and get nice cushy jobs on Wall Street. This is an existential crisis for every young person living on this planet. And it just seems to me, it's gonna be a lot harder for people like this to get through to them to change their minds about something in which their very existence is dependent. And
Dave Anthony 1:26:11
I think from when I watch these videos, I think they're, you're trying to reach, you know, kids, but the audience is really older people. I mean, that's what they're really reaching. And that's who they're really convincing. And that's who's really digging in their heels.
Josh Olson 1:26:27
Yeah, really, the idea is more from your uncle is to make this makes your uncle feel good about the fact that you're not talking to him anymore.
Naomi Klein 1:26:35
That's correct. Some guy in a suit? A lot of hair.
[VIDEO] 1:26:40
Yeah, unprecedented territory for our planet, which has existed with at least 10 times today's co2 levels, and a 25 degree warmer average temperature. What is truly unprecedented, though, is how safe we are from climate. The International would wait, wait.
Naomi Klein 1:26:59
He's talking about before humans? Oh?
Josh Olson 1:27:13
Yeah, dinosaurs.
[VIDEO] 1:27:17
Disaster database, a nonpartisan organization that tracks deaths from climate related causes, such as extreme heat, floods, storms and drought shows that such deaths have been plummeting, as co2 emissions have been rising. How is this?
Josh Olson 1:27:33
Do you know that organization? What was it called again? Em, dat international disaster database? That seems to be highly improbable that fewer people when there are actually more people on the planet are dying of things.
Dave Anthony 1:27:51
Yeah, nothing comes up on our search and the smog or anything?
Josh Olson 1:27:55
No, you're not. You're not familiar with this highly esteemed, nonpartisan organization.
Naomi Klein 1:28:02
I can think is that, you know, you can massage data in various ways. But like, for instance, you know, country like Bangladesh has had some of the highest mortality rates from cyclones. And they have introduced measures to to prepare, right, and to get people into shelters, and they have reduced the death toll from cyclones. Not because cyclones aren't getting stronger, but because they have, you know, prepared. You know, you can't prepare for everything. Right? There are, there are events that are too extreme to prepare for, as we saw with Pakistan. But there's also issues around like, whether it's a direct death, like if you think about hurricane Maria, which would have been maybe the same year this came out, or the year before, the people who died from falling debris where it was like below 50. Right. But the but the research that came out a couple of years later, or maybe it was just a year later from Harvard that looked at the, you know, what they call excess death, right? estimated at between 3005 1000 deaths. It was because of the kinds of policies that these people advocate like austerity, starving the public speaker and so the entire electricity grid collapses and the healthcare system collapses. And a lot of elderly people can't plug in their oxygen machines and they die in the months after, right. So. So yeah, I would just question like, are we talking about a direct impact or are we talking about the intersection of their warped worldview with extreme weather? Because that's what's really really lethal, right? You we had a heat dome where I am in the Pacific Northwest a couple years ago. 600 people died in the area where I am. And it was this intersection of kind of neglect of the elderly. In public services not being robust enough to, like get ambulances to people in time, you know that it's never one thing, or it's rarely one thing that causes it, it's an it's the stew of, of, you know, the impacts of this whole model.
Dave Anthony 1:30:17
And that's the same thing we're seeing with COVID Exact same thing, you know, in which case we have the CD saying, you know, did they die with or have and it's like, well, a lot of a lot of with is actually have, but you know, you've put it in the other category to make it look better. Such deaths
[VIDEO] 1:30:33
have been plummeting, as co2 emissions have been rising. How is this possible? Because of the fossil fuel energy that emitted the co2, which has empowered us to climate proof our environment with heating, air conditioning, sturdy buildings, mass irrigation, and weather warning systems? fossil fuel energy has not taken a naturally safe climate and made it unnaturally dangerous. It's taken our naturally dangerous climate and made it unnaturally safe. Fossil fuels are not
Dave Anthony 1:31:13
this is what like your your your uncle comes over for for Thanksgiving dinner. And everyone's having a discussion. He says this and everyone just looks at their mashed potatoes and says anything anymore because it's completely insane. And you don't know what to say to it. You're like, just let Uncle Leo Okay, we're gonna switch the subject now.
