0:00

R. Yumanu, Papa

0:02

Chang-go. Hello

0:28

everybody, what's up out there

0:30

in the world in your

0:32

world? What's going on in

0:34

the world seems to be

0:36

pretty intense at the moment.

0:38

People have asked me if I

0:41

was going to do a

0:43

Roma about this. I'm going

0:45

to do probably dozens of

0:48

aromas about this because it's

0:50

not ending anytime soon. It

0:52

definitely feels like we're spinning

0:55

out into something. totally

0:57

different like we are

1:00

in the beginning stages of

1:02

collapse and and I mean

1:04

the beginning of the end

1:06

not the beginning of

1:08

the beginning of the

1:10

beginning that's a question

1:12

when did all this

1:14

start what is this

1:17

the culmination of because

1:19

it definitely feels like

1:21

a culmination of something

1:23

You know, when you're talking

1:26

about history, you can always

1:28

choose the beginning points.

1:31

You can frame

1:33

tendencies and trajectories

1:35

any way you want. You

1:37

can say this started

1:39

with Ronald Reagan, which is

1:42

probably what I would say

1:44

1980, I think was a...

1:46

a turning point in American

1:49

history. But you could just

1:51

as easily argue that Ronald

1:54

Reagan and the whole Christian

1:56

conservative movement of the 80s, which

1:58

set out to pretty much bankrupt

2:00

the government or at least

2:03

you know came in saying

2:05

the government is the problem

2:07

and so what you need

2:09

are anti-government people in the

2:11

government to rein it in.

