Episode #18: The Capitalist States of America - Brutality of U.S. Elites, Abroad and at Home (Part One)

Kodie: 00:00:00

Hey everyone, it's Cody. We had a marathon recording session this week for our core episode. So we are giving you guys a two parter.

Part one is going to drop today and then we will have part two dropping on Thursday.

So at the beginning we talk about, you know, the topics we're going to hit and we break after topic one and we'll pick back up with topic two and three on Thursday. That's it for me. Let's get into the episode.

Joe: 00:00:26

Welcome to Propaganda Loves you, the show that asks and answers the question, whose country is this anyway? I'm Joe, your host for this week and I'm joined by Cody and Arthur. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

We shall fight on the beaches. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Welcome to Propaganda Loves you. I'm Joe, your host for today.

I'm joined again by Arthur and Cody and we've got a handful of topics we're going to talk about today for our core episode. My co hosts messed up by letting me be the host for the core episode.

So I'm going to do it in my own way, which might be a little bit different, but I hope to you some of the same helpful conversations that we've been having in the past just to sort of set the scene or set the tone or whatever for today's episode. These core episodes are about current events.

So the approach that I like to take to current events just for my own perspective so I don't get overwhelmed by all the news in the world. I like to think about what the rulers in my domain are doing.

as a peasant back in the year: 1600

You know, my realm is in the English and the same thing today in the 21st century in the U.S. living in the U.S. i'm concerned with what the U.S. ruling class is doing either here in the U.S.

or abroad, because that's the rulers that I have influence over to some degree. We have elections, we have voting, we have representatives and we can put pressure on them in a number of ways.

So there are a lot of bad things going on in the world happening because of a lot of different bad groups. But I try to concern myself with the group that I actually have some influence over just to explain why I'm organizing it in that way.

And so I try to, I try to create four categories and I'll call these need like some ominous segue music, the four categories of domination by the US Ruling class. So I've got these four categories. I'll explain them real quick and then I'll have examples of each of them as we go through the news cycle.

The first one I'm thinking about abuses abroad, things that the US ruling class does with our tax dollars outside of the US that are horrible and they should not be doing. The second category is abuses at home, things they're doing within the country that are horrible and they should not be doing.

The third one is wealth redistribution upward.

So how are they using their power to take money and resources away from the poor and the working class and redistribute that money and those resources up to the elite?

And then the fourth category I'm just going to call limits on freedom, just ways that they limit our ability to enjoy this world and have a healthy, sustainable life. So I'll just jump right into it with the first category. Get the really depressing stuff out of the way first.

I mean it's not, none of it's really great news, sort of the nature of the topics we cover. But for today on abuses abroad, I want to talk about the Gaza aid site distribution massacres that have been going on.

So I'm going to read a little bit from Dropsite News who did a recent report. They've been covering a lot of the stuff in Gaza for a long time now. And this is a report, let me check when it was published yesterday, June 27th.

So I'm just going to read from this drop site news report real quick.

They say Israel imposed a full spectrum siege on Gaza on March 2 with no food, medical supplies, fuel or other humanitarian goods allowed to enter for nearly three months, the longest total blockade since Israel's genocidal assault began. The Israeli siege brought the entire population of Gaza to the brink of famine with malnourished children dying of hunger.

On May 27, the US and Israel backed Gaza Humanitaire Gaza Humanitarian foundation, or GHF, began distributing a trickle of aid through four militarized distribution hubs, three in remote parts of southern Gaza and one near Wadi, Gaza. The project was condemned by the UN and international organizations which previously led aid distribution in Gaza as a weaponization of aid.

The scheme forced thousands of desperate Palestinians to walk for hours over long distances through Israeli military zones to reach the hubs separate from the ghf. System. A small number of UN aid trucks, mostly carrying flour, has also sporadically been allowed in.

The total amount of aid being distributed is not nearly enough to stave off mass starvation, According to the un Israeli troops have shot at, shelled and attacked the crowds with tanks and quadcopters on a daily basis, both at or near the GHF hubs and as they gathered near the UN aid trucks.

Over the past four weeks, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,066 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, in what are now commonly called aid massacres.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym msf, I think that's like medicine sans frontiers, labeled the GHF aid distribution scheme slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and called for it to be immediately disbanded.

The group said in a statement on Friday that GHF is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies.

