Jiu-Jitsu in the Face of War and Economic Disaster

Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Fighting Matters. I'm Stephen Casting. With me are Jesse Walker and Mike Mahaffey. And uh normally, this is a show about the intersection of the martial arts and fascism and the far right. But really, I think that all three of us just want to talk about the Iran war, but we have to tie it in somehow. So, how's this? Uh Jesse, when do you think gas prices are going to hit the point where students can't afford to commute and come in or some students won't be able to commute and come in and train with you? Speaker 2: Boy, I hope we uh do not reach that point. Um but when you look at, I think I heard the official number was like 86 cents, but in a a lot of places in the country, uh gas has gone up over a dollar a gallon. Uh since since the the the excursion started, is that what I put it in air quotes there? Uh since the war started. Um and last I heard, oil was up over $120 a barrel. Uh Speaker 1: I think it came down a little bit because they released the strategic reserve, but that's only a temporary measure. Speaker 2: Well, I mean, people are uh you know, people in the know say that if this drags on, oil could easily get to $200 a barrel. And, you know, while it's going to certainly impact me potentially as a school owner, you know, people can't afford to even drive or, you know, generally we are a we are kind of a luxury good. We are, you know, Jiu-Jitsu training is is typically not considered uh essential. So, you know, it's one of the first things to start to drop off when when people are cutting costs. Uh so, I I have not seen it yet, but I, you know, we know that people are going to be struggling out there. Uh so, you know, it is a very real possibility for myself and other school owners. Speaker 1: I think people also begin to realize that it's not just the price of gas you put in your truck or put in your car that's going up. It's everything that's transported by rail or by ship or by car or by truck, and that is everything. So, that's going to have a massive uh effect on anything that's transported, especially if you transport any distance. Not to mention the weird things like sulfuric acid production is is craft or fertilizer production, because a lot fertilizer production is so energy intensive that a lot of it occurs right where they pull the oil out of the ground. And the disruption now to things like fertilizer, which of course is going to drive the price of food sky high. Speaker 2: Right. Well, and that the the irony is not lost on, you know, as soon as the Supreme Court overturns most of the tariffs from, you know, Mr. Affordability, he then starts a war to start making things more expensive again since the tariffs weren't working. Uh, it's it's just crazy making. Speaker 1: But hey, we're not talking about the Epstein files anymore, right? Speaker 2: No. Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly it. Why are are you arguing that there's a significant component of this war was started to distract from the Epstein files, Mike? Speaker 3: I mean, I can't confirm or deny that, but the timing seems terribly convenient. Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I and and I have tried to earnestly listen, you know, to pundits to, you know, so-called intellectuals, whatever, whatever category bucket we want to put them in, you know, trying to justify the actions that have been taken uh by the US towards Iran. And I have just not heard a compelling argument. I mean, we just this week had, I don't remember his official title, but some director of counterterrorism, you know, Speaker 1: Kent. Speaker 2: Yeah, Kent, uh, you know, he he resigned in protest because he he felt that, you know, whatever public face we were putting on this thing simply wasn't true and that there was not an imminent threat and that there wasn't a compelling reason uh to take these actions that were taking right now. So, you know, it really makes you wonder what is behind it. And, you know, we live in a world where this administration is is does such crazy things, you know, everything from the the the rumors of, you know, the the evangelical right, you know, wanting this to happen to hopefully bring about revelation and uh end times, uh all the way to is this just a distraction from the Epstein files? And to me, as Trump so uh, you know, famously always says, all options are on the table. I don't I honestly don't know. Speaker 1: More than one thing can be true at a time. I mean, obviously, Israel was trying to drag the United States into a war against Iran. I don't think that's debatable. So, whatever leverage they had, whether from stroking his ego or compromise or whatever it is, they deployed. Obviously, uh the man has a insanely large narcissistic balloon of an ego, and that could drive him towards thinking he's invulnerable. It can do anything. But the fact that the Epstein file issue was just heating up, right? That been that dump of half of the documents, 3 million of the 6 million documents, heavily redacted with a either with the heavy redactions, he was still the third most common name in the Epstein files after Epstein and after Ghislaine Maxwell. Number three was Trump. And that's redacted. And then, uh the pressure that the they had not the DOJ had not followed the Epstein files transparency Act from passed in November, saying by December all of them needed to be released, and now they're saying they're not going to be releasing them in the name of national security. Like, that has undermined his base. Like, I find myself nodding in agreement with many of the people I generally would despise or generally disagree with. But we're united by this, that no, pedophile shouldn't get off scot-free. So, it it could it could be more than one thing. It can be Speaker 2: Well, it can. I mean, and we also know even for his narcissistic and I mean, maybe exactly because he's so narcissistic and ego-driven, uh, you know, world leaders, at least savvy ones have figured out pretty easily that he is relatively easy to manipulate. You know, if you stroke his ego enough, uh, you know, give him presents and hand him something that's gold-plated, uh, you can you can convince him to start a a war, right? Speaker 3: I mean, FIFA created a peace prize for him. Speaker 2: I'm still shocked that the FIFA work peace prize winner started a war. That that that shakes my faith in the entire FIFA organization. Speaker 1: I know, right? Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. Um, and you know, the the thing, you know, when you when you hear the administration talk about this war and how well it's going and how successful they've been so far. Um, and you know, this is something the three of us have talked about a lot offline is like, there are no perceptible goals. There's no criteria for uh victory, whatever that fuck that means. Um, and that is really concerning to me. Uh, that that seems to be the recipe for another endless war. And I think it's become pretty clear to most people now that the decision to just end this war is not solely in the hands of Donald Trump anymore. And it is it is spread far beyond. Speaker 1: Why is it not why is it not in the hands of the person who's got all the aircraft carriers there, Jesse? Speaker 2: Um, just because you happen to be the aggressor and the first mover does not necessarily mean that you once you stop your aggression, the aggression back towards you also stops, right? Um, there are likely to be attacks of reprisal and there already have been, right? Uh the attacks have spread out all over the Middle East. You know, Iran is threatening and even taking action attacking other energy and oil fields around the area. Uh the the whole issue of the straight of Hormuz, uh, you know, being closed. Uh I think this is really uh spread pretty far out of the sandbox that uh the oh so humble Trump administration thought it was going to stay within. Speaker 3: And the administration has left, to my understanding, has left US citizens and people at embassies high and dry out there. They've basically said, you need to get out, you can't rely on us to do it. The the the uh irony is maybe the word, um, of a decade or so ago, uh, the right wing yelling about Hillary, Benghazi, Benghazi. And now we have the same, pardon my language, the same fucking thing happening because of Trump. Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it it just goes to show. I mean, so little of the right's outrage is in good faith. It's it's all so bad faith. They're they get furious and everybody on Fox News is talking about what a what a travesty and what a, you know, whatever all this stuff is, and then they turn around and do it at a level that we couldn't even have dreamed of before. Uh, you know, making the same infractions. Speaker 1: It is to some extent a question of scale. I remember when uh the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in the White House and Bill Clinton was, you know, named as having done the, you know, just about lost his presidency because he received a blow job. Which seems so quaint now, doesn't it? And when that broke, that was the day that Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike. I believe it was in Yemen to take out quote a chemical warfare agent plant. It was some kind of pharmaceutical, but it was a couple of missiles to destroy one building. And that was a distraction, an attempt to distract from that. And I'm sure some people lost their lives in that plant. But I'm going to say it was less than 50. It was light years, light years at a different scale compared to bombing the shit out of an entire country, killing top couple echelons of leadership to the point where you're going, well, we we wouldn't negotiate with them, but we don't even know who to negotiate with because everyone that we were going to negotiate with, we actually killed. I'm paraphrasing Donald Trump, but that's pretty much what he said. Speaker 2: It's pretty close. Yeah. Speaker 1: So, Speaker 2: Well, and that's to say nothing of the, you know, Tomahawk missile we sent flying into the girl's school. Speaker 1: This is true. Right? Um, and you know, at least we're Speaker 2: Well, you know, at least with the Yemen plant, you know, right or wrong, we still owned it. We we said we took that action. That's that's a thing we did. You know, Speaker 1: So Trump either diddles kids or kills kids. Jesus Christ. Speaker 2: Yeah, and and the immediate reaction out of this administration was like, we don't know where that Tomahawk came from. I we think Iran may have done it and this that and the other. Uh, you know, full well knowing what a tight set of controls we keep on munitions like that. Um, there's only a select few of our allies that we even let use that. So the idea that somehow Iran had gotten a hold of a Tomahawk missile and sent it into a school, uh is is a pretty outrageous assertion. I mean, clearly we know that's not true now. Even then we know it wasn't true. But but it's a wild just absolute inability to take responsibility for any actions they take. Speaker 1: Did you guys catch the news today about another 5,000 Marines being sent to the uh to the Gulf? Speaker 2: I did. You know, the the speculation with the first 5,000, I think we're, you know, to to Mike's concern that there was there was some movement uh getting getting troops and getting some protection and uh, you know, evacuation resources out to the embassies in the area. Um, but if this next 5,000 is true, we're starting to get to numbers that probably far outstrip the needs of, you know, getting the the embassies evacuated. So, it's certainly concerning. Speaker 3: It feels like a boots on the ground issue. Um, Speaker 1: They're going to put them along the straits of Hormuz on the Iranian side. That that's my prediction and I'd be shocked if I'm wrong. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I the the fact that I mean, I hate to compare the two actions, but they're so comparable to uh this is so comparable to the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction uh that Saddam supposedly had. And I don't want to give Bush an out. But my God, at least the man tried to give us an excuse with that. Like, at least there was some story he was peddling to the public, right? Speaker 2: He made the case. Yeah. He he made the case. Speaker 1: But I would argue that Trump tried to make the case. He tried to make about 10 different cases. But if you say this to a a MAGA supporter, they're going to say Iran was about to develop nuclear weapons. They were two days away from developing nuclear weapons. So, that that's the argument. Speaker 2: They've been two days away for 20 years. Speaker 3: Right. Right. There is a friend of mine in the Michigan Jiu-Jitsu community, uh, that, uh, coaches about an hour plus away from me and happens to be Iranian and emigrated, immigrated here as a kid. And, uh, I follow his socials very closely because I feel like he's somebody who's got the inside scoop on this stuff. Um, I'm not going to name him or out him, but people who know him know who I'm talking about. The the take that I get from him is that again, two things can be true. The Shah of Iran could have been a terrible, awful, murderous person and, you know, killed thousands of protesters and definitely deserved to be at least dethroned if not killed. Uh, but the US also had no reason to bomb and invade and that is causing even more instability and going to screw the people of Iran, um, more than we can imagine at this point in time. Speaker 1: You meant the the Ayatollah. You meant Khomeini, not the Shah. Speaker 3: Yeah, Ayatollah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. My bad. I Speaker 2: And here's the thing for me. Even if we had been morally justified in doing what was done, we have never proven ourselves as a institution that can help people rebuild governance after destroying their civilization, right? Uh I I Speaker 1: I would argue South I would argue that Germany and Japan were the last time that was done successfully. Speaker 2: That was the last time. And we had a lot of help. That wasn't just us. Speaker 1: And there was actually a plan as opposed to going and blowing shit up and then oops, what now? Speaker 2: Right. Right. Speaker 1: So, I I think it has been done, but really, the Marshall Plan was billions of dollars in those dollars. So, I I'm going to make up a number. A trillion dollars. And it was also uh functionally like a 70, 80-year effort because there are still military bases in Japan. There are still military bases in Germany. And yeah, the military bases in Germany were in part because the World War II was immediately followed by the Cold War. I mean, Winston Churchill wanted to keep on going and said, why are we disarming? Why are we disbanding? We should just attack the Russians next while we've got the momentum. So, that that was the next war they were looking forward to. But the fact that you've got some gigantic uh American military bases in Germany is another way to make sure that that uh country doesn't slip back into fascism. So, it it was a a 70, 80-year effort of building bridges, millions and millions and millions and billions of dollars and actually a plan. Speaker 2: Right. And I'm again, I I will reiterate a multinational plan, right? It wasn't just the United States. Every time we've tried to go it alone, uh it seems to have been a pretty abysmal failure. Uh I mean, certainly in in recent history, right? We look at Iraq, we look at Afghanistan. Um, uh Speaker 1: What's changed in Venezuela? Nothing. Speaker 2: Venezuela, right? There's another. Uh, none of these are now shining examples of uh, you know, free free democracies or, you know, whatever it was that we wanted them to be. Uh, I don't even know that we did a very good job of putting, you know, puppet dictators that we had a lot of leverage on. Uh, we just kind of failed across the board, unfortunately. So, Speaker 3: Are we great again? Speaker 1: Any day now. Speaker 3: Sounds waiting. Speaker 2: So tired of winning. Speaker 3: I know. Oh my God. That dose check is coming any minute. Speaker 2: And and you know, the the thing that and you know, Trump is so transactional. Um, I I feel like everything in his brain is zero sum. You know, if we're hurting Iran, that has to be good for America. And I I really don't think that at least the large decision makers or maybe the final decision maker really understands the nuance of like, there's a lot that we could be doing to Iran right now that is going to blow back on us, whether that's through uh, you know, supply chain disruption, whether that's through terrorist attacks back at home, uh, this is not a zero sum game. And we we have to quit treating world politics like it is. Um, if you think you have a simple answer for this stuff, you don't understand the fucking problem. And and I think we are really seeing kind of the evidence of that now. Speaker 1: Well, there was talk in the last couple days about the EU creating some kind of tentative support coalition for opening up the straits of Hormuz, which of course would be in their economic interest because it would lower price of natural gas and fuel and uh fertilizer and and just about every commodity that you can think of, including copper. But that it was going to be contingent on uh getting US support, material support for Ukraine. So, that but that's a complicated deal, right? And I think Steve uh Steve Kwan once said, every complex problem has a very simple answer that's completely wrong. Speaker 2: It's completely wrong. That's right. Speaker 1: So, this is a very complex problem. It's going to require a very complex negotiated uh solution. I mean, you might almost say you'd need to have a deal. Uh maybe a nuclear deal with Iran to control. Speaker 3: Wild, right? Wasn't I seem to kind of remember one that was in place that basically got shredded by the current administration? Speaker 1: I'll say it out loud. It was a deal done by a black man. And why would Donald Trump think that anything a black man did was good? Speaker 2: And it was not a perfect deal, right? I mean, I don't think there's anybody that argues, but most deals aren't. I mean, if we're real honest about it. Um, but it was something in place and it was at least a foundation that we could continue to negotiate from. As soon as it went away, um, especially, and you know, I don't think this gets talked about enough, but at least from my chair, everything that's going on right now, if I were Iran, I would be running to try to figure out how to get a nuke. Because you know who they're not doing this shit to? They're not doing it to North Korea. And there's a very good reason why. Um, Speaker 1: And if I was Poland, I would be running to go get a nuke because NATO is no longer reliable. And are we living in a safer world where uh we quadruple