We never thought we’d get here, but alas, 52 episodes later the JKPodcast has survived an entire year!

We conclude this week with a tragic situation not unlike the one we started with. Only instead of New York, we switch our focus back to Boston. We continue our discussion of how the state works to exploit tragedies like this one and consider the critical mass of people required to stop lawmakers from doing what they intend to do.

Thanks so much for sticking with us for an entire year!

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Transcript of Podcast

[Recorded Audio]

Speaker 1: Does the NSA collect any type of data at
all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

Speaker 2: No, sir.

Jad:     Hello, and welcome to the JK podcast,
an anti-authoritarian philosophical endeavor recorded in Austin, Texas.  We draw
our topics from the entire scope of the human experience with central connecting themes
focused on the grand ideas of liberty, humanity, and equality. 

Kevin: The JK Podcast is hosted by Jad Davis and Kevin
Ludlow.  Welcome back to another episode.  We never thought we’d get
here, but alas, 52 episodes later, the JK Podcast has survived an entire year.  We
conclude this week with a tragic situation – not unlike the one we started with
– only instead of New York, we switch our focus back to Boston.  We continue
our discussion of how the state works to exploit tragedies like this one, and consider
the critical mass of people required to stop lawmakers from doing what they intend to
do.  Thank you so very much for sticking with us for an entire year. 

Jad:     That’s why, that’s one of
the components of why it’s so difficult to maintain any kind of productive
dialogue is because the story is going to be packaged and resold from now until the
anniversary’s run out of – we don’t even know what the
narrative’s gonna be – but whatever the state narrative is and it’s
not going to be one that leads to greater human freedom, it’s going to be one
that leads to a more centralized control apparatus, right?

Kevin: For sure.

Jad:     I’ve got sort of as an example
of another tactic that I think is interesting that some people are probably analyzing,
but I mean it just seems so clear to me like, if you wanna talk about a community that
has a sustained effort to prevent a particular political outcome that I’m gonna
say is going to eventually lose, it’s the anti-SOPA-PIPA-SIPA[?] – sorry,
SIPSA –

Kevin: SIPSA.

Jad:     – is the latest one, and they’re
just – I mean just revealing of a tactic – they’re just reintroducing
the same bill again, and again, and again.  They’re reintroducing it again,
it’s like been defeated four or five times now.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jad:     And in the last – what was the
first time, was it a year and a half maybe ago or something like that?  So
it’s just like this nonstop thing and you can tell when the people are sending
out the emails and it’s like it’s up again and then can you give us money
again?  We’re gonna like you know, it’s just going to keep coming back
until they you know, until like you said, until people are like, “you know what,
I’ve fucking sent 20 emails to my senator about this over the last year, two
years, I’m just not gonna do it again”, right, and then it passes at some
point. 

Or you know, there is a million other things that could happen, executive order or
whatever, but it’s going to pass.  They want this thing to happen and so
it’s going to happen and just even the fact that it’s been held off not by
a lobby and not by individual congresspersons, but strictly by a popular effort to
maintain pressure in this direction.  That’s held it off for this long, but
even that’s not going to hold it off forever so what I’m saying is [?] when
you look back on this – kinda like when you look back on the millions of people
in the street leading up to the Iraq war – you can say well, it’s due to a
lack of diligence on the part of the people that are fighting it.  And I’m
not trying to [?] your argument I mean, what you said is a lot more nuanced than that,
but essentially like just the loss is due to the lack of maintenance of focus, the lack
of organizational structure to persist and maintain a constant message and a constant
political pressure, and that may be right, but these things are slated to
happen. 

Iraq was going to be invaded again at some point, it’s been sanctioned,
there’s been air patrol over it for 12 years, it was going to be invaded
again.  The internet is going to be centered by the United States government in a
legal manner, it’s already probably censored or at least observed and surveilled
and whatnot secretly now, but it’s going to happen.  And so in some sense, I
think looking back on it happening and saying, “well, it’s because we
didn’t fight hard enough”, is just – like I said, I’m not
really proposing anything different, but it just seems like putting the credit where
the credit’s due and saying if the state and the corporate masters[?], and the
financial leader or whatever want X to happen, then X will happen somehow.

Kevin: Right.

Jad:     It’s kind of a – maybe
it’s just an excuse or something, but it seems like it may be a better way to
think about the situation we’re in.

