Speaker 1: They showed up in force or a fiery face off
Speaker 1: in the heart of Hollywood. Two opposing groups of demonstrators,
Speaker 1: pro Palestinian and pro Israel disrupted a star presentation ceremony
Speaker 1: on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this Tuesday. That's because
Speaker 1: the recipient was wonder Woman, herself Israeli actress Gal Goodote.
Speaker 1: It takes wonder Woman to help us get through this,
Speaker 1: so please come up on to the stage. The Dote
Speaker 1: also stars as the Evil Queen in the newly released
Speaker 1: version of Snow White.
Speaker 2: You know, I really don't remember you being this opinionated.
Speaker 1: In her speech, she avoided politics and did not acknowledge
Speaker 1: the commotion outside the tent, which shielded her somewhat from
Speaker 1: the growing tension around her. Standing here today on this street.
Speaker 3: Fifteen years ago we came here and we were.
Speaker 4: Driving by this boulevard.
Speaker 3: Who would ever.
Speaker 1: Get the long awaited honor tarnished to a degree, Godote
Speaker 1: has been an outspoken advocate for her native country, denouncing
Speaker 1: the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October seventh of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Now, escalating conflict in the Middle East
Speaker 1: is leading to growing confrontations here in southern California.
Speaker 2: Welcome the Struggle Session. On today's episode, superstar journalist Taylor
Speaker 2: Lorenz joins us to discuss earned events, Gala Gadeo's acting
Speaker 2: League of Wars, Insecure Group, tats, all that and more.
Speaker 2: On today's Struggle set, Taylor tell me about user Mag.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, user maag is my substack. It's usermag dot
Speaker 4: co and it comes out usually two to three times
Speaker 4: a week, unless it's busy, in which case it comes
Speaker 4: out more. It's a newsletter about sort of everything happening
Speaker 4: on the Internet. It's about how the Internet is affecting politics, business,
Speaker 4: and culture.
Speaker 2: Positively, is mostly how it's affecting everything, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's so great. Yeah, it's not super dark. I write
Speaker 4: a lot about like Internet cultures and communities, and so
Speaker 4: a lot of it is about like weird internet phenomena.
Speaker 4: But then a lot of it ends up being politics too,
Speaker 4: which is the more dark stuff, I guess lately, because
Speaker 4: the Internet has not been so great for our political
Speaker 4: system in some ways. In other ways it has been.
Speaker 4: I write a lot about free speech and free speech.
Speaker 4: Issues related to free speech, and they need to preserve
Speaker 4: free speech online, so I care a lot about that topic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the topics we're talking about today some hot
Speaker 2: topics in the news that deal with all those issues,
Speaker 2: you know, free speech, the internet, what's hot on the internet.
Speaker 2: One thing that a lot of people are talking about,
Speaker 2: and then is right up the struggle session alley, something
Speaker 2: that we've been talking about for a while. There's been
Speaker 2: a brand new hit piece put out on a young
Speaker 2: actor who has upset some executives in Variety magazine. And
Speaker 2: we've covered this topic a few times when it happened
Speaker 2: to a Fisher and a couple other people. But it's
Speaker 2: this recurring pattern and it's usually involved a journalist's named
Speaker 2: Tatiana Siegel who wrote this article title Inside Disney's Snow
Speaker 2: White Fiasco, death Threats, beefed up Security and the social
Speaker 2: media Guru for Rachel Ziegler. Now, from that title, you
Speaker 2: think it might be about how Rachel Ziegler had to
Speaker 2: deal with, you know, death threats and had needed beefed
Speaker 2: up security because of her outspoken this relatively speaking about Palestine.
Speaker 2: But no, no, that's not what the article is at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the article is hit piece is a great word
Speaker 4: for it, and I don't use that word lightly because
Speaker 4: I hate when people call things hit pieces where it's
Speaker 4: just critical reporting. But this article just attacks Rachel Ziegler.
