SIO223: Iran and Ricky Gervais

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 223, I'm Thomas, that's Jamie, how you doing, Jamie? I'm good. I, I have to, I have to publicly call out your tactic to save your own new headphones you just got, cuz it's the funniest thing, calling you out, you gotta, you got to tell the listeners, uh, you don't have to., it's fine, but I thought it was funny.

0:00:35 Jamie: I'm all right, Thomas, how are you?,

0:00:51 Thomas: I

0:00:47 Jamie: That's not cool, no, no. That's fine, I mean, you've blown up my spot now, so I guess I have to, so, my children are terrible, and I love them dearly, but they steal my headphones, and literally anything that I have, and the last time we were going to record, I couldn't find them, and we were kind of on a crunch, because we were interviewing someone, and looked everywhere, finally found them on my kid's pillow, of all places, and so I just decided I would go out and get new headphones but I've decided to weaponize um sexism um and despite my deep feminist commitments I bought hot pink headphones because I knew neither of my two boys would touch them that way um so I'm both ashamed of myself and really proud of my cleverness

0:01:28 Thomas: Think it's great. I think it's a win-win, right, because it's like if they did steal them then like you've got some kids that don't, you know, they're like they're down with the patriarchy and stuff, but if they don't steal them than you have headphones, so I think it seems like a win win that's that's just brilliant parenting to me personally Yeah.

0:01:35 Jamie: Yeah.

0:01:49 Jamie: And it was also like really I mean, thank you, I'm gonna go with that, um you know, this way it's also clear that like they're obviously mine, um, and they're not indistinguishable from like any of the other headphones that are here, and so they can't be like, oh no, I thought those ones were mine, like there's no plausible deniability, like they're hot pink, I wrote mom on them, um they're, they're just, there's not getting around, they're mine and they're not to be touched by boys

0:02:11 Thomas: I think that's brilliant and I look forward to not hearing any noise bleed because you have awesome headphones now that are yours. I love it. It's all, it's win-win for everybody. For us too. And, uh, yeah, after getting through my first holidays with two kids and one of whom is like old enough to where, like, you know, we're trying to impress her a little bit with the whole Christmas thing. Uh, you now do a good job, have some fun. Oh, I am exhausted. That was the most exhausting holidays for me personally. And, um, you know, I'm sure lots of parents out there are feeling that, and it's kind of, it's, it's one of those, like, I'm glad we're through it. I, we had fun, glad we did it, but you know, also glad to be, glad to be done. Kind of thing. So on that note, I just, I can really respect your parenting ingenuity. There is, I guess what I'm saying. So I just had to call that out.

0:02:16 Jamie: Yeah.

0:03:00 Jamie: Well. Thank you, I am getting by with with a lot of hacks and um, you know, prayers to gods I don't believe in, um, just whatever, whatever will work, so

0:03:04 Thomas: Yeah. Well, on a less cheery note, we're like kind of at war. That's, you know, minor news story war.

0:03:20 Jamie: Yeah. So yeah, this has been um absolutely terrifying, I think we're not at war, it's not, I'm not sure, I keep checking, we're at war and then we're not at war, and then I saw somebody had posted wait, there's reports of new rockets being launched, and oh wait, maybe not, um, so it's, it's a really terrifying time to be alive, yeah

0:03:44 Thomas: Yeah, we're recording this, of course, on Wednesday, and Trump had his TV show this morning, and I, I was really, I'll be honest, I, I was pretty convinced that he was gonna get on the TV because, like, in my, to my mind, Trump does stuff constantly with a mind to, like, what's the TV show of it, you know, like everything he does is like, oh, I, you know, what, what does it look like when a president does something? Well, they go on TV and they say the thing. And I just thought once he announced that there was going to be a, you know, a speech, a news conference or whatever you would call it, because I guess he doesn't take any questions, but he just kind of does the thing, I want to announce that, I was like, oh my God, he's going to, in his mind.

0:04:29 Thomas: It's like the, you know, December 7th date that will live in infamy. I can't remember the precise date because I guess it doesn't live in enough infamy in my head. But, you know, something like that, where it was going to be an address where he's going to announce that we're at war and we're going to do whatever. And I was really, really worried and dreading that. But it sounds like, you now, after being injected with sleeping medication, I don't know what it was.

He looked really weird. I don't know if you watched it. I did. Did uh he looked really bizarre, but you know, I, I guess, uh, the upside is he didn't announce that we're going to war, and as of now he tried to pull the whole, like, well, they launched a bunch of missiles, but everybody's fine, somehow they were, I don't know, they're like cotton missiles or something, somehow nobody or nothing was hurt according to Trump, and so it's cool and he's trying to find a way to, like, still be the tough guy, but also not retaliate to the retaliation of our act of aggression, basically. And so I'm glad for that. That's kind of where I think we are. What do you any thoughts on that?

0:05:38 Jamie: So I was actually kind of surprised that he didn't escalate this further, um, because I thought for sure that this was going to continue to sort of over shout, or shout over, I'm sorry, um, the, the impeachment news, um, the day of the assassination actually there was news that came out that all of, um, Trump's loans were underwritten by, by Russian oligarchs, um, and this was really explosive and would have been headline news everywhere if we hadn't assassinated, um, a military commander of a sovereign nation, and so I was really worried that this was going to continue, um, in order to give cover to the impeachment hearings, um, but I'm very relieved to hear that we're not going to war, I was having, having flashbacks of 2003 and the, the, the banging of the war drums leading up to Iraq, um, so I'm, I'm relieved, um, you know, and also I think it raises really interesting questions, Iran is obviously allied militarily, at least with Russia, um, and it just makes me wonder the extent to which, um Trump did what he did because he was told to do it by Russia, and which is not to say I'm not grateful that it happened, I don't want the U.S. to be at war, um, but it does make me wonder just how compromised our president is

0:06:05 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:07:06 Thomas: Yeah, I it's hard to say. I really think that it's certainly Trump's actions and his lying and his everything about him has earned us the right to say, is this just a wag the dog BS thing? Like, and if, if you're out there thinking that, I honestly, like, I don't blame you. It could be. But I, after looking at everything, I kind of feel like it's, it could be partially as a way to distract from impeachment news and from, you know, maybe this, this bankrolling news that has not gotten much coverage.