Last week, the White House and State department authorized a $30 million US aid grant to the GHF, with possibly additional grants of $30 million that could be dispersed on a monthly basis.

The executive chairman of the ghf, Johnny Moore, an evangelical Christian and a former Trump advisor, has rejected all criticism of the GHF and echoed Israeli talking points that deny the mass killing of civilians by Israeli troops at or near GHF hubs. He said in a televised interview on sky news, quote, the U.S.

endorsement of the effort is Exhibit A that is actually working despite the disinformation campaign that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts. The IDF is a professionalized military. Hamas is intentionally harming people for the purpose of defaming what we're doing, unquote.

His comments came despite revelations published by Harrods, an Israeli publication on Friday that confirmed what Palestinians in Gaza have been saying for the past four weeks that Israeli soldiers are opening fire on unarmed Palestinians gathering near food distribution sites even when they pose no threat.

In the report, soldiers said Israeli commanders instructed troops to shoot at civilians approaching aid sites before they opened or after they closed, using machine guns, mortars and grenades.

Soldiers described systematic live fire, including from tanks, and said the killings weren't isolated mistakes but part of a pattern dubbed Operation Salted Fish, the Israeli version of red light, green light. Soldiers said, quote, we shoot, they run, we shoot again. This is our communication, unquote.

The association of Tribal and Community Leaders have said that they will continue their efforts to protect and organize a limited amount of aid that is being allowed into Gaza, one of the leaders said, quote, we pledge to stand by our people during this unjust siege. Every day we're losing 40 or 50 martyrs. This tragedy is for whom and at what cost? We must put an end to this destructive phenomenon, unquote.

And so the part of the article I didn't read that was a little bit longer.

The context for this is that grassroots effort has started among leaders and community leaders in Gaza to when aid trucks come into the Strip, they're trying to gather as many people as they can to sort of protect the trucks and escort them to warehouses deeper within Gaza so that it can be distributed more fairly and avoid these massacre sites set up by the ghf. I want to talk about that, get your guys reaction to it.

And just as a starting place, because I mention what our government is doing with our tax dollars, this $30 million grant that's given to GHF by a USAID grant and the idea that we might continue to give this organization 30 million US tax dollars on a monthly basis. How do we feel about this use of our money?

You know, we have a lot of problems at home that could be solved with this money and instead we're supporting this organization that's sort of setting up these traps in Gaza for people who are starving. Anything, any thoughts or comments or takes on this story?

Arthur: 00:09:43

Definitely. First of all, I really liked your four categories and I like that system of doing that. Yeah.

With this article, I guess like I read about the kind of like tribalism of, you know, local tribes coming together.

Joe: 00:09:56

And.

Arthur: 00:09:58

Thought about how it like potentially could like create like some fractionalism in the country and they need some sort of centralized democracy hopefully. And yeah, the whole food system where they limit trucks and it's like just.

It reminds me of, I think it was like the siege on Jerusalem where it was like historically, you know, they, they were cut off from food and hundreds of thousands died. And it happened again in like the Ottoman Empire or the collapse of Constantinople with the Byzantines.

And it's like cutting off food is just so horrible.

And I think a few weeks ago too, like I said, I saw a video where they were at some fence and they were coming for food and they were shooting at them and they were like, it's just disgusting. What an abusive. Yeah, it's really horrible. I struggle to like find the words, I guess now to even talk about it. It's really hard, you know, when we.

Kodie: 00:10:58

Talk about just using food as a weapon in general. Right. Like starvation, starving a populace on its own. Is terrible.

But then like to take that and you starve a populace and then you have like this, oh, we're going to control aid and we're going to hand this out to you to draw people to a location to then open fire on, on these people.

Honestly, it reminds me, we've made the comparison a bunch of times, but like the, the Hunger Games and the Cornucopia, like in the middle there, right. Like, here's this big bountiful thing. Trust me, nothing bad's gonna happen if you come here. And then like, obviously it's meant to.

What's the point of that in that show? It's because they want to kill people, right? It's the exact same thing. It's super, super messed up in our tax dollars going to.

That basically, whether we agree with it or not, somehow makes us complicit in it because that's where our money's going. I was thinking about that and then I was also thinking about this because I have read a few different articles on this.

And how does this relate back to propaganda and disinformation and what we talk about? I mean, obviously it's the stories that the Israeli government is saying to like, try and counter it. Right. They've got their own spin on it too.

