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What the Hell is Going On w/Barry Lynn
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Dear listener, if you are looking for some respite from the horrors of Modern America, this episode will be of no use to you. Do you despise billionaires? Have you wondered why our “opposition party” is so cowardly? Are you alarmed just how ridiculous national politics can be? Then do we have an urgent and prescient program for you. We’re joined once more by The Reverend Barry Lynn (who had the audacity to ask to appear on our program once more) to talk about what the hell is going on.
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Transcript
Introduction and Barry Lynn's Return
00:00:07
Conor Fowler
Hello, hello. And the birds are chirping here at the Apocalypse Duds headquarters where we sit with no other than Barry Lynn back again.
00:00:19
Conor Fowler
Barry Lynn, a person whose career has put him toe to toe with many people who are even more unpleasant than your two co-hosts this afternoon. ah Barry Lynn has never been removed from a courthouse wall.
00:00:33
Conor Fowler
When Barry Lynn's foot touches yours under the stall divider, dear listener, you can be sure that it was an accident.
00:00:42
Conor Fowler
So welcome, Barry, of course.
Anecdotes and Government Processes
00:00:45
Barry Lynn
it's good to be back very
00:00:46
matt
thanks Thanks for coming on. How are you this almost the end of February somehow day?
00:00:46
Conor Fowler
Yes, yes, yes.
00:00:53
Conor Fowler
Amazingly, yeah
00:00:55
Barry Lynn
No, I'm doing fine. mean, I'm delighted the fact that I live now in Massachusetts. A couple of weeks ago, I woke up. It was eight degrees outside. i didn't get up.
00:01:04
matt
Oh, good grief.
00:01:06
Barry Lynn
I didn't go.
00:01:06
matt
Yeah.
00:01:06
Conor Fowler
Good grief is right.
00:01:07
Barry Lynn
It's very frightening.
00:01:08
Conor Fowler
Is that a pink, is that a pink room, Barry? Cause my, my room is pink too.
00:01:12
Barry Lynn
yeah well this is rose a rose-colored room
00:01:16
Conor Fowler
Ah, rose colored room.
00:01:17
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:01:17
matt
ah
00:01:18
Conor Fowler
That's the episode title right there.
00:01:19
matt
There you go.
00:01:20
Barry Lynn
and
00:01:20
Conor Fowler
ah
00:01:20
Barry Lynn
your But I have a white photo.
00:01:26
Barry Lynn
are over to my left and you can't really see them but one of them is interesting you may you may be interested in this it's a picture of oliver north looking at ah television screen and of course with north i used to do every friday afternoon with him for years
00:01:43
matt
you
00:01:45
Conor Fowler
Right, right.
00:01:46
Barry Lynn
um and i'm on TV in the monitor that he's got behind him and it says, Barry, can I never escape you?
00:01:58
matt
ah
00:01:58
Barry Lynn
So he's a man, you know, a lot of people had a lot of trouble with him, as I think I did, but I have to say the guy had a sense of humor and he was, we used to do things,
00:02:11
Barry Lynn
when we were tired of talking about serious things like once once we attempted to convince people that we were the people because we were a talk show host who weren't supposed to take the overflow during the do not call weekend, which is when you were supposed to be able to call a number in the federal government and then they would take you off the list so you didn't get all these annoying calls.
00:02:36
Conor Fowler
Those were the days.
00:02:38
Barry Lynn
Those were, yeah.
00:02:39
Conor Fowler
Those were the halcyon days of the federal government's effectiveness,
Political Frustrations and Comparisons
00:02:44
Barry Lynn
But it, you got it, but it didn't work too well and it was,
00:02:44
Conor Fowler
responsiveness even.
00:02:48
Conor Fowler
no. No.
00:02:50
Barry Lynn
So we started talking about the Supreme Court, then the producer comes up. A gentleman, he always called us gentlemen. I don't know why. The White House has asked all talk show hosts to take the overflow, the calls from people who don't want to get calls about anything.
00:03:08
Barry Lynn
Will you guys do it? So of course we of course we will. So every line, 10 12 lines, they lit up instantly.
00:03:12
Conor Fowler
Sure.
00:03:18
Barry Lynn
and the first woman calls in and says she wants to get off the month you know i' put on the do i call with And I said, let me just ask you a question.
00:03:29
Barry Lynn
but Are you overweight? And North, you can't ask that.
00:03:32
Conor Fowler
Sure.
00:03:34
Barry Lynn
And I said, well, there might be a little asterisk that wants to be off the list, except for weight loss programs that should.
00:03:44
Barry Lynn
And it just went on and on. i'm convinced every single first to talk to his thought we had somehow magically put them on the
00:03:56
matt
Right, right.
00:03:56
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:03:57
Conor Fowler
Well, and that's the that's the beauty of bureaucracy, right? you don't know whether You don't know how many people are doing the task. It just gets done.
00:04:08
Barry Lynn
ah's Sure.
00:04:08
Conor Fowler
As we're seeing now, is not happening.
Misinformation and Vaccination Policies
00:04:12
Barry Lynn
not happening at all well yeah i'm sure you didn't need to hear that but what's on your mind
00:04:14
matt
Yeah.
00:04:19
matt
ah We were going to kind of start with, you know, just as someone that like yourself, that has been around you know the political circle for a very long time, 2025 so far, what's the lay of the land in your opinion?
00:04:41
Barry Lynn
it's desolate
00:04:42
matt
ah yeah
00:04:44
Barry Lynn
exist You know, I've been through the Reagan administration and through the Bush years, and there is nothing, there is no president who has ever acted this way, and no collection of nitwits who are in the cabinet anything close to the idiots that we now have.
00:04:44
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:05:04
Barry Lynn
we have people let me just start with r of k j and and <unk> because we know he had a worm in his brain for a while and i that's probably you know had some negative effect a it could have had a positive effect because a guy does Yesterday in a press conference, he announces that the measles outbreak in the state of Texas, which is now migrating into New Mexico, is just routine. It happens all the time.
00:05:32
Barry Lynn
It doesn't happen all the time.
00:05:33
matt
Oh, yes.
00:05:35
Barry Lynn
And it's it's potentially fatal if you get something called encephalopathy. measles encephalopathy have learned how to pronounce that for my wife, physician, but this is, it literally rots your brain.
00:05:49
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:05:53
Barry Lynn
And i don't know if either of you had mothers printed to you books by Ruol Dahl.
00:05:59
Conor Fowler
Of course.
00:05:59
matt
oh yes
00:06:00
Barry Lynn
Okay. do Do you know he had his oldest daughter died of measles encephalopathy and he wrote a little piece about it right before he died. And, um, it's horrible.
00:06:12
Barry Lynn
He said he was making uh,
00:06:16
Barry Lynn
animals out of pipe cleaners, you know, which is like the highest form of art I do.
00:06:22
Conor Fowler
He he.
00:06:22
Barry Lynn
And she just didn't seem to be making sense. Three hours later, she went into a coma. 12 hours later, she was dead.
00:06:31
matt
Holy shit.
00:06:32
Barry Lynn
That's how serious it is. And when our own son had cancer when he was five he he went to school he wanted to go to school and he could go to school because we knew that the kids in his class were vaccinated if
00:06:46
matt
Right.
00:06:46
Barry Lynn
there weren't couldn't send them to school and that's that's the story thousands and thousands of families they have very sick kids they don't want to send them into a rome ah home room a classroom where lots of the kids are not
Politeness and Political Discourse
00:07:04
Barry Lynn
vaccinated.