Speaker 4: As you mentioned, it's written by this journalist who has
Speaker 4: a history of carrying water for bad people. She has
Speaker 4: basically whambasted others for speaking out against Palestine. She's run
Speaker 4: cover for a lot of sort of like Ziona's propaganda
Speaker 4: frankly in the media, and now this article there, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're they're basically trying to make an example of Rachel
Speaker 4: Ziegler and sort of chastise her for speaking out. They
Speaker 4: talk about how she's like unhinged online and had the
Speaker 4: gall to say free Palestine and you know.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, and literally like that, like literally I'll read
Speaker 2: from the article, so to lay out the context a
Speaker 2: little bit. Snow White is the latest big flop in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: It colls a bunch of money, it end up not
Speaker 2: making that money back, and the blame game starts, and
Speaker 2: this one in particular is focused on this the one
Speaker 2: actor in this movie, and it's a ridiculous attempt to
Speaker 2: blame her one or two tweets mentioning Palestine for this
Speaker 2: movie not being popular or successful, when there's plenty of
Speaker 2: other reasons why it wouldn't be and I had literally
Speaker 2: not heard of this at all until after the movie
Speaker 2: came out.
Speaker 4: It's framed as as she's the problem because she called
Speaker 4: attention to a free Palestine in a single tweet. Never
Speaker 4: mind that gal Gado co stars in the movie, who
Speaker 4: is a very vocal Zionist. She's an Israeli actress, you know,
Speaker 4: served an IDF. Like so many people didn't want to
Speaker 4: see the movie because of that, and didn't want to
Speaker 4: support the movie because of gal Gudo's open support for Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On August twelfth, twenty twenty four, three days after
Speaker 2: Rachel Ziegler hit the stage at Disney's the twenty three
Speaker 2: Fan event to introduce the first official official trailer of
Speaker 2: Snow White, she thanks supporters effusively in that ex posts
Speaker 2: for driving the teaser to one hundred and twenty million
Speaker 2: views in twenty four hours. One minute later, she added
Speaker 2: an afterthought in the same thread and always remember free
Speaker 2: Palasti that addendum, which amassed eight point eight million views,
Speaker 2: which is like not that, which is much much less
Speaker 2: than you know, people who saw the trailer, Yeah, quickly
Speaker 2: made the rounds and the Disney executives. The story continues
Speaker 2: or were completely upset about it. Mark Platt, who we
Speaker 2: can talk a little bit about him. He's a producer
Speaker 2: of this film. He's a long time Disney producer. Disney
Speaker 2: executive raised the studio's concerns with Ziegler's team, while the
Speaker 2: film's producer, Mark Platt flew to New York to speak
Speaker 2: directly with her over just the tweet. But she apparently
Speaker 2: did not back down, as she did not delete for
Speaker 2: her the tweet, which is awesome. I love that, but
Speaker 2: it's so bizarre, like this one little line when at
Speaker 2: when we've talked about on the show before what once
Speaker 2: October seventh happened, dozens and dozens of celebrities making these
Speaker 2: explicitly like genocidal comments and posts you know completely will
Speaker 2: have been completely beyond the pill before then, none of them,
Speaker 2: basically none of them faced any sort of repercussions. In fact,
Speaker 2: their careers have improved. I think Jenny Nicholson, the guy,
Speaker 2: the woman who's married to the guy who fucked the pie,
Speaker 2: an American pie, like they have like a cut like
Speaker 2: a movie, like a TV movie show on TBS now
Speaker 2: like after her making like like you never get punished
Speaker 2: on that side. But this one little tweet prompted Mark Platt,
Speaker 2: and this is not the first time this producer has
Speaker 2: done something like this. He tried to get Boots Riley
Speaker 2: fired from his agency because Boots Riley is outspoken about Palestine.
Speaker 2: He he did, He's he's gone on his son's podcast
Speaker 2: and talked about the fact that he goes and like
Speaker 2: confronts actors on like on the set of Wicked if
Speaker 2: they were tweeting about pre Palaestinde and explaining to them, why,
Speaker 2: actually that's you know, you don't have the full context
Speaker 2: and you don't understand.