the number of countries that have nukes and quadruple the number of systems that have to independently control those nukes from getting accidentally launched or launched by a crazy dictator or stolen or sold. It it makes the world so much less safe. And that that's really the ultimate potential blowback here is that, Speaker 2: Mhm. Speaker 1: Let's say Iran gets settled. Let's say Russia and Ukraine get settled. The number of countries that go, hmm, we can no longer trust the United States to protect our ass and not be something crazy. And even though we've got, I'm making this up, President Gavin Newsom. What's to stop the next fucking guy when the American public loses its mind again to uh to break all the deals that have been made. And I think this is something that I I'm the token not American on this call. I'm not sure that the majority of Americans understand the level of distrust that this has engendered among other countries in the world. Like, you can joke about making Canada the 51st state. We fucking remember. You can threaten Greenland. Europe fucking remembers. You can go invade Iran and blow shit up and jack fertilizer and natural gas and fuel prices for 10 years or five years or how long it takes to rebuild those fields in Qatar. And you might change administration, but the rest of the world remembers. And that's just because you got the most shiny military, uh America first is America alone. And the level of distrust in the of course, the level of distrust in Donald Trump is there is zero trust. But the level of trust in the American system to not create the next guy who's just as bad. That that can't be overlooked. Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we don't we don't have the we don't have the faith either. I there are so many systematic things that need to be fixed to make sure that this shit never happens again. And I honestly don't know that we've got it in us as a people right now. Uh, you know, maybe it hasn't gotten bad enough, at least in house. Um, but but I completely agree with you and it's completely justified. No one has any reason to trust the US going forward or anything, you know, even treaties, you know, you can sign the treaties and the agreements and uh this guy just uses it as toilet paper. Uh so, it's it's completely understandable. Speaker 3: I think the average American, and I'm and even hearing you talk about that, Stephen, uh, I can't speak for Jesse, but I can speak for myself, uh, even I don't know that I fathom the amount of distrust, right? Like, you and I are friends, we're friends with Steve Quan, we've got other friends across different borders and like those relationships aren't being strained individually. Uh, but I think most of us Americans aren't impacted enough yet by that to see it. Like, I feel like we see it because we talk about it all the time and we're invested in in it. But, um, like if I didn't have this group of you guys as friends, uh, I could easily it'd be I'd be tempted to easily bury my head in the sand because it's overwhelming, right? And it it wouldn't it wouldn't become real until it really impacts you. Speaker 2: Don't know when uh the American public will start to see it. Um, you know, just because it's become so cool and hip to be anti-intellectual and not follow the news and everything else. But when you start to see things like our allies essentially telling us to go get fucked when we're asking for help with Iran, that is there should be alarms going off everywhere in the public, in Congress, you know, across the board. Like, that's a major fucking problem when when we can't rely on our allies. And it's I don't I honestly don't think it's because they don't agree with what we're doing. They may not agree with it, but they usually still kind of help when we ask, historically. Speaker 1: Well, NATO is a defensive alliance. So, if the United States had been attacked, I'm pretty sure NATO would have come around and said, okay, Iran nuked uh God forbid, San Francisco. Uh, all right. And we know for sure it's from Iran. Okay, we're going into Iran. I'm NATO would have backed that up because it's a defensive alliance. It's not an alliance for you can go do whatever stupid shit you want aggressively and then uh have us jump in and bail you out after the fact. That that's not what it came with. Speaker 2: No, but you know, they did uh every, you know, we had a uh pretty decent segment of help with the Iraq war. Uh, you know, dealing with Afghanistan. We have historically had some help when we've asked for it. Speaker 3: But again, there were cases made for that, like you we said earlier, uh, they were wrong, but there was a a case laid out for why these things needed to happen and it's so fragmented. Speaker 2: Right now. Mike, when when we go and ask for help from the EU, from from Britain, when we just got done threatening Greenland and Canada and fucking everything else, it's like, how dare you? Right, Spain. Uh, how dare you ask us for help after the way you've acted the last year? Like, who do you think you are? Speaker 1: Sounds much more like a demand for help when you read Trump's uh troths. Speaker 2: Without a doubt. Help me or else, right? Speaker 3: We're the we're the bully addicts and our enablers have quit enabling. Speaker 2: Yeah, but, you know, we've we've already got uh, you know, we've got the next war on deck already, right? Uh, these goofballs are already talking about uh dealing with Cuba. Right? Which you'll, you know, is it of course it's a different animal than Iran. But, you know, all of these one issue voters in in 2024 who just wanted to have a president that didn't start any new wars. Boy, they probably had some buyer's remorse today. Um, because that's kind of been all this one's been about so far. Speaker 1: So, Mike, given that your country is in the middle of one war, why would you be planning the next war hypothetically? Like, why so eager to get into yet another war so close on the tails of even overlapping this current war? What what would that be to distract from, would you guess? Speaker 3: Um, there's some files, I think, that need distracting from. Some guy named uh Epstein. Speaker 2: I mean, if if even crazier theory if you would indulge me. Speaker 3: Please, I'm ready. Speaker 2: I honestly think that there may be some portion of whether it's the whole administration or Trump that is hoping they can get somebody, they can goad someone into doing a some sort of attack within the borders of the United States. Because if that happens at any sort of reasonable scale, then we get to declare all kinds of emergencies and do things like suspend elections. Um, and I I really think that it could then pave the path to getting to this full authoritarian state that they're so desperately trying to achieve. Um, and that may seem conspiratorial, but and I don't know that they're smart enough to think that through. Uh, but boy, that sure seems like something that could absolutely happen and give them the justification they've been looking for to uh, you know, suspend the midterms at the at the very least. Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, there's no I would agree with you, Jesse. I would say there's no hard evidence of that, but the amount of work that they're doing that has already been done in this movement to discredit free and fair elections and, uh, you know, disenfranchise voters and the save act, you know, which is going to make it even harder for a lot of people to vote. I wouldn't doubt if somewhere along the way, somebody's thinking along those lines. Speaker 2: Stephen, is that crazy? Speaker 1: I don't think it's crazy at all. I think there could be stochastic terrorism. Uh, or there could be uh, I mean, if I start talking about false flags, now I really sound like Alex Jones. And that's one of the things I hate most about this. But to have watched, uh, you know, there's a reasonable chance that the Nazis started the Reichstag fire and burned down essentially the German parliament. Yeah, they'd pinned it on a mentally disabled uh communist that they found supposedly on the site. Uh, I think he might have been I forget what was the problem, but he definitely wasn't all there. So, maybe it was that guy. Could have been. But certainly, the Reichstag fire allowed them to suspend all the liberties, the civil liberties and crack down on the evil communist who were their main opponent and there was never another set of elections after that. So, I'm not saying the Nazis are the perfect analogy for this. It's not, it's it's it is different. But it is a pretty tried and true path to seizing all power and at the very least, brutally repressing all of your political opposition. Even if you still have elections, who are you going to vote for if uh if all you, you know, half of the Democratic candidates in in blue states have been locked up. And then you you disenfranchise, call it half a percent of the population because they're trans, right? Your gender doesn't match what it says in your birth certificate. And then you knock out another uh you know, your completely random, not at all biased checks at certain polling stations. Oh, I guess there's this more fraud in blue states or in blue areas. So, we're just going to park ice there to uh you know, show me your papers. Oh, this paper, you didn't get this right thing. Um, you changed your last name when you got married. Uh we don't believe you are who you are. We're just going to detain you. And there there's a thousand different ways that they can cook this. And they're going to do it. They already tried to do it. Like, if you read the the Georgia indictments and you read the Jack Smith stuff, it's not theoretical. They already tried to steal the election about three or four different ways. Can you just get me another 10,000 votes? Speaker 2: You know, what's really interesting and I, you know, I just keep going back to this to the stupidity of the administration. Uh, you know, Mike, you just talked about the save act. You know, I the more I read about it and the more I learn about it, it's really shocking to me how hard they're pushing it. Um, because, you know, a lot of the the controls that they're wanting to put in place, uh, far more uh registered Democrats have passports than registered Republicans. Speaker 1: Correct. Speaker 3: Everyone in my household has a passport. Speaker 2: Far more uh registered Republicans, they're far more likely to especially the the women are far more likely to be married and have changed their last name. So, the things in the save act are going to at least on paper disenfranchise the Republican Party way more than they are the the Democratic Party. Speaker 1: You're of course assuming. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Stephen, hit me with it. Speaker 1: You're assuming that uh people apply for passports are going to get them at equal rates. Do you think that if there's 100,000 passport applications in Kentucky versus 100,000 passport applications in Washington State, red versus blue. Speaker 2: Without a doubt. Speaker 1: Who do you think they're going to process first? Speaker 2: Yeah. Without a doubt. Speaker 1: And then if if if you guys don't like that, you guys can cry foul and you can work the legal system and eight year, you know, eight years later you'll have your day in court and whoops, it's already been uh, you know, the uh the new regime now for eight years and so that that never gets heard. I mean, you you can protest legally by filing a lawsuit. I I will file a lawsuit, sir. It'll be too late. Speaker 3: Yeah. There's no teeth to that. Speaker 1: But passports cost money. Speaker 3: I had this argument with somebody a couple weeks ago. It was so infuriating. Passports cost money. The whole process costs money. Speaker 1: It's a poll tax. Speaker 3: Right. Time and money, which a lot of people in poverty don't have. And this person was saying, well, I don't didn't make a lot of money and I was able to do X, Y and Z. Well, good for fucking you, but not everybody's you, right? And so there's a ton of probably rural poor people in red areas, Republicans that that are going to get screwed too because Speaker 2: Well, and they've also already started restricting the places that you can apply for. Speaker 3: Make it less accessible. Speaker 2: Make it less accessible. Um, so it it's it's really interesting to watch. Uh, you know, Shelby and I were talking today about how uh the postmaster general or, you know, whoever whoever's leading the USPS was talking that, you know, they may have to suspend service because they are just about out of money. And