Send Some Love and Buy Me A Cup Of Joe:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jasonbermasShow more ETH - 0x90b9288AF0E40F8C90604460973743dBC91dA680
Watch My Documentaries:
https://rokfin.com/stack/1339/Documentaries--Jason-Bermas
Subscribe on Rokfin
https://rokfin.com/JasonBermas
Subscribe on Rumble
https://rumble.com/c/TheInfoWarrior
Subscribe on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/InfoWarrior
Follow me on X
https://x.com/JasonBermas
PayPal: [email protected]
Patriot TV - https://patriot.tv/bermas/
#BermasBrigade #TruthOverTreason #BreakingNews #InfoWarrior Show less
We get deep in the weeds over at WQUD with Aaron and the boys.
We get into scroll culture, personal accountability, NASA, and so much more.
I do want to remind everybody, we cannot do it without you.
Please consider supporting the broadcast with the links down below.
Buymeacoffee.com slash Jason Burmese or the PayPal.
Big shout out to Marigold Resources, MarigoldResources.com, buying and selling a business.
Check out my man McGreevy, who also sponsors this segment over at WQUD.
Buckle up and get ready to make sense of the madness.
Is the man, the myth, the legend, documentary filmmaker, and YouTube billionaire Jason Burmes.
Huge romance.
YouTube billionaire.
Not quite yet.
You got monetized.
Did you get the gold teeth you've been wanting or that Ferrari or any of that stuff?
That would not be the point of it.
But I would say this.
Hey, guys, if you are listening here on 107.7, we're going to be posting this video and we're going to be showing our work a lot today.
So you might want to catch it later.
And just subscribe because we are on the road to 75,000 subscribers.
And I really want to get to 100K.
We're going to do it kicking and screaming.
But yeah, it's nice to actually be able to have ads and revenue from my dark overlords over at Google and the NSA.
As they twist their mustache.
Yes, I'm sure.
So, you know, plenty in the news once again.
And I don't know if you saw, and I'm sure you've got a ton of stuff, but there's one thing that struck me that I found interesting that I wanted to bring up.
So I don't know how long ago, was it last week, Mike, that Cheryl Hines was on the view?
You talked about it last week.
Okay, so maybe I just forgot to bring it up last Friday, but did you see where RFK Jr.'s wife, Cheryl Hines, the actress, which I didn't know that was his wife, but right on, RFK.
But she was on The View.
And so one of the ladies was just going, you know, daggers, obviously.
And I don't know what her name is, but she was just throwing knives pretty much.
And Cheryl Hines was very polite and did not escalate the situation, which is, you know, that's what that lady was trying to get her to do.
And she was like, I'm sorry, can I finish?
Because the lady was being so rude talking over.
I mean, it looked like a Senate panel committee hearing or something.
It was bad.
And then they all were like, oh, like, she's not going to escalate this.
She's not going to take this to the next level and start throwing fire at us.
So then one of the other ladies brought up something about what they're doing for prescriptions and seniors, and then they all were friends again.
And then at the end, Whoopi Goldberg invited her to come back on.
And she was like, are you serious?
She said, yeah.
She said, you, you know, I want you to come back on.
People can hear what you have to say and make a choice about how they feel.
I bought fell over.
I wasn't watching the show, but I saw the clip.
I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it.
Is it possible?
Is it even remotely possible that we could be taking a step back towards people getting along on the view?
I don't know.
Maybe it was a fake Whoopi Goldberg that day or something, but I was very surprised.
Here's the deal.
You know, I only read about that.
I didn't actually watch the clip, but because I am a news junkie, I saw what had happened.
And number one, those people are losing their audience, right?
Their audience has been stripped of them because Number one, the whole model of daytime TV is no longer the same thing.
Where, I mean, basically, you know, right now, it's 9 a.m.
And prior to this, I had an option of listening to or watching a ton of other media that is open source and not necessarily live.
And even if I wanted to watch that, I wouldn't necessarily have to watch it live.
I could have watched that clip or something very different, right?
So they have to gravitate towards at least presenting more honesty.
And as far as Shell Hines goes, I'm a huge Kirbier enthusiasm fan.
So, yeah, I've actually known that she was married to RFK.
It's not his first wife, but they've been together, man.
It's got to be 15, maybe even 20 years at this point.
I think RFK Jr. is the shining star in this administration.
Still far from perfect, but is moving the conversation over.
And more and more, you know, I was on the phone with certain people over the past week back in New York.
And we were just kind of going over that era of where I left, which, you know, is the COVID-19 44 nightmare.
I've now been in Iowa a little over five years.
I came here in October of 2020.
And, you know, my buddy was like, look, most people realize you were right on that issue at this point, you know, even begrudgingly.
They just don't like to talk about it.
So, I mean, even on YouTube, starting with that, you can actually talk about that where you could not talk about that before.
Now, whether or not that continues outside of this administration, whether or not that continues on all issues, I think that's up in the air.
But I am at least hopeful because, I mean, you got to realize, man, this was over half a decade that I was demonetized on something that I've literally started almost two decades ago back in 2007.
So I've seen the shift very much so.
And even before 2007, you know, I had a Google video account we were uploading there, and that's what absorbed YouTube.