Josh Olson 1:31:34
But Dave air conditioning save lives
Dave Anthony 1:31:44
but it's saving life lives from the heat the heat stuff that's happening, that's really bad. I just I can't believe how dumb it is. I am he these people break my brain. And this and the thing that drives me crazy is, you know, we're always on the defensive. Like, that's how this works with them. They're, they're always attacking. So we always have to defend. And it's like, in a debate, you're like, Yeah, okay, that I just let it go. But these videos are being passed around and going out to people. And then this this is what my dad was like, at the end. He was just saying stuff like this. And I was just like, I don't know what, like what's happening right now. It was all Alex Jones and Prager kind of video.
Naomi Klein 1:32:25
Yeah. And I mean, to bring it back to the green New Deal. You know, the green New Deal has lots of you know, the broader vision of a green New Deal has has all kinds of plans for weather proofing public housing and the folks who are vulnerable and it doesn't have to be air conditioning, it can't be heat pumps, but you actually need a plan and you need a program and that is what the green New Deal is which he is attacking the point of this video
Dave Anthony 1:32:53
it's a combination of you know, the fossil fuel companies want to keep making money but also they just don't want to spend money on anything.
And to get through climate change we have to massively spend money massively our infrastructure has been neglected for 50 years like it's bad the situation that's coming
Unknown Speaker 1:33:13
yeah
Josh Olson 1:33:17
well, let's let's move up. Yeah.
Dave Anthony 1:33:19
Do you want to do the car one next?
Naomi Klein 1:33:21
Oh, do you want to the car one next one cars is a good one.
Josh Olson 1:33:24
I was gonna Okay, let's do the war on cars. To do the Lauren fix. Yeah, I libertarian snarling turns up on media all the time to denounce government meddling with our freedom and she likes to attack electric cars as an inadequate substitute for powerful masculine American gas guzzlers.
Dave Anthony 1:33:48
Yes, she's a coke funded person.
Naomi Klein 1:33:50
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Olson 1:33:52
She hates the UAW here. Video.
Dave Anthony 1:33:56
It's 2017. Yeah. So right when, you know, people were really starting to push electric right? Cars more Evie.
[VIDEO] 1:34:10
Let's go. We may be witnessing the death of America's car culture. And it's not dying of old age. People are still buying lots of cars. But there's been a concerted push by government bureaucrats and environmentalists to transform car ownership from a source of pride to a source of guilt. Ever since Henry Ford built the Model T cars had been central to the American experience. That's because cars are more than just another way to get from point A to point B. They allow us to go wherever we want, whenever we want, with whom ever we want. Think about it. trains, planes and buses. The routes are planned and the schedule is timed. Only cars allow you to be spontaneous. When you get behind the wheel. You are in control You are free.
Dave Anthony 1:35:01
I just,
Josh Olson 1:35:03
I just started hearing Mel Gibson. I mean, you know,
Naomi Klein 1:35:12
I let you do that too.
Dave Anthony 1:35:20
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's it. It's just pure freedom. I mean, it is. But the I mean, the problem is we've completely structured our society, in the worst way around cars. It also, you know, being free, keeps you from walking through the town square and bumping into everybody and being a more social person. Yeah,
Josh Olson 1:35:38
I completely unscientific here. But you know, growing up in Philadelphia, before I moved to LA, I didn't have a car until I moved to Los Angeles, because Philadelphia had a great public transportation system, and it was fine. You were, you know, you got where you wanted to go, you didn't have to worry about parking. And yeah, as you say, you were much more socialized, you're constantly butting up against strangers, having to learn how to deal with them at a face them either be part of them, and it'd be one of them and it'd be part of the organic whole in the collective. I live in LA Now you leave you, you, good God, you know, it's like, we all turn into somebody else behind the wheels of our cars, it's I have wanted to murder people for driving in front of me. But they pulled in front of me the wrong way. And for a hot second, I want them to die. I don't know, it's freedom. It's freedom. It's good.
