Dakota Meyer, decorated Marine and firefighter, shares how Ibogaine and DMT in 2021 shattered his anxiety—ending attacks triggered by guilt over failing to save teammates in Afghanistan. His book The Way Forward (with Rob O’Neill) strips war of politics, humanizing resilience over victimhood, while critiquing the military’s sanitized image and society’s focus on others’ flaws (like masks) over personal accountability. Both he and Joe Rogan link discipline—fitness, diet—to mental clarity, but Meyer insists systemic corruption thrives when individuals prioritize profit (e.g., Pelosi’s Raytheon trades) over integrity, leaving hope in moral self-improvement. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, like, I think that there was, like, a point in my life to where I kind of just, you know, kind of put it all together, like, wanting to help people.
You know, like, the way forward.
There's always a way forward.
You know, my life's been such a shit show in so many ways.
And obviously Rob's has, too.
That was one thing we could relate on is, like, you know, we both came from two different places, did two different things, but, like, there's always a way forward, you know, focusing on what matters.
Yeah, I mean, I wrote about that in my first book about, you know, a time that I just didn't know if there was a way forward.
But, you know, what I learned was, is like, you know, when you don't see a way forward, it's because your purpose is yourself and it's not other things, right?
People that are lost, or I feel like when I'm lost is when I'm too busy focusing on things for me and my purpose is me and it's not like the things that are around me, the things that matter.
But finding something bigger that you can believe in, like, you know, being a firefighter or being a good dad or, you know, just trying to have goals of fitness or start a company or all those things, right?
I mean, I got out of the Marine Corps and I got out and it was all about me, right?
It's like, oh, you know, I serve this country.
This country owes me now.
You know, because look, when you're in the military, the whole time you're told you're a hero.
You know what I mean?
Like, oh, everybody's just, you're just greater people, you know, or all these things.
You sacrifice for this country.
This country owes you.
And I hate that word, owes.
Right?
Like, owes.
The only thing we owe is the bank.
But, you know, that was where I was at, and I was walking around blaming all my problems on, you know, well, you know, I'm drinking all the time.
I wasn't an alcoholic, but just drinking all the time, trying to, you know, overcome the pain of, you know, the stuff that I'd seen, the things that didn't make sense.
And then, you know, when you would try to question me or hold me accountable, I'd be like, well, you didn't go through what I went through, right?
And so how are you going to argue it?
You know, and I was surrounded by that.
I was the victim.
I made myself the victim of life.
And, you know, at that point was where I got the lowest, right?
Like, I just couldn't, you know, because at some point, like, people are going to try to help you.
Like, that's the great thing about the world is people are going to help you.
People want to help.
But they can only help you so far.
Like, they're not going to drown with you.
Especially when you're not choosing to get better.
And that was where I was at, you know?
Like, just drinking all the time.
You know, I was an asshole.
I mean, I'm still an asshole, but just a different way.
You know?
I was an asshole and just...
You know, blaming the world for my problems when really I was the problem.
You know, I just didn't have anything bigger than me.
And I would surround myself by people who wanted to coddle me, right?
Like, oh, Dakota, you know, what you've gone through, you know, you deserve.
You know, it's okay.
This is normal for what you've gone through.
And it's like, no, no, no.
Like, that's what America is about, is the comeback story.
No, I, you know, so I was living at my dad's house.
I was living with my dad.
My dad's just an incredible man.
And one night I was out drinking somewhere and I was driving home on this road and I just seen like the pain I was causing the people around me, right?
Like, My dad was never going to kick me out of the house, but I just seen the disappointment in people that I was bringing.
I was driving down the road one night and I just said, look, this is it.
I'm done.
I pulled over at my buddy's shop.
He had a welding shop.
I didn't want to inconvenience anybody to have to, well, where's he at?
This huge search.
I knew he would be in at 6 to 8 in the morning.
He comes in every day.
I pulled over and parked right in front of the bay door and pulled my gun out and I stuck it to my head and squeezed the trigger.
Somebody had unloaded that gun.
I'd shot it that day actually.
I'd shot this Glock 40 that day.
And it was the loudest click I've ever heard in my life and probably the quickest sobering thing that I've ever seen.
I mean, I've been in so many situations where I was supposed to die, or I thought I, like, there's been at least five or six situations where it wasn't that I thought I was going to die, it was that I knew I was going to die.
And I think at that moment I realized that I was only feeling sorry for myself because if my teammates...
If losing my teammates...
I mean, it sucks.
It still sucks.
Sometimes I don't even know if I have even came to the realization that I'll never see my guys again.
And I don't know why.
It's kind of weird, but I don't know why.
But...
I think that, like, I just realized that I need to live a life, if I don't want to do it for myself, then I need to live a life that's worthy of their sacrifices.
Right?
Like, how stupid is it?
How selfish of it?
Of me?
Someone who has seen what the cost of freedom is, or someone who has seen the sacrifices that people have gave, who don't get it.
Don't get it tomorrow.
They gave their today so that we can have a tomorrow.
And how selfish of it is for me to walk around and, you know, be a drunk asshole.
And that's the representation that I'm going to represent their sacrifices.
Like, it's just, it's such a, it's just not right.
And it was at that moment that all that started to come together.
That, no, no.
I just feel sorry for myself, not them.
They don't feel anything.
So I'm feeling sorry for myself, and as I'm doing that, I'm wasting days that I guarantee they wish they had.
I mean, I believe at one point in time, I don't know what the status is now, but at one point in time, more veterans had died by suicide in Afghanistan than had died from combat.
Just Google more veterans die from suicide than combat.
Because I think that was...
What they were trying to drill into people was that asking people to go over there and fight and to see the horrors that they see and to see friends die and loved ones die and then ask them to come back and have life just be normal.
Look at this.
Four times as many troops and vets have died by suicide as in combat.
I don't know what kind of training they give you when you're about to leave the military or when you're returning from combat, but do they try to give you any sort of an understanding of how to cope with this kind of stuff?
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's obviously gotten a lot better, right?
I mean, it was more the tough love.
I mean, the more that mental health is accepted, I mean, look, I mean, to be honest, I mean, as men, 10, 15 years ago, it wasn't something, it was looked at as weak, right?
It seems like somewhere along the line, I mean, I don't know what the statistics show, but it seems like somewhere along the line, it became way more common to know people that kill themselves.
So when you think about PTSD and you think about the effect that it has on you, is Being a firefighter, does it compound all of the PTSD that you experience as a combat veteran?
