Latest / Man in America Podcast / The Sinister Plan to Crush Small Business — and Put You Under Corporate Rule

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The Sinister Plan to Crush Small Business — and Put You Under Corporate Rule · Man in America Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Man in America, a voice of reason in a world gone mad. I'm your host, Seth Holehouse. Let me ask you a question. When you drive through small town or Middle America, you're driving through strip malls and the Walgreens and the Starbucks and the Applebee's on the corner, is this the America that you remember? Is this the America of your childhood?
• 0:43
  The America where you knew the owner of every shop on Main Street, where the guy that ran the local hardware store knew your name and knew your dog's name and would ask you how you're doing when you go in there? Because that's not the America that I'm seeing. It's the America I remember. I grew up in a very small town called Plain City, Ohio, which has now grown a lot larger. It's outside of Columbus, Ohio.
• 1:07
  But the America I remember was beautiful. You knew everybody. There was a community. You know, whether it was, you know, my best friend's dad owned the local, you know, auto shop, and if I had car troubles, I'd go take him, you know, to for him to look at the car, or, you know, someone else that owned the local Amish cheese shop where we'd go get our cheese and meats, that were, you know, locally produced. But that America, it seems like it doesn't exist anymore.
• 1:35
  Or if it does, you find these little slices of it. You find this cute little town somewhere in, you know, kind of middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. Like, oh, wow, this is kind of neat. There's a cute little coffee shop, and there's a little deli, but that's disappearing. And it's really sad, actually, because we're fighting so much for this America.
• 1:54
  But it feels like the soul of what represents America has been strip mined, has been obliterated. And that America is turning into something where small towns or medium sized towns, you go in there, and all you've got are ugly strip malls, retail chains that you see in every other city, a few small local businesses, a bunch of small local hair salons or nail salons, of course. But the question is what's really happening? And so my guest today is a guy named Ethan Faulkner. Now he runs a Substack that's called the Common Sense Rebel, which I'll make sure that link is in the description.
• 2:34
  And my wife discovered his substack somehow, and she sent it to me and started reading it. And I was like, I'm very fascinated by this guy and what he's writing about. And he's got this really interesting, just real perspective on what's happening in America. And one article that he wrote, which we're gonna be focusing a lot on today, is basically how the core of America, these small businesses and everything are being gutted. And it's it's intentional.
• 3:05
  I mean, it describes what happens when a Walmart moves into a town. How does that affect the local businesses? What happens when the local pharmacy is replaced by a CVS? How does that change the prices? What happened when Amazon came on the stage?
• 3:21
  And initially, it was a great thing. All these brick and mortar businesses now had this amazing website to sell their products to consumers all across the country. There's a huge audience there. But what happens when Amazon takes all the data from that company and sees, oh, wow, this company is selling staplers. So we're gonna now manufacture Amazon Basics staplers.
• 3:42
  We're gonna put those staplers in there, we're and gonna put them in the top spot, so that other local business no longer can sell his staplers because Amazon is manufacturing these Amazon Basics staplers in bulk in China, underpricing the local competitor, and pulling them out of business, especially considering that local business person is paying upwards of 30 percent or more of a fee to Amazon to use their platform. So this is a very serious topic, and what I like about Ethan is that he's just a simple American guy, right? He's just a man in America, right? And he's a gas station attendant. It's a beautiful story, here he is, he's worked at a gas station for the past ten years, and he's observing all these changes in his local community.
• 4:28
  He's observing the change in the sentiment of the people coming into the gas station. He's seen them become more confused, more angry, more divided. And then he's also watching right around the area of this gas station. He's watching, Oh, this small local business is now gone. It's now a CVS.
• 4:47
  That small diner is now gone. It's a Starbucks. Oh, that other place that, you know, shut down after a fire, it never reopened. Now there's a Walmart, there's a Walgreens, a CVS. There's all these big corporate chains that are coming in.
• 5:03
  This is a really important discussion. It's not some grand profound discussion where we're kind of digging into the Committee of three hundred and the bloodlines. It's not about that. It's the simple things happening in this country. It's a sober look at what's happening to the America that I remember it used to be.
• 5:23
  And in fact, that's a big reason for this show and part of why I even called it Man in America, is it's just a quest. It's a journey to understand what is America? What was America? What was America like in the thirties, in the forties, in the fifties? What was life like then?
