Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Iran Escalation, Cuba’s Socialist Illusions & The Collapse of Polyamory Culture

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Iran Escalation, Cuba’s Socialist Illusions & The Collapse of Polyamory Culture · Normally

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, normal, so normal for women, it's weird.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I'm Mary Catherrinham and I'm Carol Markowitz.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Mary Catherine.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Our transcription service for this podcast has no idea what
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: we're saying in the introduction. Are these people hilariously wrong
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: all the time for some reason that you know? I'm
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Mary Katherine Ham, I'm Carol Markowitz. It becomes like, I
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: don't even.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: Know we got it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: We should start a thread on us of the different
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: things it calls us.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really, it's not even close.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: So I do enjoy that.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: The last one was it had you saying, I'm normally
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: it's so but normal if it takes for women's game weird,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and mine was I'm am Mary Kay and I'm Carol Marka.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: How's it going, America, Catherine?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I think you know what if that's the AI, Yeah,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I feel okay for a little while.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Still right, America, Catherine. Though, that's pretty good.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll take that up. It's the two hundred and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary. It's perhaps that's what I'll be this year.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: All right, America, Catherine, let's get into it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: The war in Iran continues, except that earlier today, President
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Trump said that he has ordered the strikes on Iran's
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: energy facilities to be postponed for five days now. Shortly
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: after airing this information on Fox News, Trey Yanks, who
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: delivered that information, then tweeted that Iran denied that they
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: were in talks. He said, shortly after our report, Iranian
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: state media denied the direct or indirect talks were taking place.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: US official state talks are happening. Iranian officials say they aren't. Yeah,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: so I don't know. We'll see what happens with that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: But over the weekend, Iran fired two intermediate range ballistic
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: missiles at da Go Garcia, which is a joint US
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: UK military base about four thousand kilometers away in the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: middle of the Indian Ocean. Now, what was really interesting
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: about that, and you and I had a good time
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: laughing about it over the weekend, was that there were
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: several people who were really surprised that Iran had lied
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: about their missile capabilities.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: Don't you don't say it's true.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It turns out Iran is not telling the truth, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: this was a shock to some people. Piers Morgan, our
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: old friend Piers Morgan, who now by the way, blocks
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: me on x, which you know understandable. He tweeted, So,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: not only has Iran brazenly lied about its ballistic missile
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: range cape of capacity, but this means it can probably
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: hit the UK with them, and if we have zero
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I repeat zero defense against these missiles.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Very worrying.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what Donald Trump has been saying.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: That is worries.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And that's what Marco Rubio was saying in twenty fifteen
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: when the first jcpoa Obama deal with Iran was made,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and he's making these criticisms like, don't believe them about
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: their missile capabilities, don't give them more capabilities while we're
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: at it, don't believe them when they tell you under
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the deal that they're not improving their capabilities. And now
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: we have concrete proof, which, although as Pierre's notes, very worrisome,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: also shows the need for taking these capabilities out before
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: they decide to go nuclear at some point.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Mike Cernovich, another ex person, tweeted something similar. He said,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Israel is far from perfect, but now everyone sees what
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Iran would do with more advanced weaponry. They're attacking Arab
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: conations like a rabid dog. They had missiles that could
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: reach Europe. They lied about everything. I said this to
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: you in our personal text, but maybe it's the Russian.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: To me, I just assume.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: All of these.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Regimes are ying. Why would you not.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I just it's so baffling to me, you know, going
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: back to the Iraq War, which is what taints a
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: lot of what we're doing today, because people are very
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: gun shy understandably to get into a Middle Eastern entanglement.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I fully understand. But even back then, Saddam Hussain lied
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: about his weaponry. Now he exaggerated it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: He made me better than it was.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: He was still lying.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: And that's, you know, the crux of this thing where
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: we cannot believe these people. We cannot trust these despots,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: just can't rely on anything that they say. And that's
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the mode of operation that we should have here.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And you can't just hear what you want to hear,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: which was what Obama did far too often. Is they
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: wanted to make this deal, and they wanted to have
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a deal done just for the sake of having a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: deal done.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: And again it also.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Blows my mind that there was a there was a revolution,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: an attempted one, and uprising and ran. Yeah, during his
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: first Obama's first term and then the second term, he
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I didn't help you guys with that.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna help
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the Malas continue for about ten years to get closer