Dave Anthony 1:36:31
It's also a terrible, go ahead. No, I
Naomi Klein 1:36:33
like this one. I mean, like, in quotes, just because I feel that it's, it's very honest about where they're coming from, right, they have a word, they have a conception of freedom. And it's toxic, but it's, they love it, you know, and it has to do with the right to not deal with other people in any way. And, and it has the right to, you know, have government play, you know, an extremely minimal role in in structuring society. And, you know, it's a hyper, hyper individualistic worldview. And so here, they're just, they're not bothering with the science, they're just like, I don't the outcome, the outcome means that I won't be able to just do whatever the fuck I want, you know, and, and so therefore, I choose to believe that the science is false. It's very similar to COVID, you know, and I think we're gonna see more and more of this, it's like, I'm sorry, like, I don't like this mask, and therefore, this must be a vast conspiracy. And I don't like being told I have to get a shot. And so like, I'm going to occupy the capital of, you know, like, we had the trucker convoy, which was all this energy was, like, Fuck off, let us do whatever we want. And we will act collectively, just so that we never have to think of anything collective ever again. But it's, I mean, I relate also, because I'm pretty antisocial. Like, I mean, I I totally get the appeal. Just like just having that that that little bubble.
Josh Olson 1:38:11
But which came first, the chicken or the egg, were you anti social before you had the freedom of locking yourself up in a car driver out are where you always
Naomi Klein 1:38:22
I've always had both sides, right. And I think that we live in a society that that that really rewards one and caters to one and helps us dream of a conception of freedom and success that is like, lots of different kinds of bubbles, like the family, individual nuclear family, you know, home that can provide everything that you need that success, right. And then all of this accelerated during COVID Because we you know, we lucky locked down people got to stay in our homes and think like, How can I turn this into a gym? And how can I have a school and how can I also get health care here and like never ever leave again? Never deal with? No, I don't I've always it makes me happy.
[VIDEO] 1:39:08
The very reason people love cars, personal freedom is also why regulators can't stand them.
Dave Anthony 1:39:18
So, I mean, hold on, people. There's a lot of people that have to have a car and don't want one because it it cost them so much money. I remember I remember being poor I couldn't afford a new car so I had to get cars that were breaking down all the time. It was just like a total drag on my life.
But there's only this one viewpoint but it is I guess it's freedom but I don't know.
Josh Olson 1:39:44
I just the idea that government regulators are sitting around going what people are feeling good, let's get them
Dave Anthony 1:39:51
that's what they think is government regulators. I mean, look, she I looked at what she's from. Her husband is a car. A car racer It's what he does for a living Paul fix. His car is sponsored by fueling us forward, which is a pro fossil fuel PR campaign paid for by the Koch brothers. So that's who she is. And that's this is this is the ultimate Koch viewpoint, right? Just freedom do what you want whenever you want, nobody else matters.
[VIDEO] 1:40:25
government at all levels craves control. And when it comes to your car, they want you off the road, sort of the environmentalists with whom they have made common cause this antagonism toward America.
Josh Olson 1:40:38
Again, the notion that my government is in bed with environmentalists
Dave Anthony 1:40:46
Oh, the dream. Imagine that.
[VIDEO] 1:40:52
America's car culture can be traced back to the 1970s. In response to the Arab oil embargo. In the early part of that decade, Congress passed the National fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. These standards known as Cafe short for Corporate Average Fuel Economy, forced automakers to increase fuel efficiency. Rather than let the free market decide what kind of cars customers wanted to buy, the government decided to do the dictating their regulations have cost car companies and consumers many billions of dollars. But in the last decade or so, the government's heavy hand has come down harder than ever.
Josh Olson 1:41:32
So we're not acknowledging even the slightest part of the story in which emissions were actually bad for people and children in the planet and
Naomi Klein 1:41:42
terrible for our lives. And it destroys you know, the fact the longer our commutes, the more chance there is that we're unhappy. And we're to enjoy our cities when we're in gridlock. And yeah, yeah, a bit of a win when dealing with congestion. But there is always this backlash. And I mean, this is somewhere where like, the electric car issue comes up, because this was made before the price of oil skyrocketed again, and more and more people got interested in buying electric cars. But that's not a solution, either. Right? You know, it's right. Especially because we're now having like SUVs and truck electric trucks. And the sustainability of that is, you know, it's it's not sustainable, I guess. Yeah.