• 5:43
  What is life like now? Try to gain some perspective. Because I've got children, I've got family, I want to see a future that's worth living and fighting for. But if our future is that all the small local businesses are closed down, and we have these, these big industrial box stores selling us stuff made in China, and we're basically just kind of living under a corporate oligarchy or something. That's not the future that I want.
• 6:11
  I want a future of small towns and local entrepreneurs that are running these beautiful little coffee shops and, you know, mechanic shops and, you know, just there's community. And that's, that's what I want. I don't want you know, go get my groceries at Walmart, like which I don't. Like, I go as much as I can, I go to the local farm market, we get our milk at the local raw milk farm? That's what I want.
• 6:34
  And so, this is just gonna be a dive into this. And again, Ethan is just I think this is kind of fun, actually. It's a great interview, and he hasn't done a lot of interviews. He's a brilliant writer. His substack is just like prolifically amazing.
• 6:47
  And so, you can see it's like, this guy really shines with words. And so, I reached out to him, and he's like, Cool, great. So this, I think, is one of his first interviews he's done like this. And I think we're gonna have some fun. And I think it just we're gonna do is just have a sober discussion about what's actually going on here in America, and what we can do about it.
• 7:10
  So, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Ethan. I'll make sure that his links are in the description below. And just a reminder that if you're watching this show on Rumble, thank you very much for supporting a free speech platform. Just remember to hit the thumbs up button. Go ahead, do it right now.
• 7:27
  It'll feel good. Alright, hit that thumbs up button, and also make sure you're subscribed to the channel. And I also appreciate the comments you leave too. I read almost almost all of them. I don't always respond.
• 7:37
  I'm not good at responding to things, but I do read a lot, and I really appreciate your comments, good or bad. So anyway, let's go and dive into the interview with Ethan Faulkner. Ethan Faulkner, man, it's good to have you on the show. I'm a big fan of your Substack, and it's always nice to put a face behind something. And it's also nice to have someone that will step in front of a camera instead of hiding just behind some anonymous, you know, name online, and and here you are in the flesh.
• 8:02
  So, Ethan, it's it's good to have you on, man.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It's nice to meet you, man. One of my first interviews, I'm excited to be here.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Well, good. Good. I'm glad that hopefully I can kind of pull you into this space a little bit because you've got your actually, I'll it up here real quick, but you have a brilliant Substack. I mean, this this is your main homepage for it. And, I'll let people explore on their own.
• 8:29
  I'll make sure that your link is in the description. It's commonsenserebel.substack.com. And there's a lot that we can dive into, but there's one particular article that my wife sent me that really, really stood out. And it's this post that says, your town isn't changing. It's being deliberately murdered.
• 8:49
  And so so I'll read the intro, and I'll let you just kind of take it wherever you want. But it says, for ten years, I've watched from my gas station register as corporate chains replaced every small business. This isn't progress. It's corporate occupation, and I have the receipts. So instead of me reading it, you know, I've got the author here.
• 9:07
  So why don't you just walk us through what your what your kind of the story that you're painting, or the the story that you're writing in this article here?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I grew up in a really, really small town. So this is actually the town next door because even though I watched changes happen here, like, a bakery burned down, nothing ever got replaced, I've seen the the small corner market get even smaller. Where I really see the changes is is in this this small city next door called Wareham. And I'm that's actually exactly the town I'm talking about, and that's where I've been working at the gas station for ten years too.
• 9:49
  So, practically, we've had Walmart move in, Target move in, Wendy's move in, Popeyes chicken move in, all on top of places that used to be businesses that weren't changed. And that's just in one corner of the of the city that I work in. So that's what inspired it. And I call it corporate deserts. They're corporate deserts because you it's a desert because you want to get resources and you want to to get nourishment.
• 10:23
  Right? But when you go to the Walmart or the Target, you might get that instant gratification, but the money that you're spending doesn't go into your local economy even to the same extent as, like, an O'Reilly's Auto Parts or, like, a smaller chain. Those the bigger the chain is, the bigger their supply chain in general or all you know, there's lots of elements to business. The money goes out of your account, period.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna quickly read through just this little kind of intro section, because this is what really hooked it for me. It says, my gas station's on a main road. When I started this job a decade ago, I was surrounded by a community. There was a family owned bakery on the corner, a local hardware store run by a guy named Mark, two independent pharmacies and a diner where you can get a coffee for a buck. Today, the bakery is a CVS, the hardware store is a skeleton hollowed out by a new Walmart neighborhood market that opened two miles away.
