(UNLOCKED!) The Anarchists Ep. 1: "I'd rather send our kids to a porn set than a public school"
This week, we cover the first episode of HBO's The Anarchists, a series documenting the exploits of wealthy anarcho-capitalists in their attempt to start a utopian community in Acapulco, Mexico We're introduced to a lovable cast of characters including "child's rights" activists, book burners, alcoholic sex tourists, and dreadlocked felony pot smokers on the run from the law. Hear the full series at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult Help us do the show for only $3.11/month and get a bonus episode every week, as well as instant access to hundreds of bonus episodes, right in your podcast app or browser. Music: Ryan Porter - Déjà Vu
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Alright, I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we're Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Building codes.
Communication rules that govern communications are responsible.
We're documenting it.
What's up, everybody?
It's your Patreon episode for the week.
We got a fun one, I think.
Okay, let me just say, we're covering the HBO show, The Anarchists.
The HBO documentary, cryptically titled The Anarchists.
This is a Blumhouse production.
It's a documentary following a group of, quote, anarchists Who relocate to Mexico to start a, quote, anarchist utopia.
Yep.
The reason I'm using quotes around anarchists is because you quickly find out that these are anarcho-capitalists, aka libertarians.
Yes, anarcho-capitalists.
This show's amazing.
If you have HBO or access to HBO, I highly recommend watching it.
We were going to cover the first three episodes or so on this episode.
It's too good.
There's too much stuff.
It's beautiful.
It's one of the best things I've watched in a while, and I watch Grey Man.
Yeah.
Pair this with, you know, do an episode of The Rehearsal and then an episode of The Anarchists.
You're in for a beautiful night of high art.
You also might have a bad feeling about just like the competency of humanity at the end of that double feature, but you're, you know, it's still very fun.
You're going to feel good about yourself.
I'll tell you that much.
So I think today we're only going to cover the first episode of The Anarchists.
And, uh, next week we are definitely doing episode two, maybe two and three together.
We are at least doing, uh, up to the third episode because that's what I've watched and, oh, it's all gravy, baby.
It's so good.
Knowing that we were going to do more in the future, I kind of had to stop myself from finishing.
And it was hard.
Like, I had to stop myself.
I was like, no, we're only doing at least the first episode.
We're definitely not doing the third one today.
Like, don't, don't, don't blow your load yet.
You know?
Like, save, because there's, there's no way.
It's like, it's going to only get better.
I'm so excited.
This is amazing.
When we were uh we were watching this um the second one of the main guys talks about moving to Mexico as an anarchist a little like siren you know like the kill bill siren that that shit went off in my brain and I was like oh my god I know what this show's about
Because if you were listening to the news, if you were reading the news like two years ago, there was a fairly big funny story about anarchists in Mexico and what happened to them.
So if you aren't aware of that news story, maybe don't look it up to avoid spoilers for the show.
But when I heard they were going to Mexico, I was like, oh my God, I can't believe that that's what this show is about.
Yeah, watching this, first of all, I would say the anarchists, this show, obviously just a plot by the tankies to make anarchists look as awful as possible.
Just to completely taint the anarchist movement for years to come, I think.
They don't really say anarcho-capitalist too often, like a couple people do, but they keep saying anarchist and anarchy and anarchism, and the whole time you're like, no, no, no.
And I'm not here to gas up anarchism either.
This is just, oh man.
Well, it's so funny.
This is great.
There's one guy who dares to say anarcho-capitalism.
Everybody else is just saying anarchy and anarchism and Anarchapulco, which is the name of the yearly fest, uh, the yearly, uh, quote, anarchist conference, anarchist speaking conference, uh, that the documentary kind of centers on.
Uh, okay.
So genius move, not calling a documentary that because like when you find that out, it's a, it's a, it's a pop.
Because you're like, no way, they really went anarcho-poco, yeah.
So you're reading this, you're watching this for the first time, you know, the anarchists, okay, I can't wait to see, you know, people, you know, doing block actions, you know, all blacked out, faces covered, you know, breaking windows and shit.
And one of the first things you see is a flyer for anarcho-poco that has Ron Paul's face Floating on it, and also a Bitcoin.
A giant Bitcoin on the flyer.
So it's just like my back piece, is what you're saying.
Yeah.
Probably one of the bigger indicators of what you're in for.
So the series starts out with a literal book burning at a bonfire on the beach in Alca... How do you say?
Alcapoco?
Alcapoco, Mexico.
Uh, and don't worry because all the, uh, libertarian children are helping as well to, uh, throw books on the bon- to tear up books and throw them on the bonfire.
When did you ever feel like you would be happy to see children burning books?
Dude, these fucking kids.
These kids, like, they're, they're like, cause they're all about freedom, freedom of speech.
These kids are like, just saying fuck a lot.
And they're like not even doing it well.
They're like, fuck these fucking fucks, like fucking, fuck, fuck em!
And it's just like, they're little kids, they're from like, probably 7 to 12.
Yeah, sound about right?
There's also a straight up baby.
There's like a toddler wandering, walking around the bonfire.
Way too close to the fire.
The kids are saying, yeah, fuck the state!
Yeah, fuck the state.
And what are the books they're burning?
Because I was pretty worried here because like, oh no, what are they burning?
Are they burning like, you know, queer literature, you know?
But I'm not even that worried because it was more corny than that.
It was like actual law books.
Uh uh yeah the guy so we haven't been introduced to him officially but his name is uh Nathan Freeman and you know watching this for the for the first time through I you know I kind of chuckled at the last name Freeman but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt of the doubt that that was like his original name that was his given name uh as As the episode progresses, it's very clear that no, Freeman is his chosen name.
Freeman is one of the many chosen names that these characters have.
The amazing chosen names.
We will hear them all as they come.
So Nathan says, uh, we're going to have ourselves a good old fashioned book burning.
And yeah, just throwing, throwing, uh, book binding and pages onto the fire.
And then he goes, and you don't know what they are yet.
And then he goes, I've been waiting to burn this one for a long time.