So I've also seen the evolution of media, of streaming services, of the kind of money they're spending.
You know, I don't know if you, I think we talked about the South Park deal, right?
At $8 billion for five seasons, and I think only eight episodes a season.
For some reason, they're saying now the season's over and they've started it new, even though the storyline's continuing.
And I think it's worth noting.
There's an ongoing storyline of Trump sleeping with Satan and has basically impregnated him with the Antichrist, right?
This is on South Park?
This is on South Park.
And the reason they, and the reason I bring it up is because in the last episode, they actually brought Peter Thiel into the mix.
JD Vance has already been parodied.
They're working together.
For those that don't know, Peter Thiel was the technology secretary under Trump in the first administration, had a lot to do with getting him elected the second time, is the head of Palantir, Bilderberg steering member, big player.
And he decided that he was going to do a four-part lecture series on the Antichrist recently that sold out.
And it got some buzz on the internet.
So they actually put him in South Park giving a lecture on the Antichrist.
And it's just, it's just odd that now like that's also in the conversation.
Finally, Peter Thiel is in the, and I think that's good in the national conversation.
That's why, you know, I'll always defend that type of satire, whether I think it's funny or whether I think it's tired, whether I agree with it or I don't.
That we need more of that because it raises public awareness.
So I'm seeing a shift, man.
I think that people are also way more open to the conversation at this point because they don't, listen, the left doesn't like their leaders, right?
They don't, they know they were force-fed, AOC.
Bernie's tired to them.
He hasn't delivered.
They haven't been able to pass that torch.
A pretty face doesn't always get it done.
You know what I mean?
They don't have.
Obviously.
Yeah.
I've always been handsome devil.
And that's the mittens.
Yes.
I'm smitten with the mittens.
And I'll tell you what, that voice, I mean, it's like Barry White on steroids, right?
Yeah, it's similar.
Well, I mean, what shocked me was, like, getting back to the RFK thing, like, he comes out and he's like, hey, we're going to make all this stuff optional now.
It's not forced.
You're not required to do it.
And they were freaking out about having a choice.
And I'm like, what?
Like, you're an elected official and you're freaking out because we have a choice as Americans.
Like, that's what we're supposed to have.
Like, how far down the rabbit hole have you gone to where you don't even think like you're arguing against us having choices?
Like, what?
Like, that's crazy.
Well, again, I mean, they've taken, I mean, those women have taken an authoritarian standpoint, and their voice has been amplified artificially.
Why?
Because they want that to get out to the other housewives out there that force their husbands and their children into the situation.
That's the psychological tactic.
And if you haven't noticed in popular culture and media, really throughout my lifetime, the last four to five decades, it's the father figure who's a moron.
And look, I love The Simpsons.
It's one of my favorite shows out there.
But who do you think is more competent?
Marjor Homer.
I love Family Guy, but who's more competent?
Peter or Lois?
I love American Dad.
I go down the line.
And I mean, there was a little bit more respect, but when I say, you know, four decades, it even started a lot with the Flintstones, too.
Like, you know, Fred and Barney were kind of goofy and weren't as grounded.
But they weren't as emasculated.
And so there's this whole perception that we're morons.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, thinking married with children, you kind of had a bad going on.
I mean, they celebrated it.
At least on Married with Children, they both kind of sucked.
But yes, that was just the degradation of the whole family.
And I'll say this in retrospect with all of it.
At least they still haven't gotten divorced on those shows.
You know, at least they've kept the family unit intact.
But it's again, I mean, that's one positive way to look at it.
But again, you've put pressure on, you know, the matriarch, the mother figure.
And at the end of the day, people want to keep their families.
And I don't know how many people out there told me they took the hate and lies shot once, twice, maybe even thrice because of the wifey.
You know what I'm saying?
So they're a target.
And shows like that amplify it.
And unfortunately, it works as a psychological operations tactic.
And some of those women are true believers, too.
That's the other thing.
And authoritarianism doesn't seem to bother them when it's portrayed as a group safety.
And that should frighten everybody because at the end of the day, that is collectivism.
And it's not collectivism in a manner where we're benefiting.
It's where certain people will be punished from going against not what's right, not what's scientifically correct, but what the group tells you you have to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, very true.
We are deep in the weeds with Jason Burmese, brought you by River Cities Reader.
One of the hot topics, of course, that I always bring in, we've been talking about a little bit here and there, but we had the one big conversation about the moon the one day.
I get a ton of comments.
And now Matt Gates and Musk are tossing some stuff around.
I was like, what's going on with that?
So if you end up watching this right behind me, this is a real tweet.
So Polymarket, another controversial outfit, breaks this story.
The Earth now has two moons as confirmed by NASA.
We've got two moons.
So Matt Gates.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second.
Yes.
What second moon?
What are you talking about?
I don't see a second moon.
Well, let me read it for you.
bring it up right here let's let's go to oh man that's a that's right i i uh I picked it out.
Basically, they're saying there's this other moon in orbit, blah, blah, blah.
It's further away.
It's a whole thing.
Okay, so it's observed by a quasi-satellite of Earth 2025 PN7 is not a second moon.
By the way, they're adding context.
But again, NASA's calling it's an observed object.
We could argue all day.
The funny thing is that Gates said, should we fake a moon landing on the second one now?