• 11:25
  The diner is a Starbucks. The pharmacies are both gone, replaced by a single massive Walgreens. This isn't change, it's not evolution. It's the result of a deliberate, systematic or systemic and predatory campaign. Your town isn't changing, it's being hollowed out.
• 11:42
  And the people doing it are counting on you being too distracted by their political puppet show to notice. And, like, that's that's really it, man. It's like, so many people are just distracted with the bread and circuses.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: And I feel like you're saying the word systemic reading it right there. That word is gonna trigger some people. Don't systemic. What does that mean? Right?
• 12:02
  What it means is it's that is a a side effect of the system. It's an emerging factor. That's all it means.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And so and what's crazy is that, you know, my wife and I, we we really try hard to shop at local businesses. We try hard to buy made in America. And there's a there's a little, kind of coffee shop, farm type thing close to us. And it's kind of sad because you walk in there, and it looks like mean, it is. It's this little local coffee shop, you know, owned by people that live here and everything.
• 12:36
  But you go in there, and they have all these nice seasonal decorations, you know, like little pumpkin things, or for Christmas, they've got ornaments and wreaths, and But you look at the back, and almost everything's made in China. And it's just like, Ugh, why can't these be sourced from local artisans? And I feel like that that's just something about our country that has changed so much. Think you do a great job highlighting it in the article that it's like the soul of our country are is the people. It's the small little shops, the small local barbershop or the hardware store we go in.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I call them the producers. They're the producers.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. That's a great word for it too, because they produce real things. They don't just produce products, they produce community, which arguably is more important than products. They produce relationships and fulfillment. But it's like, you walk into a Walmart or, you know, Best Buy or any of these big, big, you know, or a Walgreens, it's soulless.
• 13:37
  That's that's that's what it is.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Because the producers are forced to work for for a a company that doesn't have their interest in mind. So what's where's the soul going? You know? If if somebody does have a soul, you give them props. Like, I don't know.
• 13:54
  I try my best while I'm working at the gas station.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And so what are, like Well, I guess you've got some information in there, which I think is helpful. Let me know if you want me to pull it up, because I can, because it's more specific figures. But I know that you hit on some of the information as it relates to how much money these companies like, every basically, every dollar you pay to a Walmart, how much of it actually stays in your community versus when you just have a small local business that you're when you pay that money, you're actually putting money into your community. So tell tell us a little about that and how how our money is actually leaving these communities through these big corporations.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the best model so I already gave you, like, half of the contrast when I explained how Walmart has this big chain of business expenses. That's where all the money so so the money spreads. Alright? And then the other side of that contrast would be the ones they only have one business.
• 14:55
  They're just one store. It's owned by a few people. So when you pay money to them, they're going to spend money their money in the locally, most unless they're just gonna move the next week. You know what I mean? So it's it's really that simple.
• 15:13
  And when I say that there's a chain like, if you do a smaller chain, it's because there's there's chains that operate within regions, right, and sometimes within states. And so you're keeping it closer to home, that's what I mean. And when you say America first, that's how you do it.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And talk a little bit about the guess, it's almost like antitrust, but it's I find that doesn't really encompass it. Because what happens when these companies come in and how they're able to put the other local businesses out of business through loss leader products, through, you know, you know, mass volume purchasing, they've nickel and dimed the factories down to, like, almost losing money. Explain that, because that's also really helpful in understanding, like, why these small businesses, after, say, two years with Starbucks coming in on a key corner, the local coffee shop can't can't even, continue.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Profit margins say that that is the easiest way to secure money. So, like, the suppliers want to to secure a sale. So they offer lower rates to people who can afford to buy more. And that just makes sense. So this is something that this is why we have government.
• 16:31
  The only way to fix this is some sort of change. I don't know what to say because you want these companies to succeed. I am a capitalist. You're a capitalist. You know they wanna make money, profit.
• 16:49
  The incentive is to is to what's the word? Not just condense, but just put all the power, all the money into the same companies. Right? Monopolies, really. Because that is the structure that can make the most money can secure the most money for the suppliers.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And so, like, on your on your Substack, you've you've gone I'll I'll pull it up again so people can see the just the the kind of the the broad amount of content. You know, you're you're covering everything from Epstein, BlackRock, Vanguard. You got an article. BlackRock and Vanguard own the Epstein Network. I'm sure that's a good one.