00:07:04
matt
right Yeah.
00:07:04
Barry Lynn
And so, and he didn't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.
00:07:10
Barry Lynn
so this guy is a brilliant
00:07:15
Conor Fowler
well it's like the best thing you could say about him is that he has brain worms.
00:07:21
Barry Lynn
it is it is a compliment
00:07:23
Conor Fowler
Yeah, that's a nice way of explaining behavior.
00:07:25
matt
I mean, I feel like if you're if you're a Kennedy that the Kennedy family has disowned, that's a pretty fucking big like red flag.
00:07:36
Conor Fowler
You really got to be you really got to be messing up with the Kennedy family to kick you out. I mean, they're not like entombing you.
00:07:40
Barry Lynn
Yeah, I mean, the Kennedys, they had issues, but, whatever.
00:07:51
matt
Oh, yeah.
00:07:51
Conor Fowler
ah yeah That's like that's like what ah what they say about, um I don't know, elon Musk, not a very nice man.
00:07:52
matt
Right.
00:07:52
Barry Lynn
No, no.
00:07:56
Barry Lynn
but
00:08:00
Barry Lynn
so
00:08:00
Conor Fowler
It's like understatement and euphemism.
00:08:03
Barry Lynn
You know, Elon Musk, when his program was still called Twitter, I attempted to advertise my trilogy memoir, Paid to Piss People Off.
00:08:17
Barry Lynn
so That's the book. That's the first one.
00:08:20
Conor Fowler
dot that ah Right here.
00:08:22
Barry Lynn
I thank you.
00:08:23
Conor Fowler
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:23
Barry Lynn
there is
00:08:24
Conor Fowler
and we've got a series of books here. Three parter in order.
00:08:26
Barry Lynn
And prayer, all through me. I tried to pay him. Within an hour, somebody on his staff sent back the letter and they said, we're not going to be able to take your ads because it contains materials that may be offensive.
00:08:45
matt
wow
00:08:46
Barry Lynn
Now, what's offensive about those pictures?
00:08:47
Conor Fowler
Yeah, because it started a while ago, this started a while ago.
00:08:51
Barry Lynn
Oh, absolutely. And he... you you know pay to piss people off piss of course one of the seven dirty words george carlin used they got a arrest doing that.
00:09:01
matt
yeah
00:09:02
Barry Lynn
But maybe it's the same. hor which has a picture of a ah statue behind ed mes ahead of the justice department at the time and the statue of the gods of justice for your art command has
00:09:24
Barry Lynn
breast that you can see
00:09:27
Conor Fowler
That's right there is a breast on here
00:09:29
Barry Lynn
i stand for and i'm not
00:09:30
Conor Fowler
for those of you listeners who are in our special ah video podcasting club there, this is some explicit sculpture here.
00:09:36
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:09:40
Barry Lynn
There it is, and that was, yeah, and I did, i may have mentioned this the last time I was on, but I used to refer to that photograph as the two boobs photograph.
00:09:53
Barry Lynn
It's never really not polite, and I try to be polite, but I can't. But there's some people that are just so bad, and I'd be so close to it.
00:10:06
Conor Fowler
I think politeness has gotten us here basically to an extent anyway. I mean, I think that like
Church-State Separation and Education
00:10:14
matt
yeah be Be polite to actually you know rational human beings.
00:10:18
Conor Fowler
people who, people who, like humanity of all humans on this earth.
00:10:20
matt
Yeah. like you You can't be a fucking asshole and not expect someone to like be mean to you.
00:10:28
Barry Lynn
That's correct.
00:10:28
matt
These thin-skinned motherfuckers. Right.
00:10:31
Barry Lynn
Yeah.
00:10:31
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:10:33
Barry Lynn
Thin skin. It's, a it' you know, if you have very thin skin, I understand. can't get a tattoo
00:10:43
matt
Right.
00:10:44
Barry Lynn
true
00:10:45
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:10:45
Barry Lynn
but i would think that both of you probably you probably contemplate but even have a tatoo can i ask you if you either of you has a tattoo
00:10:55
matt
i Yeah, I have a decent amount.
00:10:58
Barry Lynn
Okay.
00:10:58
Conor Fowler
I have none, but I'm thinking of getting some. I'm i'm not going to disclose. Well, I'm getting a gallon of milk tattoo.
00:11:06
Barry Lynn
elephant
00:11:08
Conor Fowler
There's more detail, but it's okay. That's just a figure at the moment.
00:11:10
Barry Lynn
I'm a missing child on it.
00:11:13
Conor Fowler
no No, not a milk carton. A gallon of milk.
00:11:16
Barry Lynn
a gallon of milk in a carton.
00:11:23
matt
It's true.
00:11:23
Conor Fowler
done
00:11:24
Conor Fowler
I thought it was a half gallon in a carton.
00:11:26
Barry Lynn
Now you can get can get either
00:11:34
Barry Lynn
Or a gallon.
00:11:35
Conor Fowler
But I'm saying commonly, at least in my life, the denomination is a jug. And that's what I want on my body because my flesh is the same color.
00:11:41
Barry Lynn
Okay.
00:11:46
Conor Fowler
And I'd like to highlight that even more.
00:11:50
Barry Lynn
Well, don't use the word yoga anymore or you'll get from Twitter. What they call X now. Why is it?
00:11:57
matt
No, it's still Twitter.
00:11:58
Conor Fowler
you can't call it X.
00:11:58
matt
It's still Twitter.
00:12:01
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:12:02
Conor Fowler
Cause then you are letting the weird Nazi dorks win.
00:12:07
Barry Lynn
yeah i think that's true it's um yeah he's terrible and you know most of these things that he's looking for the the statements that he's looked for are politico has been examining the contracts that he claims are filled with fraudt and abuse and and most cases they they aren't they They were never even signed, or they reflect expenditures that never occurred. This guy, everybody, every president that I have ever listened to since isa Eisenhower, Eisenhower on radio, every president wants to end waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:12:48
matt
Right.
00:12:49
Barry Lynn
and it never happens and one of it one of the reasons according to courses to trump is that but people just don't look hard enough But they do look hard, and it's very hard to find waste fraud, and abuse that makes any difference yeah enough and the federal spending.
00:13:08
Conor Fowler
it's this idea that like, they're always looking for voter fraud, which just isn't really happening.
00:13:08
Barry Lynn
Correct.
00:13:17
Conor Fowler
Right. And they're doing voter intimidation, but they're not talking about that.
00:13:24
Barry Lynn
of course not of course not
00:13:26
Conor Fowler
And so it's that kind of like Bing Bao, like, yeah.
00:13:29
matt
Well, it also makes me think of like the USPS situation.
00:13:29
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:13:33
matt
Republicans, the playbook, my entire 41 years on this planet, and I guess starting with Reagan, has been to like... you know, essentially say, you know, X agency or whatever is, is, uh, fucking up, but they're hamstringing all these agencies and programs and things so that then they can point and say, oh yeah, this is why we need to privatize things because USPS is losing money.
00:14:01
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:14:02
matt
Like motherfucker, it's a service. It's ah it's supposed, like it's not,
00:14:06
Conor Fowler
It doesn't have to be profitable.
00:14:07
matt
Yeah, they do things that, you know, them specifically, I'm i'm very passionate about the Postal Service because it rules for the most part. um
00:14:15
matt
But like, yeah, yeah.
00:14:15
Conor Fowler
but it's your It's your vocation, right?