But yeah, those kind of experiences, like the experience of seeing someone die, for a lot of people, it doesn't just change you, but it makes you...
I don't know what the best way to say it is, but you're just devastated by it.
And every time it happens, it becomes compounded.
It's more and more and more.
One of the things that I've thought about a lot with police officers, because I feel like there's bad cops.
We all know there's bad cops, just like there's bad everything else in life.
But I think that most cops are the experiences that they have in situations where their life is threatened, situations where they pull people over, they have no idea if this person has a gun, if this person's a criminal.
They just don't know.
There's so many moments in their life where they...
I'm sure they've seen all the YouTube videos that I've seen where cops get shot at and cops get killed and run over by cars and all that crazy shit.
That has got to be always chipping at your mental well-being.
Yeah, and then, you know, when EMS shows up, they're kind of like the moms, right?
Like, they're the caring, they're going to fix it, they're going to, the empathy is there.
And I'm not saying that all three don't have empathy.
I'm just saying that they all have to hold themselves in a different way because they're all there for a different role.
And, you know, being a cop, you know, look, those guys are just, they're incredible because they could go from coming over and, you know, Miss whoever, Miss, you know, Miss Nancy or whatever, Miss Smith, you know, she's Having, you know, she might think somebody's at her house or, you know, maybe the next door neighbor's a little too loud and, you know, he's got to handle it one way and then the next person that he pulls over, he could walk up to a car.
They could walk up to a car and could pull a gun and shoot him.
I think what happened during the pandemic was people were tested in a way that they had never been tested before.
We had never experienced a moment in our life where there was a real fear that society was going to be completely disrupted and that a disease was going to ravage everybody.
And even though it turned out to be a terrible disease, it wasn't nearly as bad as what we were fearful of.
What we were fearful of was some kind of plague that would just wipe everybody out.
I think that initial mindset that people had was very difficult to shake.
Even now, that COVID, this new variant, this Omicron, is not nearly as dangerous.
It's much more contagious, but not nearly as deadly.
There's some people that still want to treat it like it's the thing that's going to kill everybody.
They still want to have this sort of same mindset because that's the initial mindset they had.
So I think when people were stockpiling toilet paper and stockpiling food, there was a fear mindset, a mindset of the unknown that gripped people that a lot of folks are just not willing to let go of.
Unfortunately, I mean, I'm just guessing, I'm not really a psychologist, but I think, unfortunately, there's a certain level of fear and anxiety I think kids do adapt or adopt, rather, from their parents.
I think there's, some of it might even be in their genes.
You know, people that are neurotic and weirded out, maybe they're modeling their parents, maybe they're paying attention to how their parents handle things and they handle things similarly.
Yeah, it could be both, but I also think it's like, I think you need some challenges.
You know, some of my favorite people besides veterans are jujitsu people.
And one of the reasons why is because they experience so much adversity.
It's safe, it's all controlled, it's in a controlled environment, but in that moment when someone's trying to strangle you and you're literally fighting for your life, it doesn't feel safe.
It doesn't feel controlled.
Someone's got your back and that forearm goes underneath your neck and you're like, oh shit.
You know the reality is you're playing a game and that game is I'm gonna kill you with my bare hands.
And when that guy gets your back and gets your neck, he just killed you.
And then you tap and you go again.
But even though you survive and even though it's safe, it's a way of recreating.
It's like a facsimile, you know?
It's like a reasonable version of a life or death scenario that gets to play out all the time.
Most of the time it's very peaceful.
Most of the time it's fun.
You slap hands.
It's all good.
But there's moments In these struggles where you're out of breath and then all of a sudden this guy mounts you and you're like, oh fuck.
Like those moments, most people never experience that thing where you have to push because either you're going to escape or you're going to submit.
Having moments in your life where you're really tested gets you to understand who you are, gets you to understand where your character lies, gets you to understand what your thresholds are, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, lets you strengthen those weaknesses in a very real, usable way.
I think most people, they don't experience enough difficult scenarios in their life.
One of the things that I love most about jujitsu is you could just take a regular person and you could transform them.
And through this difficult game that you're playing, you can change the way you interface with reality.
You'll have more character.
You'll have more ability to withstand difficult situations.
I mean, yeah, I mean, we could, you know, we could roll jujitsu, and if they get their arm around your neck, I mean, they get to decide if they let go, you know, and it's a real vulnerability and test of you being there, right?
I mean, the more experience you have in adversity and tough times and coming out of it and trying to figure out, and I think that's the cool thing about jujitsu is, is you roll, and then you try to figure out Okay, so obviously, when you have to tap, that was not where you wanted to be.
People would say, at a certain point in time, if you keep apologizing for the same thing, you're just getting away with apologizing, you're not fixing yourself, right?
And I just remember, like, I went into this one room, and it was like, I mean, I could see the street signs and everything.
Like, I went in this one room, and I walked out on this stage, and there was, like, all these people in this room.
And it was like they were going by, like, you know, like those old slideshows, like they're just spinning by?
And I was seeing these people, and I was in there, and I just felt this, like, everybody was disappointed in me.
I see all these people and I just felt all this disappointment.
I was running around going up to people.
What can I fix?
How can I fix this?
What did I do wrong?
I'm sorry.
And it was all these people that I... Just people in my life.
I could see their faces.
People in my life that I've tried so hard to be good enough for.
You ain't going to be good enough for them, right?
And so I left that room.
I was in there for a few hours.
And I left that room.
And then I was walking through the town.
And I would go up and I would look at these, like, the, like, these fuel gauges.
I could see these fuel gauges.
And they were, like, it had E for empty.
Or, yeah, E for empty.
And then F, it meant, like, finished.
And everything was, like, this far from finished.
It was like I never finished anything.
And then I seen this, like, beautiful ball light, and I went to it, and in it was, like, my daughter's playing.
And I just felt, like, so much peace.
And then there was, like, obviously, like, different moments of, I'll never forget this one moment in it.
I just, like, I almost, like, because, I mean, you could see.
I mean, I could, like, open my eyes.
I mean, it was really blurry, but, like, I was present, right?
And I was going to just ask the doctor.
Like, I was like, I just don't want to be here anymore.
Like, I can't do this.
And I knew that he was going to say, there's nothing I can do about it.
So I stayed there and I just remember it breaking my ego.
I remember focusing on my ego.
