Episode 013: Cuba, DPRK, Russia, and Iran News

GloboidTV and RedArmyCapybara discuss a series of international developments regarding Cuba, Russia, Belarus, Iran, and the DPRK. They explore geopolitical issues, the indictment of Raul Castro, oil prices, nuclear drills, the Russia-Ukraine war, and new industrial developments in the DPRK.

1. Raul Castro indicted by US on murder and conspiracy charges. 

• Article from Granma (Official newspaper of Communist Party of Cuba):
• https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2026-05-20/cuba-condemns-the-despicable-accusation-against-the-leader-of-the-revolution
• Summary: Cuba condemned new accusations by the U.S. Department of Justice against Raúl Castro, calling them a political provocation tied to the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue incident. Cuba argues the aircraft repeatedly violated Cuban airspace and says the shootdown was an act of self-defense after multiple warnings and complaints. The statement also accuses the U.S. of hypocrisy and says the accusations are being used to justify continued sanctions and pressure against Cuba.

2. Belarus and Russia Nuclear exercise.

• Article: ‘Lukashenko and Putin Place Nuclear Forces on Full Combat Readiness’
• https://news.by/eng/news/politika/lukashenko-and-putin-place-nuclear-forces-on-full-combat-readiness
• Summary: Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin personally attended large-scale Belarusian-Russian nuclear readiness drills, which simulated the operation of nuclear forces without using live warheads. Belarus and Russia said the exercises were defensive and meant to test military readiness, coordination, and deterrence capabilities amid growing NATO military activity near their borders. The article argues that NATO expansion and militarisation in Eastern Europe are responsible for escalating tensions, while Belarus and Russia are presenting the drills as a warning that they are prepared to defend themselves if pushed further. Lukashenko also claimed Belarus remains open to negotiations and peace talks with Ukraine, while accusing Western governments of blocking diplomatic solutions.

3. Update on Russia/Ukraine war:

• https://t.me/ukraine_watch/61370
• From Ukraine Watch:
• Ukrainian forces attacked a college and dormitory with children in Starobelsk, LPR. According to the latest data, six people were killed and 15 remain missing.
• Putin called the attack on the college a terrorist strike and ordered the Defense Ministry to present proposals for a response.
• A UN Security Council meeting on the Starobelsk strike will be held today. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that all those responsible for the Ukrainian attack will be punished.
• The Russian army liberated five settlements over the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
• Ukrainian forces lost up to 7,830 servicemen and 106 armored vehicles across different directions of the Special Military Operation over the week.
• Russian forces carried out six retaliatory strikes over the week against Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises and energy facilities linked to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

4. IEA warning that oil prices could hit ‘Red Zone by July 

• ​https://www.telesurenglish.net/oil-market-headed-for-red-zone-by-july-iea-warns/
• Summary: The International Energy Agency warned that global oil markets could enter a critical “red zone” by July due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the ongoing U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran. The disruption has sharply reduced oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf, raising fears of supply shortages during the busy summer travel season. IEA Director Fatih Birol said strategic oil reserves are being depleted rapidly and that reopening the Strait of Hormuz is the only long-term solution. The article notes that Brent crude oil prices surged from around $70 per barrel before the conflict to a peak of $126, before later settling near $108 per barrel, while countries like Iraq are facing severe economic strain from the crisis.

5. Many New Products Developed at Regional-Industry Factories in DPRK

• http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/59ff167348aa7bab60621a1741c8f65d20436eacda102ba61ad5a114862cf6d7.kcmsf
• Summary: According to the Korean Central News Agency, newly opened regional industry factories across the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have expanded production and developed hundreds of new products since opening in late 2025. Factories in multiple counties are increasing the variety and quality of goods such as cooking oil, soaps, furniture, clothing, beer, sweets, soft drinks, and basic foodstuffs using local materials. The report says these factories are part of efforts to improve local industry and raise living standards, with counties like Paechon, Jangyon, Sepho, Cholwon, and Kilju focusing on new specialty products and higher-quality consumer goods.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Okay, so today we're gonna be looking at some news, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Some some look at some of the things going on in the world.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Do you have this pulled up anywhere? Is it in the show notes? It's in the show notes. I have everything in the show notes along with a summary of what the articles detail could be. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Lucky number 13.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Okay. Oh yeah. Oh shit, you got a bunch of news. Okay, so Cappy, what's up first? What do we got here?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

So um yeah, I mean I'm sure most people uh have heard that the US uh has indicted Raul Castro on charges of uh murder and conspiracy.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

So he is the is he the president of Cuba or the former president of Cuba? The brother of Fidel?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah, he's the president of Cuba is uh Miguel Diaz Canal, but Raul Castro is the uh general secretary of the Communist Party.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Oh, okay. So he's which is the more vaulted position or vaunted.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Well, yeah, he's he's considered the leader of the revolution.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Okay. That's a very interesting thing, huh? It's an interesting dichotomy to have a working government that's also a revolutionary communist party. Yeah. Uh so it's like the the RevCom or the Revolutionary Communist or the Communist Party is in power, but it also sort of operates differently. It's like uh the DCC versus you know a Democrat president.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah. Well, like um, for instance, you know, Stalin was the general secretary of uh the Bolsheviks, but he didn't hold uh or didn't always hold a position that we could compare to a president. He held high-ranking positions in the government, but there were other people as like prime minister in this position now. I forget what his position was exactly, but that happens a lot. Supreme Leader. I you could essentially consider him that, yeah. Yeah. Sort of a a nice honorific. Yeah. No, it's I I I mean, it's funny because supreme leader is a term that it people think it's so like ooh, spooky. And then it's like, wait, what's the difference between saying like supreme leader and prime minister, right? It's not really that spooky.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

It's literally the same thing. Like Primero is like what, number one, like your first cousin. Yeah, you know, it's just like different Latin or Greek or whatever, yeah. It's very interesting. Also, like people should go back and look at all the titles that we almost landed on instead of president. Yeah, yeah. There's like some weird, like exalted, like king, this, that, the his majesty. There is all kinds of terms that we almost went with for the presidency. It's kind of interesting. Should have gone with Supreme Leader.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