Speaker 5: Several members of the Wicked cast, including Ariana Grande, Cynthia Rivo,
Speaker 5: Bowen Yang, have been active, at least online in their
Speaker 5: opposition to Israel artists for a ceasefire. As someone who
Speaker 5: cares so much about your professional relationships and the product
Speaker 5: you're making on set, how do you navigate that.
Speaker 3: I talk to people, and I think that particularly in
Speaker 3: those instances, people are told that something is about something
Speaker 3: in a very reductive way, and it feels like who
Speaker 3: doesn't care about innocent right tragedy, innocent civilians? Nobody wants
Speaker 3: No decent human being wants any suffering in humanity from
Speaker 3: decent people. What happens in instances is individuals ascribe their
Speaker 3: names to something where they're not being completely informed, and
Speaker 3: the messaging to them is they're.
Speaker 2: Suffering here, right, we have to speak out for suffering.
Speaker 3: The message doesn't include there's also suffering over here, or
Speaker 3: they're suffering that was prompted or instigated by an act
Speaker 3: of terror or an act of evil, or there's a
Speaker 3: terrorist group in place that wishes for the annihilation of
Speaker 3: a whole group of people that gets left out of
Speaker 3: the conversation. And so my way of Lillians is when
Speaker 3: the moment is right, is to have that conversation.
Speaker 2: So this is like a producer who goes around places
Speaker 2: his foot on a scale, but that's not the story
Speaker 2: and variety. The story is that he was forced to
Speaker 2: do this, you know, he had to go out of
Speaker 2: his way because he just hates And it frames it
Speaker 2: like Ziegler is the one who's politicizing this while all
Speaker 2: the politics that everybody else is doing is just how
Speaker 2: it's supposed.
Speaker 4: To be exactly. Yeah, and that's what makes it such
Speaker 4: an incredibly biased article. And it's just been so disturbing
Speaker 4: also just to see the reaction to it, and the
Speaker 4: way that the right has really come for her. I
Speaker 4: mean this, as you mentioned, the headline is talking about
Speaker 4: death threats. It doesn't talk about the hate and abuse
Speaker 4: and targeted harassment that Rachel has received for speaking out.
Speaker 4: It actually frames gal Gado as a victim, as if
Speaker 4: gal Gado is a victim at all. Galgado is the
Speaker 4: one pushing this genocidal rhetoric against Palsenians.
Speaker 2: She was the idea of Souldier. I think this fair
Speaker 2: game for her to be criticized. But the article says
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, death threats towards Ziegler's co star gal Gado,
Speaker 2: who is Israeli. I guess which is a protected class
Speaker 2: now spiked and Disney had to pay for additional security
Speaker 2: for the mother of four. She didn't. This is a
Speaker 2: quote she beating. Ziegler didn't understand the repercussions of her
Speaker 2: actions as far as what that meant for the film
Speaker 2: for gal for anyone says one insider again, well.