Now, kind of funny.
You know, Matt Gates could have been the attorney general, but unfortunately, he likes cocaine and hookers too much.
Yeah, it's going to hold you back.
I mean, it doesn't matter what field you're in.
You know, if you're too far deep in the weeds with the cocaine and the hookers, it's, you know, it'll hold you back.
Or you're the governor of Arkansas and you're probably connected to one of the biggest rings in that manner, Iran-Contra through MENA, and then you become the president of the United States for eight years and play the saxophone on Arsenio Hall.
Yeah, that's when I first remember Bill Clinton was him on Arsenio Hall.
You know, these people over here are about, you know, I loved Arsenio Hall as a kid.
And that was the first time I'd ever seen Bill Clinton.
I'm like, who's this guy?
And yeah, had no idea.
But yeah, I mean, essentially, I guess in terms of blackmail, you know, cocaine and hookers could probably be handy.
That's the word on the street, you know.
Anyway, so anyway, anyway.
But yeah, getting back to Musk and NASA, he's basically picked a fight now with Sean Duffy, who's the transportation secretary and the de facto head of NASA.
Now, there have been some hearings recently.
The Muskerduz SpaceX astronaut is actually vying for the job as NASA's chief administrator, which is currently vacant.
And basically, Musk has gotten into this Twitter fight with Sean Duffy, who is a Boston real world reality star who became a Fox News anchor and is now in the Trump administration, who was telling, yeah, it's pretty awesome, huh?
Why are so many people from TV?
Like, what?
Anyway, go ahead.
I mean, Musk was saying things like basically he would settle for somebody with more than 100 IQ is running.
He was really digging deep at Sean Duffy, who's a handsome and well-spoken gentleman.
But at the same time, when he's telling me that we're going to put nuclear reactors on the moon and we're going to take Artemis and people to the moon, and as I said, now Artemis was supposed to take people to the moon in 2024.
They're now saying in 2026, they're going to take them around the moon and not land.
Musk is just saying it's all nonsense and it's not going to happen.
I find this extremely ironic because Musk is also out there saying we're going to Mars, right?
But I think that he realizes the logistics of rocket technology taking us to the moon.
Too many eyes are going to be on it this time.
It would be, I think it's an impossibility.
I think that rocket technology is just not.
They're lying to us about something, okay?
I don't know how far we can get.
I don't know how far the moon is.
I think, you know, last time I checked, because it moves, it's like 238 in change.
We've talked about this so many times.
238,000.
Yeah.
I think it's at 238,000 in change.
It's like, okay, well, Polaris Dawn, his own rockets, only, and this was a capsule.
You know, forget about it.
Like, the capsule was up there.
Was, what, 1,200 miles, they're claiming, or is under 1,500 miles?
That's still a long way to go.
You know what I'm saying?
So I assume that this talk of going around the moon with human beings is, I don't know if it's going to come to a halt, but it's going to be pushed back again and again and again.
And I wonder if we're even going to see a manned mission around the moon by 2030.
Because as technology becomes more and more accessible to the consumer, like I said, all eyes are going to be on this one.
You know what I mean?
They're calling this.
I mean, I would say, never say never, but they're calling this a second space race with China.
Meanwhile, they've been cooperating with China on a multitude of things in space.
And by the way, the ISS is also being disassembled by 2030.
It's going to be fully decommissioned.
That'll be around the corner.
You know, five years will go like that.
And honestly, it's four years.
And they're talking about these other types of miniaturized commercial space stations out there.
Color me skeptical there as well.
I think there is the possibility that perhaps there are some things out there that are already in space that are classified, whether they're manned or not.
Again, I don't know what technology they're using.
I don't know.
But there was also a post on X, really not backed up by anything, but it hasn't been denied by the administration.
But they're saying that you got Trump saying that he's thinking about decommissioning and dismantling NASA altogether.
Now, I don't know whether that's true or not, but they are currently decommissioning and dismantling NASA Goddard, which is one of the main stations for them.
I think that when you really look at this, you've been a rebranding of NASA with SpaceX, with Blue Origin and Amazon.
You got to remember, again, Amazon is very much a military industrial complex company.
that big internet outage right remember they handle uh what happened with that I mean, Lord knows.
But think about this.
How many people didn't have access to communications?
How many people didn't have access to their monetary funds?
All because they're trying to dismantle that system and put it all digital as well.
And again, Amazon has these huge data centers that they have currently that they're building.
They're not a company that was able to just come up.
By the way, when we talk about NASA, I often talk about the Department, I'm sorry, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, DARPA.
I believe it's the grandfather.
I should type that in, of Bezos.
I think he was like a DARPA head.
Let's just type in DARPA and Bezos.
Because this company didn't have to have profits for years.
Yes, his grandfather, Lawrence Preston Geis, was a key figure in the agency's founding in 1958.
Yep.
Yep.
He worked on missile defense and space tech.
Oh, did he?
You don't say.
You don't say about that.
And the agency later pioneered the internet.
This is his film.
Oh, hmm.
Yep.
Yep.
So, you know, the more you know.
Thanks, Grandpa.
So when you look at Amazon, when you look at Google, these are just more extensions of what I like to call techno-fascism.
Because the true definition of fascism is the combination of the government and corporations as one unit.