• 17:32
  The Financial Coup, you know, there's a lot going into here. But I guess it's like, you you know, you're not just someone who's commenting on small
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: titles are half half clickbait. Half clickbait.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We kinda what I we kinda have to be. Right?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. So, like, the idea of, like, the BlackRock and Vanguard owned, the FC Network, I won't get too much into it, but it's just the point that they have so much property. Right? Their their asset firms that own so much shares, major shares of so many companies, they had the major shares of all the infrastructure that that Epstein was working in. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: so looking at what's happening to America in these small towns and just the gutting of them, you imply, and you back up this information too, that this is it's coordinated, it's intentional. It's not an accident. It's not just free market capitalism evolving. What's the like, what's the bigger plan here? And where does this lead?
• 18:36
  Like, where do you see America in ten years after this?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. I've been learning this stuff as I publish it. Alright. I'm I really am a a normal guy who really was into media, like but entertainment media mostly. It's my background.
• 18:55
  I did sales for a little bit. But then when the government started to become so polarized, right, and I see my neighbors start fighting each other, that's when I really got into this. So I don't really know what the plan is or if it's even as an organization. I think is that there doesn't need to be a plan. It's individual incentives.
• 19:18
  The system and it can still be on purpose, but the the incentives are are structured in a way that everything aligns for these this ideology. I call it a parasitic ideology to to persist throughout time where where they wanna control populations because they're easier to manage, and they can do it. They've been doing it through different so I track, like, Nazi eugenics. It goes back even further, but I'll start there. And how that has changed over time into, like, modern psychology, where where what they do to try to control the population is by having a monopoly on defining what what is a real disease.
• 20:07
  So, like, you have to have money to define these things. And so they have control over over definitions of words and what's a normal behavior instead of just killing people like they used to. And, yeah, I don't think it needs there might be a group of people who are just very sadistic, having fun coordinating, but I don't think there needs to be. It's just if someone is a whole lot of people have incentives to make money, We're fucked. I don't know what to say.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting actually, because I my wife and talk a lot about these things, and that's kind of if you look at where things lead to if left just to the, I guess, to the laws of the current way that our society works with, which I think it's, you know, it's capitalism, but I almost feel like it's become like crony corporate, you know, multinational capitalism, right? Where it's like, how can a small local baker compete with the the the massive global baking chain? Right? And, of course, there are ways, and I think that more people are waking up to it, and they're they're choosing to support the local shop. They're choosing to, like, say, wow, you've only got six ingredients in your doughnut.
• 21:19
  And, you know, Krispy Kreme's got 68 ingredients in their donuts, right? So you're seeing some of that happen, but it's like, when I look at this, I feel like, okay, where it's leading, if extrapolate, say, ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, it's almost like eventually you get to a point where brands don't even exist. It's like you have this big cement based building that just says,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: oh my god.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And next to it is the big cement building that says clothing. And then I
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: already look at it like that Because the asset firms own all of it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: They do. They do.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Free of Blackrock Vanguard's history.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And but actually, so I want to touch on Amazon a little bit, because actually, I'll pull the article back up because, let me find out where there's a part in here talking It about really is. Let me see here. Yeah, here we go. The Amazon spy now.
• 22:20
  I'm just gonna read this little section really quickly, and then, I'll let you respond to it. It says, Amazon is the apex predator. It built the main street of the twenty first century and now functions as its feudal lord, waging war on the very sellers it claims to empower. It's a three step execution. One, the monopoly toll.
• 22:39
  Amazon extracts a toll of 30% or more from its sellers. This makes real profitability impossible. Two, the spy network. Amazon spies on its sellers data, their sales, their costs, or suppliers. Three, the copy paste.
• 22:52
  It then uses that stolen data to create its own competing Amazon basics products, which it then for rigs the game, then places higher in the search results than the original product it just copied. This is this is the heads heads I win, tails you lose system. It's a closed loop of extraction designed to turn every independent innovator into a data point to be harvested and then replaced. And this is really such an important point, because if you look at how Amazon has changed the landscape, especially especially during COVID, like, you know, if you look at all the different kind of, diabolical plans that could have come out of the COVID, you know, pandemic, I think one of the biggest ones was actually gutting America gut gutting all these small businesses in America. It's similar to the Great Depression, right, which got rid of all these independent banks.