2:14

Okay but you could say

2:16

well that was a reaction

2:18

to the hippies and the

2:20

sort of regulatory flourishing of

2:23

the 60s under Johnson. with

2:25

his great society programs and

2:27

you know attempts to address

2:29

racial injustice and women's rights

2:31

and environmental degradation and all

2:34

that kind of stuff which

2:36

you know created the environmental

2:38

protection agency which was actually

2:40

created under Nixon but it

2:43

was part of that same

2:45

process of recognizing that we

2:47

had gone too far in

2:49

allowing steel mills to dump

2:51

their toxins into rivers to

2:54

the point where the rivers

2:56

actually lit on fire, which

2:58

really happened north of Pittsburgh,

3:00

where I was living as

3:02

a weird little boy in

3:05

the 70s. you know, but

3:07

then you could say, well,

3:09

okay, but the hippie movement

3:11

and, you know, all that

3:14

sort of civil rights stuff

3:16

was a reaction to the

3:18

conservatism of the 50s and

3:20

the sort of, you know,

3:22

the misogyny that was institutionalized

3:25

and we see in TV

3:27

shows like madmen setting the

3:29

early 60s where you know

3:31

women were secretaries and very

3:34

very rarely had any sort

3:36

of responsibility or respect and

3:38

they were you know they

3:40

were the secretaries or housewives

3:42

and so okay so the

3:45

hippie movement was a reaction

3:47

oh wait but the 50's

3:49

conservative thing was a reaction

3:51

to World War II where

3:54

these guys came back from

3:56

the war traumatized and all

3:58

they wanted was normalcy and

4:00

the government was like you

4:02

guys deserve the GI Bill,

4:05

you deserve low mortgage rates,

4:07

you deserve union representation, you

4:09

deserve a good life because

4:11

you saved the fucking world

4:14

and okay cool. Okay but

4:16

World War II was a

4:18

reaction to the Great Depression

4:20

and you know it was

4:22

a reaction to the Treaty

4:25

of Versailles which was signed

4:27

after World War I. that

4:29

how we talk about history

4:31

always begins with a somewhat

4:34

arbitrary decision as to where

4:36

we start. I really pushed

4:38

the limits of this back

4:40

in 2001, I guess it

4:42

was, when I was very

4:45

briefly a high school history

4:47

teacher. I was hired to

4:49

teach American history. from the

4:51

Civil War to today. That's

4:54

what my course, what's it

4:56

called, the agenda, the course

4:58

outline was. And the first

5:00

day of class I said,

5:02

so you guys have talked

5:05

about history before the Civil

5:07

War, I guess, and they're

5:09

like, no. It's like, okay,

5:11

so we're just starting in

5:14

the 1860s. Okay, that seems

5:16

pretty arbitrary. And so we

5:18

started talking a little bit

5:20

about the Civil War and

5:22

then a couple of planes

5:25

flew into the Twin Towers

5:27

in New York City and

5:29

I was like, oh, fuck,

5:31

okay. Well, we're not going

5:34

to talk about the Civil

5:36

War. We're going to talk

5:38

about what just happened. We're

5:40

going to talk about American

5:42

foreign policy, energy policy, you

5:45

know. why there's this deep

5:47

conflict between the Muslim world

5:49

and the non-Muslim world, particularly

5:51

the Western capitalist world. We

5:53

started talking about that and

5:56

then... I was in grad

5:58

school, of course, so I

6:00

decided we were going to

6:02

talk about hunter-gatherers. So we

6:05

talked about hunter-gatherers. And so

6:07

basically, my point is we're

6:09

supposed to be talking about

6:11

history from the Civil War

6:13

on, and I was instead

6:16

talking about 15,000 years ago,

6:18

you know. But it's very

6:20

difficult to just start at

6:22

a certain arbitrary point and

6:25

not look at everything that

6:27

led up to that point.

6:31

Anyway, so what the

6:33

fuck am I talking

6:35

about here? Oh, this,

6:37

what's happening, this spin-out.

6:39

You know, Ronald Reagan,

6:41

I know a lot

6:44

of you listening to

6:46

this are not American

6:48

and or and or

6:50

you're not, you weren't

6:52

alive in 1980. You

6:54

don't remember any of

6:56

this stuff. When, so

6:59

Jimmy Carter was president

7:01

in the late 60s,

7:03

60, 76, sorry, late

7:05

70s, 76 to 80.

7:07

And Jimmy Carter, as

7:09

I think I've talked

7:11

about on this podcast

7:14

before, was a deeply

7:16

intelligent man, deeply decent

7:18

man, and very honest.

7:20

And he was elected,

7:22

he was a real

7:24

outsider, sort of unknown,

7:26

came out of nowhere.

7:29

He was a peanut

7:31

farmer from Plains, Georgia,

7:33

and he came across

7:35

in some ways as

7:37

like a country bumpkin

7:39

kind of guy, but

7:41

he was also a

7:44

nuclear physicist, and he,

7:46

I think he was

7:48

the captain of a

7:50

nuclear-powered submarine for years.

7:52

So he's a very

7:54

intelligent guy. and he

7:56

was elected largely as

7:59

a reaction to the

8:01

corruption and disgust around

8:03

the Nixon administration and

8:05

the whole Watergate mess,

8:07

which you may have seen in

8:10

a film called All the

8:12

President's Men, or you may

8:14

know about that, but basically

8:16

that was a very corrupt

8:19

President Nixon who got caught

8:21

doing all sorts of criminal.

8:23

things and he was stupid enough

8:26

that he recorded his phone calls

8:28

and meetings and I don't remember

8:30

how but somehow it came to

8:32

light that these recordings existed and

8:34

the court said you need to

8:36

turn them over and he fought

8:38

it and the Supreme Court was

8:40

like no you need to give

8:42

those tapes and so he gave

8:44

the tapes but there were long

8:46

sections that were deleted and they made

8:48

you know, ridiculous lies about why those

8:50

sections were deleted. But in any

8:52

case, what we even, what wasn't

8:55

deleted was enough for him to

8:57

get impeached and his own party

8:59

turned against him. And okay, so

9:01

the whole country was caught up in

9:03

this. So then Jimmy Carter was like

9:05

a breath of fresh air. Let's

9:08

get this guy who's not a

9:10

lifetime politician who hasn't, because Nixon

9:12

ran against Kennedy, you know. 10

9:14

years earlier. He'd been around for

9:16

a long time. This guy Jimmy

9:19

Carter was a breath of

9:21

fresh air. He was an

9:23

outsider. He was, you know,

9:25

ethical and sort of the

9:27

opposite of Nixon. And then

9:29

for various reasons, some

9:32

of them extremely nefarious

9:34

involving the CIA and

9:37

George Bush, Carter got

9:39

screwed and Reagan was

9:41

elected. And the Reagan.