Dave Anthony 1:42:37
Yeah, they get, they're getting rid of the bolts so they can make SUVs, which will be more expensive. And then, you know, more difficult, more battery, everything else. But the other thing she's not bringing up here is
the cost of gas, right? So the oil embargo leads to the US government making these changes. That's because they didn't want to be reliant so much on other countries being able to all of a sudden destroy our economy by jacking up the price of gas. But that's just not factored in here. Is that not? Is that not freedom to not be beholden to other you know, people to other countries?
Naomi Klein 1:43:15
Yeah. But then they discovered fracking and, and yeah, you know, Arctic drilling, and they realized they could have a domestic industry that could well, hide so called energy freedom, right? That's, yeah.
Josh Olson 1:43:32
Also, you know, one of these, what we're saying a minute ago, you know, think back during the quarantine, there was a period there pretty shortly into it, where just the sky in this city in Los Angeles looked different in the air smelled, smelled different, because everyone was driving. Yeah, I mean, it was it was just it was remarkable. It was remarkable.
[VIDEO] 1:43:56
1009, the Obama administration sought to dramatically increase Cafe requirements. These Obama era standards make cars more expensive, around $4,000 per new vehicle, according to economist Salim Firth, and David kreitzer. This price is millions of middle class families out of the new car market. The regulations also encouraged the production of smaller, lighter cars that are generally less safe than larger, heavier ones.
Dave Anthony 1:44:27
That depends if you're in or out of the car. An SUV is definitely not safer for me and my little Eevee it's something I'm terrified of running.
Naomi Klein 1:44:40
Things like that. The idea that that the Obama administration was waging war on car culture is complete, because their stimulus bill, the biggest winner of the stim in the stimulus bill was highways and bridges. It was a subsidy to to fossil fuels factor one
[VIDEO] 1:45:00
Yeah. ASICs are tough to argue with. To make matters worse, the new cafe standards push automakers to produce more electric cars, a lose lose for consumers and ironically, the environment as well. Consumers lose.
Dave Anthony 1:45:18
I mean, look, we need to find another way to do this, but getting fewer fossil fuel cars on on the streets, you know, short term, okay? Absolutely. Some of the rights are not worse for the environment. It's, it's, it's it's really bananas.
Naomi Klein 1:45:37
If people actually want to dig into some of this, they should Google a really, really great report, which is called more about more mobility, less mining, and it's about the real costs of, of just switching from an a car culture that is fossil fuel based one that is Evie base looks at what a combination of EVs and the bikes, public transit, could bring people in terms of more mobility and less extraction. It's really great report by some friends.
Josh Olson 1:46:11
Well, well, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes for sure.
[VIDEO] 1:46:13
And to a study from the consulting firm, Arthur D, little electric vehicles cost significantly more to operate over their lifetime think comparable gasoline powered cars, around $20,000 More, and the environment loses because electric vehicles produce three times as much toxic pollution as gas powered ones when you factor in the mining of rare earth minerals that electric car batteries require. And this doesn't include the environmental consequences involved in ultimately disposing of these batteries. Adding insult to injury, a typical electric car gets fewer than 100 miles per charge, and can take four to eight hours to fully charge the battery.
Dave Anthony 1:46:57
Okay, so hold on separate issues.
What did they are two are two separate issues my car I mean, this is this is years ago, so maybe they were I don't know what they were around them. I don't know what the bulk got. I feel like it got more mind gets like to 270 It's fine.
Also it does, it does actually take about six hours to charge, but I'm sleeping. So that's
Josh Olson 1:47:20
why God invented nighttime.
Naomi Klein 1:47:24
So it's actually you can get fast chargers. I also wonder how much of this is Elon Musk's fault because apparently, Tesla's are really, really good. But I'm with Nivea. But yeah, just coming back to the study I mentioned, one of the one of the things it talks about is how we need to be recycling these batteries. And we can if we build this infrastructure, we had a green New Deal.
Dave Anthony 1:47:53
Yep. Yeah, every time they bring up batteries, they act like number one, batteries will stay the same when more investment in research means better batteries made of better materials made of less harmful materials, we can do all kinds of things with battery.
Josh Olson 1:48:10
And that's something everybody knows right now really, it's the kind of thing that just look look at your your phones, you know, think about the first smartphone you had and compared to the one you have now. And just every time they come up with a new version, the batteries are better. That's that's where the stuff is happening. You're seeing it happening in front of you. You're seeing the, you know, the evolution of this stuff. And she's sitting here talking about it like, it's not a thing that's happening.