It's more based. So anyway, um, um, they yeah, so the US is uh indicted um Raul Castro uh because um in 1996 there was an incident where an organization of um of uh Cuban exiles who uh are they're essentially a terrorist organization, but they were flying planes into Cuban airspace over and over again, and they had been warned and warned and warned, and this was like repeated and repeated, so eventually Cuba said, fuck this, we're gonna defend ourselves, and they shot him out of the sky. Do you know Frank Sturgis?

unknown 3:12

I know.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

I just put in I'm double vellowed in. Frank Sturgis was one of the White House plumbers. Okay. That's what his job was previous to the Bay of Pigs was driving a private aircraft along the coastline of Cuba to ch to vet their uh anti-air uh aircraft artillery capabilities. I see. So this is a thing that they've been doing for 30 years. Oh, yeah. Doing doing uh just flybys to check for readiness, which is like super aggressive and weird. But yeah, that's that's a different rabbit. When you said like the the gusanos are basically terrorists, it's like people have no idea. No, yeah. Every shik every little piece of like Operation Condor bullshit the United States does, regime change or whatever, it always has some Cuban quote unquote exiles involved in it. From fucking water, even internally in the United States with like Watergate. They're always roping in these fucking gusanos.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And and the destination. Uh they've it's been alleged that they have connections to the CIA and the FBI, and like, yeah, not shocking. Of course they do, you know what I mean. Yeah. Um this is nothing.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

They're like Kurds.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Domestic. I mean, yeah, yeah. They they they are leveraged and used as a battering ram. So the anarchists are pro-Gusano, I'm guessing? Some of them probably are. A lot of them probably are because of big scary authoritarianism, you know what I mean. But uh I I've I was just thinking about this the other night, um, and you know, there is no such thing as anti-authoritarianism. That's not actually a thing. Like, that doesn't exist. That's an idea in your head. There that that's not a position you can hold.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

I think that communization theory is anti-authoritarian because they're not even willing to uh invoke permanent revolution or leading, they're like, no, just let the liberals mob themselves into a revolution. They're really hands-off. I it seems it seems which makes it seem like a psyop to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I I think that if we're going off of like a Webster dictionary definition of authoritarian, then I would agree. But um, if they want the people, even spontaneously and in a less organized manner to overthrow the ruling class, what is that? That's authoritarian. You're dethroning the bourgeoisie. That's that's as authoritarian as it gets.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

It's a rhetorical tool that they're using because they don't want to own the equity of being as violent as the people they uh who successfully led revolution. So they're sort of semantically threading that needle without owning the actions that they want. Or why would you not want to be like Lenin? Fucking based. Why wouldn't you want to be a part of the winning team? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

It seems like loser football. So uh anyway, with this this whole thing going on, I guess we'll have to see where it goes. I know a lot of people are talking about oh, I hope they don't pull a Venezuela in Cuba. I think I think that would be a lot harder for them. Um why but why because I think Cuba is a more ideologically solidified um uh country and the people have a very fighting spirit in Cuba. Uh let's not forget that the revolution in Cuba started off with like 15 people, and uh in the beginnings of the revolution, they were very, very small. They were sending little groups of three or four guys to fight battalions of Batista's troops, and they were doing that guerrilla warfare and fucking them up, taking their guns, going to peasant villages, recruiting peasants, arming them, like in that's how they grew the revolution, super based. I mean, small groups of men with no tanks taking on battalions with tanks and trains, and you know, it's it's an incredible story.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

And there does not exist in Cuba a sort of liberal opposition party that they can appeal to or um to betray the administration?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

No, Cuba is very authoritarian. And you know what I mean? And it's worked for them. You know what I mean? There is no um uh Cuba doesn't like kind of like how the the DPRK in China have like multi-party consultative democracies, Cuba doesn't even have that. Based. Yeah, you know, good.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

I mean, well, you know, I the older I get, the less the the more you realize that democracy is just sort of a liberal myth, anyways. Sure. Yeah democracy I don't care how distributed the correct decision was. I just care that there was a good a correct decision made.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah, I mean I I agree with that to an extent. I think democracy is important, but I think that our idea of what democracy is and what liberals' idea of democracy, they're they're two different things, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Um, I need to do more reading on those what do you call it collaborative, uh collaborative uh administration political.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Um they they call them multi-party consultative democracies. So, like in China, the only legal ruling party is the communist party, but other parties consult with the communist party and are welcomed into like the you know National People's Assembly and they come to decisions. You know what I mean? It's it's a it's a good way to get everyone from every section of the population involved in the political system so that everyone can be represented, everyone can have their concerns heard, everyone can help come to decisions, but you can never rule the country. Yeah, good. So uh basically I I I think that um they so the Cubans are accusing the US of uh basically saying that these accusations are just to justify continued sanctions and pressure, and I agree with them. I think that this is a way for them to not only intensify sanctions, but um uh to build up in order to depose of the Communist Party of people like Raul Castro. Um and the the reason why I think that is because what we saw in Venezuela, what we saw in Iran, this is the pattern.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, no, they definitely I mean months ago before this uh started up, they were talking about, and I want to do Cuba next, and then they started seizing oil tankers going to Cuba, and now they're using 30-year-old pretext for for uh action against Cuba. Yeah, I 100% see them. I just don't know how that would work, but to be honest, I don't know how Cuba's managed to stay around this whole time. Well is it just because of the USSR number one, the threat of imminent war if action was taken against Cuba above and beyond like economic sanctions, right? So that and I guess China is why they uh le basically leave Cuba alone.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

So I mean that might be part of it. Uh Cuba has a pretty good relationship with Russia too, right now, and they have some sort of like military agreement. Um, it's not quite as you know great as a military agreement between the DPRK and Russia, but it's still something. And I had just read today that um they just got like 350 drones. So like I mean, if we fuck around, we might find out, and it's gonna be hitting pretty fucking close to home.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah, I mean, I would be more optimistic about Cuba's chances if I didn't see that very lightning fast beheading in Venezuela. So, I mean, one would just hope that nothing comes of this. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu has international arrest warrants and nothing came of that. So what are the US sanctioning? Uh what how old is Raul Castro? Like 90?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