9:44

campaign was really the

9:46

first time that Madison

9:49

Avenue, like the sort

9:51

of advertising industrial complex,

9:54

had merged with politics.

9:57

Previous to Reagan, there

9:59

was a Advertising was

10:01

one thing and politics was

10:03

a different thing and there

10:05

might have been some overlap

10:08

and some people move back

10:10

and forth between those worlds

10:12

but Reagan was the first

10:14

like highly political, highly professional

10:17

political campaign that that really

10:19

tapped into advertising and of

10:21

course Reagan himself was an

10:23

actor so it was also

10:26

the first time that you

10:28

had. a professional actor, someone

10:30

who is very comfortable in

10:32

front of televisions, television cameras,

10:35

I should say, heading up

10:37

the campaign, the government, the

10:39

administration. And it's also very

10:41

clear that it was probably

10:43

the first time that the

10:46

president was more of a

10:48

figurehead than an actual administrator.

10:50

So the people behind the

10:52

president were much more powerful

10:55

and the president was someone

10:57

who went out and you

10:59

know Was the public relations

11:01

aspect of the government? Anyway,

11:04

the point is that The

11:06

Reagan administration came in and

11:08

basically said Government is out

11:10

of control. We're here to

11:13

shrink it. We're here to

11:15

shrink it. We're here to

11:17

emasculate it. We're here to

11:19

cut the balls off the

11:22

government so that it can

11:24

be tamed and the economy

11:26

will be free to grow

11:28

because the government will stop

11:30

slowing everything down and getting

11:33

in the way of everything.

11:35

And so I would argue

11:37

that a good place to

11:39

look at where we are

11:42

now and how we got

11:44

here would be to start

11:46

in 1980. We elect people

11:48

are sick of government so

11:51

we elect people. who are

11:53

anti-government to run the government.

11:55

That's what the Reagan administration

11:57

was. And now we have

12:00

someone running the government who

12:02

not only is against government,

12:04

I think he's against America.

12:06

So there's all this talk

12:09

about whether Trump is a

12:11

Russian asset. Which isn't the

12:13

same as an agent. He's

12:15

not like a trained agent.

12:17

That's not the argument. The

12:20

argument is that He has

12:22

been cultivated by Russian intelligence

12:24

to be friendly and there's

12:26

a we'll scratch your back

12:29

you scratch our back situation

12:31

with him, which I don't

12:33

I'm not deeply educated on

12:35

all the documents and I

12:38

haven't spent a lot of

12:40

time looking into this, but

12:42

from what I understand, he

12:44

went to the Soviet Union

12:47

in the 80s at the

12:49

invitation of the Soviet government

12:51

to talk about some sort

12:53

of business in, you know,

12:56

a Trump hotel or something

12:58

in Moscow. And of course,

13:00

in those days and still

13:02

today, If you as an

13:04

American went to Moscow, pretty

13:07

much everyone you spoke to

13:09

was an intelligence agent, the

13:11

guy driving the limo, the

13:13

people in the hotel, the

13:16

hotel room would have had

13:18

hidden cameras everywhere and microphones,

13:20

every meeting you went to,

13:22

everywhere you went, you were

13:25

being monitored and recorded. And

13:27

any woman... Who happened to

13:29

walk up to you on

13:31

the street and say, hi,

13:34

how are you? Oh, yes,

13:36

I speak English, oh. why

13:38

don't we have a coffee

13:40

together? You can bet that

13:43

was not a casual coincidental

13:45

meeting. That was an agent.