Speaker 4: How it's an anonymous It's always the anonymous insider. Who
Speaker 4: the heck is the inside or some random person that
Speaker 4: Tatiana called up. There's no attribution, and this is the
Speaker 4: hallmark by the way of bad reporting, and what so
Speaker 4: many bad reporters do, Like so many of these bad,
Speaker 4: lazy media reporters, especially entertainment reporters. They know, I mean,
Speaker 4: David folknflicat NPR is a perfect example of this. Same
Speaker 4: with Dylan Buyers at PUCK. You know, these are people
Speaker 4: that make a living publishing false information and lies and
Speaker 4: and framing stories and manufacturing controversy. And what they do
Speaker 4: is they sort of rely on these anonymous sources. And
Speaker 4: you know, insiders say da da da. Of course it's
Speaker 4: never attribute there's no attribution. It's like, okay, well, if
Speaker 4: you're an insider, say it, like and why are you
Speaker 4: granting these people anonymity to shit talk their colleagues. You
Speaker 4: grant people anonymity when they're in danger, when they are
Speaker 4: revealing state secrets or something. You don't just grant anonymity
Speaker 4: because so you want to anonymously allow somebody's colleague to
Speaker 4: shit talk them. But that's the standard today in journalism.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's unfortunately what these outlets accept as journalism
Speaker 4: because it's not about journalism, it's not about reporting, it's
Speaker 4: about pushing a narrative at all costs and it's about
Speaker 4: punishing anybody that speaks truth to power, which is what
Speaker 4: Rachel did.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Like I love that you mentioned like the standards
Speaker 2: for when you provide anonymity and how this does not
Speaker 2: apply at all, Like like Takiana Seagulls specifically will say,
Speaker 2: like an anonymous executive, why would you grant an executive
Speaker 2: from any sort of anemy. He's not under threat. You know,
Speaker 2: today they're usually talking about, like complaining about like actors
Speaker 2: like Ray Fisher or Michelle Barrera or you know, all
Speaker 2: actors and workers are crashed in these media hit pieces
Speaker 2: that don't seem to serve any news purpose other than
Speaker 2: it pleases the sources of Tatiana seagull And obviously these
Speaker 2: are important sources to have if they're literally top executives
Speaker 2: in Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Wait.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's also like she doesn't care about the
Speaker 4: top executives in Hollywood that are going to speak out
Speaker 4: on behalf of Rachel. It's just about pushing a narrative.
Speaker 4: And again that's what these lazy entertainment journalists and media
Speaker 4: journalists do. They have a narrative in their head. They
Speaker 4: want to manufacture controversy, and they want to punish and
Speaker 4: stigmatize anybody that speaks out, and so they will make
Speaker 4: these unsourced sort of stories basically that grant people anonymity. Now,
Speaker 4: by the way, what they say like an insider or
Speaker 4: an executive, it's probably not even what you and I
Speaker 4: think of as when we think of as an insider
Speaker 4: an executive. This could literally be an executive you know,
Speaker 4: in the entertainment industry that has absolutely no knowledge, that
Speaker 4: has never even worked in the movie business, but is
Speaker 4: an entertainment executive and they have thoughts to share. We
Speaker 4: don't know anything again, because they are not explained or
Speaker 4: not giving any context. But I think that lack of
Speaker 4: that context is very telling because if this was an
Speaker 4: executive that was directly involved with the project, they would
Speaker 4: say that, or if this was an executive that had
Speaker 4: knowledge of the project, they'll say that. But like, I
Speaker 4: just think they use all of these terms that make
Speaker 4: you think that it's they've spoken to somebody that actually
Speaker 4: has knowledge of a situation when they haven't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one other thing I want to mention before
Speaker 2: we move on from this about gal Gado because we've
Speaker 2: kind of covered her, but in this article she's described
Speaker 2: as this for her part Gudeau kept her comments on
Speaker 2: geopolitics limited to offering support for the civilian hostages taking
Speaker 2: during the October seventh Hamas attack and did not mix
Speaker 2: that message with the promotion of the film.
Speaker 4: What. First of all, Palestinians are innocent, Like these innocent
Speaker 4: Palestinians that are being slaughtered, they're innocent. I don't know
Speaker 4: where this is coming from. That Like only the Israeli
Speaker 4: hostages are innocent. What about the thousands of innocent Palestinians
Speaker 4: that Israel has captured even before October seventh, Like Israel
Speaker 4: has been committing genocide against the Palestinians for a long time, repeatedly.
Speaker 4: And so it's just the framing is absurd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and absurd for another reason, because that article came
Speaker 2: out yesterday, March twenty fifth, so it says Doau kept
Speaker 2: her comments on geopolitics limited, but on marcheenth. Also in Variety,
Speaker 2: in the article by Capsi Stefan called gal Gado's Walk
Speaker 2: of Fame ceremony about how it was disrupted by protesters.
