Gaslit Nation
Andy's Podcaster Podcasting Podcast #29
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Intro Music
Andy
It’s Andy’s Podcaster Podcasting Podcast - EPISODE 29
ANDY
Happy New Year! or should that be Happy New Year? or HAPPY NEW YEAR? I don’t know. The nonsense of 2020 seems to be continuing. It’s almost like the seeds we have planted as a species are continuing to grow and bear fruit regardless of our arbitrary attempts to mark the symbolic march of time or something… We had good festive season, spent the whole Covid lockdown holidays holed up with my in-laws in Rochester, in upstate NY. Took Long walks in the woods every day. Lots of big special meals. Built a fire most days. Had to restock the wood pile. It was a good trip. Santa paid us a visit. Blaise got the lego sets he was hoping for - basically built Hogwarts castle. Sierra got a lot of books and supplies and kits to make stuff. I got some scissors… yeah… which can cut through bone. Not sure what the thinking was there TBH. Bit strange. Oh, thanks - some new scissors. ‘No - Andy - these can cut through bone!’ Um Ok. Not sure what to make of that really. Hope it’s not an auger for the New Year. The year in which the bone cutting scissors became really useful… Anyway, overall it was as good as it could be really, not too cold and we got about half a foot on a couple of days so we got to do some sledding on Cobb’s Hill and had a truly great snowball fight with some friends down the street… As good a time as could possibly expected, given the horror and misery of the year… oh and before we left home to drive up the Susequahana river valley, they had finally called the election for Biden…
SFX - clips of Networks calling Biden victory… CNN, NBC & Fox.
ANDY
So yeah, a Biden Victory, very necessary, a very important first and super necessary step to try to make things better… crazily closer result than it should have been given the corrupt treasonous shit stick he was up against and - as expected with all the Covid Mail In ballots that needed to be counted - it took a while to work everything out… SOOOO anyway - where were you when you heard it was finally called? I remember exactly where I was - I was up a ladder, on the roof, cleaning the Autumnal leaves out my gutter and quietly crying. It was soon after my brothers death so it was a very raw and weepy time. Swimming in the grief tide. I’d escaped up to the roof to do something quiet and necessary while getting away from the kids, who were being a bit much, nothing bad, but when you’re super emotional then loud joyful kids running wild can be much to handle. Benjamin Zephaniah said, that once men start crying it’s often a real cathartic flow, letting out a river of tears, the breaking of the dam of a hundred emotional blows that have been repressed and held in check behind the monstrous dam of masculinity. So maybe there was a bit of that in there too.
We have a house on a corner lot with big front windows and we know a lot of our local dog walkers by sight, if not by name to talk to. And there’s one guy who looks the spitting image of Lebanese Sufi poet Kahlil Gibran author of The Prophet. Jen thinks he looks more like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. - But, Truth is, we’re both right, the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld looks looks lot like Kahlil Gibran.
Anyway he was walking by with his dog. And I’m up the ladder scooping out leaf mulch and quietly crying, tears rolling down my face to mix with the soupy rot of dirt and bugs and dissolving oak leaves. And I see him and I think of the passage from The Prophet On Sorrow & Joy - the bit about how ‘your joy is your sorrow unmasked… the deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain’. And as I’m haltingly remembering this passage, about grief being the price of love, I’m watching him pull out a baggie from his pocket to pick up his dog’s poo. And it just seems so absurd, and I start laughing, a bit nuts really, and I’m crying and laughing and I almost lose it and shout out at him, ‘Tell us Oh Prophet of Dog Poo and how to gather it in plastic that will be around for over 500 years’. But I don’t… I manage to rein it in but as I do there was this gradual scattered bursts of cheering rising up from all around, scattered random cheering and screams and cheers and then people hitting car horns. A lot of car horns, coming from all different directions. Guy a couple of blocks away started playing his trumpet. And I didn’t know what had happened, being in grief times and then Jen came out and told me that they’d finally called it for Biden…
sfx - clip of trump whining and intimidating the Georgia election official for votes & inciting the capitol riot.