He's uh I believe he's he's over 90 now. I think he's in his mid-90s. Yeah, so it's sort of this is just an asshole move to smear someone's name. Yeah, no, it's it's it's fucking goofy. So we'll have to see where it goes in the coming. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. What else we got? And other news, uh, Bellow Belarus in Russia just did a nuclear exercise that has the West very, very upset. Always.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Well, even if they're not upset, they will proactively print stuff to sort of agitate people who are at best neutral about Belarus andor Russia. So they sort of make sure that the populace has the correct negative tone about those countries.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

And what I love is that NATO in the West always acts like it's like, you know, Russia is just they're provoking the West and they're doing this and that. And it's like, what the fuck have you been doing to them since 1917 exactly? You know what I mean? Um but yeah, this was a huge exercise. Um, and um it they simulated like an operation uh w without using live warheads, of course. Uh, but they wanted to test their military readiness and coordination and and deterrence capabilities.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

I noticed that you're not scaring the scare uh you're not saying the scary words here. Uh Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin personally attended large-scale Belarusian-Russian nuclear readiness drills, which simulated the operation of nuclear forces uh without using live warheads. Why were you nerfing? Why were you nerfing this summer?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Oh, I was just trying to get through it quicker. I thought that since we just mentioned that they were uh as I said, Lukashenko and Putin, you know, or at new uh my first covered that, I thought. So Okay. But um, yeah, no, this is in response to NATO military activity. You know what I mean? So it makes complete and utter sense. The West will spin it like it's two psychopaths going crazy, threatening the West with nukes. That's obviously not the case.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, the only the only person with the track record of using nukes here is America.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I'm threatening to is the West.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, no, I I just said that in a live yesterday. Americans are so deranged, they're like, Japan deserved it. And it's like, you know, I don't I think that you could have gone about that a different way, you know what I mean? And then and then I got accused of defending Imperial Japan. I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm on the side of the people who fought Japan.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

But I just there has been there has been a real changing of the narrative over the last 10 years. So Oliver Stone did that, the that sort of like five-part series, The Real History of the United States, and in it he had an episode that was talking about the narrative that Americans have about Japan is wrong. Because number one, America doesn't really realize how much Japan was decimated. Like there were whole cities taken out by conventional bombs. They got the North Korea treatment, they flattened, they had no comms, disparate platoons, different factions of their armies were not able to communicate with each other and were defect, defecting and giving up. They were scattered and beat, basically, and they had come and agreed to an armistice or you know, um uh to stopping if they allowed them, the emperor, to continue. If they said, okay, fine, we'll st we'll quit, but we uh don't uh allow us to keep our emperor, and the United States was like, no dice, and nuke them and then let the emperor stay in there. Yeah. So it was just they it was just America clearly just wanted to nuke them, and it wasn't about uh deterrent because they were already effectively beat. Like they were wiped out.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Wiped out. I think most people, at least Marxists, agree that the nuking of Japan was a warning to the Soviet Union. That's what it was, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Yeah, immediately, yeah, because I mean, yeah. Uh effectively Hitler was already Hitler was already shot at that point, dead. Yeah, the World War II was effectively over, except for little skirmishes in the Pacific Theater.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yep. So um, yeah, I mean, um again, I I was excited to to see this because I I, you know, I'm not uh I'm not a big fan of NATO expansion into uh Eastern Europe, so it's good to see countries ready to defend themselves by any means. And uh not a big fan of NATO at all. No. No.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

That's why So the the stated purpose of NATO, I think uh what did Churchill say that it is to keep America in, keep the Russians out, and keep Germany down.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Uh I don't care I the only part of that I like is keep Germany down. Yeah. Why does America need to be in?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

NATO rearmed Germany, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

So And there was no denazification. So what the fuck are they talking about? They just changed uniforms. NATO was founded by Nazis. Legit. No, not only that, like I think what, eight out of ten of their first um like commanders, the NATO commanders, were literally high-ranking Nazis. Yeah, former Nazis. Yeah, it's that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Quote unquote former. They make it out like it's a defensive organization. It's always been an offensive organization with the goal of eradicating communism.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Plus, NATO and Nazi is just so similar. I don't know. Yeah. Same thing. I agree with you. And then like let alone gladi uh Gladio type stuff in like uh Greece, Turkey, and uh Italy.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yep, yeah. So on from that, um, we have some updates on the Russian-Ukraine war while we're talking about this uh you know, Putin and Lukashenko and their nuclear business. We might as well uh you know give some uh brief updates here on the Ukraine war because there has been a lot going on regarding that uh during the month of May.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Speaking about no denazification, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, well, absolutely. So Ukrainian forces attacked a college and a dormitory with children. Uh of course they did, which was in the Luhansk People's Republic. Uh you know, they Nazis love to attack schools. Uh so as of right now, we know that six people were killed and 15 people remain missing. Uh so they pulled uh this is something out of the Israel playbook. Yeah, I was gonna say that, yeah. Well, you know, I I Ukraine and uh Israel, um Zelensky would like to be like Netanyahu, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:51

They want to be the next they want to be the next Israel.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, fascists learn.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Which is what do they mean? Who exactly so are they so they want it to be an ethno-nationalist state? What is actually does that statement mean if we like kick the tires on it? What does being like Israel mean for an Eastern European country filled with Nazis?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Unless they plan on uh settling Russia, I would I would just assume look, they're they're I mean, they were already uh ethnically cleansing the you know the Donbass region for fucking eight years before the war. They're definitely heavily ethno-nationalist. It's funny to see liberals talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yeah. It's so it's so interesting because they're like, oh no, they weren't shelling civilians. No, they weren't, those people weren't really Russian. They just sort of like those people were only learning Russian and they were given some Russian passports or all that, and then it's like, so why was it bad this other president bad? Oh, because he was like normalizing Russian relationships. It's like, yeah, what the fuck? Like they're it's like they talk out of both sides of their mouth. And is there ever a genocide that liberals won't talk down while it's like happening, or an ethnoc uh an ethnic cleansing campaign?