• 23:46
  The Great Depression, I think, was a manufactured crisis to consolidate the banking industry in America. Other things as well. The
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: banks are fucked right now.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a that's a whole other topic too is what's happening with Yeah. And so what you look at with Amazon, though, it's like, how many people stopped going to a local store, either because they were scared or because the store was closed and just ordered off of Amazon. But then you look at it and it you made a good point, though. It's like, you look at the Amazon basics stuff, and I hadn't thought about it. I mean, we have a bunch of Amazon basic stuff, like, know, if you need a pair of scissors or something.
• 24:19
  It's like, these these work. They got good reviews. And it's
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: the old Walmart no name brand strategy.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Online. Exactly.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: They save their money. You let it see for you feel happier, but the the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Actually, can you say it one more time? I think maybe because you're leaning forward, your mic wasn't picking up. I think your mic is yeah. It wasn't hearing you go over your hands.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: My bad.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's okay.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I said so, basically, they spend less money, so you're happy as a customer, but that's it's part of the the money going out of America and also more consolidation of money going into the same company. Creating leverage over suppliers.
• 25:11
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• 26:18
  Exactly. And so, well, hitting on the bankers, this is something that I'd love to hear your thoughts on. Because I've also I'm very fascinated with, you know, just money and the role that money's played in our society and what's happening with with the banks and bankers. So when you say, you know, basically, a kinda like the banks are screwed. Right?
• 26:40
  What what do you mean by that?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: So I guess they're not screwed. I mean, it's it's fucked up is what I really meant to say. I didn't realize till recently when I was looking into the Patriot Act, how it enabled a lot of the offshore banking and too big to fail systems where these banks literally can commit felonies and just pay a fine. And they can do offshore banking to an extent that's written in the legislation for purposes of the government, but it's all shadowed. You can't see it.
• 27:22
  So what else are they doing type things? Yeah. I learned that recently. It all happened right after 09:11. The day after.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Imagine that. How how convenient. One so one thing I actually wanted to I just I was just kind of thinking, I think it's an important thing to touch on. So, you know, you've worked you're working a register at a gas station, right?
• 27:47
  Which is, you know like, you could say that it's similar to being the guy that works at the local hardware store, right? It's like such an embedded part of the community and kind of providing one of the core services that makes a community run. But it's also, I think it gives you a finger on the pulse. And so, I can tell that you're quite observant. What have you noticed in the behavior of people over the last ten years?
• 28:17
  Like, how has the behavior of people changed? Because like, I used to work in a mall when I was back in college, and I worked in one little kiosk, and I love people watching. And you can just sit and watch, and you can see through you know, whether through your sales interactions or just watching, you can see just the overall flow of behavior of people. But what have you I mean, ten years is a long time to sit there at the kind of that little nexus point of a community. What are you seeing?
• 28:40
  How have people changed in the past decade?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Interesting you asked that. That's the whole reason why I made my sub sec. It's because I was I was sick and fed up of watching. Everyone's confused, and they're reciting lines from scripts half the time trying to explain the reason why things are going on. That that's how I feel, and it's been getting worse and worse.
• 29:04
  Like, you can blame immigrants for some things, and you can blame freaking whatever you want about the ICE things going on for but we need to realize that it's the knocks coming from from not the government side. Like, you know what I mean? So what I've seen I'm gonna talk about people. They're angry. They don't like the prices, but they're still buying it.
• 29:34
  And and they always have an excuse for who to blame, and it's always someone different. No one can agree on who who it is. And you can put some blame in certain corners for politicians. Absolutely. But you need to think about their incentives and the incentives we've allowed for in the system.
• 29:58
  How do we elect a any type of leader who actually puts our interests first when there are people with bags and bags of money begging for their votes every day, and it's allowed. Like, we legally have, like, avenues for that. It just seems difficult.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: And so you mentioned people are confused, they're upset, things are getting more expensive, they're angry. What about hope? Like, do you think that are you seeing an overall just hopelessness in people?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. I say there's three, there's three layers to a prison. I tried to write it all down in like a, kinda like a creating a new universe because because the they have so much control over language. We kinda have to take it back. Like, there's three layers.
• 30:59
  The top one is economic terror. Like, the fact that if you don't go to work, you can lose your job. But, like like, say you are on your way to work and you you pop your tire. If you have a nice boss, they'll give you a slack, but, like, they don't have to. They can just not pay you for that day.