SOUP NAZI
No second term for you!
Music - Rise of the Black Centipede - Mario Rom’s Interzone
ANDY
Its… Review… Time… Mmmmmwahahahahahahahahahahaha
AnDY
Today I’m reviewing Gaslit Nation from Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. The hosts of this show are two experts who specialize in the study of Authoritarian Regimes - and what a super useful specialization to have as a lens to study the constant attacks on our democracy from the Trump administration and his GOP handlers. In fact they were two of the strongest voices warning us of what was going happen these past four years from before 2016. Sarah Kendzior lives in Missouri and is the author of a couple of great books - Notes From Flyover Country and Hiding in Plain Site which is the best and most slick and concise breakdown of how Trump came to power and the long history of enabling him by allowing corruption to flourish in our country that I’ve come across. Andrea Chalupa made the film Mr Jones about George Orwell’s writing of Animal Farm which grew from her studies into Stalin’s genocide. Here is a clip.
Clip from show - episode ‘Clear Intent’.
Andy
Wow, great. Good episode. Start there. The shows Title like much of what they say, really nails the situation we find ourselves in we are a Gaslit Nation. There’s so much cognitive dissonance about our dancing on the precipice of full blown authoritarianism that it’s easy to feel like you’re going crazy. Listening to the show is like suddenly finding yourself You see politicians spouting head spinning hypocrisy constantly and the news 90% of the time plays along with it. Or has been convinced to give equal time to outright lies under the ridiculous idea of be ‘unbiased’. It was never the news job to be unbiased about lies, to so completely lose its moral compass to allow long documented histories of corruption - like for example - the absolute constellation of crime surrounding Trump. Or the latest and most recent example of the attempted Coup in the Capital Building with the usual gaggle of talking heads claiming nobody could have seen it coming - as if four years of stoking doubts in the electoral process and inciting and inspiring hate in hundreds of well documented ways - from calling the actual Nazi’s marching on Charlottesville ‘Very Fine People’ to shouting about the evil and dangers of George Soros (wink wink - swastica tattooed on your eyelid) days before the Tree of Life synagogue massacre at one of the weird and constant rallies of Hate that an American President until this time never made a central part of his busy schedule.
This is a great Podcast. You need to unsubscribe and delete Pod Save America or whatever. They draw the line showing how the Trump regime was nurtured and grown from our choice not to prosecute the rich, how the Trump crime constellation grew from the Bush crime family which is the culmination of Capitalism, built on the bedrock of white supremacy and genocide.
I searched for some criticism of the show to see what others were saying, and ignoring the GOP outright Trump Nazi stuff - the other criticism is the usual horrible sexist nonsense about their voices. The baseline Neanderthal bullying that is the hum of our existence in the Patriarchy. Yeah, great, we have a culture that doesn't listen to women. That’s not a reason to not listen to this podcast that’s a to make sure you listen to this podcast. Blindboy had a good point the other day - the Irish comedian and podcaster reviewing him soon — and I was listening to him say how he’s been thinking about Enya - how she took traditional Irish songs and reworked them with synthesizes and special effects and she had some success but she is critically dismissed - she’s generally considered a bit naff and is labeled ‘New Age’ whereas Brian Eno - doing exactly the same thing and it’s he’s called an Ambient Visionary. And I think if you don’t like how these women sound you need to do some conscious work on your gender biases.
Andy
So, Gaslit Nation gets 5 stars, 2 thumbs up, a lovely and cathartic primal scream, and all the marbles…
Music - rise of the black centipede - Mario rom’s interzone
Poem intro feat clips of Kerouac, Hilaire Belloc, Bukowski, Gil Scott Heron, Tennyson & T.S.Eliot
The following poem will be available as a stand alone youtube video soon, click here for the link and it will also be available to buy as a cool graphic pamphlet. Sign up for this newsletter to be sure to get updates…
Andy:
TELL ME LIES ABOUT CAPITALISM
Nepotism
Financial Fraud
Drop a Bomb
Praise the Lord
‘It’s the best of all possible systems
In the best of all possible worlds’
Tell me lies about Capitalism
‘For a low monthly fee of $8999
You too can own your own Senator!’