Um, but also I, I really do think part of it is he went after Obama on Benghazi and Hillary, by the way, on Benghazi so much and then, like, I don't know, somebody graffitied our embassy or something, and so he had to like look like a super tough guy and not be, a you know, what he thinks is a pushover like Obama was about Benghazi, and so he just, you know, and then there's that, did you see the stories, is about also the military people might have presented this as like a crazy option to try to sway him the other way to do something else. And then he's like, oh, that option looks great. Oh, assassination of a, of a foreign, you know, like what's

0:08:26 Thomas: The word official, I suppose. Yeah, that's good. Let's do that. And so that that means there was some some really bad game theory going on when it comes to his advisors. And so who knows, it could be a conspiracy to distract us in the news cycle and all that. It could be, but it also could just be that he wanted to look really tough after the embassy was, I don't know, I guess it was attacked to a certain extent, but I don't know how big of a deal it was. But anyway, the point of this is it's important to have a president that isn't the biggest liar in the history of the American public ever, you know, like documented liar. We cannot trust it could hypothetically, it could be true that like, you know, Soleimani is, is, was planning a 9-11, you know, like even he was just about to pull the trigger and that's why we like, okay.

0:08:25 Jamie: Yeah

0:09:19 Thomas: Hypothetically that could be, uh, and, and that would be the only justification for doing something like this would be like an imminent, like literally the guy's going to push a button on an attack, which is obviously not true, but like, we will never know. Um, because, and we, we can never trust this administration because they're all going on all the, the Sunday shows and all the public appearances is just, oh, well, yeah, you know, imminent attack. Oh, what's that? What's the evidence of the, well I can't tell you that, but like there was definitely, he was probably about to attack us. So that's why we did the the whole extra legal, you know, assassination of a foreign official. So it's a mess. And it's reason why we just cannot have this person be president. Like we just can't.

0:10:04 Jamie: So I agree with you, um, and this will come as a surprise to, to, you know, nobody who's followed me on Twitter, um, but I had, I had turned my despair, um, and rage over the state of the world into volunteering for Bernie Sanders, I think, over the last three days I sent something like 25,000 texts, um because I, yeah it was insane, um, I get into these like sort of like OCD, you know, holes and I was like, well, this is like, you know, this is what I'm gonna do, um, because like the world was just like too heavy and too dark and I couldn't couldn't like deal with it, right, but I could like click a button 25,000 times and, you know, answer the the responses that came through, um, because it just seems so important to to not take this for granted.

And even that experience, um, as as uplifting as it was at times, um, was really disheartening, um, because I would say like 80 percent of the responses that I got while I was sending those messages, um, were, you know, people responding to me saying they were voting for Trump. And not just that they were voting for Trump, um, but a lot of the texts were like vile and vulgar, um. Oh.

0:10:22 Thomas: Twenty five thousand. Wow. Really?

0:11:15 Thomas: What list are you using for this?

0:11:18 Jamie: So. I don't know how the Bernie people pulled the list, um, some of the lists were, you know, labeled as like general ID, so they're just maybe like independent voters that they're reaching out to, or, you know, casual voters that like vote in presidential elections but not necessarily, you know, midterm elections. I have no idea.

0:11:40 Jamie: But people weren't just responding to say that they were not interested or that they were voting to Trump. They very colorful suggestions for what I could do with myself and where I could go and what they thought of socialism and communism, which are obviously interchangeable and mean exactly the same thing, um. And it, you know, so it was, it was horrifying to to see just how many people were just really adamantly in support of him. And a number of people even said that, um, they were even more committed to Trump now that he wasn't a coward like Obama and stood up to the Iranians. So it was weird. Yeah.

0:12:21 Thomas: Yeah. Which is it? Was Obama a mass murderer who droned everybody, or was he coward? I don't, just pick one, everybody. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm glad you channeled that into something good. That's interesting that, because, you know, I've done a little bit of stuff for Elizabeth Warren, and usually the the lists are more friendly people who just, you're trying to get to target to to vote. It's it's seems, I don't know, kind of weird that the list they would have given you would be like 80 percent Trump voters. That's rough.

0:12:53 Jamie: So, I mean, I've I've worked on a number of campaigns over the years, and, um, one thing that I was thinking about, you know, in years past, you know, very often people pull like lists of Democrats, right, because the idea is to like get out your base. And one of the things that I was thinking is that Bernie is is really targeting unaffiliated voters, and he's not just going for Democratic voters. Um, I did have lists, right, that were primarily Bernie's supporters, and from from those lists I was texting people to see if they would, would, you know, do canvassing to get signatures for ballot initiatives, or not ballot initiatives, to get delegates and Bernie onto the ballot. Or if people would volunteer to phone bank or come to an event or something like that. Those responses were, you Know, overwhelmingly more positive. But I think part of the lists are identifying unaffiliated voters, or independent independent voters or voters who kind of switch back and forth to sort of expand the base. That was sort of what my guess was.

0:13:59 Thomas: Well, OK, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. Well, Bernie is really is not not exactly what we're going to talk about, but he really killed it on the fundraising this last quarter. And it seems like he has a real shot. So as much as I love Elizabeth Warren and I'm sad she's not doing as well lately, but it's going to be somebody else. I hope it's Bernie. So right there. But I do want to talk about this. You know, speaking of these candidates, there was a lot of criticism of the candidates responses.