And the line has been so blurred with these technology and military industrial complex companies that I don't think you can disassociate with them.
I mean, you just heard it.
They're working on missile defense, space tech, all these classified fields.
And one of the other things that NASA is very involved in that we talk about is geoengineering.
And, you know, a lot of people love to call it, you know, quote-unquote chemtrails.
I don't call them that.
I call them prolonged jet contrails, solar radiation management or modification, aerosol injection, because that's what they call them.
And when I say they, I talk about agencies like NASA and DARPA and NOAA.
And it used to be the DOD, now the Department of War.
Thomas Massey just put this out.
I love Massey, by the way.
Trump's been attacking him, and that's utter jackassery.
I would advise him to stop attacking him and Rand Paul, the true America firsters, the true human firsters.
So there's this letter basically calling for the defunding altogether of these programs that are geoengineering.
And he said, I support this letter to President Trump.
Terminate all federal funding and operational support associated with solar radiation modification, SRM activities conducted by the Department of War, DARPA, NOAA, and other federal agencies.
And you can go to climate.gov.
We've got it behind us.
Solar radiation modification, NOAA state of the science fact sheet.
And they're very open about the fact that they are doing this and have been doing this for decades.
Now, Massey, you know, a true American and Kentuckian, he put this out over on his Facebook, which I loved.
He said, best thing about government shutdowns, no chemtrails.
And he's got this gorgeous picture of a clear sky with a couple of real clouds in them.
If there's anything I love about this government shutdown, it's the idea that these kind of programs that have zero accountability and are truly devastating the biological life on the planet do come to a halt.
I don't know that that is the case.
Maybe they are downsized during this time period.
NASA in general, DARPA, obviously, they have black budgets that you and I simply aren't privy to and may not ever be privy to.
But if we are, it would be probably decades down the line.
Yeah, it's the deep secrets.
You know, I mean, deep sea, just the accounting alone will probably be cloaked in some regard forever.
But it is nice.
Look, I love Massey.
It is nice.
Other people are jumping on board.
This is something I missed over in the summer that was introduced by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And she has the Clear Skies Act.
And her bill prohibits all weather modification, including geoengineering, cloud seating, and solar radiation management, criminalizes weather modification violations up to 100K in fines and five years in prison per violation, directs the EPA and DOJ to investigate and prosecute violations, repeals all existing federal authorities of executive orders that permit weather modification,
creates a public reporting system to allow Americans to report suspicious activity, and requires the EPA to investigate.
So, you know what?
Good on you, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Clear Skies Act is one that I can certainly get behind.
And the bottom line, if there were people on the left side of the spectrum putting this out there, I'd be praising them as well.
But right now, it does seem like there's only a handful of these people and they are on the conservative end with any common sense whatsoever.
And we need to amplify those voices.
Absolutely.
I mean, I like hearing people challenge.
I like when people ask questions.
I wonder, I have a question of like, what's going on behind the scenes right now with the government shut down?
What does that mean?
Does it make it easier for people to do things they shouldn't be doing that are in government?
You know what I mean?
I mean, right now, first of all, I think that most of us, at least the working middle class, right, realize, hey, the government shut down for like almost a month.
It really hasn't changed their lives much, right?
It's not like gas is shot through the roof or, you know, everything day to day is still going forward.
And the truth of the matter is, the reason that they can't pass this, this isn't a great bill by any means.
It's kicking the can down the road.
It's going to be more printing of money.
Any way you look at it.
But their big thing is they are trying to keep health care for non-citizens in this bill.
And not only health care, but welfare benefits, SNAP, whatever you want to call it.
That's a reality.
All right.
Now, I want to emphasize that that certainly is not the issue across the board when we talk about these SNAP benefits, et cetera.
When you look at the numbers, I mean, whites, blacks, Hispanics down the line, really whites per capita are the biggest benefactors of the 40-plus million that we know about that this goes out to.
A fraction of that would be illegals, and they're not budging on that.
I'm glad they're not budging on that.
You know, I think it's already been so ridiculous.
A lot of people are talking about these viral videos of people that are losing their SNAP benefits on November 1st if there's not a bill passed.
Now, all the people that I've seen in these videos seem to be U.S. citizens.
So if the Democrats decide to just sign on to that one concession of no more welfare and SNAP for people that aren't citizens, all these people would get it.
But of course, they're blaming it on Trump and the administration.
They're causing more division.
But also, I look at this culture of entitlement.
Have you seen any of these videos, Aaron?
I have not.
They're a tough watch for me because I'm watching grown men in some cases just outright with like kids, outright saying they're not going to work for anybody.
It's your job to pay for their kids.
You know, all this victim mentality and entitlement mentality.
And, you know, as somebody that grew up in these programs, I can tell you right now, they're the worst.
And people do take advantage of them.
And you're not making the situation better.
And you're not empowering those poor children or doing the right thing by them by keeping the system in place that's already there.
I mean, one of these guys is sitting there and he's got like, he says, I think he had five or six kids.
A white, bald guy, just sitting there.
He's like, I'm not going to work.
I want to spend time with my kids.
It's like, look, there's a balance out there.
I'm sorry.
Like, I'm a big personal responsibility guy.
And the idea that we just enable people that have the physical means to work is ridiculous.