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, though I I can only think of one, and that's the Holocaust. Outside of that, um and they will talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure Western media mitigated that like it was a conspiracy theory, contemporaneous to it.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I wouldn't doubt it, yeah. Yeah. Um but um yeah, so um anyway, um where was I here? Yeah, so Putin's Putin called the attack? Yeah, Putin called uh the attack on the college at terrorist strike and ordered the defense ministry to present proposals for a response. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the response is. Um and then um they called a UN Security Council meeting uh on the uh Starobelsk. I I I can't speak Russian, but that's that's uh that's where this happened at. And that was held today. So uh the Russian foreign minister stated that all those responsible for the Ukrainian attack will be punished. And let's hope that they are.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah, I doubt it, but they'll probably be given, you know, they'll probably be given uh extra funding for extra Ned funding or something.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah. Just straight from the State Department. They don't even go through NED for Ukraine. Um so it in other news, which is good news, the Russian army liberated five settlements over the last week, um, which was reported by the Russian Defense Ministry. So that's base. We like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, hopefully they keep going to Kiev.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, right. Um, Ukrainian forces lost up to 7,830 servicemen and 106 armored vehicles across different directions of the special military operation over the last week, which is significant. Are they still conscripting just randoms? Uh I would assume they are. I've seen awful footage. Like I'm talking about you're we're talking about people that are missing digits and limbs, shooting like guns with like string tied to the trigger tied around their arm, uh, disabled people like people with Down syndrome being forced onto the front lines and being bullied by their squad mates.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Um Yeah, that was year like four years ago. I saw people like screeching, being conscripted and thrown like thrown on the front lines. It's like brother, this and that like in liberal seething and coping, like, oh, Ukraine's gonna win. There's no way they can lose and like it's it's very interesting what a couple videos here and there will show you. It's like, brother, I'm seeing them pick like F-string troops, yeah, forcing people who you would not trust to sell slushies and throwing them on the front line like that's gonna do any. They're literally using them as cannon fodder at that point. What where is the route to victory here? It's just like shields. The only one the only route to victory is for the profits of the the Western companies that are selling arms to Ukraine, funded by other Western countries.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Regardless of which direction this war goes, US weapons manufacturers and defense uh contractors made a fucking killing off of it. So literally, they don't really care which way it goes. Uh no.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

And it at one point they're like, I was saying like a couple months in, like, Ukraine should just quit. They're like, Well, what about the debt? I'm like, you're just how bold Western liberals are when other people are dying for a cause that doesn't affect you. Oh, yeah. Like, they're just like, no, they should fight until they're hamburger. It's like they're already hamburger. Yeah. And you're now you're just killing second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh tier conscripts forced to fight for this completely unwinnable war. There's zero shot they're ever gonna win against Russia.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I don't even know if Europe could win against Russia. Well, that's the thing, and and people cause people always say they're like, you know, Russia can't even beat Ukraine, and it's like, I don't think you understand. They have the full force of NATO behind them and they're still not winning.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Like uh They're still not winning. No. Like, and and to be honest though, they don't really have the full force of NATO. NATO could be like shelling the Could be flying uh uh uh planes and sh bombing Russia or whatever, but the problem is is Russia's a motherfucking nuclear power. Yeah. Like you know, if they start getting crazy, Russia can get crazy too. That's a thing. So they're just sort of it's sort of like, what is this even about? Because this has improved the Russian economy. Yeah, yeah. It's it it pushed them into the arms of China, it normalized more relationships between China and Russia. Russia got on China's credit card uh processing stuff, so economically they're more um uh sound than they were before. There's their situation was always precarious using Western credit card, I think with the Swift versus what was the other?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, I don't remember what the other one is, but the other the Chinese one.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

So now they're on the Chinese one, so it's like, okay, well, that's the one you should probably be on, you know, looking at the next hundred years, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Uh they always make um a lot of nationalized industry out of it because places started to pull out of Russia not wanting to do business, and the government was like, Okay, we'll just take over. Like, we'll do this shit. So that was beneficial to them too. Yeah, it's been nothing but negative for Europe, like the whole of Europe.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

It's and literally this war that doesn't serve anybody except the Clinton class interest, right? Like the the NED USA uh Clinton and Bush class people in America, they're the only ones that have such a grudge against Russia. No, this does not matter. A border dispute between Ukraine and Russia does not matter to the American people whatsoever. I forget what I was saying there. Um now with the higher heating costs, oil, gasoline, the blowing up of the Nord Stream one and two, yeah, Europe's in a more precarious position energy-wise. And then think about that. Think about the United States putting uh Europe in an ever increasingly precarious position by its actions in Iran. Yeah, its action in the Strait of Hormuz, its actions blowing up the uh the Nord Stream pipelines, its actions encapsulating Russia and sabotaging oil and energy deals. It's like, what was the benefit for Europe to do this?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Nothing. And now the US has washed their hands of it practically, and they're pushing all of the responsibility off onto Europe. So I mean, that's what you get when you fucking when the US says jump and you jump.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

For countries that were already overlebr leveraged for defense they didn't need because NATO only serves as a vector of Western aggression, i.e. American English. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what was even the point? NATO doesn't even need to exist. NATO is basically an extortion racket, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, absolutely. I it's one of the um it is one of the main imperialist entities that exist, you know what I mean? So that's its whole job is to maintain the global system of imperialism, this this financial global domination over other countries.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah, and it forces them, these these countries that you know have social welfare programs, it forces them to divert X amount into their military, which they don't need, and for a force that only serves to be there when America wants to do imperialism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's and it's like silly. And and for that sacrifice they were forced to make so as not to become a pariah state and get regime changed effectively, for that uh compromise that they make, now they're suffering through the last three or four winters with exponentially ballooning energy costs. Yeah, they're fucking cold. And I will say, America got nothing out of this either, except for a certain class of defense contractors.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Us average ordinary people, we didn't get shit out of it. We we got to spend our tax money on funding fucking Ukraine. That's what we got.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And then uh many of us got banned.

