The Muckrake Political Podcast - The Weekender Preview: When the End isn't the End Aired: 2026-04-10 Duration: 09:36 === Age of American Humiliation (09:01) === [00:00:06] audio from a collapsing state. [00:00:16] Hey, everybody. [00:00:18] This is a joint meeting between the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast and Audio from a Collapsing State over at my Substack, Dispatches from a Collapsing State. [00:00:29] This is one of those things where two different friend groups get to meet each other. [00:00:33] They realize, hey, we have a lot in common. [00:00:36] We should hang out more. [00:00:37] So that's what we're doing. [00:00:40] And I wanted to do this joint episode to catch everybody up on what is going on with the situation. [00:00:49] With the Iran war and the so called ceasefire that is already falling apart. [00:00:55] And I wanted to get everybody up to speed on a variety of things, including what happened, what is happening, and the larger circumstances. [00:01:05] I've had a weird day. [00:01:08] I am recording this from, how do I put this? [00:01:14] A suspect hotel room? [00:01:16] Not the best hotel room that I have ever stayed in. [00:01:20] Maybe a mistake of a hotel room. [00:01:24] I'm heading out to the West Coast to carry out some organizing work, and I've driven through large swamps of the American continent over the past couple of days. [00:01:36] I was actually at Mount Rushmore earlier today and the Badlands. [00:01:43] And actually, strangely enough, I just drove by Little Bighorn, of course, where the famous battle took place. [00:01:54] I was really discouraged. [00:01:56] To go by something of such historic magnitude and also human tragedy and to find it, you know, really touristied up. [00:02:09] You know, to go by a place with really hallowed ground and to find people selling trinkets and setting up toy teepees. [00:02:21] It was really upsetting and also just strange to drive across. [00:02:27] I mean, I. [00:02:27] I don't know how you feel about it, but the United States of America is a beautiful, beautiful country once you get outside of the sprawl and the corporate monopolies. [00:02:39] And if you look at it with the right set of eyes, you wonder exactly what it would look like if we hadn't befouled it, you know, if it had been left to the devices of the indigenous people who cared for it and weren't interested in exploiting it. [00:02:57] But that idea of. exploiting natural resources and hoarding them is going to be something that we're going to speak on today. [00:03:12] But yeah, it's a very strange time. [00:03:17] And I wanted to record this, and apologies for the quality of it. [00:03:23] I thought I had a mic that was going to do the job. [00:03:26] It didn't do the job. [00:03:28] It didn't work out. [00:03:29] Technology failed me once again. [00:03:32] But I am dedicated. [00:03:33] That's why I'm here, and that's why we're talking. [00:03:36] And also, I find this to be an incredibly important time. [00:03:40] And I've been alone with a lot of thoughts that I wanted to share with you. [00:03:46] Once more about what is happening and again what to expect going forward. [00:03:54] It's a very strange feeling to watch material conditions and capitalist forces guiding a country that is helmed by a madman at the end of empire drag us to this point of ultra conflict and violence and incompetence and what I have started to call the age of American humiliation. [00:04:18] And it was very odd. [00:04:20] You know, on Tuesday, there was a lot of concern as people were rightfully worried that the President of the United States of America was going to carry out a genocide. [00:04:31] Why? [00:04:32] Because he posted about it on his dumb social media. [00:04:37] And there was a countdown that was taking place. [00:04:39] And as it did, I was looking at it. [00:04:44] I read Trump's End of Civilization. [00:04:47] Post, which isn't it amazing that that's something that we live with now? [00:04:53] And I figured it was an extension of what he had said about bombing power plants and bridges, and that was going to be the end of civilization. [00:05:03] I was not that concerned that there would be some sort of nuclear device set off or nuclear missile being fired. [00:05:11] And I had noticed that there was a little bit of talk amongst a couple of publications. [00:05:19] That had said that he hadn't ruled it out, which we had heard him say that. [00:05:22] We had heard him say for days upon days that if this deadline passed, he was going to attack power plants and roads. [00:05:30] Of course, that doesn't dismiss the fact that Donald Trump shouldn't be anywhere near nuclear weapons. [00:05:35] And it really begs us to take a look at our systems and who we give authority to do these things and whether or not there are fail safes in place. [00:05:51] But as that was happening, I had heard from some sources with sources and intelligence that this deal was being done with the mediator of Pakistan and that the United States had reached out to China to try and convince Iran to accept the back and forth deal. [00:06:14] And what it amounted to was that Iran got everything it wanted and more. [00:06:21] And the United States got nothing besides one thing, which was a cessation of violence. [00:06:29] And that was necessary because two things. [00:06:34] One, what now really does appear to be a failed special ops to take enriched uranium in Iran, which would have been the off ramp. [00:06:46] It would have been the, oh, mission accomplished. [00:06:50] We're ready to get out of there situation. [00:06:54] But because that was ambushed, because it was a complete and utter operational failure, that boxed Trump in even further. [00:07:02] And his whole, you have 48 hours to do this, or I'm going to bomb you into the Stone Age declaration was a lot of bluster, but it wasn't for Iran. [00:07:13] It was for us. [00:07:14] It was an incompetent, weak, trapped president attempting to make us believe that he was stronger than he was. [00:07:23] And what Iran eventually agreed to, and we'll talk more about the agreement here in a second and why it's already on shaky ground. [00:07:33] What Iran agreed to, strangely enough, was cover for Trump to claim victory while effectively signing over a surrender to Iran. [00:07:49] The fact that this hasn't been reported this way, the fact that it hasn't been portrayed this way, it shouldn't be a shock. [00:07:55] We are living at the end of empire, but we still have these cronies of capitalism in corporate media and these corporate talking heads who are going to continually frame everything. [00:08:07] As working and stable. [00:08:10] But what effectively occurred was that Trump begged off from this thing, and his subordinates, including Kushner and Witkoff and everybody else in these sort of corps, they recognized that there was no way forward in which the United States of America at that point could win a battle. [00:08:31] And with Trump's blustering, like there was no ability to move forward, there had to be a deal made. [00:08:37] And what they gave Iran. [00:08:39] Was everything that they possibly could have wanted. [00:08:43] And because that was the case, we now find ourselves at a really, really brittle ceasefire, which is already coming apart at the seams. [00:08:55] And we'll talk more about that and why that's occurring and the larger material conditions and capitalist forces that are carrying all this out and ensuring that this war isn't at an end. === Brittle Ceasefire Crumbling (00:27) === [00:09:08] This has been a free preview of the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast. [00:09:12] In order to maintain our independence and in order to maintain an ad free experience, we ask that you consider becoming a patron over at patreon.comslash muckrakepodcast. [00:09:24] You'll gain access to every weekender episode every Friday, as well as free episodes, subscriber mailbags, you name it. [00:09:32] But you'll also be supporting this project as we move forward. [00:09:35] Thanks so much.