But also the level of propaganda it would have taken or does take to make the Israeli soldiers, I guess, comfortable firing on civilians.

Like the amount of dehumanization it would take to be able to have people, like seeing people coming looking for food, like starving and being able to open fire on those people. Right. Like, in my mind, like, you couldn't think of them as human and still do that.

You couldn't empathize with them in any way and still take those actions. So, like, yeah, that's kind of where my head goes with it is like the propaganda on both sides, like, to enable it and then also to deny it.

Joe: 00:12:50

Yeah, for sure.

And I think to your point about the propaganda of, like, how the Israeli soldiers have to view Palestinians in order to be comfortable doing this, I think it's tied into the whole propaganda system the west developed as a justification for this prolonged war on terror. Like, it's very anti Arab, anti Muslim propaganda campaign. And you can sort of see the elements of that even in the commentary about Zoran.

Anyone who is Arab or brown or vaguely Muslim coded gets folded into this narrative about terrorism and jihad. And it's used to just dismiss any thing that they're trying to do, no matter what their intentions are.

And yeah, I don't Know, it's like I'm trying to think through the different layers of it of, like, you know, because on. On a. On just like a surface level, it just seems like a purely evil kind of thing to do. And we are sitting here like, why would people do this?

Why would people do this?

And in my mind, I'm thinking this is sort of an inevitable outcome of what capitalism forces people to do when control over resources and sort of global domination in this way is the top priority. The lives of human beings are not the top priority. Like, there have been.

I didn't get this information gathered before we started recording, so I don't.

I don't know all the details off the top of my head, but I know there's been oil fields sort of discovered off the coast of Gaza in the Mediterranean. One of the things people have been trying to piece together is why they're trying to do the genocide against Gaza now.

I think it may be connected to these resources that they sort of need Gaza as a place to use to access them, to start drilling and everything. The fewer and fewer Palestinians that exist in the Strip, the easier it will be to sort of push everybody out.

If you look at maps of how the Israeli army has sectioned off the Strip, you can see strategically how they're trying to push the whole population south to Rafah and cut things off in the middle and create these corridors where they can get trucks and infrastructure equipment through to start doing their resources extraction.

So to me, in my mind, it's like, oh, if you're a big evil capitalist with global domination on your mind, these human lives are just a small price to pay to get out of the way so you can start controlling more resources. And, you know, that's just a take that I'm coming up with. It's not like I'm reporting a fact or anything. It's just one way to look at the situation.

But, yeah, that's part of what I'm thinking about.

Kodie: 00:15:35

I have a question on that. I don't know if you know the answer to this or not, but, like, I was thinking more about, like, okay, why would somebody do this?

Why would somebody like, you know, starve a population, provide an aid resource, draw them out, and then fire on these people? Like, is there some sort of push here to have people leave Gaza voluntarily? And is there even a method for that to happen?

Because what I'm thinking of is, like, the whole what ICE is doing in the United States right now, like, with their overly aggressive detentions and militarized break in of houses. Like, I don't know if you guys saw the. They use like a shape charge to bust down like a US citizen's door and enter while she was inside.

Joe: 00:16:19

That's insane. Yeah.

Arthur: 00:16:20

Like a two year old.

Kodie: 00:16:21

Yeah, yeah. So like, but my point being, right, like these overly aggressive tactics and at the same time pushing for this like, deport yourself campaign, right?

So like you can face the stick or you can deport yourself. Like, is there something similar in Gaza? Like that they're trying to get people to leave. I don't know if that's like even possible for them.

Joe: 00:16:43

Yeah, I know there is a possibility.

And I've seen a lot of influencers on TikTok who have a modicum of following, like say a few hundred thousand followers or something, who will essentially sponsor families in Gaza who set up these GoFundMes. You know, this family of four needs $5,000 in order to be able to evacuate.

But it's sort of like, you know, you think about the coyotes who smuggle people from Mexico. You know, they have to collect their fee, right? There's a similar situation, I think, in getting families out of Gaza.

So you can get out if you have money or you have to get on the Internet and beg for it. It's very depressing. You can look them up though.

But there are literally tons and tons of people in Gaza every day posting videos like begging people to give them money so they can get out. And I remember when it first started, I think Mark Lamont Hill, who, he's a news reporter who's been on a lot of different shows.