13:47

And when she goes back

13:49

to your hotel room and

13:51

fucks you, you can be

13:54

sure that she's an agent

13:56

and she's reporting on everything

13:58

you said and she's trying

14:00

to manipulate you in all

14:03

sorts of different ways, depending

14:05

on what they wanted. Apparently,

14:07

what they wanted was to

14:09

cultivate relationships with people who

14:12

were in positions of authority

14:14

in American society, which Trump

14:16

was in the 80s as

14:18

a real estate shithead, who

14:21

was also a very public

14:23

figure, especially in the New

14:25

York scene. Clearly there's a

14:27

relationship. Then at some point

14:30

when Trump was in one

14:32

of his many bankruptcy situations,

14:34

he was everything in Atlantic

14:36

City was collapsing and he

14:38

was out of money, he

14:41

tried to sell, he put

14:43

one of his properties up

14:45

for sale. I think it

14:47

was a house in Florida

14:50

and I think I could

14:52

be wrong about the numbers,

14:54

but it was like. It

14:56

was on the market for

14:59

$30 million something around there

15:01

and mysteriously it was purchased

15:03

by a Russian oligarch who

15:05

is very close to Putin

15:08

for $120 million or something

15:10

like that, like four times

15:12

what he was offering, what

15:14

he was asking. That doesn't

15:17

fucking happen. You don't put

15:19

your house on the market

15:21

for, you know, half a

15:23

million dollars and someone comes

15:25

along and says, oh, give

15:28

you two. Like what? No,

15:30

that's not how negotiation happens,

15:32

but in Trump's case, that's

15:34

how it happened. So, okay,

15:37

he ends up with $100

15:39

million extra from a Russian

15:41

oligarch. Well, what do you

15:43

think is going on there?

15:46

And this is in the

15:48

public record, right? Who knows

15:50

what's not in the public?

15:52

record. So now he's got

15:55

his Bitcoin, not Bitcoin, his

15:57

whatever it is, his crypto

15:59

coin, his Trump coin. Who's

16:01

buying all those? Right? There's

16:04

all sorts of, they've set

16:06

up all sorts of channels

16:08

so that foreign money can

16:10

go directly to him personally

16:12

or to his campaign or

16:15

to his pack anonymously. No

16:17

one knows because they manipulated

16:19

the law so no one

16:21

has to report it. It

16:24

doesn't need to be reported

16:26

where the money came from.

16:28

It just arrives. So to

16:30

me, it's very clear that

16:33

Donald Trump is some sort

16:35

of he's he's I mean,

16:37

and oh my God, so

16:39

many things like the meeting

16:42

with Putin and Helsinki where

16:44

he goes into a room

16:46

alone with Putin and Putin's

16:48

translator and Putin's assistant and

16:51

tells his own translator and

16:53

his own assistance to stay

16:55

out. That never happens, that

16:57

never ever happens in American

16:59

history until Trump. Why would

17:02

it? Why would you go

17:04

into a room alone with

17:06

a foreign adversary? And tell

17:08

your own people, no, no,

17:11

I don't want you in

17:13

there. It's insane. And there

17:15

was the meeting where you

17:17

invited Lavrov into the Oval

17:20

Office, Lavrov being the foreign

17:22

minister of Russia, like after,

17:24

I think it was after

17:26

his first election or something,

17:29

and he's like, telling him

17:31

all this top secret shit,

17:33

and it's just like, dude,

17:35

okay. And it's interesting how

17:38

they do it because they're

17:40

not denying it, they're not

17:42

hiding it. It's all kind

17:44

of out in the open,

17:46

which then deflates the outrage.

17:49

Because it's like, well, what

17:51

do you... I'm not hiding.