unknown 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Like over over this over this fucking bullshit war, Haas, uh Jackson Hinkle, which our audience may not be too sympathetic for, but they were banned off of Twitch for pro-Russia positions.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

I get shut down. I get shut down all the time for it. You know what I mean? So yeah, people don't want to hear it. No. Um else we got. Well, it connected to this, the uh IEA, the International Energy Agency, warned that global oil markets could enter a critical red zone by July due to the closure of the Strait of Hormaz uh during the ongoing US uh Israel conflict with Iran. Um that is that does dovetail right in. I didn't scan ahead. Yeah.

unknown 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

No, I I don't know. I I keep seeing alarmist posts. It's hard to know what to gauge with how serious something is, right? Because I've seen people say that there was the last tanker from like that area, and then that China did uh delivered their last tanker of uh petroleum, and then after that, expect five dollars uh uh five dollars a gallon for gas. It's like, well, fuck.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, that would be calamitous. It went up a lot more in my area, but um again, the the market is volatile and there's a lot of market manipulation going on, and every time Trump opens his mouth, it fucks with the market a little bit. So I mean, I think that there's still a chance it's gonna go up much higher. Um I I guess we'll have to see. Um, but um, yeah, no, it's I th I would say if the if the International Energy Agency is worried about it, it's you know, probably legit to have some fear uh about shortages uh and the like.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Well, uh what is the pathway to what is the pathway to more access to energy? Well that's the shutdown. Like drilling in Yosemite. What are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

What you could do is is is pay the fee that the Iran Iranian government wants and then you could pass through. You know, cheaper, huh? It it absolutely would be. So uh according to the uh International Energy Agency, um strategic oil reserves are being depleted rapidly. Um and um Brent crude oil prices surged from around seventy dollars per barrel before the conflict to a peak of $126 a barrel, uh, and now it's settled somewhere around $108 a barrel, which is still, you know, I mean that's significantly higher.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Now, Cappy, I'm a stupid man.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Do you know what Brent crude oil is? I believe that Brent crude oil is the UK's oil. Let me see though. I probably standardized commodity unit. Hold on, hold on. Uh okay, so I guess I was wrong. So we cut that out. Brent crude oil is one of the primary benchmark prices for pricing oil globally. Okay. Oh, like Brent and Woods? Uh it's a trading classification. For like the types of petroleum. Sweet crude oil like Brent. Extracted from the Brent oil field. Where is that?

SPEAKER_02 29:09

I should have looked this up sooner because I've been hearing this for like No, uh Brent oil is not from Bretton Woods. Brent uh Brent crude is a major, this is from the uh Google Gemini. Uh so uh a tiny, tiny grain of salt. Uh, but Brent oil is uh is a major global benchmark for oil extracted and produced offshore in the North Sea. It is typically a blend of crude oil sourced from fields located in the United Kingdom and Norway. The name Brent uh uh originates from the Brent Goose, the Royal Dutch Shell, okay, named its UK oil fields alphabetically after Seaburgs. Okay, that makes sense. Geological formations, it's also an acronym for the five geological formations of the original Scottish offshore field Broom, Rannock, Etiv, Ness, and Tal Tabert. Bretton Woods, on the other hand, refers to the famous 1944 International Monetary Conference held in New Hampshire, USA, which established the rules for commercial and financial relations amongst the world's major industrial states. The only connection between the two is a historical timing. The breakdown of the Bretton Woods financial system in the early 1970s directly preceded the first major global oil shocks. Okay, I thought it also had to do with uh the dollar is the reserve currency.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

And the the reason why uh Bretton Wood's reserve currency.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah, it's so so Brent oil is just a type of crude oil that's produced in the North Sea. Okay. That see, you learn something new every fucking day, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Well, that's why, see, but the the US petrol dollar is sort of like underwrites all almost all geopolitics and the actions the US takes is like, no, we have to remain the PayPal for everybody doing their transactions. We we our dollar is affirmed, and the American economy is affirmed by everybody only being able to trade oil using our standardized money. Okay. So it's like so the Bretton Woods system, 1944 to 1971, established the US dollar as the world's primary reserve con uh currency under this agreement. Forty-four Allied nations pegged their currencies to the US dollar, while the US guaranteed the dollar's convertibility into gold at a fixed rate. Okay, so I was just I I was getting why crossing the naming similarities and Brandt and Bretton Woods was kind of getting my wires crossed.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah. Yeah, so um, yeah, again, uh the the uh article mentions that uh Iraq is is not doing well because of this either. It's caused very bad crisis and economic strain, and I'm sure that could be said for many countries. I mean, I know here in the US um it's not just gas prices that are insane right now, but the prices of everything the fuck else went up as well with the gas prices because things have to get shipped. Um so I mean it affects everything logistics, uh cars, deliveries.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

I mean, every like we were talking previously about the DPRK and how embargoes on oil affect uh the famines in the 90s, how they were uh worsened or exacerbated by lack of access to oils and petrol to run farming equipment. Yeah, right. The same thing is true here. The same thing is definitely true here. Now the the saving grace for America is what we throw away, like 80% of the agriculture we grow, anyways, because it's not pretty enough.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

So I think that would be bro.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

It's Americans. I don't think there's ever been a like they talk about the sort of hedonistic excesses of ancient Rome, but I think America has them beat the treatlerites nowadays. And like, I mean, it is it is it is some sick, perverted, degenerate bullshit. Uh it says here the disruption has sharply reduced oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf, raising fears of supply shortages uh during the busy summer travel season. Cappy, can you imagine having enough loose capital to travel uh uh being financialized in the way so as to travel?