00:14:18
Conor Fowler
It's like your business.
00:14:18
matt
I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I've i shipped, you know, tens of thousands of packages over the years with the USPS.
00:14:19
Conor Fowler
It's a vital part of your work
00:14:28
matt
What other private company can get something from here to fucking, from Atlanta, Georgia to California in two days? No.
00:14:37
Barry Lynn
so i mean, leave you but.
00:14:37
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:14:39
Conor Fowler
No, and it's...
00:14:40
Barry Lynn
That's correct. Oh, yeah. eighty dollars they might but
00:14:43
matt
Right, right, yeah.
00:14:44
Conor Fowler
You wouldn't have you know?
00:14:44
matt
like i can I can do USPS Express or I can pay $9.20, whatever a flat rate padded envelope is now. I think i think that's it. And you know it's there in two days and the customer and myself are both happy.
00:14:59
Barry Lynn
that's correct
00:15:00
Conor Fowler
And FedEx is anti-union too. Like, you yeah.
00:15:03
matt
Yeah, fuck FedEx.
00:15:04
Barry Lynn
ah
00:15:04
matt
in it
00:15:05
Barry Lynn
i
00:15:06
Conor Fowler
Cause they're like the big, they that's like a big, they're the big Memphis outfit, right?
00:15:13
Barry Lynn
I mean, did the frightening thing about the last election is when you look at the number of African-Americans who voted for him, you look at the number of Hispanic males mainly who voted for him, and you look at the number of union members who voted for him, and it's shocking.
00:15:26
matt
Right.
00:15:29
Barry Lynn
like you know
00:15:32
Barry Lynn
ah try to be a good person and i gotta to tell you television says I voted for Trump. I'm a member of the United Auto Workers Union. I voted for him.
00:15:43
matt
Right.
00:15:44
Barry Lynn
And now i I might get screwed by the tariffs. I say, well, look into it before you vote. Don't blame, don't moan about it.
00:15:51
matt
Right.
00:15:54
Barry Lynn
And if I, don't get me started on Democrats who don't do much of anything.
00:15:58
matt
Yeah, I was going to say, like the but Democratic Party has done very little in um my lifetime for who for the people that have been their base since the dawn of fucking time.
00:16:00
Conor Fowler
Yeah, we'd love to get started on Democrats, frankly.
00:16:05
Barry Lynn
Very well.
00:16:08
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:16:13
Barry Lynn
yeah Well, what they do, what they could do now, see, they're very nervous about everything. They're nervous about their own reelections. And so they don't do anything that might make them look bad.
00:16:27
Barry Lynn
Now, think of all the things that the Trump folks did in the first term and look at the stuff they've done in the last six weeks. They're doing all kinds of nutty things.
00:16:38
Barry Lynn
They don't care about it.
00:16:39
matt
Yeah.
00:16:40
Barry Lynn
But here are some things. democrats could do in the senate most of the senate business is conducted through something called unanimous consent that is everybody just agrees we don't waste time with it would just agree to move on to something else but you know
00:16:56
Conor Fowler
great way of doing this.
00:16:57
matt
Right, right, yeah.
00:16:58
Barry Lynn
no After the prayer in the morning, which the the Senate does every every day,
Censorship and Intellectual Freedom
00:17:05
Barry Lynn
and um nobody actually listens to it, of course, but it's but then they do unanimous consent to dispose of the reading of the last day's record.
00:17:16
Barry Lynn
In other words, a congressional record from the day before. And it always passes by unanimous consent. but some
00:17:23
matt
Right.
00:17:24
Barry Lynn
but could just say wait no i object and they have to take a vote on and then they have to take a vote and get sixty people on the floor to vote
00:17:31
matt
Right.
00:17:35
Barry Lynn
that causes another wonderful thing that i used to do with democrats and republicans suggest the absence of a quorum we remember sixty
00:17:45
matt
right
00:17:46
Barry Lynn
then you have to They have to drag those people out. They have to come to the floor, and then they can vote. Why not waste time? Who cares what it takes?
00:17:56
Barry Lynn
What in the hell is the United States Senate likely to do in its minority position when it can't even get most of the chairs of the committees in the Senate to even pay attention to what the Democrats are saying?
00:18:12
Barry Lynn
Nothing is going to happen.
00:18:14
matt
Right. ever
00:18:16
matt
the There's a ah a viral tweet from 2018 that lives ring-free in my head that is, the last decade has been the Democrats clinging on to the rule book going, but a dog can't play basketball while a dog fucking dunks on us over and over.
00:18:16
Barry Lynn
terribly important.
00:18:19
Barry Lynn
It's terrible. I'm not a big fan of
00:18:31
matt
Like, if that doesn't if that doesn't sum up at least the past, i don't know, 15, 20 years,
00:18:32
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:18:40
matt
that
00:18:41
Barry Lynn
it's it's terrible and you know i'm not a big fan of third parties because i don't don't expect to live long enough for one to ever become significant enough but at least they stand for something.
00:18:52
matt
yeah
00:18:52
Barry Lynn
And if you, it is famously said, if you stand for nothing, you fall for anything.
00:18:59
matt
yeah
00:18:59
Barry Lynn
think the famous rock singer said that, although I don't remember who it was.
00:19:03
Barry Lynn
But it wasn't Bob Dylan.
00:19:06
matt
ah Who was that?
00:19:06
Conor Fowler
That's kind of like Bob, doesn't it?
00:19:08
matt
It kind of does. or Neil, maybe?
00:19:11
Barry Lynn
Could be Neil Young, yeah.
00:19:13
matt
Yeah.
00:19:14
matt
I know the quote. i cannot I cannot remember who said it first.
00:19:14
Barry Lynn
Could be.
00:19:16
Barry Lynn
Yeah. Well,
00:19:19
Conor Fowler
I'm looking.
00:19:20
Barry Lynn
Perhaps your co-host will go deep into his brain and find not a worm, but the answer to this question.
00:19:24
matt
Yeah, Avengers Connor.
00:19:31
Conor Fowler
Uh, so this, uh, wow. So it's attributed to Alexander Hamilton actually.
00:19:38
matt
Oh, interesting.
Charter Schools vs. Public Schools
00:19:39
Barry Lynn
Okay.
00:19:40
Conor Fowler
ah but I'm pretty sure that it's in a song too. I'm still, we're doing some research here at the HQ.
00:19:50
Barry Lynn
don't think he had a but he might have had a
00:19:53
Barry Lynn
but he didn't
00:19:53
matt
oh oh wait, du did was it a Lin-Manuel Miranda song?
00:19:54
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:19:58
Conor Fowler
Perhaps. No.
00:20:01
Barry Lynn
No, it's the day it lands.
00:20:01
Conor Fowler
ah
00:20:02
Barry Lynn
Yeah.
00:20:06
Conor Fowler
yeah. Misattributed to cause like Google is so shitty now that it's impossible really to find anything.
00:20:11
matt
Yeah.
00:20:11
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:20:16
Conor Fowler
um
00:20:19
Conor Fowler
Yeah, this is really amazing because it's like there are so many results for Hamilton, which is ah right is a musical about Hamilton, but it's a mystery anyway.
00:20:29
matt
Yeah.
00:20:30
Conor Fowler
So it's impossible to find anything because there's so much shit.
00:20:33
Barry Lynn
and Forget it. You know, it's one of those things. It doesn't matter.
00:20:37
matt
Right.