• 31:16
  And, like, so that's the economic terror. Every day, you're worried about money. And then there's the great distraction, which is what I think is the idea of turning issues that are really about class class issues, about the wealth disparity and and extraction, what I call extraction from the the producers, the working class. They they try to pin it on on other working class people. So that that's the example for, like, ICE where, like, people doing their jobs, the Democrats getting mad at them, and then also immigrants who are just trying to make a living.
• 31:58
  Most of them people getting mad. It's like, yes. Those things are affecting the current norms, and it's costing money. But the idea is we're shifting blame from the people profiting off of it to the people who are just trying to participate and produce. And it seems to be almost intentional not just because of confidence.
• 32:24
  It's kind of like one of those things where they don't have to coordinate because all the incentives combine because the companies have the incentives to make money and the politicians have the incentive to get elected. And it's so easy to get people into identity politics. And I don't mean just like the color of your skin. I mean, people identify as as liberal or conservative, and they want to recite lines that that make sure they don't divert from what they think that means, and that works in the favor of these people who are just offending off of it.
• 33:01
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• 34:38
  Do you think there's three layers, right? Oh, yeah. What was the final one?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Learned helplessness. Learned helplessness. You the first thing you brought up, it's learned because we I think when we're younger, we have bigger ideas, and we don't we don't feel like we have to submit to what's normal. That's why I think it's learned. And we think that we have to play play within what we hear on TV and how everybody else is acting to things instead of thinking deeper.
• 35:09
  That's why I think it's a learned helplessness. It's it's not nests. Like, revolutions happen because that helplessness reaches a breaking point. I don't want that to happen. Yeah.
• 35:21
  That's do stuff.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting point in looking at that, that revolutions happen happen when helplessness reaches a breaking point. And that's actually I'd probably say it's probably true in many ways. I know a lot of revolutions rev sorry, revolutions have been manufactured, you know, for certain reasons, and they've been part of social engineering and regime change operations. But I do think that that's actually it's a really important point that when people look for the avenues to change, alright, it's almost like it's similar to someone who say is trying to lose weight, right? Say they've tried 10 different diets, they've tried working out, they tried all these different things and nothing is working, they become, they're just like, Screw it, doesn't matter, right?
• 36:05
  Like, and maybe they're gonna go then get some very extreme surgery, right? Because it's like, I've tried everything, I can't fix it, So let's move to like the more extreme thing. And I think it's actually similar to looking at the fabric of our society, and this learned helplessness is that I am wondering, where does this lead? Because I think a lot of Americans, they think a lot of Americans thought, Okay, let's put Trump in office. Obviously, enough to vote him in.
• 36:31
  They say, Okay, we're gonna put Trump in office, he's gonna fix all these things, right? He's gonna fix the economy. He maybe he's gonna, you know, shut down the Federal Reserve, he's gonna do all these things. Now, granted, he's done some things, he's, you know, secured the border, and he's helped kind of correct the transgender sports issues, and it's like, okay, there's some things that he's done, but I mean, have you noticed, say in the past six months, have you noticed that people are just like, all of a sudden, this weight is off their shoulders, and now they're, they're like inspired, they feel like they're living in the golden age?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think so. And I don't know if it's really Trump Trump's fault necessarily. Because once you're you're in there, he says he's gonna drain the swamp. Right?
• 37:18
  But the swamp is is it it's like when you drain the swamp, who fills it in? More people with the same incentives. Yeah. Like, he can even if they're loyalists, I know what to think about it. I just I think I need to do more research on systems because or find people.
• 37:39
  You have a big audience who who who are into systems reach out to me because I know how to to write write in a way that gets people to listen. And I do think that we can fix the way things work within government. If if we create a, like, a third voting block that puts pressure on on both parties to pick a candidate that will because, like, the Republican Party has already proven to us that they can change their platform if they see a voting block.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: But they kinda So if we create a a more narrow voting block that's less about relying on on a person, which is, like, Trump had good ideas, but it's a we need to focus on on shared values. And he tried to do that, but we need to reach across the lines where we can easily, which is poverty. Because social issues are all exasperated. When I say social issues, I mean, yeah, culture, like, you feeling like you're not allowed to to to talk about your religion as publicly is is a social kind of issue and so is, like, I don't know if being open about being gay, I guess. But all everybody feels more stressed out, is more agitated when they have less money, and more crimes happen when they have less money.