Speaker 2: This is how Variety again described Goodo. Goodeau, who is
Speaker 2: Israeli has been an outspoken supporter of Israel on social
Speaker 2: media as well as in a passionate speech she delivered
Speaker 2: on March fourth, when she was honored at the Anti
Speaker 2: Defamation League's annual summit in New York City. Never did
Speaker 2: I imagine now on the streets of the United States
Speaker 2: and different cities around the world, who see people not
Speaker 2: condemning Hamas but celebrating, justifying, and cheering on a massacre
Speaker 2: of Jews, she said, in part, So when they want
Speaker 2: to portray her as the Israeli wonder woman, she's an
Speaker 2: outspoken critic. But when they want to bash Rachel Ziggler
Speaker 2: and blame the failure of the movie explicitly on her
Speaker 2: political comments and not Godeau's, you know, she's just barely
Speaker 2: said anything which is absurd, like even a goodo doing
Speaker 2: like the Imagine video, right, Like you could just blame
Speaker 2: the bad box office for snow White on that. And
Speaker 2: Goodeau has been kind of like a laughing stock since
Speaker 2: that video, and people just constantly talk about how she's
Speaker 2: maybe the worst actress.
Speaker 4: Your actress's terrible. That's the other fundamental issue here is
Speaker 4: that she's an atrocious actress.
Speaker 2: And that's what the review said. So even if you
Speaker 2: were writing an autopsy of this film, maybe you could
Speaker 2: mention the Ziegler aspect as part of it, right, part
Speaker 2: of the controversy around it, But the Goodeau stuff was
Speaker 2: fairly large as well. And the fact that she's an
Speaker 2: awful actress. Now, she's not the worst actress the actress,
Speaker 2: I think. And we'll talk about this on our next
Speaker 2: episode where we talk about Captain America Brave New World.
Speaker 2: They actually found Israeli actress even worse than Goodoh in
Speaker 2: Captain America. And she plays an Israeli secret agent in
Speaker 2: this movie, and she's probably she's even worse than Goodough.
Speaker 2: And she's not even like tall or you know, look
Speaker 2: like a superhero, so even like they're just I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. And she is an outspoken supporter of
Speaker 2: the IDF and the I don't see an article about
Speaker 2: her being blamed for the somewhat middling box office of
Speaker 2: that film.
Speaker 4: Right exactly. It's just totally asymmetrical, all right.
Speaker 2: So moving on to talking a bit more about some
Speaker 2: bad journalists. And this is a huge NOE news story.
Speaker 2: Everybody's talking about this one in the most useless way,
Speaker 2: I think, generally speaking. But old Jeffrey Goldberg, who I
Speaker 2: have not. Unfortunately have not gotten the chance to talk
Speaker 2: about on the show as much. But I love to
Speaker 2: remind people that Jeffrey Goldberg, who is the Other in
Speaker 2: chief of the Atlantic, long time other in Chief, their
Speaker 2: friend of tonnah heasy Coats and also former IDF concentration
Speaker 2: camp guard. Jeffrey Goldberg, who is American, left college to
Speaker 2: serve in the IDF. He was guard at the Kezatic
Speaker 2: detention cap during the First an Antifada. It was infamous
Speaker 2: for the torture, rape, and murder of Palestinians. Golberg described
Speaker 2: his time as exotic and exciting as that is so disturbing. Yes,
Speaker 2: and that's who Jeffrey Goldberg is. And it's not a
Speaker 2: surprise to anyone who's read the Atlantic coverage of the
Speaker 2: Tenna side in Palestine. It has his hand on the scale,
Speaker 2: and he, of all journalists in the world, was invited
Speaker 2: to well, I guess it's maybe it's not a coincidence.
Speaker 2: He was invited to a group chat, a signal chat.
Speaker 2: I believe with I think hoaxth Vance and other people,
Speaker 2: whether we're talking about planning bombings of the Houthis as
Speaker 2: part of revenge for the Hoothise fulfilling their international obligations
Speaker 2: to try to stop the genocide from happening.
Speaker 4: I think somebody tweeted something funny that was like they
Speaker 4: must have had multiple Jeffrey ID apps in their phone.