00:20:38
Conor Fowler
At the end of the day, probably doesn't matter very much, at least not to our not to our busy listeners.
00:20:44
Barry Lynn
Of course, they have other things to do. i mean, once they finish listening, do people eat while they listen to this show?
00:20:51
Conor Fowler
Not our fans, no. Everyone ah who's listening to this show is doing it with their eyes and ears forced open.
00:21:01
Barry Lynn
kidding
00:21:01
Conor Fowler
Like a clock orange. Yeah, it's really...
00:21:05
matt
Well, good.
00:21:06
Barry Lynn
Well, now, you you ah suggested maybe we should chat a little bit about church-state separation, which is something I did for a very, very long time, a quarter of a century, running Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
00:21:20
Barry Lynn
And things were... not looking great at the end of my ten years but now
00:21:29
matt
Yeah, yeah. We were going to ask, you know, how the Christian nationalist ah tactics have kind of changed over your, you know, over the span of your life and career.
00:21:41
Barry Lynn
Yeah, I mean, in some ways it didn't change very much. They always were concerned mostly with making sure that they had younger ah people who could fill in, you know, that they might get elected to the school board.
00:21:55
Barry Lynn
And then if they were right-wing enough and Christian enough, as they define what it is to be a Christian, then maybe by the time they hit their 30s, they run college.
00:22:03
Conor Fowler
Thanks.
00:22:05
Barry Lynn
and ralph reid who na predate you but he talk about my age and he ran pat robertson's one for the presidency actually ran for the presidency once.
00:22:20
Barry Lynn
and And then he got the mailing list from the Pat Robertson for president, which is a great, that's a, you want to start a nonprofit or a political action committee, make sure you have access to some really good lists because those are the ones you're going to go to first.
00:22:26
matt
Thank you.
00:22:37
Barry Lynn
Those are the ones that have a built-in interest in whatever
Religion, Atheism, and Society
00:22:40
Barry Lynn
you're promoting. And those are the people who are going to send money first and that's how you get raise more money But Reid always said he would rather have 65 people in the House than the President of the United States because they can be manipulated.
00:23:01
Conor Fowler
Well, and that's how it's written in the constitution.
00:23:04
Barry Lynn
Of course.
00:23:04
Conor Fowler
That's the function of it. And that is the function of the whole body.
00:23:07
Barry Lynn
Yeah.
00:23:09
Conor Fowler
so it just is like the, you're right. The Republicans have gotten lower offices in huge amounts. And I think that that has been very effective.
00:23:19
Barry Lynn
It's been very, any other thing is you don't back down. That's john Tom Petty. Don't back down.
00:23:24
matt
Right, yes.
00:23:24
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:23:25
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:23:25
Barry Lynn
I didn't want you to think that at the age of 76, I wasn't listening to rock and roll anymore because I am.
00:23:32
Barry Lynn
But you say boo to most Democrats and they oh, we've had to think about it. They cover your face and they think about it and then they hope they never have to vote on it.
00:23:32
Conor Fowler
But of course,
00:23:39
matt
Right.
00:23:44
matt
Right.
00:23:45
Barry Lynn
It's not leadership. Leadership is when you say you say this is what i believe these are the things i stand for don't distract me worrying about drag queens had a library in some other state
00:23:55
matt
Right.
00:23:59
Barry Lynn
these are the things that matter and these are what this is what we're going to do and the other side doesn't want to do it don't tell me well you know where we like might run out of money for Social Security we don't want to think about it too much but things like Medicaid those people are probably too poor to even vote just they don't have time to find your way to get to the polling plate
00:24:25
matt
Right.
00:24:30
Barry Lynn
so we can mess with them and when you start talking about idiots are talking about
00:24:39
Barry Lynn
hundreds of billions of dollars cut from the people in some counties, in some red states. As many as 55% of the people living in those counties depend on Medicaid.
00:24:55
matt
hundred percent
00:24:56
Barry Lynn
Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely shocking. But he then you have Elon Musk who goes to one of the, i used to go to these right-wing conferences and for a year or two I could actually kind of go incognito.
00:25:09
Barry Lynn
But then I was on television with so many of these people for so many times.
00:25:10
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:25:14
Barry Lynn
I couldn't, they could just, people come up to me, go, can I have your autograph? I who was watching on TV with, and then they made some right there. Just to show how non-capitalist I am, I am.
00:25:28
Barry Lynn
I didn't charge him for it. I would just sign it. I used to say, $8.95, please, and I'll sign your piece of paper.
00:25:40
Barry Lynn
But I didn't do that.
00:25:42
matt
Right, right, because you're a
00:25:43
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:25:43
Conor Fowler
Did you wear a disguise?
00:25:46
Barry Lynn
What?
00:25:47
Conor Fowler
You said you went incognito. Did you wear a disguise?
00:25:50
Barry Lynn
no I don't know. I'd just been hired. I mean, i would just wander around. Nobody would
00:25:57
Conor Fowler
ah So you weren't at the height of your...
00:25:57
Barry Lynn
and
00:25:59
Conor Fowler
i see
Political and Social Critique
00:26:00
Barry Lynn
I mean, the first two years, I think, I was pretty, I'm not, but 25th year, you know, I couldn't go anywhere close to a right winger. And they, I mean, on the street occasionally, remember it was Chicago once, I had just spoken to the National Education Association about public schools, you know, which, have problems but they're way better than any alternatives at any
00:26:09
matt
right
00:26:26
Barry Lynn
particularly the wife of the worldwide wrestling federation
00:26:31
matt
Oh, God.
00:26:32
Barry Lynn
You know, actually,
00:26:33
matt
I kind of forgot that that ah Linda McMahon was in this administration until just now.
00:26:37
Barry Lynn
yeah.
00:26:39
matt
And I'm really, really mad that you brought that up to my attention again.
00:26:43
Barry Lynn
If you watch the Netflix special on McMahon, on her husband, and on professional wrestling, and I don't want to be too crass here because i was a, when I was in junior high school, I didn't, I couldn't drive.
00:26:58
Barry Lynn
My parents wouldn't drive me anywhere like to see a professional wrestling match in philadelphia who lived in bethle pennsylvania
00:27:05
Conor Fowler
Uh-huh.
00:27:05
Barry Lynn
but I watched that, and I saw the these tens of thousands of people all cheering the worst of the worst professional wrestlers of their generation, which is kind a half a generation beyond where I was interested in it.
00:27:19
matt
Right.
00:27:23
Barry Lynn
But I thought, God, you know, these people could all vote for Trump. It was the first time.
00:27:30
matt
It's true.
00:27:30
Barry Lynn
It was the first time. i was with
00:27:36
Barry Lynn
the night that there was this alleged assassination attempt on the president and so the comedians changed some of the jokes and everybody said and I think most people believed it I mean I i believed it at the time like you you don't get anywhere with political violence that turns out to be a lie because you do because you get pardoned and it's not only the people who
00:27:46
Conor Fowler
Bless his heart.
00:27:51
matt
Right.
00:28:00
matt
right
00:28:06
Barry Lynn
were at the capitol and yelling and screaming or breaking a window, but people who killed police officers also were pardoned. Nobody expected him that.
00:28:15
Conor Fowler
Yeah, armed.
00:28:17
Barry Lynn
And then when you go through the list, all the people that were prosecuted for violating the rights of women to go health centers to obtain an abortion, those creeps were pardoned also.