I remember like fighting it just like just realizing that that all this was ego that my ego just The best way to describe it was like it didn't make me like you know like when you drink like you kind of feel numb This is like my soul like it was like it was just it just like I It was like my soul had gone through a workout.
Like a workout on it, right?
Like just an ass-kicking workout.
And it just broke my ego.
You know, like it just...
It just showed me so much about my ego.
And there was just...
I just remember at one point I was like, I don't care.
I don't even care anymore.
I don't care what people think.
I don't care.
I'm not going to live by what people think.
I remember all I could just say back and forth was, I don't care.
So, the Ibogaine gave you this understanding of all the conflicts that you've caused and whether it's interrelational with other people or even with yourself by not finishing things and not following through on things.
Do you think that it was trying to show you that some part of your problems lie in the fact that maybe you don't respect your own efforts?
Like when you look at that you haven't finished things, do you think like it was showing you that you don't have a respect for yourself because you don't respect the effort that you put into things?
And if you, like, the only thing that I've, and I still struggle with it, right?
Like, the only thing that I feel is, like, whenever I mess up.
You know, like, I just, I live in this mindset of, well, I can always be better, so I just, you know, like, I stay focused on that aspect of it, of, like, What did I do wrong?
And it's a hard thing.
It's a hard balance.
Because I always want to be better.
I always want to be better.
I want to give you my best.
And, you know, like, so I think that that was what it kind of showed me was that, hey, you know, like, it's okay to, you know, you can do your best.
And as long as you do your best, that's what matters.
And as long as your intent's good, That's what matters.
Like, you're going to mess up.
Like, that's normal.
And I think it was, like, it gave me, like, I don't know, maybe a little grace on myself of, you know, because I just have this, I have this problem of I just always want to do more.
And so I was in full bunker gear, you know, like our turnout gear.
And so I took my coat off, took my pants off, and other guys are showing up on scene at the same time.
And so I jumped in the water, swam out to the truck, and then as soon as I got out there, you know, the truck was probably three and a half, four feet deep.
The top of it was.
And so I swam down to try to see if the windows were open.
I thought the window might be open, and it wasn't.
And so then I think to myself, well, where's my window punch at?
Well, it's in my bunker gear that's on the side of the...
Of the pond.
And I was so mad at myself.
Well, at this time, my buddy Eric and my buddy Jonathan jumped in right behind, started swimming out there, no questions asked.
I mean, just because they knew it was just to get down.
It was time to do it.
They got out there, and then one of the police officers threw me her baton.
So I got it, and then I couldn't bust the window open with it.
I couldn't get enough leverage underwater.
And my buddy Eric, I mean this dude is like, he's jacked, right?
So he's just beating this window and beats it open.
And he beat the back window open.
I told him to beat the back window open first.
It was a four-door truck.
Because I was afraid the guy was still conscious.
And I was afraid that he was going to reach out and grab me and drown me.
So I was like, if I can come in through the back window, he can't just immediately grab me.
But I couldn't get in through the back window because the truck was full of stuff.
The whole backseat was full of stuff.
So then Eric beats the front window out, and so he did.
So then I dove down, dove in the truck, and the guy was in there, and he was floating.
And you couldn't see because it was in a pond, but he was up against kind of like the roof of the truck inside.
I tried to reach in and grab him, or reach and grabbed him, and I just kind of felt where it was up at top, and I grabbed his collar of his shirt because I knew I could just get him out of the window, which is pretty tight to fit a person through a window, right?
So I pulled him out, and whenever I did, I kind of, like, sank because I had him with me.
And I just knew I couldn't let him go because if I did let him go, I'd never find him in the pond.
We get to the top, and the guys, obviously, he drowned.
And so we swam him back, myself, Eric, and Jonathan swam him back to the shore, got him up on shore, and then, you know, everybody kicked in and started doing CPR. He was breathing on his own by the time the helicopter landed.
And, you know, we had Tiffany there, who was just an incredible, you know, just the EMS people were just incredible.
I'm, like, when people talk about, like, oh, the world's going to shit, or, you know, there's just bad people, I just...
You just come hang out with me for a day.
You should see the people I'm surrounded by.
Just, like, incredible people who would give their shirt off their back who were just awesome dads, awesome moms, just awesome people, you know, just really, really good people who do good things.
Yeah, that's true and also one of the ways that a person becomes a good person is being around a person like that and then realizing that like wow the effect that person has on me in terms of like the inspiration they provide me in terms of like the way you can see a person behave and how much admiration you have for them and you like you change your behavior patterns to be more like them people If your friends are all gross,
you're probably going to be gross too.
If your friends are all stealing money and just lying and being assholes all the time, it's like, man, you don't have a lot to shoot for.
I mean, it depends on what you're reading, what you're trying to do.
I mean, people are pretty flexible.
You could do a lot, but it's very important to at least make the best attempt to be around powerful people.
And if you can do that, and the best way to do that is, yeah, what you're talking about.
Be around people at the gym.
Be around people that either do jiu-jitsu or something else that's difficult.
Be around firefighters.
Be around people that are Trying to help people all the time, EMTs, people that are first responders that are working to try to help people on a daily basis.
And if you can do that, you can eliminate a lot of problems in your life with people that are just...
It's unfortunate because I do want people to do better in life, but there's certain people that you just got to cut them loose.
They just, wherever they are at this moment, they're too far away from where you need them to be.
And if you hang out with them, they're just going to keep creating problems.
One of the ones that drives me the most nuts is people that create constant problems and then they get like this sort of emotional charge out of resolving the problems.
So they create a problem and then they resolve the problem and then they get it they get addicted to that sort of seesaw thing where they're always like in a Squabble with someone and then you know, I'm sorry and everybody makes up.
We're good now.
Yeah, we're good now and And then, you know, they'll find another one to be involved in.
Sometimes you get in that and it becomes a normal thing.
So this becomes the norm.
In a relationship, you know, nobody starts off by beating each other, right?
Like, it starts off by saying, you know, like, fuck you, right?
And then it, well, that becomes normal, right?
And then every time the bar's pushed a little bit further, a little bit further, and the next thing you know, it's just, it's toxic, and it's just bad, and it's like, you know, we just lose respect for each other, and it happens.
I mean, it can happen so fast if you don't pay attention.
Because a woman has to worry physically about her safety from a guy.
You have daughters, as do I, and that's one of the scariest thoughts is that someone's going to fuck your daughter up and beat them up or do something terrible to them.
It's like the fact that men are capable of that is just such a horrific, Aspect of life, you know, because most people aren't capable of that.