I think he works for Al Jazeera now, but he was interviewing an Israeli government official near the start of all of this about this very question, you know, if the IDF is serious about going after Hamas and they want to get civilians out of harm's way, this Israeli government person was saying, oh, well, why don't these Arab countries just take everyone? Why don't they just accept everyone? And. And Martha was like, they're civilians.

If you really want to get them out of harm's way, Israel's right there. Why can't they go to your country? And he was just like, like, obviously you're sort of. Yeah, it's. The bias makes itself obvious at that point.

Kodie: 00:18:12

But it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like I don't know about that. Jesus. Please stay tuned for a word from our sponsors.

Arthur: 00:18:30

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Kodie: 00:18:39

Wait Those Foresight guys, I thought they helped with foreign surveillance. And isn't Greywater a private mercenary security force? How does that work with Obey?

Arthur: 00:18:49

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Kodie: 00:18:58

You mean protests?

Arthur: 00:19:00

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Kodie: 00:19:15

So my phone being near a protest gets flagged and armed guards might show up.

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Joe: 00:19:28

Proactive stabilization may include dispersal tactics, enhanced surveillance, and neighborhood risk assessments. Participation in public gatherings may negatively impact your Obey life score. Before we move on Cheyenne, I know you put this YouTube in the.

In the chat. Is that something you want us to. To play and talk about?

Cheyanne: 00:19:52

ng about the oil. It was from: 2023

I watched this and it kind of explains at that time the whole idea of the oil motives. And it still holds up now.

Joe: 00:20:10

Cool. You guys feel like doing that?

Kodie: 00:20:12

I can put it on if you guys want. It's about eight minutes.

Joe: 00:20:15

Yeah, sure.

Cheyanne: 00:20:17

Relevant as I remember it being, since it's been a while since I watched it. Feel free to not include Goten.

Kodie: 00:20:22

Oh, yeah, we'll probably not include the whole eight minutes in the episode, but if there's parts like that we talk about, we'll definitely include clips. So let me play it.

Video: 00:20:30

In: 2010

Syria initially declines offers over its gas reserves and simultaneously refuses to lay pipes for a Qatari gas project. What a coincidence. Barely a year later, war breaks out in Syria. And who's funding it? Qatar.

And Israel and the United States are just some of the parties funding and running this war to overthrow the government in Damascus. Today, the United States control one third of Syria. They control all of Syria's oil fields.

And Israel is bombing Syria's most vital port, Latakia, on a regular basis. So they're cutting off all the oil revenue and destroying, crippling any maritime activity, such as trade, such as gas exploration.

hich mysteriously explodes in: 2020

And so Israel, proposing itself as a solution to Europe's gas shortages, shows up with an fpso, this enormous gas extraction vessel, and tries stealing gas from Lebanon's Karish gas field. And you know, this reignites a huge maritime border dispute.

And Israel has to go and beg the United States to solve this diplomatically because Hezbollah said, If you steal 1 cubic inch of our gas, we will fire our missiles on your ship. Now we come to Gaza. Gaza also has its own unexplored gas fields. Gaza is also a concentration camp run by the Israelis.

l, under naval blockade since: 2007

And the only working port left in coast is the Israeli port on Haifa. I mean, how convenient.

This makes Israel the only one able to explore gas and implement an economic corridor like the one that Netanyahu held up at the un. So in other words, Israel and the United States together killed off all the competition, stole their goods and cornered the market.

But as winter is approaching, Israel desperately need to get that gas for Europe. But there's no stability, there can never be stability in the region without solving the Palestinian question.

And so when Netanyahu shows up at the UN with his brilliant plan, you know, the Israelis thought, oh, it's a done deal. You know, they'll just get Saudi Arabia to normalize ties and thereby extinguish the Palestinian issue once and for all.

And that is precisely why they are in Gaza slaughtering Palestinians like crazy, like they're in berserker mode. You know, Israel has bombed Gaza before, but this surpasses anything we've ever seen, which is truly saying something.

I mean, this is unhinged, you know, calling people human animals and massacring them. Israel is just hoping the Palestinians will run away in fear into the desert. They've literally said this. They want to put them in the desert.

They want people in Gaza to go to the Sinai Desert and push the people in the west bank into Jordan.

Joe: 00:23:45

Lot to think about there.