00:28:31
Barry Lynn
So don't, you know, let's not get too blasé about this. if you
00:28:36
matt
hundred percent
00:28:37
Barry Lynn
you have if you commit acts of political violence and then the person that he's on the outs, gets on the in, they'll pardon you.
00:28:49
Barry Lynn
That's the lesson to be learned from what Trump has done. When people call me now, because the do not call list is just a joke, they call to raise money for these police foundations and they go, you we we represent a police, political action committee.
00:28:52
matt
Totally.
00:29:06
Barry Lynn
And I go, no oh no, I'm, I'm not for the police. I'm with Donald Trump. Shoot him. That's okay. I mean, so what?
00:29:18
Barry Lynn
This is the kind of hate. These people do not care about anybody, anything, except themselves and their pocketbooks.
00:29:23
matt
No.
00:29:25
matt
Yeah. And like, it's, you know, it's, it's a big thing to dunk on these people on whatever, you know, whatever platform that you use, but they don't respond to that.
00:29:39
matt
They,
Tesla, Elon Musk, and Cultural Symbols
00:29:40
matt
they, like you said, don't give a shit about anyone except for themselves and, the people that are paying and lining their pockets and you know, the other fucking oligarchs that run in their circles.
00:29:54
matt
That's it.
00:29:56
Barry Lynn
yeah i mean they're all upset about dei and now these private companies they' to care what the opinion of the president is on diversity.
00:30:03
matt
No, no.
00:30:05
Barry Lynn
But they're starting because they all have interests. I just...
00:30:08
Conor Fowler
They're all showing their ass. I mean, it's like everyone is showing their ass.
00:30:10
matt
Yeah. Well, I,
00:30:12
Barry Lynn
Of course, it's...
00:30:12
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:30:13
matt
I have said to many people ah that I talk to regularly, to early pandemic, 2020, the but like increased ah you know pay for unemployment, et cetera, et cetera.
00:30:30
matt
like All of the things that that we saw showed what the federal government is actually capable of. And it scared the shit out of everyone in a certain you know above a certain pay grade.
00:30:43
matt
Which, you know, also, i had high hopes in after the uprising in 2020 that that we might see, a you know, kind of FDR point 2.0 with Biden and it didn't fucking happen.
00:30:56
Barry Lynn
It did not. Yes,
00:30:57
matt
Like they that would have like basically shored up support for the Democratic Party for a general almost a generation, just like the New Deal did.
00:31:08
matt
And it it didn't happen because, you know, the CEOs of Delta and, you know, Jeff Bezos and all these ah other assholes, like, they control things.
00:31:21
Barry Lynn
yeah same too
00:31:22
matt
Yeah. And it's fucking, it's it's maddening to, like, think about how, you know, how much better we could be as a society five years from then.
00:31:34
matt
and and And we're back to, you know, we're back to like just post 9-11 shit, essentially.
00:31:34
Conor Fowler
Matt.
00:31:40
matt
but
00:31:40
Conor Fowler
Seriously.
00:31:41
Conor Fowler
Seriously. Well, Matt talks about the, uh, the football being removed from the peanuts cartoon. Like this being the Democrats, like the Democrats have the fucking football yanked out from one of them every time.
00:31:48
matt
Oh, yeah.
00:31:53
matt
Yeah. but
00:31:54
Conor Fowler
Well, it's like they, it's like they have a special talent for it because it's deliberate.
00:32:00
Conor Fowler
Right? Like,
00:32:01
matt
Oh, I definitely think it's deliberate.
00:32:03
Conor Fowler
Yeah, it's they all they all reach a certain income bracket and then it's like, oh shit, we're got to own.
00:32:03
Barry Lynn
hit been
00:32:08
matt
I mean, to bring up George Carlin again, you know it's a big club and you ain't in it.
00:32:12
Conor Fowler
hmm.
00:32:14
matt
You and
Leadership and Historical Parallels
00:32:15
matt
I are not in the fucking club.
00:32:15
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:32:16
Barry Lynn
That is absolutely right.
00:32:17
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:32:19
Barry Lynn
I think there are some really there's good work that's being done by some of the places that you can usually get to most of their material without hitting a paywall.
00:32:31
Barry Lynn
But like which has been around for a long
00:32:35
Conor Fowler
Sure.
00:32:36
Barry Lynn
but to
00:32:37
Conor Fowler
One of the first blogs, basically.
00:32:39
Barry Lynn
eyes and and and a great blog and i mean
00:32:46
Barry Lynn
There's a Barry Lynn with a C, not a W. Barry C. Lynn, and he's a big anti-Walmart guy. And he, but he, yeah, we used to get each other's phone calls, including in the middle of the night.
00:32:54
Conor Fowler
she God bless him.
00:33:02
Barry Lynn
and Which is, you know, is Barry Lynn? I don't know. But I am. but Oh, yeah. they just made an announcement about some antitrust thing.
00:33:14
Barry Lynn
like, no, that's the other guy calling it.
00:33:16
Conor Fowler
sure
00:33:17
Barry Lynn
But, but, but, did something where they screwed the two of us up. And then for a long time, he said, well, you could just write for us for a while. Did that for a while.
00:33:28
Barry Lynn
And, uh, but it's even better. I mean, it's much better. It's much, the satire is much better. We don't have many satirists around, uh,
00:33:37
Conor Fowler
Well, Gawker is gone. And Gawker, I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of the their work is underappreciated.
00:33:45
matt
I gotta say, though, the Onion has been on fire for the past few years.
00:33:49
Barry Lynn
And
00:33:49
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:33:49
matt
yeah Again, again.
00:33:55
Barry Lynn
who else do I read every day? don't know. But anyway, there are very few, but there's there are no people like the satirists that I suspect you don't know until I'm old.
00:34:07
Barry Lynn
You're not old. Paul Krasner.
00:34:11
Conor Fowler
Like Thomas Nast.
00:34:14
Barry Lynn
Paul Krasner is a good friend, and he was
00:34:15
matt
Oh, yeah.
00:34:18
Barry Lynn
the editor of something called the realist and it came on kind of newsprint every month. And he was the most brilliant satirist that I've ever read.
00:34:30
Barry Lynn
he i think he was even better than Carlin was. And he he eventually got very sick, and he died a few years ago. But he would do things.
00:34:42
Barry Lynn
he He did the most dramatic thing that he wrote, and you can still find this on the internet
00:34:52
Barry Lynn
william manchester's book about the assassination of kennedy
00:34:56
Conor Fowler
Sure.
00:34:56
Barry Lynn
franner said was missing how
00:35:00
matt
Thank you.
00:35:02
Barry Lynn
want you to be snow off the internet but that lyndon johnson was actually having sex with kennedy's body on the plane from texas so wash
00:35:16
Conor Fowler
Well done, well done. I like that sort of thing.
00:35:20
Barry Lynn
And then, so I came to the college to do, we did a protest at the Army War College, which was located at the time and probably still is in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where went to college.
00:35:20
Conor Fowler
Very good.
00:35:33
Barry Lynn
And so he came and they were having an art exhibit of student art with this really pompous professor of art. And so I went in and I took a center for me
00:35:53
Barry Lynn
disney characters all engaged in the kinds of activities that they should not have been engaged in, like sex between a mouse or have a dumbo He was so...
00:36:04
matt
Yes.
00:36:07
Conor Fowler
who Who knew where we would go on this program? I mean, that oh, the places you'll go.
00:36:14
Barry Lynn
oh
00:36:14
Conor Fowler
ah We've got Ariel and Ursula. They're doing it. Everyone's doing it. All the Disney characters. They've got it going on.