Kevin: I guess where I’m hoping my position of it goes right,
like if what I’m suggesting could somehow occur, ultimately what I’m hoping
the long term position is and hopefully, I’m not accused of any seditious acts,
but is some sort of actual revolution in time of actually saying – and I don’t
know when this could be – but I mean, there’s a tipping point to every
government, right?  I mean, I don’t see why the United States would be any
different.  And so to have some sort of a revolution, you need people who actually
feel the need to revolt against the state, and so I guess what kind of in a longer
view, or a more strategic goal of what I’m suggesting I suppose is that you need
people to be genuinely disenfranchised with their own government.  So for example,
I’m on Reddit all the time and I see these people just going against this whole
thing all the time you know with the SISPA, and all the various acts they’ve been
trying to do and they’ve done a phenomenal job like organizing people and they
actually – I think the Reddit co-founder was one of the guys who organized the
first big campaign against whatever the first one was –

Jad:     SOPA maybe?  I’m not sure
what the very first one was, but –

Kevin: It may have been SOPA, yeah, I think it’s something
like that, sounds right.  And so anyway, like he had a tremendous following and
[?] such an active community and to me though, what’s good about that is that the
more, the more, the more times that these happen, you’re just creating this
massive grouping of people – I think, I believe anyway – who are just
becoming increasingly disenfranchised with their government who are like, “this
is bullshit.  It doesn’t matter what we do, nobody’s fucking listening
to us.”  I think the war is another good effort.  You’ve got a
lot of people who are like, “fuck this government.  This is ridiculous, we
have been opposed to this for so long”, I think there’s a lot of things
like this like on the flipside for example, if you actually started to see –
well, it’s already happening as it is – but you start to see various
movements to get rid of guns and firearms in this country, right?  Well it does
the exact same thing to people on the right. 

I mean I think people who would see themselves as highly patriotic, et cetera, even
though they might be crazy backwoods redneck I mean, killing people – they see
themselves that way.  If you start taking away some of those other rights, I think
those are the exact same sort of people who are much more likely to revolt against the
government they otherwise would’ve once cherished.  And so I guess what
I’m getting at is that as this goes on, I guess my hope is that you start
disenfranchising enough people where finally you start to have a critical mass of
people who are just like, “fuck the government.  Really, fuck these guys and
it doesn’t matter what we do, you guys are just gonna fucking do whatever you
want and that’s not what this is supposed to be about”, and I think it
takes those really I mean, it shouldn’t happen right, but I mean if you go back
to kind of colonial America I mean, that’s what did it, right? 

I mean, these people could’ve happily lived in their little land forever I
mean, I don’t know that the so-called founders were necessarily trying to start
their own country, I’m not sure that that’s exactly what happened.  I
think it was just they were infringed on for so long that eventually, you had a tipping
point of people, or a critical mass of people who are willing to say, “George,
fuck you man.  We can’t do this, this is bullshit”, and I think
that’s kinda where I don’t know, I guess I see some of these things ultimately
could lead to that longer term sort of thing, which has benefits for people like you
and I as far as the way we see the country anyway, and trying to get people to actually
revolt against you know, tyranny really.

Jad:     Well yeah, I mean I think the –
I mean, that’s inevitable, right?  I mean, that’s just history so at
some point the government has to restructure itself and that’s – when you
talk about the revolution and this is along another topic or whatever – but
that’s just a restructuring of government, right?  No powers banished, they
just got transferred from the king to a constitutional body, blah, blah,
whatever. 

So the governments from time to time are forced to restructure for various reasons,
usually empires are forced to restructure because their economy collapses.  So
that will happen and those people you know, wherever the disenfranchised are, will
organize and I think that’s the interesting thing is the leadership principle
that you are maybe imagining where there are people who are going to sort of dedicate
themselves to this purpose, the reason in a revolutionary context that they do that is
because they are going to be in charge of the resources of the nation state, and the
tax base, and all that sort of thing. 

And so that’s usually the incentive around which that revolutionary [?]
happens, so I think what you’re saying is it will happen and I guess the
interesting question will be when that happens, when someone says you know, “we
seized a police station in Austin where we’re gonna declare Austin to be a free
city”, I’m just making this up, but obviously you know, “we are going
to take this apparatus and make it work for the people of Austin”, everybody else
has to say no to that.  They have to say – unless you wanna repeat the cycle
again which is what usually happens in human history –

Kevin: Right.