And, you know, I did some tweeting. And in retrospect, it's possible. I think I should have phrased some stuff differently because I was a little I guess I get a little irked. And I have a genuine Bernie bro right here to talk to, Jamie. So I saw in my feed an awful lot of Bernie people taking the first opportunity of this happening to conduct a purity test, which only Bernie passes and all the other candidates are Hitler or Bush the third, I guess. And it wears on me and I got annoyed and I tweet about it. I don't know. The way I phrased it was a sense of timing, which I think is wrong. I think I shouldn't have said that.

0:14:03 Jamie: Yeah.

0:15:18 Thomas: The first thing that occurred to me was like, all right, the guy's about to take us into war. Trump's about take us in a war. Kids are still in cages, all this crap. And like what we're doing is conducting a purity test on the exact wording of like some of the statements like, come on, this is why the right is able to consolidate power. In retrospect, you know, I shouldn't have phrased it that way. It's not really about the timing. Honestly, it is about the fact that I don't see the criticism as entirely valid. So, for example, one thing that I think a lot of Bernie supporters have had to do, and Jamie, feel free to push back or defend yourself or whatever, but I do feel like some Bernie supporters have Had to find a way since in 2016, it was Bernie and Hillary and it was easy. It was, you know, most of them were like, can't stand Hillary, love Bernie.

0:16:07 Thomas: That's easy. But now that there's Elizabeth Warren, I feel like there needs to be... I feel like oftentimes Bernie supporters need to find a reason that Elizabeth Warren is just not even close to Bernie, you know, like to really differentiate them, because she is the closest to Bernie of the candidates and is a woman and is a little bit younger and, in my opinion, has a more proven track record of getting stuff done. But that's... that's... that aside. And so her statement was, I'll read her statement, was, it was their first statement was this: "Soleimani was a murderer responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and decreases the likelihood, I'm sorry, and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict."

0:16:54 Thomas: Our priority must be to avoid another costly war. And I could read Buttigieg's response, but then I realized like, oh shoot, I really hate that response. So maybe I'll fall into what I'm saying that Bernie supporters were doing to Elizabeth Warren. Cause I didn't think Buttigieg's response was particularly good, but you know, what do you make of this? I mean, was that a response that a lot of people, and I was going to bring up Nathan J. Robinson too, because he wrote this article for current affairs. He is somebody who I just from the outset want to say, he's a socialist. I agree with a lot of what he has to say. I think he's a good voice on a lot of stuff. So I don't want to make this like he's a bad guy or anything, but I did kind of resent in his article about this.

0:17:46 Thomas: He took that simple paragraph that I just read you, where because Elizabeth Warren had the temerity to say Soleimani was a murderer, despite the fact that he was a murderer, and also that any adult should be able to differentiate, differentiate, between saying, "okay, yeah, this guy was a bad guy." However, this action was still wrong. That seems simple to me, but I saw a lot of people trying to make it out to be that if you say anything other than "this was an assassination and this was bad and war is bad," if you even said like "Soleimani was a bad guy," then you're playing into the war propaganda game. So I've got more to say, but what do you make of all that? I've been talking for a while, so I don't want to dominate the time here. Yeah.

0:18:30 Jamie: So I haven't, in full disclosure, I haven't gotten a chance to read the current affairs article yet. So I can't speak to what he says specifically, though my inclination based on what you've said is to agree with him. I had seen your original tweet and I I disagreed, but I just was like, I'm not going to get into this. We'll save this for the podcast.

0:18:54 Jamie: Because I think in the aftermath of 2003 and the war in Iraq, it's really easy to go from "this person was a bad guy" to "let's invade their country." And it's sort of the first step. And I think once you make that first step, the second step becomes easier. And we need to be really clear that just because somebody is a bad guy, that that doesn't mean that the United States is justified in assassinating them and when the United States but so I don't think that we do all know that. I think it's clear that you know that, so

0:19:23 Thomas: We all know that Kim Jong-un is a bad guy. Did I just make us go to war with North Korea? Am I, am I paving the way to war? North Korean... he's bad. God, well, I, it seems so childish to me

0:19:39 Jamie: I think there's something I mean, I, with all due respect, I hope our podcast goes on to get millions and millions of followers, but, like, at this time, you and I, I don't have the sort of platform where we're going to be shaping public opinion about the things like war. And senators do, and particularly senators who are running for president. And I think they have a responsibility to be careful with their language in a way that doesn't make it any easier than it already is for the United States to go into war based on manufactured evidence. I am no expert on Iranian politics. I am not a military expert by any stretch of the imagination. I don't know Soleimani's history.

0:19:39 Thomas: Yeah

0:20:27 Jamie: I don't the extent to which he was involved in activities that may or may not have resulted in American deaths. But none of that is relevant to whether or not the United States should have, have, assassinated him in the manner that we did, given the tensions of the area, particularly in light of our complicity in why the area has the tensions that it does. And I don't think it's necessary to say, "oh, he's a really bad guy, but we shouldn't have done it." I think, I do think that it's important to say, especially when the person doing it is Donald Trump and can't be, be, trusted for any reason, to just clearly and unequivocally say, "this is bad, we should not do this." So

0:21:19 Thomas: I just, I just think it's making too much out of nothing. Like, I get, I get the concern, but, like, I, the equivalent for me, or just thinking about it analogously, um, back when, uh, you know, know, Subway Jared got busted for being a creep and everybody was making the prison rape jokes and all that. And I came on here and I, you know, and I said, and I believe this, that those jokes are disgusting, we shouldn't be doing it.