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to nuclear and I'm also going to give them a
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of money and that he thought that that was
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: going to do good. And they still claim that it
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: did good, even though we now see what the capabilities
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: are and that that money did not open opportunities for
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the Iranian people's surprise, surprise, and against all of that evidence,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Ben Rhoades continues to tweet that the JCPOA was the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: way to go, and I just completely disagree. As I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: have said in the past, you cannot gentle parent the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Middle East and doing it with the maral caam bad idea.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it reminds me of that like pawn
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Shop TV show where they're like, you know, we'd like
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: a revolution and Obama's like, the best I could do
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: is palettes of cash fear oppressors.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: You know, let me serve that up.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: It's mystifying and I do wonder you know, this long
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: range or medium range strike or attempted strike mean that
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Iran is sort of flailing. It has seemed to be
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: flailing since day one, going after Arab states solidifying by
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the way Arab state support, overt public support for this
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: engagement by the US and Israel, not silent behind.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: The scenes, like Okay, it's fine if you hit them.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: They are talking about it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So they have really solidified that support on our side.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And this is maybe continued flailing because they are sort
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of trying to see what sticks to the wall, which
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is dangerous and also perhaps a clue that the eight
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: thousand strikes we have made have made a difference.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Right at some point we're going to have to see
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: their Iranian people rise up and take over here because
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: there is only so much we could do from the air.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: I don't want boots on the ground.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody does. And it's funny Trump keeps
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: threatening that because it's a very trumpy thing to do,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: like options are on the table, like we'd like to
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: say about him. And you know, it's also interesting because
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I think his primary pushback in the United States is
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: this insane. I can't even call them right wing. I mean,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: on what planet are they right wing anymore? In the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: last few days Tucker Carlson gave an interview to the
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: very left wing Economist magazine in the UK and he
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was asked if the US should share power with China,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and he gave one of his like, of course, of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: course they should share power, baffled that anyone would oppose
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the US and China being in some sort of power
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: sharing relationship because America First now means, you know, being
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: on equal footing with China, apparently. And this is the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: biggest kind of pushback that Trump has in the USA
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: because the Democrats are basically out of the picture.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: They're hardly talking about this more than just.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Like this isn't the way I would do it, but
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: that's all they're doing. And yeah, so that's Trump's biggest
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: political kind of hump here.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Right, And as you say, in what way is that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: America first? That there's a an authoritarian regime that very
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: obviously wants to not be in a partnership with US
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: but dominate us, And we're like, yeah, I think I
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: think we should do that because we wouldn't want to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: be a hedgemon. That is like Howard Zen's stuff SOCA
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: two thousand.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: And four even worse, really, because interested they you know,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: they keep pushing this thing like, oh no, the Ayatola
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: said that there was a fatwah on nuclear weapons, Like what,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: why are you believing this?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Iranians also told Al Jazeera this week
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that missile strike was a false flag attack. Of course,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: we had nothing to do with that M M missile
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that came from Iran. So the fatwas and the official
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: spokespeople of Iran. Sure, go ahead and believe them with no,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: with no grain of salt.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Tune into the woke right as they completely eat that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: up and spit it out to their gullible audience, along.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: With the Obama bros.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: By the way, in case you want to see the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: whole shoe and action.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So that's all the news we have about Iran, but
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we will continue to stay on this because it's obviously
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the biggest story around. I don't know, I don't know
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: how much longer this lasts or if these talks are real.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: We're gonna probably have a better picture by our Thursday episode.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to take a short break and be right
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: back with more on Normally.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: All right, we are back on Normally with a story
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: out of Cuba, and it is of Western influencers and
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: political activists traveling to offer aid and comfort to comies,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: not to the normal people of Cuba who have been
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: under the thumb of the commies for all these years. No, no, no,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: They claim to be offering aid and support in light
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of the US embargo, because of course it's the US
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that's the problem in Cuba, and they're showing up with course,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: with regime approval. They are staying in nice hotels. Medea Benjamin,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: head of Code, filmed herself in a first class seat
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: talking about how she was going to Cuba, and I thought,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: aren't you supposed to be an economy isn't in your world?