• 39:11
  So I don't know.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No. It's a good point. It's a good point. And how does that so how does that fit into the war on hope?
• 39:20
  Right? We talked earlier about people being hopeless. And I know that you have a whole kind of section of your sub sack where you highlighted the war on hope, which I think is it's similar to the learned helplessness, but like talk a little bit about hope, and the role of hope in a prison and the role of hope in a free society.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Alright. We we feel like they're we're in a deterministic system when we lose hope. Because the idea of of a deterministic system means it's going to happen no matter what. Deterministic systems can't be fixed, but they can be broken. And what I mean by that is there's not going to be a way to do this without some some sort of pain.
• 40:15
  But the hope comes from the idea that you can construct a difference after the I call it a salvaging. Right? So, like, that you go through tragedies in life sometimes, but you can you can just mope about it or whatever. But if you move past it, the best things to do is to not just forget about it. It's to salvage what you learned and build things from it.
• 40:45
  So we don't have to look so so upset at at the system. We need to look at what's making us upset, take learn from it, and create something new. And that I think hope is as simple as realizing that our our our pain is the is the quickest not the quickest, but the most sincere way to to finding a solution.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: It's kinda like a necessity is the mother of all invention. Right? And it's like, if you've got if if you're you know, if if you cut your arm and you're bleeding out, you're gonna very quickly find a solution for it, even if it's an old rag on the floor or a tourniquet with a necktie, right? And it's a good point, yeah, that pain does that. And I'm curious where yeah, where this leads to, right?
• 41:37
  Because it does seem like a lot more people in this country are experiencing pain than before. And not just pain as in, like, physical pain, just suffering, just mental suffering, struggling. And if you look at these statistics, right, which I've done a lot of of dives into this, you look at, you know, credit card debt, you know, people that aren't paying their loans, people that are living paycheck to paycheck. These are all things that are, you know, near record high for this country. And yeah, like, that's it's a good point.
• 42:09
  It's like, that that sucks. It sucks for people that are working two or three jobs, forced to put their kids into daycare, both parents are working, still barely getting by. And so maybe that become helps become a catalyst for some sort of division
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: or
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: some I work sort with those people.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I literally have coworkers like that. Yes. And when I try to talk to them about these social issues, they're they're happy that I am, but they're just like, I can't. Like, stop talking to me about it. Like, I know you're trying to do good things, but I don't have enough, like, mental capacity for this.
• 42:43
  They're so that's that's total that's the economic terror layer. That's not even they don't have time to be helpless. They just feel worn out. Like, there's there's so many things that get in the way of of us. What's the word?
• 42:58
  Unifying and actually creating a voting block for the producers.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: And so what do you think the solution is for this? I mean, as you've mentioned, you a potential political solution, but on the ground, right, in our day to day life, in our own communities, like, what is the solution? Because I don't want to end up at a place where, again, you've got the big cement building that just says, Food, and that's it. Or coffee. You know what I mean?
• 43:35
  Like, how do we -How do we kind of take the direction that we're headed and change it in a positive way?
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: I was looking into the lots of different ideas. It comes down to a lot of alternative systems. What I mean by that is so welfare programs exist for a reason, but we've been seeing abuse through the system and also cuts where cuts shouldn't be happening. So it's both sides issues. So we should not trust the government for welfare.
• 44:13
  We should be creating alternative systems that help our communities because we care. And I know there's incentives there for profit. And so, like, I'm not sure what to do. You know what I mean?
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: And what about actually, where was it? I think it was is it this article where you're talking?
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Because there's stuff to do, but it it requires, like, a army of people. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. The engine protocol.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Yes. The engine
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: protocol. Tells you everything.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, there we go. Yeah. The engine protocol. Yes. Okay.
• 44:50
  So yeah. The the reference for building our way out. So is it okay. What is the engine protocol? Walk me through
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: lot. Oh, god. It's a lot. Like, those are PDFs at the top. You don't have to open them.
• 45:04
  But basically, it goes into workers' co ops, which is the idea that you're you're not you're more of a stakeholder than a shareholder in the company. And that means that there aren't no shareholders. The people who get incentives to to vote on what happens are the people who actually work inside the company. And then there's ideas for, like, land trusts, ideas for, like, taking land that isn't being utilized by the community and creating, like, housings to compete with Bill. I see, I'm not practiced for it's complicated stuff.