Dave Anthony 1:48:34
But she doesn't want to know my opinion, my opinion is just get rid of car snap trains.
Josh Olson 1:48:39
Yep. Trains are great.
[VIDEO] 1:48:42
So much for the freedom of the open road. That explains why consumers have shown scant interest in these cars, despite hefty government subsidies and privileges. Still vote who really
Josh Olson 1:48:55
I don't know like who's cutting him loose on the open road traveling to America anymore. And this is like this weird Easy Rider fantasy she has.
Dave Anthony 1:49:07
Yeah, it's like most of these people like they live in a place like Texas, where there's actually no way to walk from the store to your home. You you take your life in your hands because the streets are like three across lanes on each side. So you have to pack it all everything into your giant SUV because you're going to pick up the kids and go to the store. You're running errands and it's like you've built this sort of monstrous place to live and you're calling that freedom but you're right no one's like,
Hey kids, let's go to Wyoming and and had this just doesn't really happen that much anymore.
[VIDEO] 1:49:49
Yeah, there regulators, bureaucrats and environmentalists persist. Urban planners are adding bike lanes, reducing parking spots, and pouring billions into more public transportation is
Dave Anthony 1:50:04
wonderful. I just, it's so elitist it did these people do not ever want to get on public transportation? I mean, that's what it comes down to. They don't want to be around the masses, they want to be completely isolated. And I hear that and I'm like, oh, yeah, bike lanes, oh, bring them on. I would love to be able to ride my bike to Los Angeles. It's terrifying.
[VIDEO] 1:50:32
To dream get people out of their cars. Former Boston Mayor Tom Menino once declared, the car is no longer King, before banning all cars in a popular downtown shopping district, Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of DC.
Dave Anthony 1:50:48
Hold on. So every place they've done this, every place they've gotten rid of cards in an area, it doesn't matter what country shopping goes up, businesses do better. The more you create a place where people can walk around and enjoy themselves, the more people are spending, the more community there is, there's just nowhere where it's a bad thing. When you when you when you do that it's cars take up so much space, they are such a waste of space you think about usually it's one person in this giant thing. Think about a bike now think about like a walking, you're just taking up so much space, we've created this incredibly bizarre way to get around like we have we have four seats or or six seats in our car, well, how often do we use that? Usually, you know what, 10% of the time or something. It's, it's just a total waste. And then on top of that you're parking them, you're using all that space for parking when you could be using it for many other uses.
Naomi Klein 1:51:46
I mean, these are actually really popular policies. And it got more popular during COVID. When people like as you were saying, like got that taste of what it would be like to be the INNOPOLIS terrorized by cars all the time. And people were trying to figure out how can we Yeah, how can we use some of the space to have outdoor patios and parks? And and, and so I don't know if you've seen Have you seen the this really weird phenomenon around like this conspiracy around the 15 minutes city? Oh, yes, you're gonna hear more of this. This is like where like the COVID antivax anti mask. Energy is pivoting to the great reset slash the 15 Minute city, which, which is just what Dave was describing, like living in neighborhoods where we can walk to services, but it's been kind of monster arised as this horrible, horrible conspiracy to lock you in your home. And now, we're, you know, city councilors who think they're having like a really heterodyne meeting about parking permits suddenly get inundated with like, hundreds of people showing up screaming about the great reset. And climate lock downs. So yeah, unfortunately, we're hearing more and more.
Josh Olson 1:53:08
I mean, which is so weird. That's yeah, just a couple days ago, the surgeon general advisory, or they came out with with concerns about the epidemic of loneliness in this Yeah. And it's like, it's so yeah, community is a cure to that, you know, not getting things from Amazon, but from the store down the street and having to bump into people you know, we're not living in your car
Dave Anthony 1:53:34
is and this is why this is why the cokes came out so hard against any sort of precautions for COVID. And why they were the ones because you could see it, it was exactly like they did with with, with climate change in 2007. Once they dumped money and the whole thing flipped. And it's the same thing because they saw they saw what could become a society that people like actually like not having a car and not having to go to work and like people were like, this is a good thing. And they had to put a stop to that
[VIDEO] 1:54:07
actually encourages
people to adopt a car free diet in live in one of the counties urban villages. Seattle, meanwhile, plans to aggressively discourage driving by limiting parking spots, even though cars are an unavoidable part of work and life. For most people. According to the Seattle Times, Time will tell if these regulations and strategies will work. Americans are explorers we value
Josh Olson 1:54:36
was the nice thing about watching later because time has told that it does work
[VIDEO] 1:54:41
are independent. And we've never been good at staying.