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Isn't there only economy seating? But just like most socialists
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of notes, she ends up getting the good stuff while
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: everybody else gets stuck in the back. Membership had this privileges,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and now they were down in Cuba saving the day.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: I suppose, right, Carol, apparently.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I mean I've heard that they've done some really amazing
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: humanitarian work.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Was there a mural involved.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, we have some tape of some gold Bink folks
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: painting a mural for the people of Havana, which should
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: fix the grid problems.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: In no time.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: I am helping to leave a gift and vision of
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: money that is a mural more humanity, and it's going
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: to have little boats with notes in it and the
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: bird on the other side.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: And see like from a poemates, Oh my god, the
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: kas that they're wearing. These are the biggest clowns in
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the world. And they like that these people in Cuba
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: are suffering under communism. They like that they're continuing to
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: put up a fight and say, you know, an ideology
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that's been dead essentially for like thirty years, the Cubans
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: still continue to live under and these people go there
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: and act like just poverty tourists. Look at how terrible
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: their lives are, but at least they have really high
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: literacy rate. And it's just it's pathetic and sad that
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: they don't want the Cuban people to have a better
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: life because it fits in with their ideology, which is
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: hating America and wanting America to fail. And so if
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: America has this example of a communist country at their doorstep,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: you know, quote unquote succeeding, I would say, just surviving
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: and barely, then that's all they really want to see.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about artist solidarity for a second, because
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: these are all these artists who are traveling down, including
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Hassan Piker, who hosts all of the twenty twenty eight
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: hopefuls for the Democratic Party podcaster streamer. These are all,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: like you know, free speech beneficiaries and art, free art
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: beneficiaries who travel down there to visit a regime that
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: is right now and this is just one of hundreds
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and thousands of political prisoners, but right now imprisoning for
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: nine years a reggaetone artist who had the crime of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: recording a uprising anthem called Patria avida, which is a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: reversal of the regime's slogan, which is homeland or death.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: This is home and life.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And he has been in jail for several years now,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: probably not humanly, and he's a political prisoner for his
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: beliefs and for his art. I get to an artist,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and I believe there's one more who recorded it with him.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: They get no mention by any of these folks, the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: artists who travel down to make murals.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just ridiculous.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But has the guy in prison heard about the
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: literacy rate, because maybe that would change his perspective A
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: little I.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Was listening to a Cuban American talk about this, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: she was like, people train to swim from Cuba, not
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: just to Florida, but to get Mo. They want to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: get to the land of get Mo, which is the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: land of promise compared to Cuba, and like, in that situation, no, no,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you idiots, you useful idiots. This is not the land
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that you have romanticized with its fifties cars, which by
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the way, exists because they've existed in the fifties since
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not to be cool, it's because it's all they have. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: you know, we finally finished Miracle on Ice. I know
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: it takes us forever to watch a movie as a family.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: We watch it like half an hour at a time.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: What an ending, really, But the movie they mentioned the
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Berlin Wall, which got us talking with the kids about
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: what that was and when it came down and all
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: of that, and making the very obvious point that all
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the defections were only going in one direction. There were
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: no defections going the opposite way. I mean, look, there
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: were people who went to the Soviet Union and regretted
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it very much during that whole period, but the open
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: defections were never going to be like the US hockey
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: players like I have to stay here.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: It's just never and there's a real good reason for that.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: So I think in the same way.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: That I didn't think it was worth for Ron de
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Santis to debate Gavin Newsom because the debate had already
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: happened in real life in Florida one, I think in
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the exact same way. Capitalism one, freedom, one democracy one.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: It's the argument has been over for such a long time.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: These people are just hanging on to something that doesn't
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: exist anymore.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to me, unfortunately, you have to keep
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: debating it to some extent because younger people are just