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah, I mean, I've you know, my girlfriend and I have been trying to put away a little bit of money to go to Maryland, which isn't that far from New Jersey. But looking at these gas prices, I'm like half of the money we save up to fucking get a hotel room for two or three days is going to go to fucking gas just to get down there. So I don't know, maybe to the Jersey shore this year, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

And it's interesting to say that Iraq is in a precarious position, but when have they not been since the mid-90s?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Well, yeah, I mean there was I there was a little bit of time between the Gulf War and then the US invasion where they were starting to get their feet back under them, and you know, shit was looking alright, especially in the cities.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Life was going on like normal, people had food to eat, you know, people were being When Saddam was uh had the uh building the Nebuchadnezzar Stargates. What what is that? Oh you're I don't even know that now. The the Stargate thing has been popping up a lot in chat when people talking about the conspiracy that we're in Iraq and Iran and Syria for to access their ancient technology such as Stargates.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

So I so someone linked an old episode of Ancient Alien Ancient Aliens, and they were talking about that. They were showing like Saddam positioning himself as the neo Nebuchadnezzar, and like, you know, like instead of like the like the big is that do you have Saddam on your wall back there? No. No who's the guy at the end?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Well, on this side? Yeah. No, it's Stalin. Oh, really? It kind of looks like fucking Saddam. I have a I have a book with an awesome Saddam painting on it. I wouldn't be necessarily against having Saddam on my wall. I just think that uh, you know, I don't know. You would go hard. Yeah, I I mean the dude had a good mustache and he he was pretty tough looking. So reincarnation of book of Nabuchadnezer.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

I mean, that's that's based off. But also in a silver lining, so while the this energy crisis is affecting them uh during a period of rebuilding, they're also doing so without U.S. troops intervening, right? Since we kicked them or since we they literally did an armistice to say, please stop killing us enough for us to evacuate everyone the fuck out of this country, finally.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yeah. Yeah, no, uh Iran uh effectively decolonialized Iraq. I mean, there is uh as as far as I know, at this point, there's no US troops or NATO troops in Iraq anymore, which is fucking great.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

There's probably always JSOC people lurking around the Middle East, like little troops uh uh infiltrating uh those uh those long hair sleeved, you know, those real slick motherfuckers, uh the like CIA kill squad guys, they're probably always getting in and out, but rank and file boots on the boots on the ground troops, probably not, huh?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Well, they're all their infrastructure got fucked. Like that's why a lot of you know, they don't report on it all in the US media, but the amount of fucking bases that Iran hit throughout the the let's call it what it is, West Asia, not the Middle East. West Asia is the colonizers language. True. Um, they they hit an insane amount of fucking infrastructure, military infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

So good. Because like as much as you know, you are and we've talked about this before, as much as you and I aren't very sympathetic about like people, someone like Jordan the King of Jordan, right? The US is forcing them to have bases there. Those countries are forced to have bases there. Those bases are not strictly, it's sort of like you're blaming the victim almost for being complicit in imperialism because what the fuck is Jordan gonna do when the United States comes knocking? Yeah, all it takes is them, the New York Times, to prime the pump a little bit by posting some stuff about Al-Qaeda and Jordan and pure fucking toast.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

I would say, like, you know, both are true. I think that it's beneficial for the ruling class of Jordan, but also what choice do they have? You mean because of regime stability? Like they're not gonna get cooed if they allowed the bases. Yeah, and like it doesn't, right? It may be bad for the people of Jordan, but it's not bad for the bourgeoisie. They're doing fine. You know what I mean? The royal family, they're doing fine.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

I don't know if anybody ever flourishes being under the thumb of imperialism.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

It depends. You know, it depends. If you can, if you can it because there are opportunists where so long as they're enriching themselves and they're getting a good deal, then it's fine. I mean, look at Cuba, for instance. Uh the Batista government, they didn't give a fuck if the mafia was running shit. They didn't give a fuck if it was Americans. They were very happy to open up their market to America. So that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Well, the thing is, you it's implicit in the American imperialism sort of mercantile resource extraction is foreign direct foreign direct investment and a privatization of services largely by non-local companies. Yeah. Right? So if Jordan actually succeeded in kicking them out, there could be at least Jordanian ghouls privatizing stuff and not fucking, you know, uh Blackstone, Black Rock. That would be better, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

That would be better.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Uh all things considered equal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah. So um, yeah. So anyway, I guess we'll see if the gas prices go up or not. I fucking hope to god they don't go up anymore because I can barely afford to live right now, and at this rate, I'm never going to be able to afford heating fuel again, and it's been like three years without fucking heat and hot water.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

We're gonna have to go back to whale blubber or uh whale. Seriously. You're on the East Coast though. Have you ever thought about that? Getting into being a longshoreman? No, I haven't. I don't remember. Really? You kinda how are you I I just figured that you were because of how you dress.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

What do you mean? I wear I wear like fucking, you know, tan khaki Levi's and dickies and fucking channels.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

If you're okay now, chat, for the people listening here, listening to him uh do a teleplay about what a longshoreman look like. Go ahead and continue how you dress, go ahead. He's wearing a heavy flannel uh underneath a cart uh cartwright one uh what's it called? A onesie, one of them bitches called it. Coveralls. He's wearing cartelite coveralls. I know. Coveralls are base as fuck. I love I love workware. I love work wear. I wear them in the snow. Yeah, it's good shit. Absolutely. I love utilitarian stuff. Yeah, there's something so beautiful about like Ben Davis, Carhartt, and Dickies being like the working class thing. And like that's so true in like Southern California. Every outlaw from every sort of ethnically racially segregated gang there is in Southern California, they all wear the same shit. Yeah. I was having to tell Nico this the other day. She's like, Why uh uh like why are you wearing knee socks? I'm like, what do you mean? Why? I'm from California. She's like, What is what do you mean? I'm like, what do you mean? What do I mean? That's the uniform. I wear house slippers, knee socks, shorts, a wife beater, and a fucking white t-shirt. Like, along with every Chicano gang member, every skater, every like there's the the uniform.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone. Everybody. Yeah. It's good. It's inclusive. I love Dickies too, by the way. My Dickies' pants are fucking solid. Like they they hold up, they hold up better than my Levi's do at work. The Levi's get ripped all the time. My Dickies have been wearing rocking the same pair for two years now, and and they're they're fucking, it's like I just bought them.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

So I say all that to say this. So since you're dressed as a longshoreman, it's not very hard to imagine you. Uh, did you know that uh be previous to like I think the uh gasoline's a byproduct of uh petroleum? Yeah. To get the oil, they used to throw the gasoline away. Uh they didn't even used to, it was like a low-tier fuel, they didn't even like it. It was like kerosene was preferred. I think it burns cleaner inside the house for stuff like that. But previous to that, in like the 17th century, it was like uh whale oil. Like there was a certain whale that had a big snout, and they would drain the oil from the whale, and that was like the preferred fuel. Yeah. For their lanterns and other stuff. Yeah. So you could always go back to that method.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

I could. I guess I might have to in order to heat my house when the winter comes again. Do Little Moby Dick. Yeah, yeah. So um moving to last one here. Yeah, we have some good news. Um, this one is in relation to the 20 by 10 uh regional industrial uh revolution going on in the DPRK. So What is that?