Jad:     – it’s got to be the case that
again, the use of force to do anything other than to protect one’s self and
protect people who have consented to be protected by you – to go back to our
original conversation – has to be cast out, cast aside.  First order problem
is – when you talk about guns rights people or whatever – they’re not
going to organize into those kinds of units and structures.  They’re going
to organize into the traditional structures of an army or a guerilla force or whatever,
and whatever institutions they decide to put in place will be similar to the
institutions that are in place now.  And so it could improve or be awful at that
place in time, but it’s going to inevitably lead to the same cycle all over
again.

Kevin: Right.  Well and I think the reason for that though is
kind of to what you were I guess kind of critically analyzing that I had said earlier
is that it requires – in order for that to happen – it requires this kind
of eternal vigilance because I mean, I think we’ve spoken to the point a few
times you know, history is bound to repeat itself like that and it’s just kind of
our nature.  That’s just the way that we seem to organize for whatever
reasons, so in the event that that happened – going back to your kind of
fictitious police example – you know, you need those guys who are on the street
immediately saying, “no, no, no, no, no, we don’t need to form this. 
You don’t need this entity that you’re going to start referring to as a
state, we don’t need that to exist.  We don’t need this control
structure”, et cetera.  Again, it requires this I don’t know, I mean, I
guess if I kind of agree with your earlier point, then it kind of almost suggests to me
philosophically that I mean, it’s just a dream, right? 

That it’s just – you’re never gonna get to that point because
you’re always gonna have these factions as you said, organized differently, so
it’s just gonna be the exact same sort of thing and I guess I’m envisioning
the only way that you stop that from happening is that once that revolution has kind of
almost completed you know, it’s like it’s just completed and now it’s
like starting to do that restructure that instantly you have people protesting and have
a critical mass of people protesting who don’t want that to occur and somehow or
another manage to maintain that.  But again, I just think it would be so – I
mean, we’re talking some time before we get to that level of consciousness I
think.

Jad:     Yeah, exactly but that’s my
point is that – the thing is I’m looking at the long view, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Jad:     You know, I’m not – if the
Unites States collapses in five years, it’s going to be a nightmare awful
scenario, it’s not going to be positive because people are going to be like
anybody who can give me food or a job I’ll do anything for it, I’ll support
any effort you know –

Kevin: Right.

Jad:     – anything you do, I’m in you
know, which is the opposite of the critical mass consciousness you have to have to go
the other direction.  But yeah, I totally agree with you but the thing is
that’s why I’m saying – so in the long view, that’s the value
of the discussion because everything we say is now digitally encoded and replicated in
several places, so as they’re sifting through the ashes of our civilization,
these ideas exist and it’s the only way out.  The only way out is to see
somebody get blown up in Boston and if it comes out that it’s you know, some
militia movement or that’s the story they build, there are going to be people out
there that are going to be justifying that act based on the fact that it’s a
revolutionary act and they’re not wrong I mean, historically in the scope of
human history, that is what political – outside of the system – political
action looks like.  That’s what the Boston Tea Party is, that’s what
you know tarring and feathering tax people are, that’s what killing the king is,
that is the pattern by which humans have always organized themselves, like you
said.  So there are you know, if things get worse and they’re more
disenfranchised and there’s more bombings, and those become freedom fighters,
right? 

I mean the only way out of that cycle where the freedom fighters eventually win or
lose and then a new government forms and begins to overplay its hand and blah, blah,
blah, the only way out is to immediately identify all acts of aggressive violence
against strangers as the worst thing that can be done by one person to another person,
which is pretty straightforward.  It’s not like you have to achieve some
sort of strange nirvanic state through decades of meditation, it’s a very simple
thing that every five year old can grasp, you know?  That’s the plus side of
it is that it’s very simple, it’s very intuitive to human beings to see a
stranger or to see a person inflict pain on somebody who’s not related to them at
all – is this really bad?

Kevin: Absolutely.