And he shows it to the camera and it's, it's communication regulations volume two.
and then he says and you're like okay that's kind of weird and then he says fuck this you're gonna tell me how to speak you're gonna tell me how i can communicate how i can teach my children what i can read what i can write and then he throws it on the fire and so you quickly realize that he doesn't know that it's like A book about, like, the FCC, like, regulatory guidelines for, like, radio waves and airwaves and stuff.
He thinks it's about, like, literal interpersonal communication and, like, what you're allowed to say.
Well, what's funny is like those are the rules that are actually talk about things like fake news.
Like those are the rules that actually address that stuff.
I mean, they used to.
Sure.
Yeah.
No, they still, they still do have those rules written down.
They just doesn't matter.
Like those are the rules as opposed to say, you just can't, you can't just lie.
You can't just lie unless it's like obvious, you know, fiction.
Uh, but that those, but so to conflate that with, you know, you're not going to tell me how to speak.
I can see like, Oh, these are, this is grammar.
These are, these are the rules of English.
You're, uh, you're gonna tell me I can't, uh, broadcast how to build booby traps on the emergency broadcast channel?
Fuck that!
Pirate radio, brother.
Uh, yeah, pretty mate, like, it would be one thing if he actually was, like, a weird kook who broadcasted his, his, like, manifestos over the airwaves and was, like, battling the FCC.
He, he, like, you know, did some, uh, Did some, yeah, gonzo shit with the airwaves or whatever.
That would be, like, actually interesting.
No, he just, like, doesn't... No, he's, like, a software finance guy who just literally does not want to pay taxes, and he doesn't want to have to send his kids to school.
He had a software company called Red Pill.
Yeah.
Well, she called... His wife, I think her name's Lisa Freeman, she calls it Red Pill, but it's actually...
There's a longer name for it.
I'm looking for it here in my notes.
I can't find it.
It's not just Red Pill.
It's like Red Pill Venture or something like that.
Anyway.
So it's like, yeah, just burning books.
You know, you're going to tell me what I can fucking read and write.
And it's like, it's pretty obvious the government like can't force you to read anything.
Like even the thing you're burning right now, you don't know what's actually in it.
Yeah.
Like, what are you complaining about?
Do you think he got lucky and found Liz at a thrift store?
Or, like, did he, like, go buy them?
Because, like, no one has those.
No.
I don't think he went to, like, law school.
No, it was probably, like, a library was closing because so many people refused to pay their taxes.
So he's like, oh cool, free trash.
Dude, he says at one point, he says to the camera, he's like, Oh, so I was holding this book and it's a criminal law second edition.
And he's always holding this in my hand.
And my son came up to me and asked me what it was.
And then he saw it and he said, Oh, it's garbage.
Yeah, a thing that like did not happen or you were like, it's garbage, isn't it?
Don't you think this is garbage?
The way these people like do their, the way they do their kids is so wild.
Like the way they treat their kids is so fucking wild.
Yeah, it sucks.
My son came up to me and I was just reading Atlas Shrugged for the 12th time.
And my son came up to me and he said, Daddy, if I consent to voluntarily exchange my labor for a fair wage, why do narcissistic status tyrants insert themselves between me and a consenting partner?
And I was just like, wow, did I do a good job raising this kid?
Yeah, I nailed it.
Hey, if I fail everything else, I know I did that part.
Yeah, I'm looking at libertarians burning books and I'm just like, yeah, this is what happens when you tell a libertarian to read anything besides Ayn Rand.
Yeah, and they're just like, nope, we're setting it on fire.
Yeah, no.
Um, okay, so you get, uh, so there's like sort of a sort of radio show or podcast that you get kind of like narrating or doing meta commentary on the Acapulco, Anarchapulco, excuse me, uh, Movement and the anarchist movement.
And they kind of segue us, as the viewer, into talking about the term anarchy.
Addressing the elephant in the room.
Anarchy?
But that's scary!
Actually.
Actually.
Yeah, they say Anarchapoco has taken a word that is radioactive.
Anarchy.
And turned it into a genuine movement full of competent people or whatever.
And it's like, It's so funny to be like, yeah, the word anarchy, man, that's so scary.
That's so like, you know, so many people find that like abhorrent and detestable and just immediately going to dismiss you.
Let's revamp its image by tying it to Bitcoin and book burning.
Let's, let's give it a better, let's give it a better gloss by promoting Charles Murray, the guy who, the guy who wants to sell your children, who wants you to be able to sell your children.
Or Murray Rothbard, sorry.
Murray Rothbard.
But this is all happening on like a nice beach.
So, yeah.
Yeah, let's do that.
It's just, it's funny how like the right wing stole the term libertarian from the left.
Like the word libertarian was coined by a libertarian socialist.
You know, back in like the 1800s or whatever.
I don't remember the guy's name.
It got co-opted by the right-wing.
And now, like, they want to do the same thing with the term anarchy, but it also just means libertarian.
It also just means right-wing libertarian.
Yeah.
And, like, but it's, I think the whole thing is, you know, they're trying to say, like, we don't, we don't follow any rules.
It just happens.
We just coincidentally follow all the same ones, except for we don't want to pay taxes.
It's that simple.
It's just like, They're not, they're just not, they're, they're just critical of the government a little bit.
They just want us to take advantage of all the awful things.
Yeah.
We don't follow.
That's why they don't want to, that's why they have to say like anarchy.
Like we just, you know, we, we just happened to accidentally feel the same way they do.
It's not because we're being told to.
We don't follow any rules except like the natural law of property rights.
Yeah, you know the natural, yeah.
Like the natural law of me getting to hoard wealth away from the community and squat on a piece of land that's way too big that I'll ever need and also privately own the means of production that other people need to survive.
That's the only little teensy rule that we care about.
Well, I mean, I can do it because you can do it too.
So, I'm just doing it.
And it's also funny to act like anarchy or anarchism has such a negative connotation when you're literally too afraid to call yourselves anarcho-capitalists.
Yeah.
Like, if you think that anarchism is an unpopular idea, like, anarcho-capitalism is, like, a tenth as popular as the term, as, like, the politics of anarchism.
Also, it would be yours.
It would, you know, embrace it, because it is yours.
Because that way you are separating yourself from, like, you know, because they think that, you know, that's Antifa.