And like, as part of that, it's easy to say, look, obviously this guy is a creep and I'm glad that he's locked up. You know, that doesn't somehow make it like totally take away from the next thing you say, which is prison rape jokes are disgusting and they are harmful and they should, you shouldn't make them. And, like, it's, it doesn't, I, I see it as a way to try to bridge the gap. When, when you're a leader, you're trying to, you know, change hearts and minds, and I just see this as a way of saying, "okay, look, I, I know the right might tell you that I'm a secret Muslim or something, because they do do that with everything." But no, this guy was a bad guy, I don't like him, but that doesn't mean we had the right to do this, and this is a bad policy.

To quote the article that really rubbed me the wrong way, from that small paragraph, he says this: "Warren confirms that she is not an effective advocate for peace." It's like, really? I mean, it just seems like a lot to me. And I, I would also, I want to add one thing, which is, I listened to the, coincidentally, Ezra Klein had Nathan J.

0:22:54 Thomas: Robinson on his podcast. I'm a big fan, unabashed fan of Ezra Klein, I think he's probably the best at what he does, by far. And I think she found an amazing way to point out a lot of the hypocrisy and what Nathan J. Robinson does with these purity tests, that he applies far more to Elizabeth Warren and other candidates, but not to Bernie so much. And I thought it was really good, but he's also, Ezra Klein is just so, like, nice, and also just has so much integrity that he never does it in a way that, where he tries to emphasize that he's dunking on anyone. He just makes his point and then moves on. And it's, it's amazing, I think he's, he's really great. But anyway, I just put this on that category where I just think people are really trying as hard as they can to make something out of nothing here when it comes to Warren's statement, but I guess that's me, a Warren supporter, talking to you, a Bernie supporter, so there you have it well

0:23:54 Jamie: I think there are two distinct claims here, though. I think there's the first claim about the empirical reality of who Soleimani was and how that's relevant to describing what took place when making an official statement as a United States state senator and a candidate for the presidency. I think the second claim, and I think this is what's really sticking to you, is the way that these claims are used to then do politicking after the fact. And I think these are two distinct things. But because of the way that they interact, they sort of tend to overlap and seem like they're one thing. And I'm not sure that that's necessarily correct. But I think when you pointed out earlier, when you were going to talk about Buttigieg's statement.

0:24:43 Jamie: I think that this is not something that's unique to Bernie Sanders supporters. And I'm really starting to pick up, every time someone says, you know, "purity test," because it sounds to me like people are objecting to people having standards that are different than theirs. And they've made a pejorative of that in the phrase of "purity test," the way that the right has turned "social justice warrior" into this, like, nefarious concept, intercept, um, but that's part of what running campaigns is about, is distinguishing yourself from the opposition, and this is one place Bernie Sanders has been pretty consistent his entire political career, he's opposed every single war, and there are meaningful differences that go beyond the surface level of, like, which particular combination of magic words they used in their official statements, he didn't vote for the military budget, he didn't vote for... and I know Elizabeth Warren didn't either, but these are important.

0:25:37 Thomas: She wasn't in office, but yeah

0:25:38 Jamie: Right, Right. But these are important differences when you're talking and you're having these national debates about how we're going to pay for things like Medicare for all, how are we going to pay for things like canceling student debt? Well, it becomes really relevant that we seem to have no hesitation to spend trillions of dollars to bomb countries, invade countries, occupy countries for decades based on falsified evidence after they did nothing to us. Yeah.

0:25:38 Thomas: Oh Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more on that. And you know, uh, you know, you, you make good points. Uh, I, I, I think it's, as often it is the case with these things, I think it's a question of, um, scale. It's a question, or maybe that's not the right word, it's question of, of the threshold. Like, where do you see, you know, what I might see as maybe an improper or an unfair purity test, you know, someone else might see is a valid purity test. And I didn't mean to say that any purity test is like, a, you know, you're not allowed to do that. No, of course, you're right, you make a good point, like, this is the time to be testing which candidates we like and who we want to be present. Yeah, totally great point. I think it's a question of, I guess, a reasonableness thing. I think when I listened to that interview with Ezra Klein, he pointed out that it's a bit of a one sided purity test.

0:27:04 Thomas: And one thing that I've said before and I'll say it again, and I don't know that this is the case with somebody like Nathan J. Robinson. It might be the case that he's just so dedicated to socialism. And I think he is that, you know, he really wants somebody who is absolutely the closest to a socialist that you're going to get. And, you know, I respect that, but I couldn't help. But after Ezra Klein point out a couple of instances, instances in which Robinson's criticism of Elizabeth Warren also applied equally to Bernie Sanders in a couple of cases, it felt a little too much like the thing you see where we find reasons to not vote for women. We find reasons to disqualify women, whereas we find kind of the other way. We find reasons to vote for men.

0:27:49 Thomas: And it felt a little too much like that. And it bugged me. And I'm not speaking to his motivations. Maybe that has nothing to do with it. But it's something that's on my mind when I look at these things. We find quick ways to disqualified, oftentimes female candidates, in ways that we, we don't do with other candidates. And, and I'm certainly not meaning to say that that's what you're doing. It's just something that. On my mind when it comes to this kind of thing, because what, what I, what what I view as an invalid purity test is one in which, do you really believe, or I guess I'll ask any, any Bernie supporter, anybody who has this criticism of Warren, do you, do you actually believe that she would, I don't know, like start a war in the Middle East, or like, do you actually think there's any danger of her being some sort of warmonger, or is this just a way to find a way and make her language, make her seem like something she really isn't?

0:28:40 Thomas: I guess that's my issue. With it. Whereas Buttigieg, I don't know. I do actually, I'm not sure that he would be exactly the force for peace that I would want him to be. So I guess that's where I try to draw that line. Is it a good faith criticism? Is it something that you actually believe to be the case that she would go to war, do something to otherwise upset peace or cause violence? And I just don't think that's the case. And I think this is an empty criticism, I guess.