Jad:     This is going nowhere, but like I see
what you’re saying and I think again, that’s the only way out though. 
That’s the only way that humanity makes it off this planet before you know, the
sun explodes or whatever.  Otherwise, it’s just a cycle of building up and
destroying, and building up and destroying and there’s just no way to get any
traction until we get rid of this crazy idea that sometimes when a bomb blows up and
kills a bunch of people, it’s a great thing.

Kevin: Right.

Jad:     Or it’s a necessary thing.

Kevin: Well so I think that was kinda the point – I
don’t think I articulated it very well – but whatever you just said kinda
jogged my memory for it and that’s what bothers me about the Boston thing again
is that I feel that it’s a good time for people not to talk about Boston. 
Sure I mean, give a shot out to them as well, but it’s an opportunity for people
to talk about peace in general.  You know, obviously he’s not gonna do it
because his hands are knee deep or you know, his hands are in the war pie, but you know
for the president, for the various political heads of the country to stand up and speak
out against just violence in general, not violence in our country, not violence against
the United States, not let’s go hunt the terrorists down, but that this type of
bombing should not exist anywhere. 

It shouldn’t be happening between Israel and Palestine, it shouldn’t be
happening in Pakistan or Afghanistan, it shouldn’t be happening in the London
subway, or it shouldn’t be happening at the Boston Marathon.  This
shouldn’t happen and we shouldn’t be contributing to this either.  You
don’t have those political heads out there using the opportunity to say,
“It’s not just Boston.  This is not something we should promote
anywhere.  This should always be condemned”, and of course it’s not
really the case, it’s only condemned because it happens to “us”,
which I don’t even related to Boston at all, but you know, that’s – I
think on my earlier point – that’s what bothers me about it is everybody
sees it as a tragedy for “us”, and it’s a tragedy because people died
and a terrorist act of sorts was used to kill people, innocent people, for no
particular reason and all of the things that you said earlier about that just being a
monstrous act is – I completely agree with obviously, and so I just wish people
would not be so myopic in thinking that it’s just here because it’s
everywhere that needs to be spoken out against, I guess.

Jad:     Amen, brother.

Kevin: Yeah and done rant.

Jad:     What a way to bring it home, way to
bring it home.

Kevin: You know, one of the things that I did see that was kinda
funny – nowhere to go with this – but people were really bashing the
religious groups yesterday which I enjoyed.  There were these little memes going
around that something to the effect of – God, there was one I meant to post in
particular because it was really well written – but the meme is basically saying
when all the kids were killed in school we blame guns, but when these bombs killed kids
in a marathon, we blame the terrorists you know, like complete lack of, “why
don’t we blame the bombs?”

Jad:     Right.

Kevin: You know, that sort of basic thing.  And then there was
another guy who wrote something which I – let’s see if I can remember it
for you – but he basically kinda twisted the words around with regards to the
school shootings a couple months ago.  You know there was the whole, “the
reason these school shootings are on the rise is because we’ve taken God out of
schools”.  And so this one guy wrote this post that said something to the
effect of – he’s like, “the reason that people are dying in marathons
is because we’ve taken God out of marathons”, and then he wrote underneath
it, he’s like, “now do you realize how stupid you sounded four months
ago?”

Jad:     Right.

Kevin: So I saw some clever things like that that I kind of enjoyed
just to badger the point.

Jad:     Yeah.  The only thing I’ve
seen is that – I guess the Westborough[?] Baptist Church is heading up there
saying that this is more evidence that – I guess actually, they’re probably
saying that we took God out of the marathon.  Actually, [?] our entire country is
doomed because gays are having sex or something, I don’t really actually know
what they’re protesting against, but –

Kevin: I think they’re just doing a great job making
money.

Jad:     No kidding.

Kevin: That’s really all they do.

Jad:     Yeah.

And that’s where we leave it for this episode.  Thanks to Lee Caffey and
Chris Baton [?] for providing us with quality sound engineering and editing – we
wouldn’t get far without them.  Hosting services are provided by City Core,
LLC.  Our graphical caricature was provided by our friend, Sayeed Mod Badril
Hasham [Sp?] in Malaysia, and transcription services are provided by Deidra Alexander
of Galaxy Creative Media.

If you have any questions, comments, ideas for a show, or just wanna say hello, we
love receiving email.  You can find Jad at www.Jad-Davis.com, and you can find Kevin at www.KevinLudlow.com.  Thanks again for tuning in
and we’ll be back with another episode soon.