And so if they start dating shitty guys down the road, I should probably look in the mirror.
And my example that I set to them is...
And not just that I'm good to my daughters and that I'm respectful to women, but that I work hard and that I serve the community and that I continue to try to better myself and I accept responsibility for my actions and all these things.
Like, they're watching everything and that is...
It's going to program them to someday, like, you know, we automatically, as parents, we automatically have, whatever you want to call it, like street cred with our children.
And that's how they learn to handle problems, and that's how they handle, you know, relationships and things like that.
And it's just so important that, you know, my daughters are my accountability factor.
Like, I look at it, and it's like, I try to treat people the way that I would want someone to treat my daughters.
Now when you talk about that Ibogaine experience about how it bothered you that, you know, you had to think about all these times we disappointed people or all the people that were upset at you.
What about that was, what was so frustrating about that?
Was it that you had already gotten through that and put it aside and now it's like rehashing it and just making you feel like shit or was it just that you were confronted with reality?
Yeah, I mean look we all know if we all sit down and we truly want to see it we all kind of know Why we are the way we are everything adds up, right?
Like it's just like we don't want to We don't want to face it And Ibogaine makes you face it like you're gonna sit there And it's gonna keep you there until you've seen enough of it.
And look, I'm not going to say those thoughts go away.
You know, like, while I'm on that truck, while I was on that truck the other day, all I was telling myself was just, like, you know, I can remember it vividly of, you're a piece of shit.
Look, this is you.
Like, you didn't bring the window punch with you.
How could you mess up so bad?
Now this guy's going to die because of you.
And then I'm watching my friends swim out there, and I'm just thinking to myself, like, oh, look at you, you're an idiot, and now you've brought them in here, and now they're gonna drown, and you're gonna get your friends killed.
And then, you know, I mean, like, it was just, like, the whole time, I'm literally, like, my brain is just talking shit to me.
Of, like...
Yeah, you know what?
Like, you're not gonna be able to get this guy out now because you didn't train hard enough, right?
Like, it's just like all these things, like, just beating it, right?
You know, I mean, look, my dad, my grandpa, I mean, I grew up with my mom until I was, like, 10. And then I went over to my dad.
And, you know, my dad, my dad's one of the, my dad and my grandfather and my grandmother, like, they're just, they're the greatest people I've ever met.
And if I can be half of them, I'll be somebody.
But it was just like, it was more of a, there's right and wrong.
And for people who don't know what you're talking about, we had a long conversation about this on the first podcast that we did together, and it's a harrowing story.
I mean, it's wild shit what you went through.
And I would just tell people, just, you know, go listen to that so you don't have to say it again.
You know, like, you know, I... Don't know like I when I walked in that valley that day like I truly thought that how I was I thought I was good at something, right?
I mean I put the work in and like I thought I was good and and you know I I Really thought that I don't know.
I mean obviously it shows my naiveness But I just I never thought that there would be a situation that I couldn't get my teammates out of right and I thought that if anybody was ever gonna get killed it was gonna be me and Yeah, just like Just, like, wanting to help them and bring them home alive so bad and then just getting in there and they're all dead.
And so it was just like, I just felt like I let them down, right?
Like, I just felt like I let them down, you know?
And so, and then you come back home and then you get this Medal of Honor.
So, like, it's just, it's such a...
It's such a mental, you know, mental jujitsu with myself of, I got a medal for failing.
You know, and people are like, oh, you know, but you did so much good.
Well, it's like, that's not what I set out to do when I went there.
I set out to go get my teammates out.
And so, like, you know, people, I think, I feel like a lot of times people want to change the narrative because they don't like the way it feels.
And I'll never do that because the lesson that I learned from that and the emotions that I get from facing the true results of that day push me to the next level to be able to go out and help people today.
So that time of your life, that was responsible for all of the, whether you would call it self-doubt or self-judgment, like the nasty voice in your head that says you're a loser.
I kind of have a similar thing going on in my head, but I don't ever let it get to the point where I'm saying, you're a loser, you fucked up, you fucking idiot.
I don't have that kind of internal dialogue.
But I do recognize that I have to manage my mind.
I can't allow those kind of thought patterns to spiral in my head.
It was cognitive CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, I think.
So basically, like, where you try to reprogram the way you think about things.
Or like, okay, so I, you know, I feel like I was a failure.
And then you write it out.
I mean, it was like this therapy that, it was tough, right?
And, um...
So I went to that.
But that was like, I had this amazing, and I talk about her in the book, Captain Katie Kopp.
She was on the combat stress team.
And so when I was in Afghanistan, when there was a critical incident like this, they would fly in these psychologists.
And they would try to get on top of it pretty quick, right?
To be there to help and all this.
She did so amazing.
Obviously, I didn't want to talk to her while I was there.
So she ended up sending me home from Afghanistan in December.
I got home December 5th.
But she, like, worked out this arrangement to where I could, instead of just going back to base, I came straight home because the deployment was still going on.
And I went to this CBT thing.
But, I mean, you're not really taught about counseling.
You're not really, like...
You know, you're just not...
And the last thing you want to do is, like, feel like you're weak.
Like, I wake up every day and, I mean, I'm not going to say every day is the best day of my life, but every day, like, there's a moment that I just look around and I'm just like, how awesome is this, right?
Like, I can literally look at my friends and just, you know, I mean, I'll start tearing up just thinking about, like, how awesome it is that I get to be surrounded by such great people.
I mean, I'm sitting here with you right now.
You know what I mean?
Like, how awesome is that?
You know, it's like, I don't deserve any of this, but I get to do this.
And that's what I'm saying is, is that's a natural path that automatically Comes in and instead of well riding that path that we know there's no logic to or good into It's like I get to do this.
It shows me that if I can connect with that guy, I can connect with anybody.
We all have more things that we're related on than we do that we're not.
And it's a choice on which side you choose to pick, right?
There's only a few things that you can do to me that we're not going to be able to get along about.
You want to mess with my family, you want to mess with people I care about, it's a whole different ballgame.
But outside that, I don't care what you do, I don't care what you believe.
Are you a good person or are you not?
It's good or bad, what's your intent?
That guy, I don't know, I was so arrogant coming into that day and Him almost killing me.
But then just seeing, watching him die at my hands and just not, I don't want to say I'm not, I didn't like, I don't want to say that I didn't know why I was killing him because he was going to kill me, but There was just like the reality of like, somebody's like, it's not one-sided, right?