• 45:52
  Because this is the stuff where I want help, and I want experts to help. Because we need I'm a communications guy. I'm the I know how to talk. I know how to write. I know how to research.
• 46:04
  I actually studied media research. But when it comes to economy and and the way communities interact with the economy, that stuff gets complicated because, you know, money doesn't just so I can talk about all these things. Like, money is not a thing, but I don't know enough about it, the whether money is possible. Right? So honest.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Which which is which is important. And so what about, like because I know that, I think it was in the the article about the small you know, your small town article we've been focusing on. But it seems like in what you put forth in your solutions, it was really, I mean, I think it came back to just focusing locally, like supporting local businesses. You know, even doing interviews like this, writing your blog, right?
• 47:03
  This is information warfare. It's what we're participating Is in, if there's a war on hope, there's a war on the average, you know, common person in America, like, how can we have conversations? How can we publish substacks that help inform people of the war, teach them the tools of the war, and give them a little bit of a battle plan, right? I think that it's really important. That's why I was really happy that you responded, and the invitation to come on the show, because what I see is that you're trying to you're trying to carve this out of stone, right?
• 47:35
  You're trying to figure out to, like, kind of slowly etch away and create this picture for what's happening, but how we can get how we can get out of this. Because it's
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: You know what, Seth? I think I do have an idea. We we need the the audience to start putting pressure on on creators like you and me to to reach out to other creators and work together when they see this, what I would call, vertical alignment where fuck the culture shit. If you see that another person agrees with the the way that the economy is deliberately being dismantled, you we they should get on the line and start talking and focus on getting their audiences aligned because we need to do something about this.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I agree. I absolutely agree. Well, because I again, if if you kind of look at it, you look at a lot of what we talked about, learned helplessness, the social engineering, it's, you know, the the division, the distractions.
• 48:37
  You could really boil a lot of that down to information war and, you know, psychological operations and social engineering, right? That we've you know, without digging into what hands are pulling the strings, I mean, if you go back and just read Edward Bernays, you can see it's like, okay, they know how to engineer our culture. They know how to engineer the way people think. I think they've engineers- That's
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: actually after the algorithm. The algorithm.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We've got friggin', we got supercomputers getting us angry at each other for profit.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. And so, as we're wrapping up here, what's your I guess if you had to distill your overall message, and kinda leave people with something to to think on, what would that be?
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: The war's vertical. You need to stop fighting left versus right. Verticalwar.com.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Actually, I'll open it up real quick.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: It's a splash page that goes to my substack, you can put your email in there too.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Interesting. Okay. So, I want to pull a few websites. So this is one.
• 49:51
  I'll make sure these links are in the show description. So verticalwar.com. Is your
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Big focus.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Yep. Twitter, right? Or sorry, X. I still call it Twitter. I think X is kind of part of that stripping of what's human and turning us into digits and letters.
• 50:06
  So Twitter, it's common rebel seventy '6. Let's get some followers for you on there. And then the main thing is just your, as I mentioned, your Substack, which I highly encourage people to check out your Substack, to subscribe, to support you on there, because, yeah, actually, I like your little icon here, you're, the truth bullet, right? That's it, that's information war, right? The truth bullet.
• 50:33
  Like, it's not, it's not guns and ammo, it's ideas and narratives and everything.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Got that right.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, Ethan, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. I appreciate what you're doing. Think if more Americans, like, followed your path and said, you know, you're noticing, you're seeing this happening, and it's okay, what can you do about it? And they started Substax or, you know, created blogs or became more, I'm nervous about saying you become more engaged in social media, because it's such a difficult thing.
• 51:07
  There are opportunities there, but in general, I just, I appreciate that you're someone who is observing what's happening around you, and you're asking the questions of, Why is this happening? Who's doing it? Where does this go? How do we fix it? Which is really important.
• 51:23
  I think a lot of people have just become very distracted. And even if they're not just distracted, they're just overwhelmed by, what you you know, the financial persecution, just the struggle that they're going they're going through. So I really appreciate what you're doing. I'm happy to hopefully help drive some people to your your substack and and follow what you're doing there.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: I'm just a normal guy at a gas station. You guys could do it too.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Well, Ethan, thanks again, for coming on. It's been great speaking to you. And keep I at what you're doing, man.
• 51:55
  It's a great, great collection of information you're putting together.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it. I will go away.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: All right, man. Take care.