You know, they think that, like, Anarchy, anarchists are Antifa, and that's all they do is disrupt Portland.
Right.
You know?
But take that as your own, and it sounds like, I don't know, it could be... Because they all accept that they are capitalists.
They all acknowledge that.
Yeah, and they view capitalism as the natural state of humanity, the natural state of the world, so they don't think they have to bother addressing it or justifying it.
There's like zero talk of capitalism in this whatsoever.
They don't say the word capitalism, they don't say the word socialism, they don't say the word communism.
Yeah, I think what they're doing with anarchism Is they're just trying to build off the general popularity of the term anarchy.
There are a ton of people out there who haven't read anarchist texts.
They haven't read Conquest of Bread or whatever.
But they like the idea of no rulers.
They also play Tony Hawk Underground.
Yeah.
And they also listened to punk at that time.
They listened to Offspring.
They listened to Offspring.
They had a patch that had an anarchy symbol on it.
So they know that that's part of them.
Yeah, so I think they're just trying to attract less engaged politically people to their movement.
it.
At this point we are we're introduced to Jeff Berwick who is the founder of Anarchapulco.
He kind of looks like if Jimmy Kimmel were a Canadian Jersey Shore guy.
Wow, that's exactly, you really nailed it.
Because it's Jimmy Kimmel but also like does like use HGH and like tans and has a faded beard.
And a faux hawk.
And a faux hawk.
And pops his collar.
Yeah.
He would like look 50% more normal if he didn't pop his collar.
Him popping his collar is like the real linchpin to his whole look.
Well, that's just, that's him, that's him, you know, paying respects to the culture of Acapulco.
So he's apparently, yeah, he's an anarcho-capitalist with a YouTube channel.
He also, like, lends himself to cable news outlets to be, like, their anarchism spokesperson.
Apparently, you know, to argue for, like, You know, the freedom to, you know, be gay and fire your AR-15 while shooting heroin or whatever the epic anarchism libertarian meme they're doing currently is.
A lot of his YouTube videos just seem to be him drunkenly yelling at airport security.
Oh, yeah.
And like, and it's funny because he posts them.
It's those posting L's thing, but he's like, no, I'm owning them, because getting arrested in the airport, getting yelled at, yelling at airport security, I'm just being real free.
Yeah, he literally does the, you're going to be famous, bro, as he's getting an arm twisted behind his back.
I mean, this happened in like 2016, so he might have been one of the first, you're going to be famous, bro, bros.
There's a pretty cool segment, I will admit, where he's burning a bunch of paper flags of various countries.
It's set to some light-hearted, fun music.
He burns the American flag, which is cool.
You know, just like little 9x12 pieces of paper in front of his face, and he's dancing and smoking a cigar while he does it or whatever.
Uh, he burns the American flag.
That's cool.
He burns the Canadian flag.
Uh, that's cool.
And then he burns the Chinese flag, which is not cool, dude.
Uh, not into that one.
Also, he's, he's using, he's using the flags to burn the flags.
And I thought that was very cool.
He starts it with money.
He starts like burning money.
And then that's what he lights the first, that's what he lights the American flag with.
Yeah, he does it very well.
He's done this before.
This is not his first time burning paper flags or money, probably.
Yeah, so he gets banned from YouTube for being too cringe.
And then he moves over to a different streaming site and gets even more popular.
And yeah, this introductory segment kind of ends with him walking on a beach with a popped collar on the baby blue polo.
Porsche sunglasses, walking with a selfie stick, talking into the camera while another actual camera crew follows him around.
It's pretty funny.
And isn't he telling the selfie stick about being followed around?
Yeah.
It's so good.
It's so good.
You instantly hate him.
You just know this guy sucks and he's going to be a bad guy.
We'll learn more about him in just a minute.
That beard.
That fucking beard.
He kind of looks like a silver fox kind of guy.
He's going for the Dan Balzarian thing.
Yeah, but his eyes are too light for that.
His eyes are something.
Okay, we're officially introduced to Lisa and Nathan Freeman, the book Burning Parents.
So Nathan, yeah, owned a software company called Red Pill Now, was the software company.
He goes through his like origin story for anarchism, which is, yeah, he started reading Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard.
And Murray Rothbard, if you're not familiar, it's like a right-wing version of Marx, but instead of documenting and analyzing the cost of linen and shit, you're analyzing the value of human children in the free market.
Yeah, like actually.
He starts listening to podcasts non-stop, which actually is good advice.
No, I'm not shunning him for that.
This is probably the coolest thing he does.
She talks about how he just comes home and his headphones are constantly, and he's constantly learning, listening to podcasts, which is the best thing you can do.
So, like, if he, I think you've done that more even, he might have made it out okay.
And then they both kind of start conspiring together to become anarchists and he's watching videos and he's listening to these podcasts and that's how he meets Jeff.
That's how he meets Jeff Berwick is through this like right-wing anarchism movement sort of like social media slash you know actual media sphere.
So back in the 90s, Jeff Berwick, the Canadian Jimmy Kimmel guy, he owned a financial website called StockHouse.com.
And he straight up says to the camera, if you had a website back in the 90s, people would just give you $10 or $20 million.
Yeah.
He says we were worth $240 million at one point.
And it's like, yeah, this is great advertisement about how rational the free market is, about how money and the financial system is totally real and not just like the playground of corrupt reptilian billionaires.
Yeah, and he says it in a tone that you're like, he knows that he shouldn't have, that shouldn't have been that way.
Yeah, he knows he didn't really deserve it.
No, I earned the 10 to 20 million dollars.
He's like, no, they would just give it to you.
It's like, if you had a website, which is true, like back then, if you had a website, you know, that had any sort of idea that could be fleshed out.
Yeah.
But then, if you also know, if you're also familiar with that era, there was a dramatic event where every internet company died.
Every internet company died a horrible death, the internet bubble burst, his company valuation goes to zero, and his partner, quote, tried to kill himself by jumping out an eight-story window.
Dude, do they even say tried to kill himself or do they just say he jumped out of an eight-story window?
Dude, he said, my partner tried to kill himself by jumping out of an eight-story window and I paused it and I said, tried?
He tried?