0:29:11 Jamie: So I mean, to that extent, I think that's fair. I don't think Elizabeth Warren would be eager to bring us to war. I can't imagine she would have, um, a belligerent or aggressive foreign policy. Um, so I, I can appreciate what you're saying there. Budaj, on the other hand, um, I found some of his, his statements, um, um, not to meet my purity tests. Um, you know, particularly, Um, you know, particularly right after the statement he put out right after Iran had struck the military base in Iraq, was that, you know, no American lives had been lost. And I actually tweeted at him because I was like, do you, do you not know that Iraqis live in Iraq?

0:29:37 Thomas: Same here.

0:29:56 Jamie: Are you unfamiliar?

0:29:55 Thomas: Oh, do they have lives? Oh, shoot. I thought only Americans had lives.

0:29:58 Jamie: Yeah, did you not not know. And I was just really appalled at his indifference to non American life. And I think that's part of what this criticism from the left is capturing, that part of what's inflamed the tension in the Middle East is Americans general unwillingness to see the lives of brown people and Muslim people as worth as much as ours.

0:30:28 Jamie: And think you're right to point out that it doesn't really seem like a good faith argument to suggest that Elizabeth Warren is going to be belligerent in her foreign policy. I can't imagine that she would be. I think that's fair, fair. Um, I think it's also fair though for those on the left, at least during a primary, to say, hey, we want somebody who can recognize that, you know, everyday regular people have far more in common with everyday regular people in the Middle East than they do with the people who are launching these wars. And too much blood has been lost, too many lives have been lost, and too many money has has been wasted fighting these wars over the perpetuation of insignificant differences. And we need to stop this dichotomous thinking that everybody who agrees, disagrees with us or fights against us is a terrorist, and we're always the good guys. And I think we need a more nuanced understanding if there's going to be any hope that these tensions ever settle down. Yeah,

0:30:48 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:31:31 Thomas: Great points. I guess I'll, you know, to lay out some fig leaves here. What is it? Olive branches, whatever it is, whatever the saying is. I think it's tremendous asset of Bernie's that he's been so consistently consistently anti-war. It's awesome. It is one of the main reasons that I would be pretty much fine with him being president. He is not my first choice, but he is definitely my second choice. I really hope that if it is not going to be Elizabeth Warren, I do hope it is Bernie Sanders. I think it is a tremendous asset. I do not mean to take away from his consistency in that. I just think that realistically, Elizabeth Warren would be similar on foreign policy. I don't think there would be that much of a difference there. I also want to say again, I encourage people to read that Nathan J. Robinson article.

0:32:16 Thomas: I'll link it in the show notes. There's plenty of good stuff in there. That sentence was so firmly dismissive of Elizabeth Warren in a way that it does irk me, as somebody who is a fan of her decades of accomplishments and what she's done. It's frustrating to see reaction to a single tweeted statement, just because she said this guy's a a murderer first, that like that means she can't be an effective advocate for peace, it just a little too far for me, but there's plenty of good stuff in that article and uh I think it's well worth reading. Um, I wanted to say, okay, I guess other things on Iran before we get to our lighter news, I suppose. A couple things, for one, maybe the the the one of the most frustrating things about this for me is that just seeing Iranians unite because of this behind what is really, you know, an awful regime.

0:33:16 Thomas: While I do not believe we have the credibility or the ability to intervene in any way in other governments effectively, nonetheless, I would still think I that organically revolution could happen in Iran and that the people, you know, could, because it didn't used to be. You've seen the memes. You're seeing the comparisons. It didn't use to be so horribly repressive and, you you know, fanatical in many ways. And I would love there to be revolution and for Iran to have, and for every country to have secular progressive government of some kind, or at least democratic government. And this has this has set that back.

0:34:03 Thomas: You know, this has united people behind a horrible regime, in my opinion. Go ahead.

0:34:09 Jamie: So two things. Donald Trump is by no means a strategic thinker. This, you know, obviously was given no consideration to either our or Iran's long-term interests. But more importantly, I kind of want to push back a little bit on what you're saying, because I think Americans really need to be mindful when they talk about Iran's government and what it should be like and what sort of revolution they should have, because it really doesn't make any sense. And you can't meaningfully critique Iranian culture as it is now without talking about the coup in 1953 that did actually change their form of government and put in place the Shah, because that was in the interest of the UK and the US financial interests.

0:34:59 Jamie: And so Iran would not be the place that it is today without interference in their government. And so I think Americans need to be really mindful about this before they say what Iran should do or what Iranians should do in the face of a government that they have, in part because the United States and the UK decided to interfere with their government, government.

0:35:24 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I don't really see how that contradicts anything I was saying. I wasn't around back then. And yeah, that sounds horrible. Um, I think that regardless of how we got there, I think that that does inform saying like if we should do something, and I think we've proven, as I said, I think we've proved that we can't be trusted to do that and we shouldn't be in intervening. Um, but I do, I think it's perfectly valid to say that uh I do wish that, you know, this, that revolution would happen and they'd get rid of this regime and that they could could have more democratic secular government. Um, and I stand by that, so. So, but sure, I mean, point taken, I guess.

0:35:59 Jamie: I just, I think, you know, our own government is is nothing to be particularly proud of, and I think we should be worrying about our own democratic institutions and how we got here before we should be insisting that, you know, the citizens of other countries assume risks that we ourselves aren't willing to take up. We can't even protest in any in any meaningful sense when our own government is keeping children in cages, and so it seems, I don't know, not quite right to insist that people in other countries should risk imprisonment and death to change their government when we just go about our lives while our government keeps children in cages and they die from lack of adequate medical care.