SPEAKER_02 41:08

20 by 10?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yeah, so what their plan was to, over the course of 10 years, uh bring every single region and county up to the le uh the level of Pyongyang, or at least closer to the level of Pyongyang.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Uh and so that's like the equivalent of like a tier one city in the best, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

So Pyongyang obviously is the capital, is the most developed and best city in the DJ. Do they have a tier system similar to China? They might. I'm not 100% sure. Um but uh you know, for any listeners out here who who may not know this, they have other cities that are very nice and very advanced too. They're just not like Pyongyang has everything, but because Pyongyang is what they view as a test city. If they want to do something and they want to roll it out in every city, they try it in Pyongyang first and they see how it goes there, and then they'll start rolling it out to other areas. Uh test? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, um, according to the Korean Central News Agency, uh the the newly opened regional industrial factories across the country that have uh uh across the country have expanded production and developed hundreds of new products since opening in late 2025. Uh so factories in multiple counties are increasing the variety of quality and quality of goods such as cooking oil, soaps, furniture, clothing, beer, sweets, soft drinks, and basic foodstuffs while using local materials. And the report says that these factories are part of efforts to improve local industry and raise living standards. Um now, so what they did was they opened up these complexes in every county and in every city that has like three factories. They do one for like raw materials and steel and shit like that. They do one for consumer goods, and then they'll do another one, I forget what they do the other one for.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

But the beers and sweets.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, right. And so the this is good because now for the like for the first time, people in the more uh rural areas in the smaller cities are getting access to things that they did not formerly have. So like um you're going to start seeing more people having flat screen TVs, having you know, nicer, night, just nicer things. You know, it's it's going to uh reinvigor, it's going to um how could I put it? Going to uplift the regional economies, the rural economies. It's going to give people a better life, right? Um and ultimately it's going to be better off for the DPRK. Uh it's going to be base to sell.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

So that pretty soon they're going to be able to have a flat screen, crack a crack a brewski, and watch their bootleg squid games. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Penalty of death. Hey, as it is, apparently ninety percent of North Koreans already have TVs, right? Uh so but now you'll be able to get more stuff. Game consoles and stuff like that, you know, a computer, uh cell phones, like it'll be that type of stuff. That really only city dwellers have will be more available across the whole country.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

What do you think North Korean culture's like for like, let's say, you know, little deadbeat kids like us? They probably don't have that misfit class in DPRK the same, huh? Like little street tufts.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

I mean, it they probably they probably do, but I mean, I know a little bit about like what the youth does. Um there, you know, defectors have talked about it and stuff. They um uh Pyongyang has a great nightlight, uh, nightlife, and uh they often have parties in Kimel Sung Square, and the teenagers will go out on dates there and dance, and um, you know, they'll they'll go out to the video game cafes and they'll go out to restaurants and you know when in people in their early twenties will go out to the bar, the pool halls, and play some, you know, play some pool.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Do you think that yeah, but it can't be, let's get down to brass tacks. Are there young people misfits getting stick and poke tattoos and huffing free on?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Uh well I I I would I would imagine that their culture is not as corrupt as the US is, but I guarantee there are kids they they're rebelling in their own ways. You know what I mean? Um there are definitely There's always got to be a class of tough guy to wow the wow all uh to wow all the babes. No culture is free from um a little bit of rebellion, you know what I mean? I would say even the DPRKs, but I'm sure that the way that the kids there rebel is a little bit healthier than the way I rebelled when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Like it's very interesting to think like how how government structure affects counterculture. Right? I wonder I wonder what the counterculture is there. So I have a theory Other than like other than like liberalism, right? Yeah, yeah. I have a lot of people. Because you have like Valkyr, somebody raised by communist parents, where do they be they can become uh uh Ayn Randian objectivist? How do you rebel in DPRK?

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Well, that's so I have a theory about this, and it's like I feel like countries with countercultures and like very pervasive countercultures, um, they don't have like a good, solid, you know, high-quality culture of their own. And so it leaves people feeling alienated and depressed and like they don't belong, and so they try and find a niche where they can fit.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