I didn't hear that part, so I was even more surprised by the next part.
Yeah, he goes on to say, uh, yeah, his partner survived later on, but just like, I was like, and he's telling this story about like, you know, how, how he got into anarcho capitalism or whatever and, and how, uh, you know, this like system that puts the market and like People's economic freedom to do whatever the fuck they want as like the highest value, as like the highest thing we should be striving for is the economic freedom.
And it's like, your partner fucking tried to kill himself because of this so-called economic freedom that happened.
His partner fucking hobbles up to his door weeks later.
So yeah, so right there, I thought his partner, all I heard was jumped out of an eight-story building.
I was like, shit, he said that real casual.
That's wild.
That sucks.
And then later on when he was like, and then we hobbled up, I was like, oh shit, he survived?
Yeah.
It was a big moment for me.
I wish you could have seen it that way too.
Well, it was all worth it.
The suicide attempt and the financial crash was all worth it because, yeah, a couple months later, the partner hobbles up and gives him The Creature from Jekyll Island, a 600-page book by G. Edward Griffin, which is about how a shadowy cabal of central bankers are conspiring to own every world citizen.
And it's basically like, you know, tries to debunk the the fed the federal reserve it uh it attempts to explain uh the financial system in a way that explained the like Inequalities or the conspiracy within the financial system that doesn't actually indict capitalism, so of course it has to rely on tropes about certain family lines, that sort of thing.
And of course, yeah, our anarcho-capitalist Jeff Berwick loves it.
He loves the book, and he loves it so much he decides to sail around the world only reading this book and, yeah, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, And it's so funny because I'm like, he says literally, I'm going to do a, I decided to do a hundred country tour and read this stuff on my boat.
And so I'm like, wait a second.
How the fuck did you do this?
Oh yeah.
How broke were you?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
It's because when the, when the fucking internet bubble crashed, only your company went bankrupt.
Yeah.
You didn't go bankrupt.
You're fine.
You didn't go bankrupt.
Yeah, exactly.
Because once again, it's all fake.
There was insurance on that.
It's all completely fake.
So I love him being like, you know, something's wrong with the world.
There's just some grand conspiracy going on that's holding all of humanity back.
And I'm going to figure it out during a hundred country yacht tour on my boat.
Yeah, just completely not self-aware.
What always blows my mind about these people, and I don't know what it says about, you know, just people and movements, but these books are big.
They are dense.
They are long.
And they read them.
Like, They're not, they're not like, this is supposed to be just like a punisher.
It's supposed to just like not be good.
It's supposed to be very like shallow and evident and like not very well written.
But they're long and they read the whole thing.
Well okay, I would push back a little bit and I would say that it's probably not very well written.
But it's also not like a hard scientific text.
It's not like reading... No, no.
Dent is the wrong word.
I'm just saying it's still going to take time to read all those words.
Right, but they're written like... These books, like Ayn Rand, but like The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, they're written like thriller.
They're written like compelling fictional thrillers.
They're not like...
You know, literate, like, what's the word?
Like, scientific tomes.
They're not, like, you know, Das Kapital or whatever.
They're like narratives.
They're narratives, and if you're inclined to believe in, like, that there's some, like, conspiracy holding you back from achieving greatness, which it's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
You're already a millionaire sailing the world on your yacht without a care in the world.
Like, what are you trying to aspire to that's greater than that?
But what I mean is like they somehow like love reading but aren't reading like good books?
Like you're gonna read a book that's that big that's gonna take that much time to read this is the one you're gonna read and you're gonna read it over and over again?
Yeah, I think it just speaks to a type of person who identifies with the makers in society.
Those books are just stroking the egos of this specific type of person who sees everybody else as a leech and a drain on society and the reason for their lack of success, however they define success.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, so yeah, he says he's like describing his little tour he did.
I was with every woman on every continent.
It's like, oh, okay, cool.
So you did sex tourism while reading Ayn Rand.
Awesome, man.
Yeah.
He's like, I'm just, you know, exercising my, uh, exercising my liberties.
Yeah.
He finally decides to settle down.
He's had enough of the bachelor life.
Uh, and he, he, he picks, uh, yeah.
Acapulco, Mexico.
Because he liked the way it looked when you sail in.
You know, it's a resort town.
It caters to affluent tourists.
So exactly, exactly who he is.
And he says, oh yeah, he says everything in Acapulco is, it's so anarchist.
And the only examples he gives are that the buses are privately owned and they race to get you and everyone is drunk.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
The whole time.
It's so anarchist.
Everybody's got an extreme alcohol problem.
Well, I mean, because you can.
Because you're allowed to.
No rules.
Dude, when he talks about the bar, he's like, this bar, we actually found a bar that was open until 3am.
I'm like, what?
Where are you from?
Salt Lake City?
What are you talking about?
Yeah, that's like not that wild.
No, I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure it is different from state to state or whatever.
Almost every bar I've been to has been open till 2 a.m.
That's like the usual closing time in my experience.
Yeah, but judging from everything else I see in this son, he doesn't do a whole lot of bar drinking.
He does a whole lot of like a pocket full of vodka drinking.
So he decides he's going to start his own freedom conference outside the U.S.
Since all the since all the freedom conferences are, you know, the big ones are happening inside the U.S.
And the U.S.
is one of the least free countries in the world, he says.
You know, it's I'm assuming because like they don't let you grab the flight attendant by the by the arm when they forget your seltzer, your hard seltzer for the third time.
Yeah, they give you a little leeway.
Yeah, so that's why he starts Anarchapoco.
That's like what he's going for.
He's going for a freedom conference that's actually free, i.e.
in Mexico.
So Lisa and Nathan Freeman decide they're going to attend because also they're considering fleeing the U.S.
And you come to understand that a lot of these people are coming to Mexico For the ANCAP Utopia are fleeing various things.
And I'm pretty sure that Lisa and Nathan are fleeing child services.
Oh.
If they weren't before, they are now.
If they weren't before this documentary, they absolutely are now.
They're just trying to raise their children free.
In a very, very free way.
What are the rules of ethics for this documentary maker when he like... What do you do there when you record them say things they say?
Just get a permission slip, get them to sign the permission slip.