I've only seen an expansion of the welfare state throughout my lifetime.
I've only seen an expansion of so many people grifting the system and being proud of it, quite frankly.
I mean, that makes me want to vomit.
Well, if it's there, what you're doing is you're literally creating a class of people that make it worse for the rest of us.
Why?
Because of their own selfishness, for their own entitlements.
And their kids often fall into the same traps.
Not everybody, but I've seen it in my own lifetime.
I mean, the bottom line is nature versus nurture is a real thing.
Some people reject the situations around them, but some people, it's all they know.
And when you have this class of people, I mean, it's that same idea where they're hammering home that you need to do this and you need to take this medication and your kid needs these shots and da-da-da-da, that all these people that you need to take care of me.
And if you don't like it, you know, we're going to take you out or we're going to take you out this way.
We're going to steal.
I mean, some of these things that they're saying in these videos is crazy.
Not we're going to take personal responsibility.
We're going to go out work harder.
This is just an observation because I know everybody wants to make everything about race, right?
Let's make it about culture for a second.
When was the last time in this country, anywhere you went, Aaron, and I mean anywhere you went, that you saw a homeless person who was Asian in descent?
I don't know.
I mean, I couldn't tell you.
You know what I mean?
Like, I, yeah, off the top of my head, Mike, you got anything on this one?
No.
I've never seen one.
You've never seen one.
I'm just saying that, you know, I've been down to even Chinatown in New York City where, you know, there are plenty of homeless people.
I've been in a lot of areas from California, Oakland, LA, all these places.
If it's ever happened, it's been a rare occasion.
Now, Asia is a big place.
We're talking China, Japan, the Koreas, et cetera.
They all look at each other different racially, by the way.
Just for all the bigots out there that want to put them together.
It's a culture thing.
How many of those people, when we were going over numbers on the people that are on these benefits?
Now, I'm not saying there are zero Asian people that are getting SNAP benefits or Medicaid or Medicare.
It's very, very few.
And that's because they've built a culture around what?
Pride, work ethic, personal responsibility, et cetera.
All right.
And that's just a reality in many ways.
The U.S. has lost that.
You know, it's interesting, too, because even in sports, I remember watching baseball, Japanese league and stuff.
And just the respect for the umpire's calls.
You don't just different.
Just, I mean, you're not going to argue a strike and get in the umpire's face and get kicked out of the game.
Right.
And mine's an old part, right?
Yeah.
1968.
So, no, I want to ask you, you grew up in the 50s and 60s.
Yeah.
How much different was what we're talking about here, the attitude of this fraction of people?
It doesn't matter what color they are, but because there's plenty of, you know, that are going to take advantage of the system.
It doesn't matter.
But how different was it then?
You know, welfare and 55 years ago compared to now.
Welfare and food stamps were like the scarlet letter.
You didn't go around saying, yeah, I'm on welfare.
I'm not going to take that job.
The government's paying me because I paid into it and they owe me.
Yeah.
It wasn't likely.
Nobody said it like that.
But in my period of life, that's, you know, over the last 20 years, some guys like to brag about not working and still making money.
Yeah.
I started with the paper out when I was nine years old, and I've had a job ever since until now.
And even now, if I don't have a job, you still find stuff to do.
Yeah.
You're in here and whatever.
So it's, you know, so is it, are we seeing the, you know, the rot of the American way?
Certainly, I mean, the media doesn't even call it the middle class anymore.
They call us a working class.
To get to the Asian factor, my girlfriend is half Japanese.
Her mom is Japanese.
She's from Okinawa.
And a few years ago, we traveled to Okinawa.
And I spent a week and a half over there.
You saw Mr. Miyagi?
We, yeah, kind of.
It was more Kotoro was who I hung with.
But traveled all over that island and never saw any homeless.
The airport in Tokyo is the cleanest place I've ever seen in my life.
Tokyo.
Big city.
One of the biggest cities in the world.
I was only in Tokyo, but you can't fly direct to Okinawa.
You have to fly Tokyo, then you fly.
So, yeah, what a flight.
But anyway, no, it's definitely a different culture, like you say, Jason.
Different.
I mean, we used to also have a culture that encouraged a work ethic, encouraged a meritocracy, no matter what across the board.
And we've lost that in a lot of ways.
And we've not only settled for mediocrity, we've celebrated it.
And we've basically enabled it in the sense that if you're not good at something, that's fine.
You don't have to work for it.
It's somebody else's fault.
We've encouraged a victimhood mentality in this country In so many ways, and I don't know that we're ever getting out of it.
But I think that at least this shutdown is shining a light on that aspect as well.
I do fear that enough people don't have food.
You're going to have people out in the streets.
And you're probably going to see this no-kings attempt on steroids.
And let's talk about that for a second, right?
I would gladly. be out there with the no kings people, quote unquote, number one, if it was called something else, because these people, I'm just saying, these people have no idea what a king is in the sense that we're still doing business with kingdoms and kings and queens, and there's King Charles.
You know, there's the king in Saudi Arabia right now that we're doing business with.
They're not the only ones.
There's Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
There's actual monarchies in 2025 that are invested in the same bombs and technology that we talked about earlier in the broadcast.