17:53

What do you think I'm

17:55

hiding? I invited the guy

17:58

into the Oval Office. Like,

18:00

he's a friend. I like

18:02

Putin's a good guy. It's

18:04

so interesting the way it's

18:07

all going down. But ultimately,

18:09

I think it's kind of

18:11

a culmination of all sorts

18:13

of things, one of them

18:16

being the cultivation of Trump

18:18

as a Russian asset since

18:20

the 80s, but also. I'm

18:24

not blaming the right,

18:26

I'm not blaming the

18:28

Russians, I'm not even

18:30

blaming Trump, because a

18:33

functioning healthy society would

18:35

be immune to this

18:37

sort of thing. So,

18:39

you know, when a

18:41

parasite takes over its

18:44

host, you can say,

18:46

well, okay, that's the

18:48

parasite's very clever, ways

18:50

of exercising control over

18:53

the host, but the

18:55

fact is that generally

18:57

it's multi-factorial. The host

18:59

is also weakened by

19:02

something. The host is

19:04

maybe old and weakened

19:06

by age or wounded,

19:08

weakened by trauma, weakened

19:11

by anxiety, weakened by

19:13

other collaborative or contributing

19:15

illnesses illnesses illnesses. It's

19:17

not a single thing.

19:20

And so those of

19:22

you who are listening

19:24

to this, who support

19:26

Trump, first of all,

19:28

thank you for not

19:31

just tuning out to

19:33

someone who disagrees with

19:35

some things that you

19:37

believe. I appreciate that

19:40

and respect that. But

19:42

also, please understand that

19:44

when I talk shit

19:46

about Trump, I'm also

19:49

talking shit about the

19:51

other side that allows

19:53

someone like Trump or

19:55

even requires someone like

19:58

Trump to arise. I

20:00

see Trump as the culmination

20:02

of the corruption of

20:04

American society in general,

20:07

not just the right

20:09

wing, because I don't

20:11

think Trump is a

20:14

right-winger. Trump is something

20:16

else. And when I say

20:18

Trump, I'm not talking about

20:21

the man, I'm talking about

20:23

the phenomenon, right? This is

20:25

something else. This is a

20:27

response, I think... to

20:30

the total corruption of American

20:33

society. Civil,

20:35

political, economic,

20:38

ethical, you name it.

20:40

On every level

20:43

American society has

20:45

been drifting into...

20:47

corruption and nonsense and you

20:49

know it's like RFK you can agree

20:51

with him you can disagree with him

20:54

you can agree with some things he

20:56

says and disagree with other things he

20:58

says but the fact is that he

21:01

would not exist as a

21:03

phenomenon if there weren't massive

21:05

corruption in the pharmaceutical

21:07

industry in the medical

21:09

industry in the insurance

21:11

industry in the insurance

21:13

industry There would be

21:16

no room for someone like

21:18

that. The only way someone

21:20

like that gains power is

21:23

in the vacuum, they move

21:25

into the vacuum created

21:28

by the corruption of

21:30

the dominant forces. Now

21:33

let me give you a

21:35

concrete example of this.

21:37

And it's a really, it's

21:39

a powerful example

21:41

because it's not. You know,

21:43

I'm sure all of you can

21:46

can just think of many examples

21:48

of the corruption of pharmaceutical or

21:50

You know the the fact we're

21:52

the only fucking country in the

21:55

world that allows pharmaceutical companies to

21:57

advertise on television Like what the

21:59

fuck is that? That's so ridiculous. And

22:01

that was a law that was

22:03

changed under the Reagan administration, I

22:05

believe, that allowed pharmaceutical companies to

22:07

market directly to consumers, not to

22:09

doctors, not through private channels directly

22:11

to doctors. So, I mean, that's

22:14

out of control. Further corruption. Citizens

22:16

United ruling saying that corporations could

22:18

contribute unlimited amounts of funding to

22:20

political parties. So now politics and

22:22

not just parties but packs for

22:24

individuals. So now politics is all

22:26

about money. Who's got the most

22:28

money? Corporations, there you go. That's

22:30

a relatively recent ruling. But this

22:32

example I'm going to give you

22:34

is intellectual. So it's not just

22:36

money. This is intellectual. This is

22:38

Farid Zakaria, who is a columnist

22:40

for the Washington Post. He's written

22:42

many best-selling books. He's one of

22:44

the best-known experts on international affairs,

22:47

particularly American economic and global affairs.

