CJ—Life isn’t about racking up a bunch of accomplishments or hitting certain milestones, it’s about living. Literally physically being alive, and making sure you fully live it.

When I say “fully live” your life, I don’t mean having a bunch of exciting experiences like going skydiving or running with the bulls, and I don’t mean ticking a bunch of boxes like getting married and having kids. I mean actually being present for it. Having your attention in what’s really going on instead of in a bunch of made-up thought fluff in your head. And that actually gets a lot easier to do once you let go of the notion that you’re doing life wrong and that your story isn’t unfolding correctly.

DW—Regarding the Diesel Crisis Prof. Wolff argues that the current diesel crisis is not primarily driven by the war in Ukraine or the bombing of refineries, as claimed by Donald Trump and his administration. Instead, he contends it is a result of capitalist market dynamics, where American refining companies are prioritizing high-profit exports to Europe and Asia over domestic supply, causing scarcity and price hikes at home. Re the supposed intended sabotage of the RAF Fairford air base, Helmer questions the official narrative, characterizing it as a likely propaganda effort intended to influence public opinion toward conflict with Iran and Russia.

RB—The Taiwanese-American Angelica Oung (Amherst College) is part of the thoroughly Americanized diaspora, who returned to Taiwan in 2020 and has been somewhat changing her world view since. Working at the Taipei Times before founding the newsletter Offshore Wind Unredacted and then becoming a substack contributor with Elemental (on Taiwan nuclear issues) and Taipology (on politics). She was a very vocal supporter of the separatist DPP, but has now become disenchanted with them but still operates from many Western ideological suppositions. This is very obvious in her piece on One Country Two Systems. She attempts to make sense of what happened in Hong Kong and does correctly note that the British never really provided Hong Kong with anything near full democracy, while noting that the Party-state offered the direct election by universal suffrage of the Chief Executive in 2015. But she then makes a very major error in completely ignoring the extensive foreign interference in Hong Kong internal affairs and the deep linkages of what she refers to as the “pan-Democrats” with US and other foreign interests; the same when she refers to the Tiananmen protests.

PE—I am not a religious man, but it has always seemed to me that Jesus’ message had great application in life, where those who elect to fight great power must expect hard treatment from it.

The Empire has always used nefarious men and means to break its critics but under Trump there has been a proliferation of an extremely noxious type of prick against whom one has to kick.

Vice President J.D. Vance is one. A man of malleable principles and acolyte of Peter Thiel who, having vilified the Imperial Boob later kowtowed to him to buy advancement. A slick sycophant, he uses his polished frat boy style to cover his contempt for the underclass, his lust for money, and for ruling class prestige.

MW—Trump continues to gaslight the American public—or tries to—regarding how he’s going from one victory to the next against Iran. I’m genuinely curious whether he believes this line about how ‘Iran will collapse after the midterms, so just vote for me,’ or whether he’s simply cynically attempting to jawbone the price of oil down a bit to somehow sneak past the midterms. And then try to figure out some sort of exit. As John Mearsheimer is fond of saying, the MOU was a surrender document that Trump signed, but now he’s trying to back out of it—but Iran keeps insisting on its terms. Which shows that Trump’s word is worthless—not worth the paper he signs. Like Mearsheimer I’m deeply skeptical of the escalation-after-the-midterms narrative

D.O.—The deep state is defined as a fluid, spontaneous network of elite stakeholders across intelligence, military, finance, and lobbying sectors. It is not an organized secret society but a dynamic system that preserves its own influence and interests (2:14-2:57).
Lack of Ideology: The system is described as being inherently pragmatic, using ideologies like socialism or capitalism merely as tools to perpetuate its own existence and homeostatic equilibrium (22:15-23:01).
The US Case Study: The speaker uses the United States as a primary example, highlighting mechanisms like lobbying, “dark money” in politics, and private military contracting as perfectly legal—yet deeply corrupt—ways the deep state exerts influence and shapes domestic and foreign policy.