Speaker 4: I think, what's I mean, Look, I'm glad that The
Speaker 4: Atlantic published these texts so that we can see just
Speaker 4: how cavalierly these people talk about killing innocent civilians. Like
Speaker 4: there's one point where they acknowledge that innocent civilians will
Speaker 4: be killed, and they're sort of celebrating these killings. So
Speaker 4: I think it's like a very interesting window into what happened.
Speaker 4: I do also think that the criticism is very valid
Speaker 4: of like why why was this framed in this way?
Speaker 4: I mean, unfortunately the Atlantic, like they do publish amazing
Speaker 4: work and like tech, and actually their tech coverage is
Speaker 4: incredibly good, but when it comes to like war, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like like neo cons like I mean, they're just
Speaker 4: like war hungry type of that's the editorial outlook there,
Speaker 4: and that's unfortunately, that's the editorial outlook for most of
Speaker 4: mainstream media. Like I don't think that they're unique in
Speaker 4: that I worked at the New York Times for years
Speaker 4: as well, and like that's very much as well. The
Speaker 4: editorial outlook at the New York Times. I mean, they
Speaker 4: famously cheered on the Iraq war, like there's nothing that
Speaker 4: a lot of these mainstream media outlets want more, whether
Speaker 4: they'll admit it or not, is war because it provides
Speaker 4: a steady stream of content, it gives reader interest like it,
Speaker 4: and a lot of these people that run the media
Speaker 4: are yeah, like former military people, former I guess IDF soldiers,
Speaker 4: like people that have been involved in the military industrial
Speaker 4: complex in some way, and they're certainly not anti war activists.
Speaker 4: So it's disturbing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Goberg what he did with this story was
Speaker 2: he basically he saw plans for like where, when, and
Speaker 2: where bombing was going to happen. And there was this
Speaker 2: bizarre discussion where they were basically say saying, most of
Speaker 2: the people in the chat were saying, we should probably
Speaker 2: delay this for a month because I forget what reason,
Speaker 2: like because they kind of didn't know what they were
Speaker 2: fucking doing. Yeah, maybe we should probably just put this
Speaker 2: off for a month. And then they get word that
Speaker 2: Trump says no, no, it's green light, So like, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I guess we're doing this and Jeffrey Godberg is reading
Speaker 2: all this and this is real talk about real people,
Speaker 2: about being about to be killed, and he sits on it,
Speaker 2: does nothing with it. Just like I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: imagine what would the biopic of does person be like
Speaker 2: when you imagine the journalists right being given this information.
Speaker 4: That my favorite part is then he removed himself. Yes,
Speaker 4: why would you remove yourself from that chat? Why would
Speaker 4: you do that? The only thing that I will say,
Speaker 4: because I was talking to other journalists about it, because
Speaker 4: we were like, why why would you ever do that?
Speaker 4: Like it just it shows this obsession with like decorum
Speaker 4: and all this DC insider shit that is so stupid.
Speaker 4: The only thing that I think could have been a
Speaker 4: concern is like, either are all these like like national
Speaker 4: security espionage like rules and stuff, and like I not
Speaker 4: to give him too much of the benefit of the doubt,
Speaker 4: because I do think he should have at least say
Speaker 4: something before you leave, at least ask for comment in
Speaker 4: the chat or say something like I don't know, but
Speaker 4: it was like there could be like legal like you know,
Speaker 4: just he was nervous about being like arrested.
Speaker 2: He's afraid of going to jail. The former prison guard
Speaker 2: is afraid to me, I know, I know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I just cannot imagine any like journalists other journalists.
Speaker 4: Serious, no, no, no, no, they wouldn't like.
Speaker 2: The idea of what we think of a journalist should
Speaker 2: be right, Like you're giving information about what the United
Speaker 2: States about to do some which is surely illegal bombing,
Speaker 2: like you would.