I mean, but do you show it to people first or do you wait till the release?
Yeah, when they're announcing their trip to Acapulco, there's like, the documentary shows Facebook posts throughout, you know, from various characters, which I really appreciated, obviously.
So yeah, a Facebook post from Lisa Freeman, February 22nd, 2015.
Here in Acapulco, we are celebrities.
Blonde hair, light eyes, and we'll take a look, why else?
And she's posted photos of, yeah, her children who have blonde hair and blue eyes.
So weird.
So weird.
They look at us like gods down here.
Yeah, it's like, I mean, sure, maybe they look at you like marks.
I hope you know you're being looked at like a mark.
They look at you like they have to do whatever you say in order to make a living.
Yeah.
That's how they look at you.
Yeah, exactly.
And then yeah, we get the line that like hooked me on this show, which is Nathan describing their philosophy about child raising.
He says, we are anarchist unschoolers.
Our kids don't go to school.
Quote, I would sooner send them to a porn set than a public school.
And then there's nervous laughter.
The Lisa kind of puts her hand over her face and Nathan turns to her and says, I don't think that's the first time I've said that on camera.
We're anarchist unschoolers.
Our kids don't go to school.
I would sooner send them to a porn set than I'd send them to a public school.
Wow.
I don't think that's the first time I've said that on camera.
I don't think so.
Yeah, like, what are you so shocked about?
Also, he's saying this with, like, a mustache and a goatee.
The most perverted mustache I've ever seen.
Those alone.
You cannot be around a school with that mustache-goatee combo, and that's why he's mad.
That's why they don't go to school, is because he wouldn't be allowed to pick them up.
Like, I don't know who needs to hear this, because I don't think, I think we've said it before.
Don't, there's no reason to ever curl your mustache on the ends.
We don't need to do it.
Um, I don't, I'm sorry.
I'm sure you, it just doesn't, it doesn't look great.
Stop the mustache at the edge of the lip line.
A little bit over is fine, but that's it.
Yeah and kind of go buck with everyone else but definitely don't want to pair that with a like a like soul patch to chin like strip goatee that he for sure refers to as a flavor saver.
And it's also bi-colored.
It's got white in it, as well as his... So yeah, it's really bad.
Which looks awesome if you have the facial hair the way it's supposed to be, which is not curled at the end and not a little strip going down the middle.
Nathan essentially becomes the sole organizer for the conference, literally because Jeff Berwick is too drunk all the time.
Yeah, the first time the conference happens, like nothing is, there's no plan.
Like no one was just happening.
And Nathan's like, hey, can I run this?
Can I do all the work?
And Jeff is just like passed out face down on the couch, not answering.
Yeah.
He's like, yeah.
And like, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not like making assumptions here.
He says I was just super drunk the whole time.
Yeah.
And we're watching him be super drunk the whole time.
Okay, so we get our next introduction to a new character.
Oh my god.
We're introduced to Juan Galt.
Who is a young Hispanic filmmaker who's the only person, I think, who actually says anarcho-capitalism and he starts doing PR for Al Capoco to try and make up for all the cartel killings that have been in the news so that more libertarians will move down there.
Yeah, okay.
Just one more time.
One more time.
His name.
His fucking name is Juan Galt.
Which is actually one of the more creative names that we see.
Is it?
Or are you, like, Trader Joe's-ing yourself?
Yeah, I mean, they all named themselves... There's another guy whose name is John Galton.
Yes, yes.
So, I think Juan Galt is a little more clever than John Galton.
And I'm sure everyone knows, but John Galt is like the main character in Atlas Shrugged.
John Galt is, yeah.
He's like, we don't know who he is.
Who is John Galt?
Who's John Galt?
Yeah, we don't know.
So like, so yeah, so, so Juan Galt and John Galton, like just, and someone later says like, you know, these aren't real names, right?
So funny.
It's like, yeah, idiot.
Duh.
No, I got into the book because of my name, actually.
You know my name, Maker Freeman, isn't my birth name, right?
Yeah, I don't think you knew that.
Okay, so we also meet Larkin Rose, who's in Mexico, and what he is fleeing is the IRS.
He's fleeing as a, quote, tax protester.
It shows clips of his speech during this first conference where he says, paying taxes is giving your master the fruits of your labor.
And that's nothing to be proud of.
Nothing to be proud of.
I love that.
It's funny, you know, because again, we're avoiding like class consciousness at all costs until everybody learns about class in episode three.
Very funny.
Very funny to watch a bunch of like- Real fucking quick.
A bunch of anarchists, a bunch of anarcho-capitalists suddenly discovering class is very good.
I love that part.
It's very funny, yeah, to talk about the fruits of your labor, right?
And this is like, a lot of right-wing people do this.
You know, they'll talk about how Medicare for All is, uh, you're actually mandating the doc, you're commanding doctors to give you the fruits of their labor.
It should be voluntary.
It's like, What?
Yeah.
Co-opting Marxist language, you know, to espouse right-wing ideology.
And this message is, like, only resonant for somebody who both has, like, no political experience, no, like, insight into left politics whatsoever, and also Like, makes enough money to where the government is taking more money from you than, like, your boss is stealing from you from your labor.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
If you're, if you're making 15 bucks an hour or 20 bucks an hour, you know, and you work for a fucking major corporation, like a fast food company or like Starbucks or something like that.
Yeah.
Like 50% of your labor value at least is being taken from you.
Right?
Like you should be probably making like 30 bucks an hour or something.
If your company is a billion dollar company or whatever.
Absolutely.
Um, but You know, if you're making like, I don't know, you know, a million dollars or something like that, because yeah, you don't actually work for anybody else.
The only people ripping you off are, is technically like the government.
They're the only people that, so yeah, that's who this like message resonates with are the already wealthy, you know?
Who do have, like, more to lose via taxes than, you know, an absence of class consciousness.
I'll tell you one thing.
Larkin's saving a lot of money on haircuts.
That haircut is dog shit.
I'm trying to remember what it is.
It's just a bad... It's just like a floof.
It's just like a red floof that's just, like, not tapered well.
And, like, not... It's just... It looks like a child's haircut, but, like, not in a good way.