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like that sounds neat, and it's like, look, Westerners, I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: encourage you. If you want to join La revolution, it's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: happening ninety miles south of here, and you can have
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: no streaming and no posting to Instagram because and you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: can have rationed food and rationed healthcare and all those things.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You can experience those in real life by just going
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: ninety miles. And yet they still live here.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and everybody comes in this direction. Yeah, yeah, it's
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: you're not going to convince lifelong communists, but I guess
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: it's worth convincing the younger generations that freestyle is not
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: ever actually free.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: It really isn't.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a sharp break and be right
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: back with more on normally.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: All right, we are back on normally with some talk
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: about people who are not normal and about whom I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: feel like I know far too much at this point,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and that polyamorists, the polyamorists are at it again, Carol.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Which it's like vegetarian CrossFit polyamorous, Like you're going to
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: find out in the first five minutes for sure.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And what we have now is a new memoir called
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Adult Braces by a woman named Lindy West, who formerly
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: had gotten some fame with another memoir that was became
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: a TV show at one point. And this is about
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: how she was in a marriage the man named Aham,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: who then decided he didn't want to be in a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: monogamous relationship anymore, and so he convinced her that they
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: should be polyamorous, and that he should have a girlfriend,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and that not only that she should live in the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: guest room sometimes so that he could be with the girlfriend.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And this is all presented by her as a uplifting experience,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: but to reviewers and most readers, it seems it is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: presented in a way that makes them go ooh girl.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Right, That's the thing is that this is a book
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: about how happy she is to be in a polyamorous relationship.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't think the guest room is sometimes, but
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong on that. From what depression I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: got was the girlfriend now lives in the bedroom and she,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Lindy West, is in the guest room. But it's okay
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: because they like tuck her in at night and like
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: her like a baby, and she loves that. But it
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: is the thing is that everybody who reads this book,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and I admittedly have not, but I read all the
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: discourse around it, just does not believe her. And that's
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a real problem for a memoir if you're writing a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: memoir and people are saying, I don't buy any of this.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: They just don't trust your own version of your life.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure it's, you know, annoying to her, because
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: apparently she is very annoyed. But there's something to that
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and she should really maybe think about that.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Well. There was another memoir of polyamorism, recently called It
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: was Molly rodin Winter was the writer was more and she.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Was in.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: It had the same vibe.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: And the vibe is that in every story of polyamory,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: which is they attempt to mainstream constantly, is which the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: elite media in general, every time there's a person involved
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: who is long suffering, long struggling, who has been admonished
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that they should get into this, that if they don't,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that they're thinking is backwards and dare I say conservative,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: because they want one partner right, and they wrestle with
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: their own issues with this and their insecurities, and you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: have constant back and forth and check ins with your
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: partner about what the boundaries are, and the boundaries just
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: old fashioned the boundaries that you should be with one
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: person and that would make them happier, but they overcome
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: their own issues with it to acquiesce to their partner's desires,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and it looks like just long term emotional abuse to me.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the feeling I get for most polyamorous stories.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: But what I would say about Lindy is that it
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: even goes beyond that. So in the Atlantic, a writer
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: named Helen Lewis reviewed the book and just all the
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: stuff around Lindy West, this is the part that really
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: caught my attention, She writes, even her relationship wasn't all
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that it seemed. In her twenty nineteen essay collection The
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Witches Are Coming, she had written that she and Ulu
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: that's her husband's last name, her quote unquote best friend,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and a quote unquote once in a generation musical talent
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: had a dawn ritual where they lay in bed talking
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: for hours. And as I'm reading this, I'm like, that's
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: very nice. That's my husband and I don't have a
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: dawn ritual where we lay in bed talking for hours.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: So Lewis goes on in adult Races, Lindy adds that
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: what I admitted is that we only developed that ritual
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: to mitigate a toxic pattern we'd been stuck in for years.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I'd wake up anxious, I'd bobmit my anxiety on Aham.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: He'd snap at me for triggering his anxiety. I'd feel