Kodie: 00:23:47

Yeah, I was looking up that guy as we're kind of listening to that. He's been arrested multiple times because of his support for, for Gaza. I'm not really familiar with him.

he, the wikipedia page. Yeah,: 2024

then he was arrested again in: 2025

So, like, regardless of where you stand on if you agree with him or not, it doesn't seem like those arrests were legitimate arrests or anything like that. Arresting people for opinions and reporting, I feel like we. That's like not really a. A thing that we should be doing in general.

Joe: 00:24:44

Yeah, when I was trying to watch, I couldn't quite see all the graphics they were showing, but it seemed like. Tried to do a good job editing in maps that explained the narrative he was talking about. But yeah, I just thought it was an interesting breakdown of.

If you take the idea of capitalism serious seriously, from the capitalist's point of view, it does create this kind of cutthroat race to control resources.

And you have different enterprises across the globe, us, Britain, Russia, China, different players in the Middle east who want to make use of their resources, get them to market, get the economic benefits from that.

And so I thought it was at the very least a good breakdown of how the US views itself as a capitalist enterprise in competition against China, against Russia, against Arab nations that aren't cooperative with the us.

And yeah, I thought, I appreciate you sharing that, Cheyenne, because it's a good breakdown of like, when you look at it from that different point of view, it makes some of the more petty, religious, racist narratives seem like smokescreen for this larger narrative that's taking place.

Arthur: 00:26:04

Yeah, it's really good. I liked how it traced everything and it kind of made me like, question, like, who? Like, where's the profit? You know, we're like, we're in debt.

It's the us. We're like the greatest capitalists ever. Who's getting the profit? Let's trace, you know, and if you trace it, it's all private. It's all.

Yeah, it's like the handful of people. It's Peter Thiel who's getting it all.

Kodie: 00:26:26

Yeah, that's funny.

Joe: 00:26:27

I haven't watched regular TV in a while, but I remember maybe even five or ten years ago just seeing tons and tons of ads for American natural gas companies, you know, and it sort of tracks timeline wise with this push to get North American gas reserves to a European market. Because it's like you have to kind of view Israel as a crazy state for the US in order for that narrative to make sense.

But yeah, you see, if there are these new reserves in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Syria and Lebanon and Israel and Palestine. The people that control those ports are going to be the ones responsible for getting that oil to market.

And if all of the airports are suspiciously out of order and Israel is the only one that can produce that, the narrative sort of comes together in that way.

Kodie: 00:27:17

I did think just from a propaganda standpoint that that was a pretty good video. The way that he produced it, like it's got the music in the background, really sets the tone. I don't know if the US blew up Nordstream 2 or what.

I can't remember what the accusation there was, but the way he did it was good. I'm not saying the US did it, I'm just saying there's only certain people that could do it.

And it definitely wasn't Russia blowing up their own thing. Right.

Joe: 00:27:41

I think mainly because of Alex Jones. I hesitate to entertain any kind of false flag narrative because of what he did with all the Sandy Hook bullshit.

But like the CIA did research in the 60s and 70s into like how trauma can be used to control people.

And you can use that on an individual level in terms of like torture and getting information out of people and stuff, but you could also use it on a macro social level. And so there is an incentive for organizations and governments that want to control populations.

How could you produce an event that mass traumatizes a population, you know, and then it calls into question all these big events that occur, when they occur and things like that. I won't get into specifics, but there are a lot of things we can point to.

But yeah, when you put it together like that, it's like, why was that pipeline blown up at this specific time in history? You know, there's no proof that who you think did it, did it. But I don't know. I don't know.

Kodie: 00:28:51

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Yeah, I guess the point about propaganda too Is like, we, we talk a lot about the stories we do see that are misleading or deceptive, but the other piece of propaganda is the whole ocean of stuff they don't want us to see.

You know, how many stories have we seen, I mean, rightfully so, about all the ICE kidnappings and everything going on, but even just random stuff about US politicians and everything, how, how much news are we getting about that versus what the government is doing abroad with our tax money? We're not seeing a lot of the atrocities abroad for a good reason. They don't want us to know about a lot of this stuff.

They don't want us thinking about it.

Because even if you just point out people, hey, they're spending $30 million a month potentially on these a site massacre traps, do you want $30 million of your tax dollars every month going to the, you know, people will, I think most people will be like, yeah, that's a, Even if you're a person who has a strong anti Arab bias, I think even those people would be like, that's a total waste of $30 million a month. Right?