it's like, how convenient when dear leader talks Speaker 1: You're a ball, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. That was that was in the in the mid-fall that they were going to run out of money, like October or something. Isn't it interesting while dear leader is talking about how much he hates mail in voting. Well, you can just fix that problem by shutting down the post service, right? Um, so, you know, we we've we're letting the conspiracy theories fly, but it's really easy to see the paths, you know, the the paths are already getting paved. Uh so, it's just a matter of which paths they take if not, you know, some combination of all of them. Speaker 1: It's it's scary stuff. Speaker 3: I don't know if I would call all this conspiracy theories, but it's definitely like there are red flags that if as a free and democratic society, we want to continue to be free and democratic, we need to pay attention to. You know, these things may or may not be uh intentionally driven toward this end point. Uh, but I mean, anything that makes voting more difficult for disenfranchised and impoverished populations is a big big red flag, whether it's not whether or not it's uh being done intentionally to rig elections or not. Speaker 1: Context matters though, Mike. And I'm going to say like, if I go buy um a drill, a sledgehammer, a chisel, uh and some bolt cutters. Okay, I'm buying equipment. But if I'm a convicted bank robber, and I've robbed three banks in the past, and now I go on a shopping spree that involves chisels, sledgehammers, bolt cutters, and oxyacetylene torch. Speaker 2: Of course. Speaker 1: There's a different standard here. Yeah, I'm planning to rob another bank. Again, they the number of ways that the 2020 elections that they attempted to throw them from like, uh including January 6th, including sending a mob of people to disrupt the certification, including the Georgia situation where he was calling where Trump was calling Raffensperger, I think it was, and asked for, can I just get another 10,000 votes or else? Where they created a fake elector scheme, where they were going to have people come in from that state, not who were their board of electors, and cast a vote for Trump. And a million and then crying foul about the election being stolen, including the election that they won, which doesn't make any sense. This this isn't theoretical anymore. It's not red flags. It's the bank robber going to buy a giant oxyacetylene torch and a black black balaclava. Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, that's to me, that's one of the most concerning things. I mean, we I can't tell you how many examples we've talked about, uh not only online, but offline, that every accusation ends up being a fucking admission. Uh, you know, so the fact that they cry foul about all these things, really leads me to believe that they're going to end up trying to do those very things. Speaker 1: Oh, but it's all fake news. Speaker 2: Right. In the context of this war, I did a little walk through of kind of the uh Jiu-Jitsu intelligentsia, right? The the influencers that we spend so much time talking about. And it's really interesting how there's just crickets on the part of this Iran war. There's there's actually two dominant camps. Camp number one, as far as I can tell, people like Gordon Ryan are just absolutely mum. The United States isn't at war. They're not spending a billion dollars a day. They're not going back to Congress asking for $200 billion. Uh there aren't tons of people getting killed overseas. There aren't Americans getting killed and they're not shipping a bunch of soldiers there. It's just radio silence. That's one camp. And then the other camp, the uh Jake Shields and the Sean Stricklands, if I think Strickland's in this camp, is blaming Israel, but in the most anti-Semitic way possible. Like, yeah, Israel does bear a giant share of the blame here. I I think. But you can be anti the policies of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But of course, that's a nuance for Jake Shields. It's completely uh so, it's either turns into wild anti-Semitism or just absolute radio silence. Have you guys noticed if uh anything different? Speaker 2: I you know, I I think I probably subject myself to that far less than you do, Stephen. I like I like my blood pressure right where it is. Speaker 3: I I've recently got some medication that might help you with that, Jesse. Speaker 2: But I bet. But you know, I mean, I honestly, I think I think that's right. And I mean, I I've certainly heard that getting talked about on all sides. I mean, just even the difficulty, Stephen, about talking about uh Israel's outsized role in our decision uh to start this war. Um, but somehow threading that needle that it in saying that it isn't anti-Semitic. Um, you know, which that feels really easy to thread that needle for me. Uh I I can I can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. Um, but for those people that already have anti-Semitic leanings, uh, you know, they may be saying the similar things that I just did, but their intention, they've got bad faith behind it. Uh, you know, because it's all, you know, about the Jews, you know, or whatever whatever it is that they, you know, Speaker 1: I would also argue that this is to some this may be controversial. I agree there's a massive undercurrent of anti-Semitism that's running wild right now. Uh there's no question. And I think that's the dominant thing, especially on the right, but I'm beginning to see I mean, anti-Israeli sentiment is pretty left-right distributed right now. Anti-Jewish sentiment, mostly right-wing, but I see some on the left as well. Speaker 2: There's bleeding into the left, absolutely. Speaker 1: Um, it's not made easier when any criticism of the state of Israel by some people immediately jump on you and call that anti-Semitic. And that's including some very active online Jewish people. Like, I've been accused of the blood libel, which is just for of Speaker 2: So many times. Speaker 1: The Jews stealing baby the blood libel was a bullshit made up in the Middle Ages of like Jews stealing babies, Christian babies and drinking their blood in satanic rituals. I've been accused of spreading the blood libel. Speaker 2: Sounds like something the QAnon made up