22:49

He's extremely well-educated, extremely respected. And

22:51

this is something he said last

22:53

week on Bill Maher's show, talking

22:55

about the radical change in the

22:57

way Trump is approaching foreign policy

22:59

relative to previous presidents. Just listen

23:01

to this. You know, over the

23:03

last hundred years, the United States,

23:05

whether it's supported Britain at the

23:07

right moment, whether it's supported, you

23:09

know, the allies in World War

23:11

I, it was always clear morally

23:13

politically. whose side we were on.

23:15

We were on the side of

23:17

the victim of aggression. We were

23:20

on the side of the democracies.

23:22

We were against the dictators. against

23:24

the aggressors and to see this

23:26

bizarre moral reversion. Okay this is

23:28

the part where I rip Farid

23:30

Zakaria a new one. That may

23:32

be a sentence that has never

23:34

been said before. But in order

23:36

to hear me rip Farid Zakaria

23:38

a new one you are going

23:40

to have to support this podcast

23:42

in one way or another. Now

23:44

one way you can do it

23:46

is you can go to Chris

23:48

Ryan.sub stack.com and you can sign

23:50

up and you can throw five

23:53

bucks a month into the bucket

23:55

to help make this keep happening

23:57

whatever the fuck this is. Another

23:59

way you can do it though

24:01

if you can't afford the five

24:03

bucks a month is you can

24:05

go to Chris Ryan.sub stack.com and

24:07

you can sign up and then

24:09

you can say Chris, please let

24:11

me in. I don't have five

24:13

bucks a month. Or you don't

24:15

even have to say I don't

24:17

have five bucks a month. You

24:19

can just say, hey Chris, you

24:21

said you'd let me in, so

24:23

let me in. And I'll let

24:26

you in. I will get you

24:28

in the back door. I don't

24:30

know if I'm supposed to be

24:32

doing this. I don't know if

24:34

Soap's text going to send me

24:36

an angry letter at some point.

24:38

But I have given comp subscriptions

24:40

to many people since I've been

24:42

doing this. And it doesn't cost

24:44

me anything. It doesn't cost sub-stack

24:46

anything. And I think it creates

24:48

a better experience for all of

24:50

us because I've noticed that the

24:52

trolls are gone. So like, for

24:54

example, this month, the open, I

24:56

do an open thread every month

24:59

where people can just talk to

25:01

each other, right? And I throw

25:03

in a little... like a prompt,

25:05

you know, just a question that

25:07

we can all talk about in

25:09

this month, a prompt I threw

25:11

in was, what's the best bad

25:13

thing that's ever happened to you?

25:15

And man, I think it's the

25:17

best prompt I've ever thrown in

25:19

there because the conversations are just

25:21

so beautiful, the things that people

25:23

are talking about, like... You

25:25

know my wife

25:27

left me and

25:29

it was devastating

25:32

and it destroyed

25:34

me but now

25:36

looking back I

25:38

see it was

25:40

the best thing

25:42

for both of

25:44

us or You

25:46

know I got

25:48

fired from this

25:50

job that I

25:52

I was desperately

25:54

trying to hold

25:56

on to and

25:58

that led me

26:00

to go back

26:02

to school And

26:05

study this and

26:07

blah blah blah

26:09

and my life

26:11

is so much

26:13

better now or

26:15

I got robbed

26:17

when I was

26:19

doing it It's

26:21

like the the

26:23

things that people

26:25

are Sharing

26:27

are so beautiful and so vulnerable

26:29

in many cases and I just

26:32

don't think that they were doing

26:34

that when there were trolls and

26:36

You know people Just hostile shitheads

26:38

which exist in the world and

26:40

seem to exist even more online

26:42

So the whole point of this

26:45

is yes I would love it

26:47

if you support the podcast financially,

26:49

but if that's not viable for

26:51

one reason or another I totally

26:53

get it and I still want

26:55

you here I want you here

26:58

because you want to be here

27:00

at least enough to sign up

27:02

for sub -stack and say Chris let

27:04

me in That's all it takes.

27:06

That's all I ask and it

27:08

creates a better experience for everyone.

27:11

So please consider doing that Thank

27:13

you for listening. Thank you for

27:15

your support However, it manifests and

27:17

I hope things are really good

27:19

for you in your world