Kodie: 00:30:54

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess what's the. I, you know, I'd seen a couple different articles on this and what's the, what's the pushback that Israel is saying?

Or what's the spin that they're trying to put on this? Like, I see, like, it's just basically denials like, that we wouldn't do that.

But are they like, are they saying like that they have, they're basically not even acknowledging it. Right. They're saying like, this wouldn't have happened or we wouldn't do that.

Joe: 00:31:16

Yeah, I mean, I can speculate a little bit.

I don't have like an authoritative take on that, but the typical narrative is either that it's Hamas propaganda and you've been misled or that there were riots and people were freaking out and trying to take over everything and the soldiers had to shoot everybody to defend themselves. I think that's probably the most defensible narrative they come up with. Yeah.

Kodie: 00:31:40

I don't mean, like, if you have $30 million a month. Like $30 million a month can buy you a lot of infrastructure to be able to do crowd control without needing to, like, I call bullshit on that.

Like, there's plenty of ways that they could facilitate humanitarian corridors and get people to safe locations so that this didn't occur or need to continue occurring. Like, especially with US Backing.

Like, how many years did we spend building infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan that was specifically made to make secure locations in war zones. Right. Like, we've done that very, very well. Like, and we could do that very well here too. It just seems like that's just an excuse in my mind.

It's not legitimate.

Joe: 00:32:22

Part of me wants to look up how much money. What's his name, Johnny Moore, the head of ghf, is getting through all this stuff. That might be something funny. Yeah, not funny. Ironic, I guess.

Wrong word.

It's so hard to, like, talk about this stuff all the time because, like, in order to stay sane, you almost have to develop a sick sense of humor about it.

Even if you're, you know, you have to be careful to stay on the right side of things, which is why I try to focus on where the suffering is and who's causing it. But, oh, man, it's. It's very overwhelming to, to, to look at this stuff.

And just as like a mental health note, like, in order to prepare for this podcast and stuff, I try. I've been trying to be good about not even consuming news about any of this stuff on the days where I'm not working on the podcast.

Like this morning, I made sure I had like three or four hours ahead of time to look through a bunch of news, to find some sources and to learn a few things we could talk about. But other than that, I'm not just sitting here doom scrolling on all this stuff all the time. It's very difficult to. With. In that way.

Kodie: 00:33:23

I, I should stop sending you news.

Joe: 00:33:26

Oh, God. That's fine. You're fine.

Kodie: 00:33:31

But, but to your point about like just the, the, the gallows humor.

Joe: 00:33:35

Yeah.

Kodie: 00:33:36

I mean, that's.

Anyone that also worked in terrorism, like in, in ic, like, everyone that I had met and worked with over there, like, has developed that similar, like, yeah, very dark humor. Just because you deal with very dark things every. Every day. Pretty much. Like, all this to say, like the, the terrorism.

I mean, this is kind of off topic, so I don't know if I want to get into that, but I guess like, the terrorism narrative, like, how that's used to go after this, it's.

I think it's difficult for a lot of vets that worked in like, the war on terror to maybe break those two things apart because there's a true component to it that a lot of people fought against and that's what they're thinking of. But then there's everything else that's used to justify. I don't know if we even want to touch on that. That's probably a can of worms but anyway.

Joe: 00:34:24

Well, I mean, that's a good topic for our podcast and our listener base. I'm sure we have quite a few vets who've worked in the war on terror and everything, and Hugh and I are part of that.

And I can think back through my time in the Marine Corps and the way I've looked at the world and how it's changed over time.

And part of the challenge is, I mean, it's challenging enough when you're in that environment, doing it every day, but even after you find work outside of it and sort of change your career to start to unlearn some of the propaganda that you had taken for granted. Right. Like, some of that stuff we were fed was also propaganda that made us buy into the whole project in a lot of ways.

And maybe some parts of it are true, maybe some parts of it aren't, but each of us has to sort of start really self reflecting on. Am I just taking some of these narratives for granted?

Am I assuming there's this truth claim about terrorism centered in Muslim Jihad that I need to pick apart and start to critique for myself? A lot of us absorbed a lot of propaganda going through that system.

And yeah, it's important to start thinking through that and letting go of some of those narratives. When you are presented with the evidence that you were deceived in a certain way, right?

You were deceived to view a group of people in a certain way for the purposes of a colonial military campaign. And, you know, like, what did Iraq have to do with 9, 11 or WMDs? A million Iraqis had to die for what? What?