So number one, 99.99% of the people out there have no idea what I just said and can't make those associations.
So that's a problem.
Then we get into the issue of anti-war.
And, you know, although some people would probably agree with me on the Middle East, that is certainly an issue with Palestine and Israel.
Ukraine, Russia, I mean, I think a lot of them are going to give the opposite stance.
Okay, so now I can't march with you on that.
They're not talking about the real issues.
They're saying Orange Man bad and fascism this and, you know, Robert De Niro that.
You got to be more educated for me to take part in that.
You've got to be a real dissident across the board.
You've got to be really about free speech.
You know, there are probably some crossovers.
I would hope that some of them do get.
Like it's insane that executive order that criminalizes burning the flag, free speech issue.
I think that's very dangerous.
I think the terrorist designation of quote unquote Antifa is very dangerous.
We've had that conversation.
But I've seen them push for censorship, authoritarianism, this idea that people that contest an election or insurrectionists that have speech online should be criminally charged.
Actually, in Germany, this past week, you had a German citizen and author, I think he may have also been a cartoonist, put out some social media comparing Netanyahu to a Nazi.
Now, whether you agree with that or not, that should be his right.
He was arrested.
You know, speech is being taken away in westernized nations and our allies, and we're not talking about it at all.
Like, that's a story you've really got to hunt for.
A lot of people don't know about it.
But if the powers that shouldn't be, the predator class gets their way and consolidates enough power under certain events, don't think they won't try to bring that or maybe successfully bring that to the United States.
I think it's already happening.
You know, you're already seeing that.
And it all kind of does tie together with, you know, hey, my hand's out.
Can you fill it up?
And if you do, yeah, I'll go along with whatever you're talking about.
As long as I can just sit on my phone or watch TV all day and do nothing, then we're good.
There's people at the stoplights on the islands that will stand there all day.
And if they have strength enough to stand there with a sign and have their hand out, isn't there some kind of job they can find?
Yeah, I tell you what, almost 20 years ago.
And I really think a lot of this is just, folks, you grow up poor, you stay poor, and you are poor, and you're okay with that, and you're going to live the same way that you grew up.
Like, I grew up in a trailer park.
I didn't want to live in a trailer park my whole life.
So I've worked my butt off.
I've always had two, sometimes three jobs.
And I have a lot of kids, which are expensive, but we, you know, they have everything they need.
We live in a house.
You know, it's.
It's whatever.
And my wife grew up very similarly.
And that's why one of the reasons that we got along so good is because we both wanted to work out of how we were brought up.
Not that we were brought up like, you know, I went to church as a kid.
Like, it's not like I was brought up in a bad way, but we were just poor.
You know, I wore shoes with cotton in the toe because they were hand-me-downs for my brothers.
My feet weren't big enough yet to fit in them.
You know, but then you've got people 20 years ago, I was in West Virginia, Wayne County, West Virginia, which is one of the poorest counties in the nation.
And we were there.
I was there with my ex-wife for a wedding.
A friend of hers was getting married.
And she was marrying a kid, a guy who's a chiropractor.
Brother was a lawyer.
Dad was the county attorney.
So they lived very well in a very poor county.
And they were talking about how in school, some of the kids, a handful of kids in every class, when they asked them what they do, what they wanted to do when they grew up, they said they wanted to draw.
And they said, oh, you want to be an artist?
No.
I want to draw a check from the government.
Oh, my goodness.
And these are kids that are, this is 20 years ago, but it was very poor, very rural.
I mean, we went to a Walmart and there was these girls.
I don't know what they were raising money for, but they're all 14, 15.
We're at a Cadillac, you know, pretty nice new one.
I'm with the guy getting married.
We had to run to the store for something because they're getting ready for the wedding or whatever.
And this girl, she's, I mean, I don't know.
She's got no shoes on.
She's barely got a top on.
She's 15, 16 years old, comes over, leans into the car, starts talking to us, asking us what we're up to.
And like, she wanted to come with us.
And I'm like, what the hell?
And then we pull away and he starts laughing.
And he's like, that's, you know, he's like, that's just how it is around here.
And I'm like, wow.
Like, that's a, to see a whole county and like how people act and like that's, and I mean, there's plywood houses.
I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of that.
So just the whole thing, you know, was wild.
And to see and hear things like that.
And then that's how people live and that's how they look at things.
Like, I don't care.
I'm just going to draw.
You know, you asked me earlier, you know, about my age and what I've seen and stuff.
So this has always been a thought of mine is single parents.
All right.
There is more that it's more popular.
I should say pop.
It's more prevalent than ever.
And so when I was growing up, divorce was not a thing.
Was not a thing.
Right.
A neighbor kid looks just like you, but we don't talk about that.
Yeah.
So, right.
That's really how it was.
Yeah, exactly.
So it's, my feeling is we're to the point now where you have a single parent.
It starts out with a single parent.
It's like, they need help.
Let's help them out.
They get draw food stamps or whatever they can do.
You got a deadbeat dad or a deadbeat mom or whatever.
But kids, people have been raised by single parents are now single parents.
And we're into generations of that now.
So that's, that's what you become accustomed to.
It's like, what do you want to do?
I want to draw.
Yeah.
Well, or not to also to get into the big cities and people having babies to get that check and having multiple babies have more kids and grandma's raising them.