00:36:22
Barry Lynn
he was so professor was so mad he ripped it down and never I don't think he ever spoke to me again but who cares you know at some point you just lose he just loses interest in what people think about you or what they say about you you just go okay I don't agree with you yeah we could say that but you disagree without being disagreeable please don't say that
00:36:43
Conor Fowler
Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree. right Yeah, some stupid shit like that.
00:36:54
Barry Lynn
Because no rock star has ever said that.
00:36:55
Conor Fowler
No, no, no. And i'm not I'm not very agreeable to begin with. My roommate in... so Well, he wasn't
Cultural Shifts and Conclusion
00:37:03
Conor Fowler
my roommate. He was my friend's roommate. He was a great artist.
00:37:08
Conor Fowler
So he drew penises on everything like photorealistic, shaded, detailed. ah just Just amazing. I think in the same vein, no pun intended.
00:37:22
Conor Fowler
ah
00:37:23
Barry Lynn
got it
00:37:25
Conor Fowler
So where are we going?
00:37:25
Barry Lynn
i
00:37:26
Conor Fowler
Shirley. where have we gone ah
00:37:29
Barry Lynn
Did you want to know about the two worst things that could happen to church-state separation in the next few months?
00:37:35
matt
Yes.
00:37:36
Conor Fowler
surely
00:37:37
Barry Lynn
Two big Supreme Court cases.
00:37:37
matt
Right.
00:37:39
Barry Lynn
There are these entities now in many states and including of columbia were used to live that are called charter schools and they are public schools but they don't have certain kind of regulations attached to them and i remember ralph nader uh you know i knew i don't i don't have much contact with him anymore but he he calls me one day and he says he's on the board of this foundation you're thinking of giving a lot of money for charter school program test program some state
00:37:58
matt
right
00:38:08
Conor Fowler
Sure.
00:38:18
Barry Lynn
i said well that's a dumb idea he said well this we're having lunch come over them eat a sandwich and then tell them what's wrong with this and if there are rules and regulations that are no good why don't you just say you know no school has to obey them why say well if you apply to be a charter school because you don't like red tape of this kind or that kind if it's no good then get rid of it for everybody and don't let that become the excuse but most importantly you can't be a religious
00:38:49
Barry Lynn
institution and have the school think of all the private schools you know Almost all of them are run by religious groups, many from the Catholic Church.
00:38:58
matt
Right.
00:38:59
Barry Lynn
And that's fine. I mean, if you want to do that, fine. But you're not supposed to be getting any public funds. Now, two schools, two religious schools, have sued, and the court case is coming up in a few weeks, that they want to be able to specifically promote catholic theology and get state funds to do so.
00:39:26
Barry Lynn
That's unheard of. That has never happened.
00:39:27
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:39:29
Barry Lynn
Why did the court take this? Actually, they take it because they want to make sure that the majority view of the nine members of the court is reflected in the decision.
00:39:43
Barry Lynn
So they if they believe that they will be able to allow these so-called charter schools
00:39:43
matt
Right.
00:39:51
Barry Lynn
to teach religion okay that's bad shortly thereafter a week or two later they're going to argue case from I think from the state of Maryland where I used to live and a group of parents got upset because their children had been exposed to some stories about LGBTQ plus people including a book called
00:40:03
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:40:21
Barry Lynn
puppy pride where a puppy gets lost at an LGBTQ plus parade.
00:40:28
Conor Fowler
wow
00:40:28
Barry Lynn
they said our children, their their religious values will be compromised by this. Now this has been going on for a long time and they want to be, they want to opt out of it. That's the first step. And I'm afraid to court
00:40:45
Barry Lynn
but Then the next time this comes up, what the parents do is, you know, but there's a whole series of books. I remember one series by Holt, H-O-L-T, a big publishing company.
00:40:57
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:40:57
Barry Lynn
And they said, there's so much in this whole series of books that's used from eight, grades four to six. We don't want them to be used for any more.
00:41:08
Barry Lynn
So in other words, you start out and say, well, I don't my child. in my Snowflake family, and be exposed to some kind of lesbian stuff.
00:41:21
Barry Lynn
Now they say, we don't want you to use this entire raft of books, this entire series, because they're all compromised, because they have have to some kind of bad stuff in them.
00:41:35
Barry Lynn
And what most school districts do, they don't want to hear this. There are some very courageous librarians and people on state schools.
00:41:42
Conor Fowler
Ooh, that's true. That's really true. And librarians sort of bear the brunt of this weirdly.
00:41:48
matt
Librarians should run everything, if I'm being honest.
00:41:51
Conor Fowler
real.
00:41:52
Barry Lynn
I think that, yeah, except, a yeah, they probably should. The two favorite groups I had talked to talk to were witches and librarians.
00:42:03
matt
fantastic.
00:42:05
Barry Lynn
I used to do a podcast, another podcast, where I had it somebody on every every Thursday. And I had this wonderful Wiccan priestess out in the Midwest, very, very nice person.
00:42:20
Barry Lynn
And I mentioned this to her and then I just said, oh, by the way, is there some kind of subgroup that I could talk to? Wiccan librarians.
00:42:31
Barry Lynn
I would love to talk to them.
00:42:31
Conor Fowler
yeah Yeah, that's the truth right there.
00:42:36
Barry Lynn
don't know.
00:42:39
Barry Lynn
So if censorship based on religion can get your kid out of a class and then maybe two years from now can get them out of having to deal with an entire set of books yeah classroom
00:42:55
Barry Lynn
religiously based censorship has won. And it hasn't won much so far. but this will be the opening val opening
00:43:02
matt
Yeah.
00:43:04
Barry Lynn
in what
00:43:04
matt
I mean,
00:43:05
Barry Lynn
struck if to change correct
00:43:08
matt
i feel like that you know that also goes back into the conservative playbook, which is you know essentially demonizing an entire group ah or idea or whatever under the guise of like, oh, we're just expressing our free speech to to not take part of this.
00:43:14
Conor Fowler
Truly a
00:43:29
matt
And it's like... That kind of falls apart. I mean, honestly, everything they say falls apart if you really, really look into it. But it's it's the same shit, just day in, day out with them.
00:43:42
Barry Lynn
and i really want people to be stupid i mean
00:43:45
matt
Yeah, oh yeah.
00:43:47
Barry Lynn
just One more point on charter schools. when they When there's a place like Arizona where they have charter schools and private schools that aren't getting funded and then there are public schools, guess what group of schools comes out lowest in all of the test scores?
00:44:03
Barry Lynn
Charter schools.
00:44:05
matt
Right.
00:44:06
Barry Lynn
They come out...
00:44:06
Conor Fowler
Oh yeah, they're bad. I mean, we have them in in Baltimore. ah Not as many as there used to be because of course they showed their ass in the way that they do. Right. When that kind of thing comes to town. ah Yeah. It's like so weirdly, ah weirdly prison close to the prison Industrial complex. I mean, that that kind of thinking, like really being rationing, it's just just like bad.
00:44:40
Conor Fowler
These are these are people here in the schools that I work in.
00:44:45
Barry Lynn
i mean it's it's just terrible you know for public schools do they have problems yes we've all
00:44:50
matt
Oh, absolutely.
00:44:52
Barry Lynn
you know, I went to a high school of 1,100 students in its graduating class, not in the whole school, 1,100 students. And it was a big school.
00:45:04
Barry Lynn
And things got screwed up, and there were racial incidents.