Like, the same way that people were going to be hurt if I died, there were people that were going to be hurt if he died.
And...
And I think with that, it's like trying to be able to see it from somebody else's side is a huge, huge tool.
Trying to see somebody else from their view is a really, really critical tool before we get all wrapped up in how we're going to handle things.
Yeah, that's a thing that very few people do is try to look at life through this person, especially if you have a conflict with a person, not like a hand-to-hand combat situation fighting for your life.
But, I mean, any kind of conflict that people have.
It's hard sometimes for people to look at other human beings and try to imagine what's going on in their head and how they view you and how they view whatever conflict you're too engaged in.
the two of you were engaged in.
It's a good exercise and it's also good for empathy.
It's good to kind of get a sense of How you should communicate with that person.
When you do that, you have to also check yourself.
and that you know I feel like for me like I try to go into things of like look I'm gonna I'm gonna lay it all on the table for you um I never want to miss an opportunity for the fact that I'm afraid that I'm gonna get screwed over I'm gonna get hurt um I don't want to miss on getting to know somebody or getting getting having a badass relationship or being able to to meet somebody or them be my friend I
I'm not ever going to let the fear of what they might do to me or how it might affect me keep me from doing that.
Yeah, I mean we yeah, I mean we we just we wanted to have principles that are simple and and we wanted to Come together and talk more like not just about war but about everyday life everyday struggles that we have and kind of humanize and You know, humanize war, right?
Not humanize war, but humanize life and humanize us and kind of show that, look, the same concepts that made us successful in combat are the same.
It is literally the same principles that you just apply in all situations.
So do you feel like the first book, when you're talking about it being larger than life, that you're missing your own internal struggles and dialogues?
What is it about it that didn't make you seem like a regular person to people?
I think it only told the majority of the good side.
It didn't tell that The aspect of, you know, I grew up in a small town.
I'm adopted.
There's all these factors of growing up, of the people who kind of shaped me to do that.
How did I get To the point that, you know, that I did what I did in that valley in that moment.
Well, it's all these people around me.
You know what I mean?
And still today, like, everything I'm successful at is because I'm surrounded by great people who push me and hold me accountable every day.
And, you know, this book talks about, you know, we're not meant to be alone.
You know, we're meant to live, be around people, and interact with people.
And, you know, this book kind of talks about how, you know, how People are everything and you know who you select to be around from all the way from who you select to be around from who you All that is what there's always a way forward There's always a way forward and when you can find hope it doesn't matter if you're in a valley in Afghanistan surrounded and you've just lost all your team or You're back here and you're getting divorced or whatever it is as long as there's hope and you've got good people around you You're gonna get through it like everybody
So we came up with an idea, and we just kind of talked about, you know, we wanted almost like a self-help book.
We wanted people to be able to read it and apply it to their lives, take the stories that we have.
We just got with, you know, people, agents, who helped us put that, kind of, like, write out this outline, and then we took it around to the publishers, right?
And the biggest thing, you know, me and Rob wanted with these publishers was, like, we didn't just want a book.
We wanted a book that was, like, we didn't want it to be left or right.
We didn't want it to be political.
We didn't want it to be, we wanted it to just be for, that anybody could pick up and read and apply it to their life.
They don't like to think that way, and they definitely don't want to think that that's a motive, that those people benefiting and these corporations benefiting is a motive for doing certain things that cost lives.
When you see what's going on right now, because we are in the middle, as people who may listen to this in the future, we're in the middle of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
It just started a few days ago, and everyone is kind of shocked.
I'm terrified by this prospect of a hot war going on, you know, inside the former Soviet Union with Russia invading Ukraine and we're watching it play out on television and it's a very terrifying time for a lot of people.
But again, I mean, again, I don't know what's going on.
I don't know what to believe.
You know, you hear these stories that inspire you to think that, oh, you know, these people on this island, on that island, like, you know, they gave their life and there's this...
And it's like, well, now they're alive, supposedly.
Who knows what's really happening?
You see that tank that just veered off and ran over that car, and it's like, then you hear that that was a Ukrainian tank.
Jamie, I'm going to send you something just so that you could have this too.
There is a very good video that's online that explains the conflict.
And, you know, it's not a judgmental video.
It's not casting the blame one way or another, but it's a...
A YouTube video that explains, I think we talked about it a little bit yesterday, but it explains how this conflict got started and why Russia, for like logistic reasons, why it wants to control...
Yeah, just play a little bit of it at the beginning because it shows you the map of where Crimea is and Ukraine and that if they join NATO, like they're trying to join the EU right now, if they join NATO......conflict series that explains the entire course of the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia.
It's called Why Russia is Invading Ukraine.
Why Russia is Invading Ukraine is available on YouTube and it's very good.
Well, we don't have to listen to it.
It'll deal for less than 15.
It's okay.
Essentially, it shows the geographics of the area.
It shows you on a map, like, why it's important to control that area.
And then they also talk about how Ukraine has massive reserves of oil and natural gas and how much value there is in that for Russia and for the rest of the world.
And how they, through this, you know, this sort of natural resource rich country, they could become like a huge economic power and sort of separate from Russia they could become like a huge economic power and sort of separate from Russia and separate from the rest of, And become a part of the EU, which is what they're trying to do, and also become a part of NATO.
And someone could park missiles right there, sort of like what happened with the Soviet missile crisis during the Cuban missile crisis during Kennedy's administration, whether it's...
go.
Like, I think that's what they're trying to explain.
But again, this video goes way into depth, and they're real clear about how complicated it is.
There's a lot of, in terms of, like, tactical control, the ability for a military to have control in case there's some sort of an invasion or something.
Well, I think he, maybe he thought that in the beginning, but at this point he should probably see that that's not, I mean, I think it's not going to happen.
I mean, the difference in, like, obviously we handled it different, but the difference in us going to Iraq and Afghanistan versus him going here is, like, he also has the world against him, not only Ukraine.
You know, the world is against him doing this, which, you know, yeah, I don't know.
I don't understand it.
I don't get it.
And again, I just know that it just sucks because of politics, again, people are suffering.
You know, we're worried about trying to make our naval fleet green, and they're over there rocking rockets around and just over there teaching meat-eaters, right?
And it's like...
I mean, I get there's a balance, but again, you can't stay the free world and stay the leader and stay an influencer if you can't protect it.
And that's all of our, most of our problems here are ultimate first world problems.
And, you know, like, but again, you have to understand, like, talk about my generation.
You know, my generation, we had access to internet, right?