But if well it's very interesting because like counterculture in America came from like black nightclubs, people who were du jour legally segregated and like treated like otherized via law, and then like in California, you have like Chicano immigrants who are like pachuco culture that turned into like cholo, and that's how you get you know the girls with the sharp eyebrows, and like you know, that whole like counterculture scene is is just basically like immigrant communities. Sure, yeah. Right. So without immigrant communities and with like a government that's actually taking care of the basic needs that sort of fuels emo type rebellion, I wonder, like I identify very much with school dropouts who were sleeved, but I would be very happy if a country didn't produce that also.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah. Well, I think that a country with a more healthy and collectivist culture would produce less of that. Because like I think about my own, right, being in the punk scene, I was a fucking pissed off, angry teenager, and like I was like, this shit's fucked up, I don't fit in. And when I went to my first punk show, it was like everyone there was like my family, everyone there was pissed off, everyone there hated the fucking government, they all thought this was bullshit, they all knew we were getting fucked, and I felt better. I was like, Oh, these are my people, you know what I mean. But had I been in a culture that was healthy and good and and that I felt like I belonged in, that was more community-oriented, and because that's what I was looking for community. That's what people want, you know. That's all anybody wants. Absolutely, and punk rock gave me that community. Um, now I hate punk rock. I think they're a bunch of degenerates, the punk scene is fucking awful. Too many anarchists. Yeah, I don't like to be a well the but you punk rock is 100% in the confines of fucking liberalism. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Uh so um, and plus it so much of it is I don't know, I don't want to go into another digression about punk rock, but I was thinking, uh, you know, we don't really have real counterculture anymore. We don't really have that. There's like criminalized lump in, and that is sort of became a trend, especially in like Bling era rap from 2000s on. Everybody is LARPing like they're a criminal, yeah. Right? Like these suburb kids with face tats and whatever. It's kind of like, okay. Well, uh before that, there was earnest counterculture people, but they were like literally like tradcon hippies. Yeah, Christian cultists and Christian commune members, and they just were doing drugs given to them basically by the CIA. I read a book one time that said basically if you did see if you did acid in the 60s, you got it from a Fed. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Someone you you were in the supply chain that was distributed by the feds, 100%. You got in the city. Like at one point, yeah, uh uh I think one year the CIA bought all of the acid Sandas manufacturing had out of France. They bought they bought them out. Their whole stock of C of acid was bought out by the CIA. It was like so, and that's why when you see I watch the odd documentary here and there about like r uh underground acid um manufacturers, and they get treated like they're fucking counterfeiters. Yeah, they get shut the fuck down crazy. The feds hate it when you make your own acid for whatever reason. I think there's nanotechnology in the acid Cappy, they're tracking you.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

They might be. I've only done acid once, so I might be safe. Did you not did it not agree with you? I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

Yeah, I've been on a couple bad trips.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Yeah, it was I I I just after that I didn't feel the need to ever do it again. I I it took me like months to recover mentally from that, and uh maybe I did too much.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

You know, it was my first time I did two tabs, but I don't think that a punk scene would be very uh copacetic for that.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

No, I bought a bunch of punks and they forced me to do stuff I did not want to do, like watching natural born killers and the yellow submarine, and I was like, that shit was too much. I was like, can't we just go lay out in the grass and look up at the cities? You gotta be upset, you gotta be walking around.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

So it's a little bit nicer because you like drop acid and like go to the beach. So it's like you're there and you're grounded by the motion. So sort of like mushrooms, you have to be grounded by something. You can't be inside in a room, a square room, covered with like fake sheetrock. You know what I mean? You're all too confined and you're restricted, so you go like too inward and you have a bad trip because you're basically a monkey in a cage. But if you go outside and you're watching the trees blow and the grass move and the sand and the waves crash, you're like, oh, this is okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Well, that was the best part of my trip was when I was coming down and we were outside having a cigarette and the trees are dancing, you know, and I was like, Oh, I feel better now. I had to come outside.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

There's something about the natural rhythm to nature that grounds you, like your animal brain. Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. And that is, and I don't know if I would want the DPRK necessarily to have those experiences, though, Cappy. That's the thing. I don't I I don't need there maturing is realizing that not everybody so that it's a very interesting thing. So it's almost like we judge other countries' freedom by their uh ability to do self-expression because in America self-expression is all you have.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Right? So I don't so at the same time, I don't know what litmus tests I would use for self-actualization in a country that actually uh uh covers your needs.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Yeah, yeah. I get you, yeah. I know that um in the DPRK they have a a very strong uh drinking drinking uh culture and they also really enjoy hemp. Uh not necessarily THC, but CBD is very big. You can you can get it at the market and roll up, you know. I I read an article uh written by some people who went to the DPRK and and smoked up their tour guide. It's pretty basic. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

Yeah, so well hopefully we'll get to smoke some uh DPRK hemp one day. Oh fuck, I'd love to. Yeah, give some give some little miscreants stick and poke tattoos and teach them how to kick flip.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Hey, uh there's a great story. Some skaters brought a skateboard to the DPRK because they only at their local skate park in Pyongyang, the guy who ran it only had like one skateboard and it was basically like a Walmart board, you know. Um, and so they brought their skateboards because in Pyongyang they mostly rollerblade and roller skate, but they uh they were flying around the the Pyongyang skate park on the board and letting the kids try it and stuff. And I was like, oh, that's so cool. That's the type of shit that when I saw that when I was first getting into communism, it it made me realize oh, North Koreans are just humans and enjoy the shit that we do.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

As soon as the US stops fucking with them. Yeah, absolutely and Korea reunifies and they kick out those reactionary, the the fascist military regime imposed upon South Korea.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Well, I don't think that's in the books anymore.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Oh, it's gonna happen. Oh, for through sheer uh force of will.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Originally they they wanted to do a a uh one country, two systems deal, kind of like what China does. Um but now uh I I get the feeling they're instead trying to to an extent normalize really like they're now calling South Korea the Republic of Korea. They never did that before.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

So it's I think that after like you know, they they blew up the arch and everything, their unification arch, and they were basically like we're no longer trying to unify with South Korea.

SPEAKER_02 53:46

Well, it's interesting because if if uh some rogue administration in the US kicks off a big global conflict, Taiwan is reunified like the next day, right? It's like okay, they have to. They would have to secure Taiwan, like a hundred percent, and uh to encapsulate that area from Filipino military bases that the US is operating. So that's like number one, and number two, I would imagine how long can South Korea hold out, you know what I mean, with China not facilitating the US in that way any longer.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Yeah, you know, so it wouldn't hold out long, it wouldn't hold out very long at all. No, Dave, I I think if it came down to World War III, the the Koreans would have no choice but to to take the South.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Yeah. Yeah, for to Springboard. Yeah, because it would become another front, effectively.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Uh okay, well, I think that's it.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Yeah, that's the news this week.

SPEAKER_02 54:42

We got through some news. All right. Uh anything else you want to tell these uh reprobates?

SPEAKER_01 54:46

Nah, you know, have a good oh fuck, Smokey. God damn, hop down. Almost made it through the podcast without a smoky appearance. Go, go, go. Did you see jump up? Yeah. I did. I saw a little tailor going. Smokey says hi, that that's all I have to say. So all right, everybody. Bye-bye. Later.