0:36:40 Thomas: Yeah, I mean I'm not, I didn't insist anybody do anything, but sure, I think that you can fully criticize our own government, as we do on the show pretty much every week, while also wishing that around the world countries that are in much worse position would improve their position. I don't see why that would be a problem, but but yeah, I mean, certainly we have our own issues, I just think that it perhaps understates how repressive and awful some of these other regimes can be. I think you can fully acknowledge our weaknesses without devolving into like a complete, on, inability to, you know, critique other governments as well, don't you think? I mean, can't you can't she do do both things effectively?

0:37:30 Jamie: So I think there's a difference between critiquing other governments and suggesting that the citizens of other governments are somehow failing by not rising up and changing it. And the only reason I bring up the comparison is most of of us aren't even willing to take on the inconvenience of, you know, missing a Saturday afternoon with our friends or taking a day off of work to protest or even write a senator or a congressperson to say, like, hey, you know, I'm really not comfortable with these, you know, children concentration camps. And yet it's, we're almost cavalier about insisting that people in other countries should risk life and limb to protest their government. And it seems to be a little bit inconsistent about the the burdens and the responsibilities, disabilities, we think other people should be willing to take on because it would make our lives more comfortable, while at the same time being unwilling to do very much ourselves when our government is responsible for so much of the tension in the Middle East. Yeah.

0:38:26 Thomas: Sure. I don't know if that's directed at me. I don't think it's valid. But if you're directing it at what some other people are saying, sure. I didn't insist on anybody do anything. I was just saying I'm hopeful. Like when you're discussing the strategy and the fallout of this stupid decision Trump made, one of the bad outcomes is that people are uniting more behind a repressive regime. That's my point. And that is a bad thing.

0:38:51 Jamie: No, I I agree with that, but I think that that speaks to just that Donald Trump's temperament and his lack of strategic thinking. Yeah. I

0:39:00 Thomas: And um the other thing that that blows me away about all this uh is just how capricious this whole thing is. Like, it is just fundamentally disturbing that we could be so close to another war for such stupid reasons. Like, it just absolutely is just disheartening, you know. Like, I, like, it really, it felt like a coin toss to me. Now maybe I'm nuts, but like this morning it felt like a coin toss.

We were either, you know, gonna kind of back down or we're gonna be at war for the dumbest, some of the dumbdest reasons. And it is just, I, you know, growing up, I never would have believed this is how the world works, you know, as a kid, and it's just so disappointing. And I I don't, I guess I don't have a a point other than it's another reality check of like it almost makes me want to like rethink history a little bit and go back and just think, like, is this how easy it is for massive conflict and war and death to happen? Like, is it really this easy? It's just, yeah, that's true. And it's so much mobilization too, like so much effort, you know, went into such a blunder. It's depressing.

0:40:03 Jamie: Mean world war one was pretty stupid. No.

0:40:16 Thomas: But any more points on, oh, go ahead.

0:40:16 Jamie: I think you're no It's just gonna I I completely agree with all of that. I can't even keep track of the days anymore. I'm sorry, guys. I've been off of work and I don't go back until Monday. And so I have no idea of like what day of the week it is or time. So it was one of the day's after we assassinated Soleimani. And my phone just like randomly glitched out. The screen went black. It wouldn't turn off. I couldn't do anything with it. And I actually had this thought like, oh, my gosh, did something get struck? Has like our infrastructure been wiped out? Is where we hacked? I had no idea, and it just like really brought home how precarious a world we're living in right now, um, with Donald Trump as president, some

0:40:59 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. He just, he needs to be gone. He really does. All right, well, let's change gears here and talk about uh ricky gervais yeah like lighter news still it's still annoying but like less life threatening I suppose so so by that account it's uh it's lighter news Ricky Gervais hosted the whatever awards I don't even want to I don't even want to say what it, you all know what it was, but like it's part of this, a meta critique of this is I know these assholes who do these award shows are doing this on purpose to get us talking about their stupid award shows that we probably shouldn't care about. And so that's part of it. Like I resent that in and of itself, because they booked Ricky Gervais for, he said in his monologue, the only reason I know is like the fifth time or something. What are you doing? The fifth time you're going to have this guy on? Like clearly there's intent there. Like they know what they're doing and they want to cause a stir and get, you know, something to go viral and all that.

0:41:11 Jamie: Lighter news

0:42:00 Thomas: So I resent that part of it. However, that said, you know, in case you aren't aware, Ricky Gervais, somebody I used to be a, like literally the top fan of, like I was like the biggest Ricky Gervais fan. It's been a bad three or four years for me. Can I just say, it's like, I was a huge Gervais fan, huge Louis CK fan, also Al Franken fan. You know, I'm glad I wasn't like, oh God, at least Dawkins, you you know, isn't been me too that I know of. Um, so that's on the bright side. Uh, yeah, no, lots of, lots of people. I genuinely was huge. Oh, Lawrence Krauss had him on the show, interviewed him, loved it. That was awesome. Great for him to be a creep and, you know? Ruin that. So it's been a rough, basically I'm not, I'm not really a fan of any men anymore, ever. Pretty much. It's

0:42:18 Jamie: Dawkins too were you a Dawkins fan Yeah

0:42:51 Thomas: Been my, like, I'll just, I I'll, I'll consume art still and be like, like that's good, but I'm not going to go out of my way to be a huge fan. But anyway, so it's been rough. But I genuinely, genuinely love the British office and extras and Gervais's work on both of those. I'm a huge man. Maybe, you know, Stephen Merchant, I think is still cool. So that's good for now. Maybe I'll just say I'm big Stephen Merchants fan for now, but Yeah. So I, but but I really want to emphasize this, because it's oftentimes I think people think I'm like the woke police who just wants to hate everybody or something. And I, I'm not that, like, I, nothing disappoints me more than Ricky Gervais being a Turf, as you said early on in the show. And, or, or maybe that was before recording, um, you know, being anti-trans and saying stuff that sucks. Like I hate it. I don't, I don't want to feel this way.