Josh Olson 1:54:45
Oh is my favorite graphic. I've never been sorry or that we're audio only. It's a gentleman wearing a black sweatshirt with an American flag and a Davy Crockett Catholic Where's his car? Want to know?
[VIDEO] 1:55:02
What are being told where to go? And at what time? Maybe that's why despite the government's best laid plans, sales of trucks and SUVs are breaking records as low gasoline prices inspire people to drive more and buy bigger vehicles.
Dave Anthony 1:55:18
Why can I just say something? This is the most overworked western country on Earth. And she just said we don't like to be told where to go and when to be on time. Like, like
[VIDEO] 1:55:32
personal car ownership is part of America's fabric. It brings people together and makes this big country of ours seem a little smaller, and more free. America. Okay is.
Dave Anthony 1:55:46
So Naomi brought this up. I'm from the West Coast, I grew up in Marin County, which is total drive dry place. I never could adjust that I'd never felt as comfortable when I lived in New York for years, being on the subway and all that, because I had grown up accustomed to having my alone time in my car. Like, it's, it's like a place I reset. I listen to music, I I talk on the phone, whatever I do, but it's like my little time alone. And it's definitely a thing. Like, I totally acknowledge that. But the greater good is like, we can't have that. Like it's just not something we can answer.
Josh Olson 1:56:29
But Dave, you can read on the bus.
Dave Anthony 1:56:33
Well, that was the actually that is the biggest thing. Yes. 100% That was the biggest thing that I learned was like, oh, yeah, no,
I can get a lot done. If I if I take the bus and or take the then I started when I came back, I started taking the ferry and the bus and everything else because I realized I could get stuff done or read a book or whatever.
Naomi Klein 1:56:56
market crash.
Josh Olson 1:57:01
So if one of those huge SUVs runs into you, and you're in a bus, you're probably going to be okay. Yeah, I think we get what she's saying. Ah,
Naomi Klein 1:57:17
the thing that's interesting is like the chasm between the propaganda of what it means to live in America and like, and the actual experience of it, we really see how much work this methodology is doing. Yeah, we're all out there. Open Road every day. It's like, No, we're fucking not we're sitting in traffic. It's miserable. Pressures rising, but you are told no, no, no, you're living the dream. You're living this beautiful freedom. Yeah,
Dave Anthony 1:57:47
yeah. And connecting it to Davy Crockett with the hat. Like you're an explorer out there. You're like the guys on the frontier. And it's just like, No, I'm, I go from the Amazon warehouse to my house every day. And I'm in traffic for an hour and a half. Like, that's what it really is.
Josh Olson 1:58:04
But I'm free.
Naomi Klein 1:58:06
Lots of people would love to live in cities but can't afford it because the price of housing is so incredibly insane. So they're further out and have longer longer commutes. And they're not connected with transit. So they have to have a car and then that becomes through alone time because we need a story to like rationalize this. Not this. You know, these really, really bad policy choices. There
Josh Olson 1:58:26
are people in New York paying for parking spaces more than there are people living in Indiana are paying for apartments. Yeah, it's it's insane. Naomi,
Naomi Klein 1:58:38
this has been fun. Yeah.
Josh Olson 1:58:40
Thank you so much for joining us. We're very sorry to do this to you. But it's it's been a joy and I you never have to look at these things again. So yeah, unless you choose to.
Dave Anthony 1:58:59
In which case affect your therapists. Yeah,
Josh Olson 1:59:02
that's right. Do you have any like were there any last final sort of lessons you learned from this? Aside from just ignore David's wrote his emails from here on out or
Naomi Klein 1:59:13
education so teachers don't have to play videos to fill class time? Yeah,
Josh Olson 1:59:18
yes. Yeah, very much. So. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. This has been absolutely fantastic.
[MUSIC] 1:59:27
Good morning class. Today we're learning all about socialism, deviant sex and devil worship. And how cool
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