You know, it's important to start picking that stuff apart. But it's hard because it was a big part of our life for a long time.

Kodie: 00:36:02

This is also why I brought up the context of like, ISIS versus some of these other groups the other day. Because in my mind, it really comes back to, like, what's the organization, right, that you're actually fighting against in the first place?

And that's when I started thinking more about those specific groups that we call terrorist groups. And like, do they all. I mean, there's no agreed upon definition globally for what is a terrorist group? Like, what is terrorism? Like, there's.

That's still like, you know, conflicted at like, the academic level or whatnot. There's not like, global agreement on, like, this constitutes a terrorist group. Right.

But that makes me go back to what we were talking about the other day. Like, what was the intention of a group like isis? Like, what are they Actually trying to do. How are they treating other people?

Do they actually have liberation in mind or is it control and oppression? Right. Versus what we're calling terrorist groups for the Houthis or Hezbollah.

Organizations that are really focused on regional control and what anyone else would be focused on, kind of like if you're in a different country. So, yeah, I don't know. For me, it kind of goes back to that, I think.

Arthur: 00:37:06

I was just thinking about how it connected to your point, Joe, earlier, where you talked about capitalism seeking resource and how capitalism thrives on the scarcity and crisis and competition and private ownership. And I was going to joke that terrorism is defined as anybody against private ownership.

Joe: 00:37:24

Yeah, you were mentioning, Cody, about the academic understanding of terrorism and all this.

I think the way I tend to look at it is a more like macro historical perspective, say over the last four or five hundred years in Western colonialism, starting with, I don't know, the East India Trading Company and the Atlantic slave trade and stuff like that. I see colonialism and capitalism as sort of two elements of the same project that sort of reinforce each other.

They're really the same project, just two. Colonialism is like the military component of capitalism. It's the way I tend to look at it.

And how have narratives about colonized people changed over those several hundred years? I think, and there may be academic writing on this very subject.

I haven't done that research yet to look into it, but I assume you could trace a pretty linear narrative between the way that colonialism has tended to talk about the so called savage people, savages in the American colonies or in South America or whatever, and the way we talk about terrorists today.

I think those are very similar kinds of narratives that are used to justify kicking people out of their ancestral homeland, sort of forcing them into these tiny little enclaves. Now we have all these Indian reservations in the US which start to look like an archipelago.

ok at the map of Israel since: 1948

And what the ruling class means when they say terrorists is the same thing that colonists meant when they said savages back in the day.

Arthur: 00:39:22

Yeah, I think I read once a philosopher, Fanon, who kind of traced like the other being wrapped in this like civilizational rhetoric and how, like exactly what you're saying, where it's like, you know, we might think of it as like tribes are now called like militant networks or like uncivilized or unstable regions. And it's just like, it is totally just an evolution of the language. And it is the exact same thing. It's like in group, out group.

And I'm sure even like Neanderthal groups were tricked into thinking another Neanderthal group was, you know, for whatever gain. It's just like it's tale as old as time.

Kodie: 00:39:59

And that all goes back to helping with the dehumanization of that group. Right? Like whatever that group is, whatever truths are or not are there as far as how they treat other people.

But all that aside, that language goes into making it so that people can think of them not as people, right? Or not as equal. And it justifies atrocities that occur against them. Like setting the groundwork for that.

It's an easy way to set the groundwork for that, for sure. And we need to remember now that anyone that throws paint at a Tesla plant is a terrorist.

Joe: 00:40:33

Exactly Arthur's point about private property and. Exactly.

Arthur: 00:40:38

Yeah, you can't go after the.: 0001

Joe: 00:40:44

And like the way the hysteria about what Luigi did or didn't do. Allegedly. Yeah, exactly. When you go after one of their own, they get really upset about it. That's it for this episode.

Thanks so much for listening and hanging out with us.

Kodie: 00:41:03

If you enjoy the show, help us spread the word. Leave a rating or review and share it with your friends, family, or anyone who would get something out of your.

Arthur: 00:41:10

These conversations, your ratings, reviews and shares help this show grow. And the more people listening, the harder it is for Propaganda to win.

Joe: 00:41:18

So until next time, stay aware, stay.

Kodie: 00:41:20

Safe, and remember, Propaganda loves you.

Video: 00:41:37

Sam.