And I guess that's their job is having babies.
Yeah.
I don't want to be mean.
No, I mean, you're very, you're doing a good job walking the line.
I'm meaner about things, but like, you know, I learned from, you know, my dad was, uh, he did have an underlying health issue, but he was also an alcoholic.
But he also went to work.
He went to work every day.
Then he'd come home, drink his six, eight, ten, twelve beers, whatever.
I don't know.
Go to bed, get up, go to work.
He died when I was 11.
And my mom, instead of putting her hand out, we came back here because this is where our family was.
We had lived in Montana.
She literally worked four part-time jobs and went to school full-time so that she could get a degree and get a better job to help support me.
And so that's where I learned to work hard watching her.
And, you know, and my dad, he was a hard worker when he was alive.
But so it's kind of like, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
Coming from where I did and seeing some of the things I have, and I don't under, I'll never understand.
Like, I don't get why people don't want better.
Like, why that's become, you know, because everyone, when I was a kid, everyone was talking about the American dream.
You work hard, you move, you know, the next generation has a nicer house.
The next, you know what I mean?
Like, you keep working your way up.
You bring your kids up a little better, but you also teach them to work hard so that they come up better.
And that was supposed to be the staircase to wherever.
I don't know, but that was what I was taught as a kid in school and everything.
You know, you work hard, you're going to what the American dream.
And it's like, no one even wants to talk about that anymore.
Tons of people say that's not even real.
And I'm like, it's real.
It's just hard.
It's just hard.
It is.
You got to work two or three.
If you came up like I did with nothing and nobody's handing you nothing, nobody's giving you a car.
Nobody's paying for your college.
Nobody's, you got nothing.
You got to work for everything you got.
That's what I had to do.
And it's hard.
It's hard.
You work a lot of hours.
You miss out on things.
You don't go sometimes.
You don't have the money sometimes.
Whatever it is.
But I also figured out if you work enough, you don't have enough time to spend money.
And so that helps out.
You know, that third job really helps.
I don't spend money on the weekends anymore because I'm working instead.
But it's hard.
The American Dream is still alive.
It's just really hard.
It always has been, though.
Well, I think another thing that we didn't talk about culturally, that you kind of just alluded to, that you sometimes you miss out is this instant gratification culture right where uh, you can borrow against anything as soon as you're 18.
I mean, you started to see it with our generation like you'd go to college and a bunch of kids would get credit cards in the mail for 500 or a thousand dollars right, and you know you also prepped kids with uh, what was that?
See uh, that cd scam where you got all those cds for a penny, the 10 cds for a penny, and then you're supposed to buy more and pay, but you're 12.
yes vital records for me it was a vital record scam for mic there you go yeah so i i mean when my grandparents were talking i mean they were talking about having a bank account and An interest on the bank account in a savings account and all these other things.
That culturally just isn't even a thing.
Now you can literally borrow against DoorDash.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's the other crazy thing about so many of these people on quote-unquote snap benefits.
In the cash benefits, they literally get fast food delivered to them at a premium of three to four times the price of food they shouldn't even get.
You know, some of these videos are talking about how their kids shouldn't be able to have a popsicle.
I shouldn't be able to go get brownies.
And it's like, no, you shouldn't.
Because, number one, that's not good for you, but there's no nutritional value in it.
And the program is supposed to be people that need to be staying alive and have nutrition.
I mean, everything is inverted in some of these people's minds for a simple dopamine hit.
So, you know, the instant gratification, the scroll culture, it's really added, unfortunately.
Yeah.
I mean, big time.
I mean, that's that's a really good point.
I mean, that is.
That has that is strapped a rocket to laziness.
You know, and the rocket doesn't go up, it just falls over.
But I mean, that's, it really has.
It's like, that's made so many more people not care.
I love the scroll culture.
I've never heard that term used, but that is spot on, man.
Spot on.
That is, that is absolutely where we're at in America, and it's gross.
Jason, you go ahead.
I was just going to say, my girlfriend works at a Canadian store truck stop, and they get a lot of DoorDash.
And we go to a restaurant for breakfast, and we got talking to one of the people about what's your weirdest DoorDash delivery.
And one person wanted one slice of cheese from the restaurant.
And that's like, it's like a $15 delivery charge or something.
And they got one slice of cheese.
Yeah.
And then Cindy would say, for always, somebody just wants like a fountain pop.
Just a fountain pop delivered.
Grab me a fountain pop.
I'm not getting off the couch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
So you're going to pay $20 for a fountain pop so you don't have to move.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's incredible.
That's incredible.
Every day, every day, she says.
That's, I don't know, Jason, you kind of blew my mind here a little bit.
Now you got me.
I'm thinking about all this other stuff now.
Just, you know, the culture element of it.
And it's, I think, COVID now.
Oh, COVID was a major kick in the butt on this, on what we got going on.
Well, let me add to it because you brought that up, and it was an accelerator for things like that because there were only certain things open.
They were telling you to stay inside.
In some places, there were literal restrictions.
You had to have a card to even go out and be a slave and wear a mask and go, you know, do the dance with everybody in this big live-action roleplay LARP that was totally nightmarish.
But we also gave a bunch of people money for nothing.
Okay.