And he did this, this monologue, and, um, you know, after watching, like, I saw a viral clip of it, of the end of it, which I thought was really obnoxious, um, after going and watching the whole eight minute monologue, I think that a lot of it was fine, you know, so, like, if you're a big Ricky Gervais fan, I'm, you know, I'm not trying to exaggerate the case here, like a lot of it is fine. I don't mind the idea of poking fun at, you know, some of Hollywood's hypocrisy. I thinkthat's something that basically, that's that meme with the two hands clasping,

0:43:18 Jamie: So

0:44:18 Thomas: Like pretty much everybody loves to hate on Hollywood hypocrisy. You know, it's the left and the right. That's the right's favorite thing. And the left's like third favorite thing, I think. And, you know, it's cool to poke fun at that. But like what really irked me is the end of the monologue. Well, a couple of things. The end of The Monologue, and feel free to fill in any details that, you know, I missed or you think are relevant here. He says, you give you win an award. I don't want to hear any political speeches. Like does get up here and thank your agent and thank your God and get, you know, get the fuck off the stage. And it's that, uh, that, that bothers me the most because then you're deciding you have decided you, Ricky Gervais, some guy who, by the way, is a celebrity is a person with a multi-tens-of-millions-of-dollar deal with Netflix.

0:45:09 Thomas: He is a celeb. He's not, this is not some guy they found in a bar before that. Like he is one of them. He is them. And, but he is deciding, no, I'm a smart guy. You are all these vapid celebrities who don't know anything. He literally says, like, oh, you, you have no time in the real world. You have less schooling than, uh, than, um, Greta Thunberg. Uh, you know, but, but here he is with the arrogance to say, no, I'm not like you.

I, I know everything, and I can make a political speech like I'm making right now. I can make political statements like I'm making right now on the very same podium that you're about to maybe have if you win an award, but you are not allowed to do that. I have decided that everybody in this room but me is disqualified from making political statements, but I can do it. It's the most arrogant, obnoxious thing, and it drives me insane, and I've gotten a ton of pushback on Twitter from people from even, I don't know, people who have probably agreed with me on other stuff because I can't stand that Gervais did this, and I haven't even gotten to what I think is the worst. But as usual, I got to check myself here and go pause. And what are your thoughts on this?

0:46:16 Jamie: I had a lot of the same thoughts that you did, um, he is one of the top five paid comedians of all time, um Yeah, so I looked It up, he's worth 130 million dollars, um He has, I forgot to double check the number of followers that he has on Twitter, um, but he leverages his platform, you know, for a lot of good things. He does do a lot of good things for animals, but, as as we've mentioned, also for transphobia. He is a committed TERF. And the hypocrisy of him standing there claiming to bemoan the hypocrisy of Hollywood while himself being so hypocritical was just flabbergasting to

0:46:25 Thomas: Wow. Really? Holy shit. Wow.

0:47:03 Thomas: I had to just quit real quick. I forgot. I did have the note. Gervais took on Hollywood hypocrisy by being a huge hypocrite and showing us how annoying it is. It's kind of. Yeah, pretty much.

0:47:14 Jamie: Me. And so it just struck me because one, when you say don't say anything political, that is itself a political statement. Because what you're doing is you're saying how things are is okay. How things are, is fine, and suggesting otherwise is morally bad. So by advocating a no politics stance, you're taking the political stance that there's nothing that needs to be discussed. And that couldn't be more wrong. And I was actually so grateful and so so moved. I don't usually go in for these award shows. I never would have tuned in if you didn't want to talk about it. But I did see Michelle Williams speech about abortion. And that was just the perfect counterpoint and the perfect rebuttal to what Ricky Gervais was talking about. Because messages like that are so important. Somewhere in this, in this world, someone was watching that, having no idea what was about to come, and felt much more normal about her own abortion, felt much more secure in her decision, much more confident in her ability to choose what was right for her.

And Michelle Williams had this line, it was, "I wanted to live my life as a series of choices instead of things that happened to me," and I just thought that was so profound and so necessary a a thing to be said, because we are living in a world where 200 congressmen signed a letter to repeal Roe v. Wade. This is a right that women are at risk of losing. And I just really found it terrible for Ricky Gervais to get up there and say very pompously,

0:47:22 Thomas: Yes. Yes. Mm hmm.

0:48:49 Jamie: Like, we're not going to talk about politics, because what it really means is politics are fine for people like me, and I'd rather not be inconvenienced by having to care about people who are not like me. Yeah,

0:49:02 Thomas: Yeah. And declaring that he's the arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable to talk about. Great points. I also, that's that's the major problem with painting with such a broad brush, because, you know, I really think and especially after watching the entire thing and thinking about it, like there could have been a good version of this, actually, as much as I, you you know, and, and again, because of his, uh, and just in case anybody doesn't know what TERF is, I should define it as a trans exclusionary radical feminist. And, and I believe he, I don't know if he wears that badge proudly or not, but it's, it's. You know, it seems that he's a TERF, but anyway, um, despite not liking that, that aside, of course, uh, which is, which has not great. There could have been a good version of this, of actually punching up at certain targets.

0:49:52 Thomas: Um, but the problem is when you come in there and decide that you're the person who's better than everybody, literally says anybody who wins, shut up, like nobody else has any right, nobody. Here, it would be one thing to pick a target, as he did in a couple instances, which I thought was great. So, for example, he picked on Tim Apple. That was there, I think, right?