It's the kid that can't sit still in the barber chair, so you just do what you can.
And he went to prison for 15 months for tax evasion.
Yep.
We meet another character named Erica Harris who is a black anarchist who seems pretty innocent in all of this.
She seems like a very nice hippie who discovered anarchism because she had like a fake office job that wasn't fulfilling.
Yeah her her whole thing is like pretty complicated.
It looks like like she kind of has this um she talks about how she's not a victim anymore a lot.
She kind of sounds like she left the plantation like the she left the democratic plantation type vibes.
I I she that's that's what I got from her.
Yeah.
She said she felt disempowered as a kid and all that stuff, which I understand.
But then she kind of goes on to be like, but then I stopped being the victim.
And she doesn't say it, but it seems like she just got that unfortunate bug where she's like, oh, my life's not hard because I'm a black woman.
That's me being a victim.
What I got from her, she's having a sort of live, laugh, love, rediscovering her soul kind of trip in the middle of this degenerate, detestable, millionaire leech festival.
She is having a whimsical experience traveling out of the U.S.
That's her vibe.
That's definitely a huge part of it.
You know, on a journey to like discover like the true meaning and what I got from her was like she yeah she said she grew up and she felt like disempowered and like she didn't have the power to control her own destiny and she doesn't ever say racism she doesn't ever say well later you know but yeah
I think she is accurately describing like being disempowered as a black woman, but like attributing it to like the soul crushing nature of like big government or, or like she only her only criticism is of like having a fake office job.
She was like, well, I was going to these meetings and I was doing these meetings where we talked about nothing.
We didn't get anything done.
We didn't do anything productive.
And I'm like, yeah, that's capitalism.
Like, moving fucking fake numbers around and acting busy so that Fortune 500 companies can keep up the illusion that they're doing something productive and worthwhile is like the libertarian utopia.
That is like what's going to happen in an unregulated, you know, free market situation.
But she literally says, I was just looking for less commercial crap.
So that's why she goes to AnarchoPoco.
And I'm like really confused because it's like what do you what like commercial crap literally the third day of this conference is labeled Bitcoin Day.
Like, what do you think is not commercial about this shit?
But I don't really know her deal.
But I don't think that was even the, but I don't think that was the first one.
I don't think the first one had the third day was called Bitcoin Day yet.
No.
I think they just had like, cause the first one, I think you're right.
I think she had that appeal where it's like, this is, this is just different.
This is the little more, this is a little more, this isn't tainted by corporations.
And I get that.
That's totally like, you know, reasonable.
I was listening to Street Fighter and I think they said like they remember her from Twitter like early like when they were on Twitter early and like that she might even like listen to the show so she had like yeah that that like wanting to be like free of these confines and yeah I think I think that she just like you said probably stumbled upon it on accident yeah yeah
We also meet Dana Martin, who is a doula and also a quote, unschooling advocate and also a child's rights activist.
Yep.
Very scary phrase in libertarian circles.
I mean, child rights activists nowadays, like when children aren't allowed to work anymore, you know, children aren't being sent to the fucking mines anymore.
Uh, you gotta watch out for that phrase.
Child rights activists.
Yeah, that's not what they mean.
They mean quite the opposite, actually.
And so, and they keep talking about, she's an on-schooling advocate as well.
And what they mean by on-schooling, they mean not schooling your kids at all.
Just kind of letting them do what they want and, like, fostering that.
Which is, like, that's part of parenting.
But you still gotta, like, teach your kids some, like, a little bit of math.
Yeah.
And mind you, when I see her, I'm already kind of sussed out about her because she's a doula and her hair looks like almost locked, like she's going for this natural hair look.
So I already didn't care for her, mind you.
And then, yeah, speaking of children's rights, we also get clips of Milo Yiannopoulos speaking at the 2016 Anarcho Poco.
Somebody who's very in favor of, yeah, children's rights to sleep with older men.
Loves that stuff.
So, so wild.
Yeah, like, like, what was, what was even... His appeal would have... At that point, when you invite him, you have to say that you're doing something else.
You have to kind of, but I guess they invited a lot of different people, but him being there just so like, yeah, that's something.
Well, it's just anti-government stuff.
Like that's, that's like what their bread and butter is, is arguing that like the state and, and the government is the only reason, you know, that, that is like the biggest barrier, uh, to achieving, you know, true freedom, true, uh, success.
Um, And as I think Nathan is like making the pitch or he's describing like the pitch to try and bring people into anarchism and into their anarchist utopia in Acapulco.
He's saying like, you know, even if you can't free the other 7 billion people on the planet, you can be free and your family will be free.
And it's like, Again, you're only appealing to people who already have that freedom on their own.
Because it's like, like me, I couldn't move to Acapulco and be free.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I would have to look for a job.
That's probably a lot of hard work.
And I would have to do that for 10, 12 hours a day to survive.
Yeah.
Or, you know, you would at least have to like change your entire life for a couple of years to save for, you know, Yeah, you said all this stuff is, you know, tinged with privilege all the way around.
And it's tinged with like right-wing isolationist individualist ideology, which it's like...
This might sound corny, but in my mind, like, yeah, one person can't be free if everybody else isn't free.
That's not, like, freedom.
That's not the definition of freedom that I adhere to, you know what I mean?
And it's, like, just him saying, like, oh, even if you can't help anybody but yourself, it's really fun to help yourself to the spoils of the world, you know?
Absolutely.
Okay, here's where we meet John Galton and Lily Forrester.
Holy shit.
And John Galton says, you know those aren't our real names, right?
It's like, yeah, we know, man.
We know.
Yeah, thank you.
Both white, both massive dreads, just like... Rasta pasta'd like so...
Just, oh man.
Just like flies buzzing around these kids.
Just disgusting looking.
And just like caricatures.
But, but, I will say, um, uh, the most like, I think the most down.
They are the closest things to actual anarchists here.
Mostly because they're poor.
Mostly because they have nothing and actually have to like rely on solidarity and not mutual aid, but like, what's, what's the word?
Like, uh, like low level entrepreneurship to get by, you know?
The, the, the Vice article about this refers to this stuff as mutual aid projects.
Yeah.
