PREVIEW The Weekender: There's No Going Back w/ Karl Folk
This is a preview of The Weekender edition of the Muckrake Podcast. Please go to our Patreon to gain access to the regular Weekender episodes on Fridays. Nick Hauselman is out for the day, so Jared Yates Sexton talks with Karl Folk about recent developments, including the prison camps in El Salvador, the fight for a better future, and a whole host of things, including the need for the criminals behind this farce to go to prison. A word of warning, this is not an episode you're going to want to listen to with your kids. Jared is...pissed off.
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the McRig Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Sexton.
Nick Halsman has some business today.
That's why I brought in my good friend, Carl Folk, of the Institute of Unreality, one of the few people out there in this motherfucking situation that I trust.
Carl, it's good to see you.
Good to see you, as always.
Listen, I gotta do all of the normal shit, so I'm going to do it.
Go over to patreon.com slash muckraigpodcast, become a patron, support the show.
We need your help.
Listen to this entire episode.
And I'm telling you right now...
This is an episode you're going to want to listen to.
And Carl, I got to do a little bit of house cleaning here.
The Weekender, when Nick and I started doing it, we kind of did it as a palate cleanser to make sure that we had all the sort of headlines and everything at the end of the week.
It's usually a more laid-back show.
I want to tell people before we actually get started in earnest, this is not going to be a podcast, a Weekender to listen to in the car with your kids.
I apologize ahead of time.
Carl, I'm fucking pissed off.
And I...
I've been pissed off for a very long time, and I feel like I have reached a point in which I can't even necessarily log on here and kind of do the ins and outs that usually come with a program like this.
For people who are listening to this on Friday, I assume you've already heard that Senator Chris Van Hollen went to El Salvador.
He was denied access, along with Kilmar Abrego Garcia's lawyer, to Seacott.
Carl, it's been a while since we've talked.
A lot has changed.
Just a thesis statement.
Fuck these motherfuckers.
That makes two of us having a similar statement here.
They need to rot in prison.
Period. And it's time, I think, and we have to be delicate about this for a variety of reasons, but it's time to stop ringing the alarm bells and talking about what's going on and being gentle about it.
and paying at lip service.
And if anybody in this country wants to get elected and be a leader at this point, you can't worry about norms.
You can't worry about massaging this thing.
One of the top most priorities that we have is taking these motherfuckers who are doing this, who are committing these crimes and dedicating ourselves to making sure that they spend the rest of their natural lives in prison.
Yeah, no, I mean, that is the...
I'm glad you said it that way.
We have to say it that way, because that is the foot in the door, and that would be, at this point, the best situation for them.
Well, and the reality is, I mean, this is a force that really, as we've seen, doesn't give two shits about norms.
In fact, it sees them in the same way that...
Many other autocrats in our history have, which is a funny little road bump that you get to make fun of while you destroy.
It's such a joke, Carl.
It's so funny what they're doing.
They're having such a great time.
I mean, that's just it, right?
For those of us staring on in horror or trying to walk through the steps of how this works when you're seeing the social construction of a new state around you, it's really tough, right?
I'm angrier in a way than...
I ever have been.
Me too.
I'm also more optimistic than I ever have been.
And that is a bizarre combination to have right now.
But the reality is like for elected officials and for the, the democratic party, they have one choice and it's a choice that they're financially not willing
to do in a lot of cases, because as we've seen the forces of the,
You know, capital state capture and elite capture are just as present in the Democratic Party as they have been in the Republicans prior to their wholesale, you know, takeover.
And, yeah, if you're not, at this point, 100% committed to the public destruction of this movement, the imprisonment of every one of its...
leaders and anyone that's put in power anywhere in government and the entirety of the republican congressional apparatus, in addition to their funding arms, the systems they've set up to run in parallel to governmental and non-governmental
systems, you know,
The Democrats have to adopt a truly anti-authoritarian, truly anti-fascist platform that says, look...
It's not just bad when the other side does it.
It's bad when it happens full stop.
And that means reexamining a lot of the post-9-11 neoliberal establishment.
You don't get here without that.
Not at all.
Period. No, and that's the hardest part for anyone who's actually invested right now in stopping this is there's an understanding that the Democratic Party is fundamentally un...
Prepared for this because the same forces that damaged the Republican Party in the lead-up to the fascist takeover of the party are not just present, but some of the leading voices within the party, right?
This has been a free preview of the Weekender edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
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