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: alone and unsupported. I'd stare at him with tears in
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: my eyes until he had a panic attack. He'd zone
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: out for the rest of the day and not listen
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to a word I said, Like, ma'am, that is very,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: very different than the dawn ritual of laying in bed
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: talking for hours like one is just clearly a lie. Yes,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: that's what you do, but the conversation is brutal and horrible.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, And by the way, the idea of going back
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and forth about this terribleness over and over again is
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: just like, like, maybe you're not dealing with the root
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of the problem, which is that there are several people
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in this relationship and at least one of you guys
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: probably doesn't really want to be there.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I recommend that Hylen Lewis article, by the way, even
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: if you're not at all interested in this Lindy West story,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: because it is also about and she titles it the
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: death of millennial feminism. I'd say it's not specifically millennial feminism.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: That died here. It's really wokeness, woke culture.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And Lewis does a really good job of writing out
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: what was so annoying about it and why couldn't survive
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: and why it pushed people like her away.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Tyler Harper Austin, who also writes for The Atlantic, had
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: a piece on this and we spoke just now about
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the horseshoe theory on Iran, and he touches on something
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that kind of amuses me about these polyamorous which is
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that they end up making their own sexual relationships this
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: political project. He writes that West's devotion to Aham also
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: made me think of a different sort of wife, one
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: whom West herself would most likely object to, being compared
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to the right wing tradwife who treats her husband as
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: if he was a god and says they to submit
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to him. Indeed, in many ways, West's performatively anti white, unpatriotic,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and cosmopolitan version of polyamory is the blue state mirror
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: image of tradwiffery, which, in its various forms blah blah blah,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: he says, such a you know, yeah, both romantic trends
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: have adherents who spin their retreat from status quo romance
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: as a kind of liberation from modern expectations, and who
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: position their marital arrangement as the logical extension of a
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: deeper political project.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: So we have this horseshoe that's going on.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Here too, And in both it's like you're creating a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: product and sort of telling everyone how great it is
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: when the lived experience of it looks very different to everyone,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: even from your explaining of it.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And that's also why I think it's so hard for
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: people to believe that marriage and children is a fulfilling, happy,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: you know path in life.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Like all these young people don't believe it.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: And I think partly it's because they get lied to
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: in these memoirs and they could tell and they're like,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: everything is a lie and that you know, we talked
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: about that a lot on here too. How when a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: lot of things are a lie, people stop believing everything.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: The cut by the way, I ran a piece too.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It was like, can could opening your marriage lighten your
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: mental load?
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Answer? No, no, it will not.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Like you'd rather just do more laundry than do that,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I promise you.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And indeed in that piece, at the end you find
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: out this in this case, it's a woman who wanted
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to in her marriage, and you find out at the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: end that there was a man who she talked into it,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: who was like confesses eventually to not feeling very comfortable
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: with it. It's like, yeah, don't do that to your partner.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like it should be an easy call.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Don't get talked into having a side person in your relationship.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: But you know what, do we know we were just
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: going by thousands of years of history, Like.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Somebody tweeted, I wish I could reference it specifically, but
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: tweeted that, like there's been a ten year project on
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: polyamory to convince you that being normal and married and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: raising some kids would not make you happy, when in fact,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it'll probably make you happy.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Like I can just do that.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: There's like a lot of evidence throughout history that it
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: does make you happy. This new thing, though there's no
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: evidence yet that it makes anybody happy. And you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the show Arrested Development had this great part where this
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: couple was talking about opening their marriage and he says,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: you know, something like, oh, you know a lot of
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: people do it, and the wife says, does it work
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: for them? And he says no, but we could be
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: the first.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Good luck. Yeah, good luck with that. And thanks for
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: joining us on Normally.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: things get weird, act normally