Not, not what it is at all.
Which is like infuriating.
No one is doing any organizing outside of trying to make connections with various cryptocurrencies.
And it's so funny to hear them talk about like, we're doing an anarchist, not Lily and James specifically, but like everybody else.
It's very funny to hear them talk.
We're building a movement.
We're building an anarchist movement.
And it's like, all they mean is getting as much wealth as they can down to Anarchapoco.
To, like, mutually reinforce all of their, like, statuses.
All the hierarchies they have over the locals, essentially.
And when you meet them, they're introduced as, like, the young fugitives.
Yeah, John and Lily, okay?
So, John and Lily are, like, yeah, they're dreadlocked white kids who are fugitives from America who got caught with They say like they got caught with paraphernalia and they got caught with weed that was already blown like through a vaporizer I'm assuming?
Yeah.
That they were just gonna compost at their new place that they were moving to which was a abandoned house in Detroit where they were going to squat and quote ride out the apocalypse.
So, a lot of stuff going on there, obviously.
I think the funniest thing is you're transporting blown weed to compost in Detroit?
What?
Well, I think that was part of it.
I think they had that with them also, but they definitely had a lot of actual weed too.
Okay.
She described the car as a Mary Poppins bag of weed.
Yeah.
Just the more, you just keep pulling out weed and keep pulling out weed and keep pulling out weed.
And so yeah, they were definitely fucked, but they were like, oh, you're even going to do this part?
Um, yeah, they were definitely, like, they were definitely fucked.
And, like, mind you, this is all, like, yeah, they're, sounds like they're doing this super down-ass thing, and they are, but it's still very tinged with privilege.
What's the down-ass thing that they're doing?
Elaborate on that.
Go, go squat in this abandoned house.
Go squat in an abandoned house and start composting in it.
Like, that rules.
Yeah.
Um, I'm fine with that part.
I don't know.
There's like a community in Detroit.
Uh, yeah.
And I can't remember the name of it, but it's, it's a community that they decided to try and join.
And yeah, they drove through, I think it was Ohio, uh, which is where they got busted with all this stuff.
And she was like talking to the cops and she was like, please, we're going to Detroit where it's basically legal.
Can't you just let us off?
And they were like, Oh no, it's a felony.
You guys both have felonies now.
And it was funny because they talk about kind of being like, um, have some prejudice against them because she's like, they took one, took one look at him.
They took one look at him and he just knew.
And they, then they had to, they had to search the car and he said, nope, but they had the drug dogs.
And like, yeah, dog, you're like, you have like snake bites and dreadlocks and a top bun and you're wearing like a skin tight hemp shirt.
Your shirt literally has a giant weed leaf on it, man.
Yeah, no, I love that.
She's like, they took one look at John and were like, alright.
I think she said that knowing that they were right to do that.
Yeah.
It's also funny that their introduction is via an interview that's being done with this vegan restaurant in Acapulco.
It's called Verde Vegan.
And it's a restaurant that has been, like, frequented by all the other libertarians that we've been talking about.
You know, Jeff...
The Nathan, all those guys have been going to this restaurant and also have like refused to learn Spanish and have refused to get along at all with any of the locals.
They have just like, no, this is like their place now.
They don't need to know anybody else or like engage with the community whatsoever.
And that's like what this, you know, and.
These guys are like, they might be a couple, I don't know, who own Verde Vegan.
They're not talking about them bad.
They're just like in a matter-of-fact way.
They were like, yeah, like none of the other people, like they didn't, you know, they didn't learn Spanish.
They're into them.
They're into them.
They are into them.
Because they talk about earlier, they're like, oh, when I heard they're anarchists, we were like, no, because all the anarchists do is shut down the streets and set things on fire.
Cause a mess.
Cause a mess, yeah.
And they were literally, because they're business owners, they were literally like, we're worried about traffic and property damage.
So we didn't want that, but that's not who these people were.
And so they like them.
No, they do like them, but they just like matter-of-factly say that, oh, they don't bother to like, at all, like learn the culture or give a shit about anybody else besides themselves.
Except for these two newcomers who ordered in Spanish and he was like, oh shit, you know Spanish.
And of course it's like Lily and John.
They're the ones who actually like bothered to learn Spanish because they were moving to Mexico.
Maybe they already knew it.
You know, they just like, Again, you have to kind of hand it to them for, like, bothering to engage with cultures outside of their own, and, like, you know, they're going to actually have to engage with the community in order to survive.
So, like, they're on a totally different, like, playing level, playing field with the rest of this community, and that's, like, it's like a major indicator and foreshadowing of, like, their disparate experiences from, like, Nathan and Jeff and from Lily and John.
Well, they talk, like, yeah, Lily and John, like, they do have this, like you said, they're the closest thing to it.
They talk earlier about, like, oh, their goal is to participate in, you know, agorism, which is, you know, strictly bartering, which, you know, yeah, obviously, I'm into that, like, duh, but, you know, so they have these, like, intentions, but they're still, like, Like dreadlocked white kids who just have no, who just are not quite going big enough, but they do talk about it.
You said, well, we're here now and like, we like everything else they did.
So like, well, we have to, we have to tolerate them.
They're still right-wing anarchists.
They are not, like, actual anarchists.
They... She's like... They're like Ron Paul people.
Oh, totally.
Because she... When she's telling their story, you know, the filmmaker's like, well, how'd you guys meet?
And she's like, oh, well, that's easy.
We met at my weed smoking club at Kent State.
I had a club of sensible, you know, students for sensible drug policy, which is just, yeah, weed.
We liked weed.
But again, like that part I was super down with, but this part, yeah.
And I was speaking and I saw John who was wearing a Ron Paul hat and I stopped mid-sentence to say, hey, nice hat.
And then I looked him up on Facebook and we became a couple immediately.
Within two days, she said.
She talks about, so yeah, they get charged with, yeah, two felonies.
They hire a lawyer to help them spring bail and then decide to, yeah, flee to Mexico and ask Jeff to get free admission into Anarcopoco.
And, you know, they don't have passports, obviously, they don't have, like, they're not going to be able to do this thing legally.
And he's like, oh, just come on Friday night, you'll get let through.