00:45:04
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:45:08
Barry Lynn
and there But never, it's 100 times better than forming a little school for you and six people in your cave dwelling.
00:45:20
Barry Lynn
and then you go to the other caves where people that are just like you roll
00:45:24
matt
Right.
00:45:25
Barry Lynn
listening That's the worst. You don't you cannot have a decent country, a well-kept society that doesn't recognize that there are people with different ideas that look different, that have different religious or non-religious beliefs.
00:45:41
Barry Lynn
If you don't share in the idea that we have a village of people and they don't all look then the country instead
00:45:52
matt
Totally. so And like as and as a very staunch atheist, ah maybe I brought this up the last time that that you were on, but I grew up Southern Baptist, you know, have have in my adult life transitioned to being like very much an atheist.
00:45:53
Conor Fowler
man.
00:46:09
matt
I don't give a fuck if someone, find you know, gets something out of their religion as long as like you're not harming people and it's bettering you as a human being.
00:46:21
matt
Do I want, you know, do I want a bunch of like white supremacist evangelical people to, to like, you know, be around and have their little echo chamber?
00:46:32
matt
Fuck no, because that's not reality.
00:46:37
Barry Lynn
that's correct and
00:46:38
matt
Right.
00:46:39
Barry Lynn
of the day yeah the third most interesting group i my like to talk to were atheists
00:46:46
matt
Right.
00:46:47
Barry Lynn
but they were and every time I'd speak at some atheist convention or something that whoever would introduce me would say well Barry is not an atheist but he's the only theist I know that I don't want to convert to atheism you know and that's that's good and but and the convert
00:47:02
matt
Right, right.
00:47:11
Barry Lynn
you know the the dropoff in organized religion is intense. Maybe people should think about that a little bit more within the Protestant mainstream. Catholic Church is still very, very strong in many, many states.
00:47:25
Barry Lynn
But even there, if you do, as we did once, focus groups on Catholic churchgoers. i mean, these were not fallen Catholics. so These are people are going to church.
00:47:39
Barry Lynn
And You'd have the moderator say something like, well, I mean, but do you believe everything that the priest says? I'll never forget one guy who said, well, I believe everything until they start talking about contraception and that they're against it.
00:47:57
Barry Lynn
Then I stop listening.
00:48:00
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:48:01
Barry Lynn
but And there's a whole organization you might want to talk to themselves.
00:48:07
Barry Lynn
and so it's so wonderful organization and the name the person who' is running it now but they but they they're basically saying look we're Catholics, but we are in favor of choice. And of course, the Catholic Church used to be in favor of choice.
00:48:22
matt
Right, 100%. Certainly,
00:48:24
Barry Lynn
And the Southern Baptist Convention, you know, when Roe versus Wade was first passed, the guy who was their kind of commenter on all things public that happened was asked what he thought. And he said, this is probably a good decision because it takes it out of the real of portion out of the real of policy and into the realm of morality where people can make up their own
00:48:50
matt
certainly. certainly
00:48:52
Barry Lynn
He later became the chair of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. That's how he was. They threw him out eventually, and that's that's where he decided to land.
00:49:06
Barry Lynn
I mean, an extraordinary change. If you look at plug one other thing that had nothing to do with but and you heard my friend john fuel was
00:49:23
Barry Lynn
he does a talk show on sirius x m and he's coming out with a book called separation of church and hate And he says, beginning out, he's not a theologian.
00:49:34
Barry Lynn
He's not a Bible scholar. But he just wants people to understand what the Bible really says, what it doesn't say.
00:49:40
matt
Right.
00:49:42
Barry Lynn
And, of course, most of the stuff that the Christian nationalists say has nothing to do with the Bible. Or if it does, it might be in some letter of Paul, who, of course, was not Jesus.
00:49:53
Barry Lynn
And he was a guy who... conourion
00:50:00
Barry Lynn
but He's a theologian. I mean, he's most different than Barry Lynn, Jerry Falwell. They're just people with opinions. He didn't, and I think it's a great book. I hope it does very well, Separation of Church
00:50:14
matt
Yeah, I've seen some of that dude's writing and he seems to be pretty on the level.
00:50:19
Barry Lynn
Yeah, he is. He is.
00:50:20
matt
Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, I feel like as as I've gotten older i and, and you know, have have not
00:50:31
matt
have not had, you know, a God figure in my life. Like, I understand Jesus' weight and certain parts of varying religions way more because it's basically you just like how to be a good person if you if you really boil it down to like what it's supposed to be.
00:50:49
Barry Lynn
right
00:50:50
Conor Fowler
Amen. but
00:50:51
matt
Yeah, and and it fucking sucks that these assholes have like commandeered all this.
00:50:58
Barry Lynn
Yep. He was. He was.
00:51:00
matt
Yeah, yeah. he He was, you know, he was a brown ah Palestinian Jew, basically a communist, you know? Like, come on.
00:51:09
Conor Fowler
No machine guns. He didn't have any machine guns.
00:51:11
matt
Come on, y'all. Right, right. Yeah. ah it's It's not the white Republican Jesus that all these pricks think is the Messiah.
00:51:21
Barry Lynn
No, it's not.
00:51:22
Conor Fowler
Believe it or not, no car, no truck.
00:51:23
Barry Lynn
Okay.
00:51:26
matt
Well... Well, on that note, let's end with, let's end with this and talk, talk a little shit for the last few minutes of this. Uh, it's really funny that Tesla has gone from basically, you know, a leftist or lefty tech bro vehicle to basically a Mac, a chud paperweight in only a few years, especially the cyber truck, which is ungodly.
00:51:26
Conor Fowler
Just rope sandals.
00:51:54
matt
Um,
00:51:56
Conor Fowler
Well, that's what that's what ah Affordable Wardrobe said about that um thing where I posted the guy said he was getting rid of his Tesla. ah people had People had been Heil Hitler-ing him.
00:52:09
matt
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:10
Conor Fowler
so
00:52:11
matt
Fucking great.
00:52:12
Conor Fowler
but Affordable Wardrobe said is first they bought the Tesla to virtue signal in that way. Now they want to distance themselves from the Tesla to virtue signal in a different way. So...
00:52:23
matt
Yeah, is this just like, is this whole transformation? i mean, Elon Musk, I feel like, has been a well-known asshole for a very long time.
00:52:31
Conor Fowler
Oh, certainly.
00:52:31
matt
but But is this, you know, he's somewhat speed running the gauntlet of like, oh, this person is not actually like hyper intelligent. They're just hyper wealthy and they can they can buy ideas from people.
00:52:47
matt
Like, ah yeah, yeah.
00:52:47
Conor Fowler
The downfall will be sweet, definitely.
00:52:50
matt
are Are people waking up to this fact that like, you know, the the technology could be good, but the people running it are just fucking chuds?
00:52:55
Barry Lynn
i see yeah I think people are waking up. I'm just not sure that there aren't people waking up yet to make a difference.
00:53:07
Barry Lynn
you know There are three elections coming up for House seats where the member of the House in two cases has already... left the house and is in the trump administration and won is going to be the
00:53:22
Barry Lynn
delegate to the united nation from upstate new york She's still in Congress, but she will have to leave when that appointment goes through. and the appointments all go through.
00:53:34
Barry Lynn
I mean, nobody gets stopped, no matter whether you're RFK Jr.
00:53:38
matt
yeah yeah
00:53:40
Barry Lynn
Every Democrat voted for Marco Rubio to be the Secretary of State. Marco Rubio has not had a left of center thought in his entire life.