Corporate bail-outs
Trillions spent
Won’t you tell me
Where the money went?
Police budgets
Piggy banks
No money for schools
Bought some tanks
Adam Smith / Maynard Keynes
We’ve traded off
The birds and bees
So drown my eyes in Facebook
Buy me a Senator
Tell me Lies about Capitalism!
Go to Yale
Ski at Vail
Do Big Crimes
And Avoid Jail
The rich always walk free
‘Cause daddy taught them how to pee
On the Magic Money Tree
While nurses use trash bags for P.P.E.
The sick human Husk
That is Elon Musk
Would never have to raise his daughter
On Flint’s poison water
Mission Control - Whitey is Still On The Moon!
So Polish Up My Bone Spurs!
Drown My eyes in Facebook!
Buy Me a Senator!
Tell me lies about Capitalism!
Kids in cages
The Covid dead
Disaster Capitalism
Sick in the head
Fake Democracy
Real Kleptocracy
Buy ALL the President’s Books
Ignore ALL the Hypocrisy
For profit politics
Enraging for gain
It’s never been easier
To profit from pain
If you are angry
Donate to my campaign
Win a ticket on
The sugar candy mountain gravy train
So Drive Me to a Food Bank!
Polish Up My Bone Spurs!
Drown My Eyes in Facebook!
Tell me lies about Capitalism!
Medicare for All
The Green New Deal
Crushed under a Lobbyist’s
Limosine Wheel
For profit healthcare
Corporate Greed
A big shot of Socialism
Is what we need
Wall St fraud
Panama Papers
It’s the poor's fault
Y’all just Haters
‘I work Hard
It’s not just luck!’
Says literally everyone
In Epstein’s Book
So Launch Me a Kickstarter for Insulin!
Drive Me to a Food Bank!
Polish Up My Bone Spurs!
Drown My Eyes in Facebook!
Buy me a Senator!
Tell me lies about Capitalism!
Dark money Matters
The N.R.A.
Oligarchs
Seize the day
Work three jobs
For one jobs pay
Deliver my drink
And get out of my way
The Neo-liberals come and go
Still droning on about Michelangelo
While Polar Bears
Go Fund Me for snow
And the F.B.I.
(Watch my back)
Can only solve crime
If it’s Black
So Strangle Me For Cigarettes!
Kickstarter for Insulin!
Drive me to a Food Bank!
Polish Up My Bone Spurs!
Drown my eyes in Facebook!
Buy me a Senator!
Tell me lies about Capitalism!
Slave Labor
Prison Boom
Calling Luddites
To Smash the loom
Drop your phone
Pick up axes
Make the rich
Pay their taxes
Yours is not to reason why
Yours is but to consume and die
World on fire
Glacial melt
Storm Troopers marching
From the Bible Belt
They kill us in a thousand ways
Gaslit Nation
’Til the end of days
Want us to ignore
Their fascist eruption
Call for civility
To Cloak their corruption
So Sell Me On The Stock Market!
Strangle me for cigarettes!
Kickstarter for Insulin!
Drive me to a food bank!
Polish Up My Bone Spurs!
Drown my eyes in Facebook!
Buy me a senator!
Tell me - won’t you tell me…
Tell me all your lies about Capitalism!
ANDY
That’s a wrap!
Music - everything is permitted - Mario rom’s interzone
Andy
If you like listening, please spread the word, come join the group on Facebook or sign up for the transcript and news letter on the website… And if you really want to help, click the link, hit the tip jar and buy me a coffee for a couple of bucks! The Jazz is provided by the amazing Mario Rom’s Interzone. I don’t know who’s providing your jazz, but I think you should switch to these cats!
ANDYS PODCASTER PODCASTING PODCAST is sponsored by the American shoe council over 30,000 years of Bi-pedal History. Shoes! How else you going to protect your feet? Have a great week, I think the coup failed, the cover-up of the coup will probably be successful… whatever happens, stay safe, stay heathy, be kind…. bbbb-bye…