Is that, wasn't that Tim Cook, Tim Apple, wasn't it, because Apple has a streaming service now, you know, and they have, you know, they're making shows, and he said, you know, he made a joke about, uh, you know, well, you, you know, that's great, you guys are all super liberal, but then Apple has like sweatshops where kids are making phones. Yeah, that's a totally valid, you know, like punching up, uh, uh, criticism that I, that that's, that great.

And if he had been targeted and in that way and had, you know, specifically punched up, uh, in certain ways, um, rather than lumping in somebody like Michelle Williams or who knows who is, who knows what, like, like hardworking, barely have made it, aspiring, you know, actors, or by the way, like production people who don't really have any power, you know, who knows who was there, who knows what they were going to say, and painting it with a broad brush and disqualifying everybody there from making any kind of statement because you've decided you're the arbiter of who knows what they're talking about and you're allowed to make this political speech, but nobody else can.

It's obnoxious. This. And, uh, I got to get to the, what, what I think is probably for me, the, the worst part of this, and is absolutely pathetic and makes it even worse, is afterward, or actually during, during the, the monologue, he says this, and also afterward on Twitter, he, he tries to go to the "it's just jokes."

0:51:33 Thomas: "It's just jokes," that, like, at least have the guts to stand by your points. You know, like, like, if I, Jamie, if I see somebody who I think is unattractive, and I make a joke in front of that person, to a laughing audience, about how ugly they are, what is the statement? Well, it's just a joke. What does that mean? What does it do? What does the statement do? Does that do something? So, like, when you say, oh, it is just jokes, it's just jokes, does that mean that Apple does not have sweatshops then? Like, what is that function? How does that do anything? Thing. I think it's just a cowardly way to try to get away from the consequences of the very real statements you're making. I don't think it actually means, it's meaningless to say it's just jokes.

0:52:17 Jamie: I think that's exactly right, and I think, you know, he wants to sort of style himself or fancy himself a sort of George Carlin, but George Carlin would never say afterward it's just a joke, uh, because he was going after real contradictions and and forcing them into our awareness that he wanted us to pay attention to, um, and Ricky Gervais isn't doing that, and you're right, like, that, that line about Apple and the streaming services, that was great, that was actually funny, um, because he was, because he was forcing us to deal with these contradictions and the disparity between the performative wokeness, if you will, and how people live their lives.

0:52:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:57 Jamie: And I thought his joke about Ronan Farrow was actually really funny, too, that everybody in the audience was, you know, most afraid of Ronan, Ronan Farrow, because, you know, what, if, if you're raping people, then good, I hope you're terrified that Ronan Farrow is coming for you. Like that's, that's a fair target. But the pompousness of his position, that nobody was allowed to make a political statement because he had decreed it such, just struck me as really hollow and really hypocritical. Right.

0:53:01 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:53:24 Thomas: And it's no coincidence that the right is loving him now. I literally am seeing on, oh, what's the, what's the, oh I'm forgetting this stupid website, Daily Caller, is that the one? Daily Wire, Daily Wire. Yeah, yeah, that's Ben Shapiro's, right? Daily Wire? Yeah, literally seeing Daily Wire articles that were like, oh, Gervais really shows little sticks at the hall, whatever. Like the right, it loves it.

When you do something like this and it's entirely people on the right who are like loving it, maybe, maybe you should question what you did. Doesn't mean it's, again, like we're both saying, it doesn't mean like it was 100% the the worst thing, but like, there's a reason that the right is cheering for him right now.

And it's because he became a status quo warrior in the, in the when you, when you declare that no one can talk politics and, and, uh, you're the only one who can, you, you like you said, that's a political statement to, um, declare that the status quo is okay and no one ought to try to change anything. Um, and uh, yeah, it's really frustrating. And, and the being just a joke is, is perhaps the most cowardly part about all of it. It's not jokes. What does that even mean? Yeah. Yeah. It is joke, but the whole point of the joke is that there's truth in the joke.

When he made a joke about Scorsese being short, when you say, well, it's just a joke that was in his monologue, you know, he can't go on any of the rides at the amusement parks. Okay. What, what does it do to say it's just a joke? Does that mean he's actually tall? Like what does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. Stand by what you say. Yeah.

0:55:00 Jamie: And so I don't, I don't think it's a coincidence. If you, if you ever see any of those, like, memes that get passed around on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or whatever, where they list, like, signs of an abusive relationship or signs you're being gaslighted, every single time, on every single one of them, there's the phrase "it's just a joke" to sort of hand-wave away how hurtful and harmful these sorts of, these sorts of sentences can be. And that's what he was trying to do. He wants to just be hurtful without having to be responsible for the consequences of it, because if you're funny and you're actually getting at the contradictions of our world, and you punching up, as you should be, you don't have to apologize afterwards, you don't have to say it's just a joke, because, as you pointed out, really good jokes are really good jokes because they're getting at what's true. Now,

0:55:48 Thomas: All right. Well, uh, I think that's the thoughts I have on that. Do you have anything more to, to add on Ricky Gervais?

0:55:54 Jamie: I'm done with TERFs, uh.

0:55:56 Thomas: All right. Well that's our show. Hey, Hey, guess what, everybody? We've got another debate next week.

0:56:03 Thomas: So I'm sure Jamie, you're very excited about that. You know, it's I'll say this. It may be even fewer people, which is awesome. Actually, I'm looking forward to that part. So maybe it will be substantive and we'll see how it goes. We plan to record another post-debate episode because, you know, every the last time I threatened to maybe not do it, we got a lot of feedback that said, no, please keep doing them. So that's what we plan to do next week. And also, I think we have a guest coming up in the future again that should be really interesting. So all good reasons to keep listening, keep supporting the show. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thank you, Jamie, for coming on as usual. And we'll see everybody next week!

0:56:54 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.