Like, Like, everything was kind of instant gratification.
I didn't have to go out and raise a garden, and I didn't have to do the things that my grandparents had to do to be able to live and to be able...
Everything's convenient for me, but it doesn't mean that, like...
So, these people who are portraying these problems, they are true problems to them, and they are that big of a deal to them, but it's kind of like when you're looking at your kids.
Like, when my daughter comes to me and she's like...
You know, so-and-so, he said this and it hurt my feelings and she's devastated.
It goes back to adversity.
That is the biggest problem she's ever dealt with.
Well, some people get offended too easily, and they don't want to hear that.
But some people get upset at things too easily, and it's because they're making a problem that a lot of folks would think is not a very big problem, and they're turning it into a gigantic one in their head because they don't have real problems.
I remember when I was a kid, I was reading about the fall of the Roman Empire.
And we were just talking about the excess of the Roman Empire during its demise.
And I remember thinking, I wonder if that's ever going to happen here.
Because I remember thinking, like, every civilization in the past that was a great civilization, whether, you know, whatever it is, ancient Egypt or whatever ancient civilization that was this dominant civilization, Massive civilization, they all went away.
In Massachusetts, when it would snow, everybody would kind of get together.
You'd help people.
You'd see somebody pulled over to the side of the road, people would pull over and try to help them.
They'd try to get them out of a ditch if they got stuck.
They'd try to help push them or help shovel them.
That was the thing that people...
You realize you could die out here.
When it's 10 below zero and it's in the middle of fucking January and you see someone whose hazard lights are on and there's no one else on the road, you feel obligated to help that person.
And there's a thing about nature Where it makes you confront your own vulnerability, your own mortality.
And I have this theory of, I don't know, I just believe that the more adversity you've gone through, the more hard times you've gone through, the more power you have to help others.
The more struggle you've had, the more you can help others.
Yes.
Because in the more vulnerability you have, right?
Because to help somebody, you have to be vulnerable.
You just have to.
To connect with somebody, you have to be vulnerable.
And people who have gone through stuff and came out of it, they have the power to be vulnerable because they know that they're going to get through it.
Well, is it, he said, the only time you should fight or the only time you should go at or entertain this stuff with people is one way, is if it's willing to, are you willing to lose everything?
Are you willing to go all in?
Because, you know, you do this and then they buck up to you.
Well, you're going to lose and look even worse if you don't do something and keep going, right?
Like, how far do you want to take it?
And he's like, the only time it makes sense to engage in something like this is if you're willing to just say, hey, look, it's worth me losing everything that I got, my freedom, whatever it is.
And he said, outside that, it ain't worth it.
And when it gets to that point, that's your deciding factor.
You know, like, I hear people talk sometimes, like, I just want to be like Jocko, and I'm like, you'll never be like Jocko, but you can strive to be like Jocko.
There's a great expression that I've talked about before, but it's worth mentioning again.
There's an expression, the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, no matter what it is.
Like, if you've had a sheltered life and the worst thing that ever happened to you is someone said something that hurt your feelings, that is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.
And we see that with children, right?
With little kids.
It's like, because they haven't had a lot of life experiences.
And then we see people that have gone through hell and those people, you know, I don't want my children to go through hell, but those people are more resilient.
They're different.
They have more, they've got more life experiences to judge it against.
So a thing like someone being mean to them, you know, if you grow up in some hard part, some Eastern Bloc country where things are rough, like you don't want to hear any of that bullshit.
But we just have to, like, we have to stop trying to out-victimize each other, right?
Like, look, the worst, like you said, look, the worst day of your life, the worst day of my life is no more significant than the worst day of your life.
They're both the worst days of our life.
And if we stop trying to out-victimize each other, see who's seen worse or done worse or been through worse, and we're just like, hey, look, like, hey, here's what I've been through.
But there's a culture in this country, unfortunately, that has arisen, you know, within my lifetime, of victim, like, there's just like a currency to victimhood.
Like, the more things are stacked against you, the more you get to complain about those things stacked against you, the more you get to, like, wear it.
There's more reward to having that and being able to talk about it and being able to use that as your identity than there is to put the work in to get better.
And a lot of times, we just don't want to...
That's what I'm fortunate about with my friends.
I tell a story in here about Tim.
When I was going through my divorce and when I first moved to Austin, Onnit was a critical piece to me.
It was kind of like the only...
Stable, consistent place I could go to working out with Tim and Juan and Eric and John Wolf and all of them.
Those guys, like, literally just...
I knew if I could make it to the gym that I was going to have an hour or two hours, I'd be all right.
And I'll never forget, I walked into Tim and I was like, man, we were doing some workout and I'm like, I'm just fat, right?
Like, just probably looking for some empathy, right?
And Tim looks at me and goes, Yeah, and hey, check it out.
People look at you as a warrior, and you need to look like one, so fix it.
And it's like, you know, I didn't need him to be like, oh, no, man, it's okay.
You know, you look all right.
I needed somebody to sit here and tell me, like, hey, yeah, you know what?
You're spot on.
At least we identified the problem, so now it's time to get busy fixing it.
Your feelings could have been hurt and you could have went straight to the donut shop and been like, fuck him.
I mean, this is one of the things we see today with a lot of people online, whether this whole body positivity thing.
It's like, it's such nonsense.
Like, yes, it's awful if someone's mean to you purposely and hurts your feelings and mocks you for the way you look because you're obese.
Yes, that's not nice at all.
But this whole idea that You love it, and this is who you are, and everybody should just accept it, and then pretending that it's healthy, which is really weird.
People will distort the reality of medical science and pretend that there's not some real significant effect that obesity has on all parts of your body.
All sorts of things go wrong if you're obese.
But we send this message to people that body positivity is the way to go, that it's okay, but it's not okay.
It's not.
I mean, look, it sucks if someone could point something out and like, hey, you have let this lapse, you have treated your body in a poor way, and because of that, you have a significant problem, and you got to do something about it.
Like Tim said to you, fix it.
That's a reality of so many fucking people out there, and they don't ever get that speech, and they don't ever fix it.
And instead, they try to come up with reasons why it's okay to be obese.
And it's not okay to be obese.
It's terrible.
It's terrible for you.
It's terrible for the people around you.
It's selfish.
You're gonna get sick.
It's gonna be a real problem.
People don't want to hear it.
They want to think that somehow or another it's okay.
And especially during the pandemic, like, my God, it's like one of the main factors for whether or not you're going to be healthy and whether or not you're going to survive this fucking thing.