too. It's weird. Speaker 1: So, it it's it's threading this needle is made a little bit more difficult by some people who resort to the debate tactic of calling anything that's anti-Israeli policy equating that with anti-Semitism. I don't think that's fair. Speaker 2: Well, I I think so I maybe I have a slightly different perspective. I still blame the anti-Semites for that in in the sense that I I also we see the same thing in the trans uh kind of debate if that's what you want to call it, right? I I think that there is a good faith conversation that we can have about uh trans folks in sports. We've done it here on the show. But we're at a point now that there are so many people that are that are talking about trans people in sports in bad faith because they just don't want trans people to exist at all, that the people that do want to have good faith conversations about this stuff, fucking can't because the bad faith people have ruined, they've they've poisoned the well. Um, I think that's happening here as well, which is really unfortunate. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: I I Stephen, I agree with you. I about your initial point about uh radio silence about Iran and the war from a lot of the big Jiu-Jitsu influencers. Uh, for better or worse, the really awful people in Jiu-Jitsu, I just refuse to follow. I'm kind of with Jesse. My mental health can't handle Jake Shields or Bryce Mitchell crossing my timeline. I hear about it secondhand from other sources including you guys. So, but there's a lot of radio silence about the Iran war and, uh, you know, um, the people in Jiu-Jitsu I hear speaking about it, uh, aren't the big names, right? It's like my Iranian friend who uh uh trains and teaches out here in Michigan. I hear I see him talking about it all the time and him and I have had some offline conversations about stuff too. Speaker 2: You know, the other thing that strikes me going back to the the Iran situation is I feel like we are constantly having the wrong argument. Like, I I keep hearing, you know, people being and and I'm not saying it's not justified. But we're we're really spinning our wheels talking about, well, he didn't ask, you know, he doesn't have those war powers and he should have, you know, Congress didn't declare war and all the while, the missiles keep raining down as if us debating whether or not Congress or the president has the power to take these actions is a fucking relevant thing to talk about right now. When what we should be doing is getting our pitchforks out and demanding some fucking justification or demanding that it stop, right? Um, and and instead, we are we are arguing about procedural things that quite honestly, and I'm I'm happy to own it. Uh, every president in since I've been alive has taken it upon themselves to start skirmishes, wars, excursions, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Uh, I I don't I you'll have to fact check me. I don't think Congress has declared war since World War II, correct? Speaker 1: Korea was a police action. It wasn't a war. Speaker 2: So, right. So, you know, the fact that that's what we're arguing about now is insane to me. Um, but it's consolidation of power at the executive level. And as Dan Carlin has pointed out, it makes life easier for congressmen because if congressmen uh demand the power to declare war and then they declare war and the war goes poorly, then they wear it. But if a fucking idiot at the top declares a war, it's a debacle. They I never voted for that. Yeah, you never voted for anything. Uh you just collect your paycheck and accepting donor money. Speaker 1: Well, and that that consolidation has been the plan all along though. I mean, Project 2025, that's what it's all about is consolidating it into the one one person uh that they can control, right? Uh, you know, Project 2025, Turning Point USA, all these far right uh evangelical Christian organizations. And that's something I want to touch on too. What is this with Hegseth basically calling this a holy war? Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh Jeff Shaw and I had a long conversation on this a couple of episodes ago. So, there's um I mean, it's true at a number of levels. Number one, Hegseth has got a Crusader cross on his chest. That's a that's a Crusader tattoo. And the legacy of the Crusades is multiple, I'd say multiple major and a whole bunch of minor incursions from Europe into the Near East, not the Middle East, to secure Jerusalem and the Crusader states around that corner of the uh the Mediterranean. Basically, from Turkey down to Egypt in that area. So, that's Richard the Lionheart, that's Saladin, that's, you know, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her husband. Uh and that's several hundred years of war. So, this idea, I mean, there were many reasons for it, but the way the right likes to cast this is as a clash of civilizations. You just can't have those Muslims and those Christians living together. This is a titanic struggle for the future of mankind. Um, which is of course bullshit because when the Muslims were in Jerusalem for 500 years, for most of those 500 years, Christian pilgrims had come to Jerusalem. Right? It it it was controlled by the Muslims, but you could still have these was a super important holy site. Yeah. Speaker 2: Well, I've also heard I've also heard it speculated uh over the years. I can't even remember the first time or who I heard it from, but the kind of I I've heard it speculated that the the kind of obsession with uh Israel as a state by the evangelical movement has always been about helping bring about the end times. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: And that there's been some prophecies that they're trying to help fulfill, right? Speaker 1: You you so the Book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible. It's also the most poorly written book in the Bible and it's it's supposedly written by John, but nobody really thinks it was written by John the Apostle. It if you squint at it, you can interpret it as the Jews have to be in the Holy Land and back in it was written after the uh the the Romans invaded Jerusalem and present day Israel and scattered the Jews. So, in those days, they thought Jesus is coming back tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now. And so, the Jews had to come back to the Holy Land before this would happen. That's one interpretation of it. So, you end up with 100 years or 150 years of evangelical tradition. And we're talking like Baptists and maybe we're talking reformed Protestant evangelicals who simultaneously don't like the Jews, are very eager uh but want the Jews back in the Holy Land because that fulfills one of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation to then essentially start a world war in which millions of people die, all the sinners get thrown into a lake of fire to burn for fucking eternity and the happy Christians arise to heaven along with a few Jews who convert. So, this this is a modern interpretation of the Book of Revelation. There was a long the the it's a piece of apocalyptic fiction. And around that era, sort of in 100 AD-ish, there were many, many different apocalypses written and there were apocalypses written before. It was kind of like a disaster film. We might, hey, let's go watch the new San Andreas Fault movie or the new meteor smashing it to Earth movie. People went and read apocalypses about how the world would be destroyed and God would come back and people would burn and uh so, that's it it's not theoretical. You have a large number of evangelical Christians who really, truly believe their version of their interpretation of the Bible, which is, you know, welcome to Protestantism 101. The Bible is the word of God. Everyone can read the Bible, but I'm the only person who's reading it right and you two are reading it completely incorrectly. Uh that you need the Jews in the Holy Land. You need the Jews in Jerusalem in order to and to fulfill the conditions for a war to break out to uh um to trigger Jesus coming back. So, Hegseth is drawing on two traditions. One is this clash of civilizations narrative based on the Crusades, roughly 900 years ago. And the second is this more modernological, in other words, end times theology that's come up in the last 100, 150 years. Speaker 2: Shouldn't he at least be able to It's fucking crazy. It's fucking crazy. It's insane. Speaker 1: I I didn't mean to make you recant recap your whole episode, Stephen. Uh that's on me for not having done my homework and listen to the whole thing yet. But shouldn't Hegseth be able to at least do one good fucking pull-up before starting a holy war? I mean, come on, man. Speaker 2: He can bench 350 though. Speaker 1: 3.15 pounds. Yeah. That's great for him. Speaker 2: Um, and also do the world, well, there's no way that was 350, an honest 350. Speaker 1: No. And we should not none of us should want this to happen because how the hell are we going to do Jiu-Jitsu if the apocalypse happens? Like, to tie it all back, what happens to Jiu-Jitsu schools when the end times happen? I think we're fucked. Speaker 2: Well, forget end like, look, obviously, nuclear missile start flying, which is not out of the question. I don't know what Polly what that Polly market that betting site. I don't know what they're currently at with uh nuclear explosion before the end of the year. But I'm going to guess it's between 1 and 10%, which is insane. What's much more likely, what you can bank on, probably, is insane inflation. Your vegetables? Good luck. Your food, good luck. Your gas, good luck. If you do Jiu-Jitsu in Europe, I mean, your natural gas, your heating with gas and electricity, those costs are going to be gargantuan come the fall. Uh even if this war gets settled a couple of weeks from now. And this is all with the backdrop of the same people that are starting these wars doing everything they can to stop any form of alternative energy, development, research, you know, so many of these problems start to go away. We don't have to worry about it anymore. Um, but, you know, Donald doesn't want to look at windmills from his golf course. Speaker 1: And the US administration is busy paying out a billion dollars in settlements for their not to be windmills, right? They gave the go ahead to a bunch of projects. Now they're paying a billion dollars, one billion dollars to not build something that could solve the problem here. Or helps solve the problem. Speaker 2: It's really maddening. Speaker 1: Well, I I mean, for our listeners, man, I hope I hope people are in a financial position to do Jiu-Jitsu six months from now. Uh but it we got to remember this is an optional activity, right? Eating is not optional. Driving to work is not optional. Having a place to live is not optional. Unfortunately, getting dressed up in spandex and trying to hug each other to death, that is optional. Speaker 2: Well, let's uh and and you know, the thing even if this war ends today, right? I heard, you know, somebody way smarter than me on this stuff say that every day that this goes on, the month of impacts that it adds on to what we're currently dealing with. Um, that that is that is a real number that we're even if it stops today, uh the after effects that we're going to be feeling from this are going to go on for for quite some time. And I guess the only solace I can take from it, um, is that as much as the the voting public in the US doesn't care about pedophiles and rapists and charlatans and hucksters, they fucking care about the price of gas and the price of eggs. Um, and if that gets bad enough, you know, maybe they'll fucking vote the right way this time. Uh because they really fucking blew it this time. Speaker 1: I think the feel good wrap up message is on you, my friend. Good luck. Speaker 2: Oh my God. No pressure. Speaker 1: Well, let's all be grateful right now that we can still do Jiu-Jitsu. Speaker 2: Amen to that. Speaker 1: Amen. Because tomorrow's Jiu-Jitsu, tomorrow's time on the mat is not guaranteed. Let's just be grateful we can do it today. And I'm grateful I've got friends like you guys all across this continent to hang out with, some in person and some virtually. So, I appreciate you guys. And maybe one of these days we'll be allowed in Canada and we can come come see Stephen. Speaker 2: Well, that is a that is a dream. Speaker 1: Or alternately, I'll still like a trip to the states won't come with a reasonable chance of a excursion to El Salvador. Speaker 2: Right. Right. Well, underground railroad you in. Speaker 1: I'm a hugger. You get a bear hug the day I meet you.