We also kind of embedded once again that it's okay.
Society can move.
We're just going to give you all this money.
And I don't blame people to take part in that system, especially when you have a mortgage, when you were literally not allowed to work, when they criminalized so many things.
But if you don't think that's massively associated with the inflation that has gone nowhere over the last several years, that's exactly what happened.
I mean, you had a huge wealth transfer, and we're paying to this day, really, 30 to sometimes 60% more on items like ground beef, any kind of red meat, really.
You're seeing a huge increase with chicken, water alone, bottles of water.
You used to be able to get a gallon of water for 88 cents.
Now it's a buck 38, right?
Hey, man, you used to drink water from the hose.
I would advise against that.
We were doing it when we were kids.
Well, yeah, I wouldn't drink water from the hose either.
You know, I buy bags of ice because our water, but I mean, we live in the country and there's calcium in it and stuff, so we don't want to use the ice from the fridge.
You know, so I buy bags of ice because my daughters all have the fancy water cups that they want to fill up with ice and water when they go to school.
I'm glad they're drinking water.
And then I'm also glad they all have jobs and buy their own fancy water cups, so I don't have to do that.
Luckily, you know, one thing I would say about the work part of things is when you raise your kids up and they just watch you working your butt off, they seem to pick up on it.
You know, I did that with my mom for sure.
And then our kids are all like that too.
You know, they all work.
They all have.
As soon as they turn 15 or 16, they're looking for a job.
That makes me proud.
I'm glad they're that way.
But it's, yeah, I don't know, man.
You really gave me a, you got me thinking here, Jason Burmes.
We are deep in the weeds with Jason Burmese, which is that's why we do this segment to get us thinking a little bit.
And, of course, brought to you by River Cities Reader.
We got a few minutes left here.
We want to keep going on this.
Do you have anything else you wanted to talk about?
You know, just to kind of end on the scroll culture idea, that's one of the reasons I truly limit what is on my phone.
And, you know, I don't have a Snapchat account.
I don't have a TikTok.
I should probably get a TikTok just for the videos and the monetization and that.
I don't have my Facebook on my phone.
I don't have an Instagram.
I don't have any of that.
Really, X, which is kind of a news feed and my small interaction is it.
And it keeps me off the damn device.
You know what I mean?
I don't live and die on likes and shares, et cetera, et cetera.
If I need to communicate with somebody, really, it's going to be in my life most of the time.
So we can text or we can call one another.
And if not, I can wait to get home to sit at my desktop and communicate like on Facebook that way.
You've got to teach that limitation.
You know, kids are constantly on that screen all the time.
It's probably a good idea to set boundaries, especially at a young age surrounding that.
And, you know, you look into that mirror with what you've done with your children as to whether or not they pick up the work ethic that you have.
And maybe if they don't, maybe you should take a look at your work ethic.
Are you the type of person that floats around jobs all the time, that has been on unemployment, that has had their hand out?
Well, don't be surprised when your kids do the same.
And unfortunately, it's not easy.
But if it were easy, then everybody would do it.
And on top of that, if you just put in some effort, the fruits of your rewards, just the pride factor and the ability to have a family and enjoy that, that's a big deal.
We've also de-incentivized that.
You know, we talked about a culture of the dad being a moron, but we've also de-incentivized the idea that that's the true riches in this world.
And even in the 80s, right, Aaron, you saw this huge push for fancy cars, big home, greed is good.
That was a very real thing, the Wall Street era, that I think even through our culture, or I guess our generation, the culture pushed through hip-hop, right?
Again, your necklace, your car, the girls, the club, the boats, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We also celebrated criminals.
I mean, you look at Scarface, how many people had a Tony Montana poster in their rooms.
So, I don't want to degrade art because I think that obviously films like Scarface should exist.
I'm a huge Oliver Stone and Brian DePalma fan, all these things.
But the way that culture has moved in this entitlement, criminal, scroll-like attention, need for attention now, no matter what.
Unfortunately, it's not great for society.
No, or the future or people in general, I would say.
You know, that's, and maybe that's what people have lost their pride.
I mean, now they associate that with LGBQT Plus, you know, but I mean, seriously, like just actual pride in yourself, pride in your job, pride in your life.
People don't have it.
Or at least it's less.
You don't see it as often.
People just don't care.
And, yeah, I don't know.
But I got some things to work out in my head now, Jason Burmes.
We have been deep in the weeds with Jason Burmes here, brought to you by River Cities Reader.
We do this every single Friday from 9 to 10.
And don't forget you can catch Jason every day on Making Sense of the Madness' YouTube channel or check out some of his documentary films.
It gets you thinking, this guy, I tell you what.
Yeah, man, I don't know.
I'm going to rabbit hole into some of this this week and I'll be looking forward to talking to you next Friday and maybe expound on some of this and whatever else we find to talk about.
Sounds great, Aaron.
Thank you so much for having me.
Of course.
Of course.
Jason Burmese, everybody, deep in the weeds, brought to you by River Cities Reader.
Thanks, Jason.
Have a good week, man.
You too.
And that is going to do it.
Thumbs it up.
Subscribe.
Share.
Check out the channel.
Share the links with other people.
Check out all the documentary films.
And please consider supporting the broadcast $5, $10, $15.