It's a, you know, one of the main factors was obesity.
I don't even know where we're at in the pandemic anymore.
I don't know.
Can I walk around and when I see somebody who looks very, very unhealthy and I know that the science supports that, can I walk up to them and be like, hey, you don't need to be eating that.
The thing about you with the mask is that, you know, I don't think masks, especially most of the masks that people use, unless you're wearing an N95 mask, which most people aren't, like a really snug fit N95 mask, I don't think it's really doing much.
Those cloth masks, and especially those surgical masks, I mean, I don't think it's doing much.
So it's something about, like, if you are sick and you have one of those on, it actually does significantly reduce the amount of viral load that comes out of your mouth.
But most people aren't wearing those.
They're wearing these bullshit masks.
And here's the thing, man.
It's like...
If you want to go to a place and you want to...
I mean, if there's a mask law and you're not wearing a mask, that's one thing.
But if you want to go to a place and it's optional and you've got your mask on and other people don't and you're screaming and yelling at them...
Especially if you're obese and you've got a cart full of shit, you're concentrating on the wrong thing.
The reality is my struggle years were not that long.
While I was struggling and while I was working out, I was young.
I had tons of energy.
I was driven and I had a plan where I wanted to get somewhere.
I wanted to have success.
Fortunately, it came true and I did have success and I did do all that stuff, but the people that haven't and they're obese now, They have a bunch of shit going on.
First of all, they have low energy levels.
It's very difficult to get something done when you have low energy levels.
It's so hard because whatever motivation I need, I mean, I'm kind of on autopilot now.
When I get up in the morning, I know I'm going to work out.
It's not like whether or not I can't.
Maybe I'll blow it off today.
I fucking never say that.
I get in there.
I always work out.
So it's not like whether or not it's going to get done.
I spend a lot of time on the phones, but that's easy to do.
What I'm saying is it's not as easy for me.
This is just my own personal realization, my understanding of the human body.
When you're really fat, it's very hard to get going.
It's very hard.
Their bodies are...
Fucked up like they don't have the energy to do it and that's just a reality of what it means to be an obese person so what they have to do is force themselves you know they don't have like this feeling like I can't wait to get to the gym that feeling it's not there their feeling is okay I know that this is a process it's a long brutal process but I must begin it and it must be a part of every day and that's the only way I want to get out of this hold it up Doug I mean,
I don't I don't wake up and have that and I work out six days a week I don't and I built a gym on my property like three a hundred yards from my house And I still have to fight myself to get up to go work out at it, right?
He goes sometimes I see my shoes I stare at those motherfuckers for a half an hour I could see him in his house angry, looking at his sneakers, not wanting to go run.
A hard workout, like, you know, the things, if you ever notice, like, the things that bother you, like, that are on your mind before you start working out versus when you're done.
And it's also a form of therapy that requires you to engage and to work.
And I think that is just as much an important aspect of it as anything, is that you're forcing yourself to do something that's very difficult.
And through that, you get this alleviation of anxiety and stress and all the good stuff, and it's great for your body.
But also, it's great for your mind, because your mind did the work.
Your mind is what tells your body what the fuck to do.
You know, my friend John Joseph, he's the lead singer of the Cro-Mags, and he's done a bunch of shit-ton of triathlons.
And a bunch of Ironmans.
And one of the things that I love about what he loves about triathlons and Ironman, he says, because your mind has to tell your body who the fuck the boss is.
Well, I think with a lot of people, what's going on is society's created these tensions and these problems that our body doesn't totally understand.
I think our body thinks of conflicts as being danger to our body.
You know, physically dangerous conflicts.
I think our body thinks of conflicts, of anything that you've got that's going on that's giving you stress, our body thinks we're gonna have to go to war.
Like you're gonna have to fight off a neighboring tribe.
You're gonna have to fight off a predator.
There's gonna be...
The way we evolved as an intelligent being, the way we got to today is we had to fight off a lot of shit.
And so your body is programmed to fight off a lot of shit.
Now all of a sudden you get to this place in 2022 Where you're not really fighting anything off, but you have those same feelings.
And I think until you wreck your body and just tax it out, you can't think rationally.
I think all those people that have major anxiety and major problems and don't have a rigorous workout schedule, I think they do themselves a disservice because I don't think you're able to think as clearly.
And it's like, how, what's going to happen when, you know, God forbid that this country and two more generations, somebody comes here that wants conflict.
What would it take to snap America back into a position where we value physical resiliency, we value discipline, we value, and it's a common thing.
It's common that people exercise and are fit.
I mean, imagine what you do.
And imagine what I do and what Jocko does and Tim Kennedy does.
Imagine if the whole country adopted a way of life where you eat healthy, you train almost every day, and you think about your problems, you think about accountability, you think about your personality, you think about interpersonal conflicts you've been in with friends or with co-workers or what have you, and you try to do better constantly.
And I think that like that aspect of that aspect is that's why North Korea rocked a nuke.
Right.
Like like these these nukes.
I just don't think and maybe I'm just being optimistic.
I just don't think that like I think people will do things whenever they're sure that it's not going to affect them.
But I think that like the humanization factor of oh I'm I'm going to push this I'm going to support and I'm going to have to push this nuke button or whatever whatever it is key or whatever and.
But I also know that as soon as I do that, like, I'm going to get the first hit, but my family's going to suffer, and everybody here's going to suffer.
I just, again, like, they're worried about him dropping nukes inside of Ukraine.
Well, what he said, and this is where it gets disturbing, what he said is that if anybody supports Ukraine and, you know, the idea of NATO moves weapons into Ukraine and points him at Russia, I believe his quote was something to the nature of they will face horrors the likes of which the world has never seen.
I mean, it seems like a long time ago, 1947. But if you look at, in terms of, like, the overall time that humans have been on this planet, that's pretty recent.
Like, if you look at Roman history or Greek history, like, a 50-year, 60-year, 70-year gap in between something is not much.
But you know that during the 60s, there was some generals that were legitimately thinking about launching nukes against Russia, against China, against Cuba.
There was real talk about this.
Like, that's what the whole Dr. Strangelove movie is about.
We actually talked about it yesterday.
It really was based on real people that had these ideas and thought they were actually going to wind up doing that.
So, I mean, like, do you think for one second, and I don't know, these are legit questions, right?
Do you feel like he's going to drop it in Ukraine while all of his people are there, and that his own people aren't going to turn on him and be like, what the fuck?