00:53:51
matt
Right?
00:53:52
Barry Lynn
I did 99% of the people who were why get in by and think was ninety eight to zero but i mean there's no excuse for that if you don't push back if you don't make a case for why somebody is not any good to serve.
00:54:08
Barry Lynn
And if you don't have the courage to do the things that I mentioned earlier that just screw up the process, because what are these people in these positions going to accomplish that makes any difference for the American people?
00:54:24
Barry Lynn
When you talk about FDR, people should read some of those books, William Manchester's book about the the first half of the 20th century, and just the incredible things that happened.
00:54:37
Barry Lynn
People were so pissed that they did extraordinary things, and the Congress listened, and all kinds of things happened.
00:54:45
matt
Right.
00:54:47
Barry Lynn
and now we have nothing that's good is likely to have
00:54:51
matt
We don't even have the pussy hat liberal resistance that we had the first term. And that's...
00:54:56
Conor Fowler
Yeah, which is like, which is like performative, which is like all performative.
00:54:57
matt
It's almost...
00:55:01
matt
It would be shocking if like the track record hasn't been shown over the years that like, you know, especially with the genocide of Palestinians, like these people don't give a shit when their people, you know, their guy is in power.
00:55:18
matt
But we don't even have that at this point.
00:55:21
Barry Lynn
no but they're you know i think the worst single thing After the crash in Washington between the military helicopter and the jetliner where 69 or 70 people were killed, I was actually flying back from the West Coast have on U.S.
00:55:37
matt
Right.
00:55:48
Barry Lynn
Air. And the U.S. Air has live television. And you could watch... what was happening and we and i'd watched some movie and i was watching this and they break in with this news about the airplane crash.
00:56:01
Barry Lynn
And it's it's weird, but the next night and was having dinner with a guy I had not known previously who had been a pilot for JetBlue.
00:56:15
Barry Lynn
And I said, you know, there was that time when there was a flight. I don't remember what the airline was. And he knew where I was going. He said, it was one of ours. It literally, what on CNN Live as they were losing power in the expectation that the plane would crash.
00:56:32
Barry Lynn
And it didn't crash. But if you're on that plane, I'm thinking, I'm nervous watching this, and it's not even my plane they're talking about.
00:56:40
matt
hundred percent
00:56:42
Barry Lynn
But it's it's it's just, you know,
00:56:46
Barry Lynn
plane travel is awfully safe. But, you know, I'll admit, you get that heavy turbulence,
00:56:57
matt
yeah yeah
00:57:00
Conor Fowler
Yeah, well, I won't be flying ah for the foreseeable future. Hmm.
00:57:04
matt
Yeah, yeah. I don't fly often, but Jesus Christ, I'm surely not stepping on a plane anytime soon.
00:57:13
Barry Lynn
Well, I did notice that i believe, although my facts, you know, i try to be factual. I don't make shit up. But I believe he has asked that the pilot of the plane that landed upside down in Toronto that she fired.
00:57:30
matt
Right.
00:57:32
Barry Lynn
I guarantee you, if that had been a he, a it would never have been spoken. It's just proof to him that women can't fly airplanes.
00:57:42
Barry Lynn
Although conveniently, he failed to mention that no one died because of what she did.
00:57:50
matt
Right, right. Yeah.
00:57:52
Barry Lynn
you know when he was
00:57:52
matt
yeah
00:57:53
Barry Lynn
d because during that collision between the helicopter and the g and Washington, he actually said, you know, one of the things that we're supposed to hire people with handicapped, should we hire blind people?
00:58:08
Barry Lynn
Yes. Does he really? mean, nobody was trying to do. was trying to say, the next time you're on an airplane, not only the pilot might be blind, but the air traffic controllers, they'll be blind too.
00:58:22
matt
Right.
00:58:22
Barry Lynn
is what
00:58:23
Barry Lynn
but this is what he said every time this guy mentioned anything opens tra he's alive about something every single time.
00:58:35
Conor Fowler
not a nice Not a nice man.
00:58:35
Barry Lynn
It would be nice. I mean, I'm sure he loves his dog. Does he even have a dog?
00:58:43
matt
I doubt it.
00:58:44
Conor Fowler
He's not an animal person.
00:58:45
matt
I can't see him being a dog on her.
00:58:48
matt
I mean, I don't even think he loves his children. You know, except for Ivanka.
00:58:48
Barry Lynn
Yeah,
00:58:48
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:58:53
Barry Lynn
well, he wanted to date her, but
00:58:54
matt
Yeah, yeah. exactly that's ah That's an entirely new episode that we could...
00:58:59
Barry Lynn
He actually said he didn't remember if he had called Zelensky. ah dictator just said that a couple hours
00:59:07
matt
Sick.
00:59:08
Barry Lynn
remember
00:59:08
matt
Sick. Yeah.
00:59:09
Barry Lynn
that that ah doesn't surprise me
00:59:11
matt
yeah I know 1984 has become like a ah canon chuds over the years, but holy me shit.
00:59:22
matt
we're I feel like we're living in that.
00:59:25
Conor Fowler
we're very near there with the double speak and all that sort of so orwell though he was a weird racist um he made points more good also
00:59:28
matt
Right.
00:59:32
Barry Lynn
yeah
00:59:33
matt
Yeah, yeah. Well, a broken clock is right twice a day, so, you know.
00:59:39
Barry Lynn
I
00:59:40
Conor Fowler
he killed an elephant anyway yeah
00:59:43
Barry Lynn
have very much enjoyed coming back.
00:59:43
matt
He did. He did.
00:59:47
matt
Hell yeah. Mary, we'd like, you know, maybe we'll, we'll have you as a recurring guest as we live through this, uh, I don't know, collapse of empire.
00:59:47
Barry Lynn
And...
00:59:56
Conor Fowler
As we are rocking in the USA. ah
01:00:00
Barry Lynn
it
01:00:01
matt
But yeah, uh, before we get out of here, anything else you want to plug?
01:00:06
Barry Lynn
oh No, I don't. I have a couple things. In the summer, you'll appreciate this. In the summer, I've been invited to give a lecture at Chautauqua, which is a very, very old, very well-known summer program where they do things like they this one as comedy in the morning religion in the afternoon and I'm in the urgent part but you probably might have to tell some funny stories but and the subject is supposed to be sin and here's what my sin I arranged this with the people putting it I said I'm not going to talk about sin like what you do I'm going to talk about the sin of being silent of not saying what is wrong when it's right in front of me
01:00:32
Conor Fowler
Hmm. Sure.
01:00:58
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
01:00:58
Barry Lynn
certain amount of courage to do that. Maybe it's stupidity, but it's the best thing you can do to stop bad things from happening.
01:01:08
matt
Hell yeah, that's that's a great point.
01:01:08
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
01:01:10
Conor Fowler
Silence is violence.
01:01:13
Barry Lynn
okay
01:01:15
matt
Well, we appreciate you coming back on and spending an hour with us. Everyone, thank you for listening. We're on Instagram lips studs ahpocalypse studs at at gmail.com if you've got questions, comments, concerns, feedback, or just want to send us a ah really ridiculous meme.
01:01:34
matt
um I am Matt Smith at RebelsRogues.
01:01:38
Conor Fowler
And I'm Connor Flower at Connor Flower.
01:01:42
matt
And we will see you next week.
01:01:46
Conor Fowler
Ta-ta.