After being confirmed as Secretary of HHS, RFK Jr started installing his cabal of wellness influencers and contrarian doctors across the government's many public health agencies. And that means they have to apologize for their boss. Derek and Julian listen in on some of the most outrageous takes so far.
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34:43
258: Pope Bob Vs. Trump World
The most annoying convert TradCath in the world, JD Vance, whose cherubic face belies all his bootlicking aggression, gets his moment with Pope Bob. Usha stands behind him in a black mantilla. He hands the pontiff an oversized envelope: an invitation from Donald and Melania to a White House dinner. Bob smiles guardedly as he takes it and without looking at it, setting it on his desk. “I’ll read that at some point,” Vance sputters, “of course, of course.”
The scene is set for the Church-State tension of whatever phase of global fascism we’re now entering. These ghouls who jail students, disappear immigrants, and lobby for the Trump Gaza resort, shuffle into the Vatican with hats in hand to meet a fellow American who is nothing like their boss, asking for pats on the head, wondering what kind of alliance they can forge, perhaps through anti-wokeness discourse.
The enigmatic response from Pope Bob sums up where we all are as we read the incense swirls for whether he’s going to keep steering the world’s 1.4B Catholics against the tides of late-stage capitalism and environmental disaster, Francis-style.
Show Notes
Michelle Remembers | Satanic Panic Patreon Collection
Brief: Deep Church Conspiracy (w/David Lafferty)
Brief: The CPAC Pope and the Icicle Babies (w/ Brad Onishi)
183: Woke Pope Cancels America's Bishop (w/Mike Lewis)
Sisters of the Little Way
Vatican’s financial watchdog reports decrease in suspicious activities reports in 2024
Why the next Pope faces major money challenges
Pope warns the Vatican pension fund needs urgent reform as employees demand transparency
Cardinal convicted of embezzlement won't participate in conclave for Pope Francis's successor
A cardinal is convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in Vatican trial
Church defends Indigenous peoples: ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ was never Catholic
Vatican Denounces ‘International Law of Colonization’
Reparations for empire: What the new pope owes to Africa | Slavery
Catholic Order Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Slave Labor and Sales
The Dark History of How the Catholic Church Built Its Massive Wealth
The Vatican—Bulwark of Imperialism
Indigenous leaders hope Vatican's repudiation of oppressive colonial concepts leads to real change
The Man Who Took On Pope Francis: The Story Behind the Viganò Letter
The Excommunication of Archbishop Viganò - Crisis
Bishop Strickland removed from diocese after accusing pope of backing 'attack on the sacred'
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1:20:13
Bonus Sample: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (Part 2)
Matthew is back today for more with Ben Case: profiling Gene Sharp and the (non)politics of strategic nonviolence, plus his strange funding sources. Also: why did Erica Chenoweth speak out against antifascist Trump protesters in January of 2017, and suggest their research proved that property damage and scuffles with the police would ruin any opposition movement to Trump? Also: where does the funding come from for all this bad research? Gene Sharp worked for the Department of Defense, and today, Bill Ackerman is a top funder of strategic nonviolence research.
Case is a retired professional Muaythai fighter, an organizer, educator, and writer. He is a researcher at the Center for Work and Democracy and a fellow at the Resistance Studies Initiative.
Show Notes
Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | Case
Why Civil Resistance Works | Columbia University Press
Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org
Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part One) – Nonsite.org
Have Repertoire, Will Travel: Nonviolence as Global Contentious Performance
Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic
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6:07
Brief: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (Part 1)
You may have grown up with the term “nonviolence” shining like a pole star over every discussion of how we accomplish socio-political change. But what does it really mean? And who defines violence for that matter—beyond the police, the courts, and others in power?
Today, the theory of non-violence has grown beyond its Gandhian, spiritual aspiration roots, while retaining an irrational faith and offering a distorted view of resistance history. It is now a think-tank-approved, purportedly evidence-based method that guarantees movement success.
That reasoning comes from the pioneering scholarship of the pacifist Gene Sharp in the 1960s, and his inheritors in strategic nonviolence discourse, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan. They argue that Gandhi’s sacred ideal of satyagraha also happens to be the only successful pathway to lasting change—and they have the data to prove it.
But do they? Nope. Matthew’s guest today persuasively shows that the movements we think of as “nonviolent” never really are. Why don’t we know this? Through a tangle of academic malpractice, spiritual bypassing, liberal wish fulfillment, and erasing anticolonial voices. Oh, and Gene Sharp also got a lot of funding from the Department of Defense.
Benjamin S. Case is a retired professional Muaythai fighter, an organizer, educator, and writer. He is a researcher at the Center for Work and Democracy and a fellow at the Resistance Studies Initiative.
P.S.: During our conversation, Ben mentioned that there are antifascist fighting clubs out there. Here are a few to look into:
Haymaker in Chicago.
SKN Muay Thai in Pittsburgh, PA.
Balagoon Boxing Club in Philly, PA.
Show Notes
Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence | Case
Why Civil Resistance Works | Columbia University Press
Why Not Riot? Interview with Author Ben Case - CounterPunch.org
Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part One) – Nonsite.org
Have Repertoire, Will Travel: Nonviolence as Global Contentious Performance
Violence Will Only Hurt the Trump Resistance | The New Republic
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47:48
257: AI Gurus
The chat bot flashes its elipsis at the bottom of the screen. What is it thinking, what does it want from you, what do you want from it? Beneath those pixels lies a sea of mined data and lightning storms of electricity heating up servers in barren deserts. What will it find for you in the past labor of the generations?
According to a stunning new article in Rolling Stone, it will find whatever the fuck makes you feel like a god—incuding all the NewAge pablum it has scarfed down—because oops, ChatGPT released a model that is just too sycophantic.
But as we break down today, the AI nonsensient flattery machine is designed to hook you into the regurgitative process of self-seduction. Is this a new spiritual delusion, or more of the same? And what does that kind and agreeable bot conceal?
Show Notes
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Chatgpt induced psychosis
ChatGPT And Generative AI Innovations Are Creating Sustainability Havoc
LLM Can Be A Dangerous Persuader
You'll Be Astonished How Much Power It Takes to Generate a Single AI Image
A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots
Intelligent Computing: The Latest Advances, Challenges, and Future
AI Data Centers Pose Regulatory Challenge, Jeopardizing Climate Goals
AI, Climate, and Regulation: From Data Centers to the AI Act
AI could impact 40 per cent of jobs worldwide in the next decade, UN agency warns
The Future of Jobs Report 2025
History’s Magic Mirror: America’s Economic Crisis and the Weimar Republic of Pre-Nazi Germany
The Great Filter: A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox
Academic Publisher Sells Authors’ Work to Microsoft for AI Training
Address of the Holy Father to the College of Cardinals (10 May 2025) | LEO XIV
Capitalism's Fascistic Tendencies — McGowan
McGowan, Todd. 2016. Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets. Columbia University Press.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. 1997. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Verso.
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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
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