But what I'm saying is, who the fuck thought that we were going to have a hot war with Russia invades Ukraine with tanks and jets and they're shooting missiles into apartment buildings?
That's fucking crazy.
And nobody thought that was going to happen just a few months ago.
I mean, I think Russia, you know, I think Russia's kind of showed their hands, right?
Like, Russia's kind of been like, to my generation, the guy in the bar that, you know, you walk into, you've never seen him fight, but everybody's like, oh, don't mess with that guy, right?
Like, don't, you just don't ever even mess with him, right?
I want the world to be a better place than it was before, and there's a real possibility that it won't be.
The thing that every civilization is worried about, when you talk about the possibility of the advancement of the human race, the one big dilemma is if we don't blow ourselves up, That comes up all the time.
Whenever people talk about the future, like, what is the world going to be like in a million years if we don't blow ourselves up?
That's what they always say.
Like, will we get to a point where there is peace and harmony and we no longer have war?
Do you ever see, and again, I don't know, I'm just asking a question, do you ever see somebody, yeah, I mean, somebody who's willing, because like, you know, suicidal, sometimes, I don't know, suicidal people, they usually just hurt themselves sometimes, right?
That was the whole plot of that Stephen King book.
The fuck was that book?
They made it into a movie with Christopher Walken, The Dead Zone.
There was a guy who could see the future, and there was a guy who was running for president, and he could see that this guy who was running for president was going to launch the nukes.
And that launching those nukes was going to cement their name into history, which I think, for some people, is a powerful, motivating factor, believe it or not.
Yeah, but especially as you're getting older, what keeps a guy going when you're 69, you've been running Russia for decades, and you have untold billions of dollars?
I mean, he keeps that population terrified, terrified and under control.
And that's the thing is, it's like that's happening right now in 2022. And one of the things about us is we're so like if someone lives in a wonderful, really safe neighborhood and you just think this is the world.
The world is like my neighborhood because that's all I experience.
And that's your point of reference.
Your point of reference is this great neighborhood that you live in where everything's safe and you never really have to worry about anything.
At the same time, there's places in the world like...
Shane Smith from vice was telling us about This one city that has the most murders.
I think it was in Pakistan It's one city where there's more like murders and more hits like you know like people pay people like it's a shockingly low amount of money to commit murder and they just have them constantly all the time and It's just the reality of living there.
We were pulling up a chart the other day of the amount of drone strikes that have gone on while the Ukraine thing is happening, that the United States is participating in.
It's pretty fucked.
It's pretty fucked.
There's a lot of drone strikes going on right now all over the world that the United States participates in.
Because you're thoughtful on this, so I want to know, or you're always thoughtful, but do you think, because I keep hearing this, do you think that this issue that's going on in Ukraine, do you think it would have happened with Donald Trump?
But again, like, you know, you just don't think, like, it's just so weird, and I don't know if there's any correlation to it, but it's so weird that, like, they were trying to plant stuff on Trump with Russia.
Yeah, but the connections that she had with those people are, if she is the favorite to win the presidency, and she was, the connections that she had with those people.
And it's constantly in arguments and fights with people and going after them and Rosie O'Donnell and Girls He Banged and all the crazy things to concentrate on.
It says, for the same reason we're worried about foreign influence in elections, we want to make sure that during the elections, I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.
It's a big deal, Barr testified.
Spying did occur.
Yes, I think spying did occur.
The question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated.
I'm not suggesting it wasn't adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.
I think it's my obligation.
Congress is usually very concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that that happened.
We have a lot of rules about that.
Well, we know that a lot of the intelligence agencies did not fucking like Trump, and he went to war with those people, which is insane.
But, I mean, I wouldn't even know whether I'd believe it.
Because, like, if you really wanted to fuck with people...
Look, I think that a lot of what we're looking at when we're looking at UFOs...
And I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
I think a lot of it is these classified government projects.
I think they have...
They probably have classified propulsion systems that maybe don't even use people.
They're probably just drones.
But I think they have capabilities that we don't understand yet in terms of the general public.
And they've been working on these sort of different types of propulsion, magnetic propulsion systems.
These have been theoretical for a long time.
And then this thing that Bob Lazar supposedly worked on way back in the late 80s at Area S-4, the way he described it is exactly the way these things are moving, the way that you see these crafts move, like the one that was observed by Commander David Fravor, the one that was observed by a lot of these other guys, these Air Force folks that are catching these objects moving at these insane rates of speed.
I think it's pretty clear that we're doing it to ourselves through corruption.
I mean, and what we've done in the United States is we have allowed money to get into politics.
We've allowed money to get into- To get in our military.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
A lot of it.
I mean, that was what Eisenhower warned about when he was leaving office.
I mean, that speech, when he warns about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, that is a terrifying speech, because that was a guy who knew.
He knew exactly what was going on behind the scenes, and he chose to take the time, when he's leaving office, to warn about a machine that wants to go to war, that wants to find reasons to go to war to profit, and that we know that that's real.
Like, they could have kept going on about business as usual.
And, you know, I just...
No, I mean, we were there.
And, you know, even though this administration completely fucked this whole pullout up, every other administration had the same opportunity to pull us out.
Well, essentially what he said, though, was that he realized...
Oh, here it goes.
Perfect.
War is a racket.
It always has been.
It's possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one international in scope.
It is the only one in which profits are reckoned in dollars and losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people only a small inside group knows what it's about it's conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
He said, For the benefit of Wall Street.
The record of racketeering is long.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912. Where have I heard that name before?
I bought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar business, interest rather, in 1916. In China, I helped see to it that standard oil went its way unmolested.
I mean, this is, he was writing about this in the 1930s, almost 100 years ago.
I think the real problem is once it's already established the way it is now, where there is a lot of financial influence, where they do contribute to the campaigns, where they do have special interest groups, where they do have these people that help them get into office and they're beholden to them once they get in there.
And then you have people like Nancy Pelosi that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they make 200 grand a year.
But it's just like Obamacare was a perfect example.
Everybody else was forced to get it, except them.
Like, it's crazy.
It's crazy that, you know, that they can have information.
So the shit that they can do, they're not held accountable if they know inside.
Like, go look at the, I did a podcast on the American Party, or me and Dan did a podcast on the American Party podcast about trading within, you know, the house and all that.
And then what you look at is, is you look at like, oh, they invested in Raytheon or whatever, and then they knew that three days later they were going to vote on a contract that was going to go to them.