And so they illegally crossed the border through Tijuana on Friday night, and they're in Mexico.
And they did, they, they're like living up in the hills.
They tell the Verde Vegan guys that they're like living up in the hills.
And he's like, Fuck, you gotta be care- that's- you don't want to live, like, up in these hills.
These hills are, like, bad.
Like, that's by where we live, you don't want to live up there.
But they're like- but they're like, well, we haven't had any problems, it's fine, you know?
Um, but, yeah, speaking to the, like, disparate levels of political engagement, uh lily starts posting because lily is like kind of the brains of the operation between her and john uh she starts posting on facebook talking shit about anarcho poco uh once she gets there because she she starts to see that it's just like business interests convening on uh you know what they're hoping is like
Floods of cash from rich, bored millionaires looking to spend their way into a utopia or spend their way into more political power or self-fulfillment.
And so I have some Facebook posts from her where she said, anyone else have feelings of disappointment about who qualified for an ANCAP speaking slot this year?
So she's also using ANCAP here.
She knows what anarcho-capitalism is.
And she says, it just seems like this year ANCAP was just advertising, as in it was just a buzzword.
And then she also goes on to say, this conference was supposed to be for ANCAPS by ANCAPS.
And yeah, and it's very much like doing some sick ass gatekeeping, which I'm pretty into here.
But yeah, they're seriously like, whoa, hold on.
These people, they're not really ANCAPS.
They're not really down.
And she calls him out and she's like, yeah, within the first two sentences of everyone speaking, they were like, I'm pretty new to this whole anarchy thing.
And she's like, hate it.
And I'm like, oh yeah.
She's like, why are you on the stage?
She's like, I expected it to be people who were like well-versed in theory and had been part of the movement for several years.
But it's like, it's just like celebrities and business owners.
And it's almost like, You joined a movement about how capital should be free to do whatever it wants and you're shocked that there's rich people on the stage right now.
Yeah, hello.
You don't seem this stupid, you know?
So her publicly criticizing the conference that she got into for free...
While fleeing the state.
It ruffled some feathers and according to his wife Lisa, Nathan got pissed off at this and he was like, you can't fucking do this shit!
And it's like, wait, what?
Sorry, what was that word you used?
Can't?
Can't do something?
Actually, that's kind of the whole point of this thing.
I can.
That's the whole point.
Hey Nathan, pretend I'm one of your kids holding a sharp object and stop supervising me.
Yeah, please let me walk towards this fire, like actually.
As this episode winds to a close, Lisa goes on to say how over the next five years, Acapulco started to become this haven for crazy people.
Yep.
Yep.
I love that.
By which she mostly means poor people.
She means poor, weird libertarians.
And it's like, Yeah, these people are kind of crazy because you'd have to be crazy to be a poor libertarian.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
You'd have to be like slightly unhinged to be an anarcho-capitalist with zero capital.
And that's kind of the whole thing about like, you know, a new thing, right?
It's like, eventually there's going to be somebody who is broke and still committed and will make the, will like, Changed their whole life for it.
And we meet a few of those people right away.
Yeah.
Episode 2 we'll talk about next week.
I'm so excited to talk about it because I'm pretty sure it has like the most MDC Facebook guy we've ever covered.
It's just like such a rich view of this guy who narrates his own parts of the documentary.
Um, so... I think unprompted too.
I don't think that was like a request or anything.
I think he just did it.
Yeah.
Get ready for that next week.
Episode two of The Capitalists.
Watch this show if you haven't.
It's awesome.
Oh, one thing I want to talk to you about, about, um, about the dreadlocks.
Okay.
So the dreadlocks were, they were in there, right?
This hasn't been that long.
And Lisa now has like mid back, like straight hair, which means Her dreadlocks were so- because she's also a ginger.
Her hair is so white and straight that she was able to undo the dreadlocks.
Like, that's what that means.
Like that's how bad these dreadlocks are, okay?
I can't stress enough how awful these dreadlocks are and how just like, they are the epitome of, they just, I love weed.
Like a lot.
I'm like a weed advocate.
But these people are the reason why it's so hard to like actually get people to understand that it's not that bad.
Look what it did to them, Tony.
You really gonna argue that it's harmless?
I know.
I know.
One thing I will say, so yeah, like you mentioned, Tony, you see her sort of, you know, as part of this documentary interviewing in front of the camera at a much later date than like the footage of 2016 and 2015 that you're seeing.
So you're getting like modern or at least more modern interviews with all of these people, Lisa, Nathan, Jeff and also Lily.
You're getting like a more modern video interview with Lily where her hair is totally different.
She's wearing glasses.
Her complexion is different.
Conspicuously absent, you're not getting any modern interviews from John Galton.
No, those are missing and there is a vibe from Lisa.
There is a vibe from Lisa for sure.
From Lily.
Sorry, from Lily.
I don't care if you're saying Lisa, but there's a vibe from Lily that is like Yeah.
You can definitely tell, I don't know, we haven't got there, but it feels like she's talking about an ex throughout the whole thing.
Also, I was very confused because Lisa in her modern interviews, I thought Lisa in the modern interviews was a different person than Lisa in like the older footage.
Yeah.
Because she had her whole mouth redone.
Yeah, Lisa looks great.
And well, she had like a giant gap in her front teeth, which I thought, which is cute.
It was cute.
Like, and she's, she's like a bubbly, cute woman.
Um, and then in the modern interviews, she's just like, like almost veneers, like perfect straight.
I thought it was two different people, but yeah, no, it looks like two different people.
Absolutely.
Like every, I mean, yeah.
Uh, you can tell, you can tell she got that money for a minute.
Like, no doubt.
Okay, well, I'm excited to talk about Episode 2 next week.
So good.
I don't know if we're going to do every episode of this show, just kind of playing it by ear here.
There's so much good stuff in Episode 2 and 3, so we're definitely talking about those.
We'll just cover it until I don't want to do it anymore, I think.
I think I got four in me because I think it's only getting better.
Episode two and three have been just incredible.
So incredible.
I can't wait for episode two.
Yeah.
Alright, well, that's the show.
Thanks so much for supporting us and we'll talk to you again soon.