Speaker 4: Expose, but then you would post it immediately. You would
Speaker 4: like that would be a huge story that you would
Speaker 4: want to break immediately. You don't want to wait for
Speaker 4: it to happen and then be like he he I
Speaker 4: knew all along. No, of course not. But you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the way that position now is it sort of allows
Speaker 4: them to seem like these bold truth tellers because they
Speaker 4: revealed the text after it happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean by the framing. If I
Speaker 2: didn't explain it earlier. The framing discussion is about how
Speaker 2: the hux Seth and all these guys are just sloppy,
Speaker 2: like unprofessional, and that's the problem, like they were they
Speaker 2: just kind of they added the wrong guy to a
Speaker 2: group text and this is embarrassing for them, and like
Speaker 2: they are trying I guess stereos talk about getting someone fired.
Speaker 2: But that's like kind of the smallest issue of all
Speaker 2: these stuff, Like people are very concerned like, well, when
Speaker 2: we have to bomb someone else, will we accidentally leak
Speaker 2: it out? Like maybe we should just not be bombing
Speaker 2: like at all. And we know that these people didn't
Speaker 2: even think it was necessary, like we're being told, they're
Speaker 2: not even talking about the fact that publicly were told
Speaker 2: that these bombings are necessary for national security to protect Americans,
Speaker 2: while most of these people in this group chat wanted
Speaker 2: to delay it for a month, like yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's just it. I mean again, it just
Speaker 4: shows like the war machine in action and how cavalierly
Speaker 4: they bomb people. I mean, this is America. All we
Speaker 4: do is go around the world bombing and killing people.
Speaker 4: It's like a deeply evil country in that way. And
Speaker 4: so I think, I mean, unfortunately, so much of mainstream
Speaker 4: journalism is deferential to the military world and to the
Speaker 4: government world, and they don't have that antagonistic relationship with power.
Speaker 4: This little tolk of the fact that this attack killed
Speaker 4: fifty three people, as we mentioned, including women and children,
Speaker 4: the civilian toll of these American strikes, are we burying
Speaker 4: the lead here?
Speaker 3: Well, those Unfortunately, those aren't confirmed numbers.
Speaker 4: Those are provided by the HOUTHIS and the Hoothi Health Ministry.
Speaker 1: I guess, so we don't know that for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, well I don't know if we're burying
Speaker 1: the lead because obviously huge breaches in national security and
Speaker 1: safety of information.
Speaker 4: That's a very very important story.
Speaker 2: Obviously, people are cheering on like Jeffrey Goldberg now like
Speaker 2: he's a hero for exposing this chat room after he
Speaker 2: left it and sat on the information. It's just the
Speaker 2: standards they can't get any lower.
Speaker 4: No, you'd have to drag me out of that chat.
Speaker 4: I would never leave that chat.
Speaker 2: All right, And one more topic we can talk about
Speaker 2: before we go. Something else that the media is doing
Speaker 2: awful job of framing when it deigns to mention it
Speaker 2: long COVID Taylor. Apparently COVID is over again. It's done.
Speaker 4: There's a show up about it.
Speaker 2: It's over. It's just been revealed a spokesperson from the HS. Right.
Speaker 2: All right, So as people who have been paying attention
Speaker 2: now with DOGE, they're just getting this government so efficient
Speaker 2: that it won't be able to do a single goddamn thing.
Speaker 2: The Department of Health and Human Services to Science magazine
Speaker 2: a statement announcing that the COVID night pandemic is over again.
Speaker 2: I guess because Biden declared it over a few months.
Speaker 4: If declared it over a million times, and they just
Speaker 4: continue to ignore that people are still dying and it's
Speaker 4: not over, and the World Health Organization is the only
Speaker 4: one that has the authority to declare it over, and
Speaker 4: they have repeatedly not declared it over, and actually just
Speaker 4: last year affirmed that it was still going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pandemic. Check check the prefix. Look up what that means. Pan.
Speaker 2: It's not just one country can declare it over, but
Speaker 2: it's been declared over again. And because of that, HHS
Speaker 2: will no longer waste waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding
Speaker 2: to a non existent pandemic that Americans moved on from
Speaker 2: years ago, Meaning that the NHS is beginning to cut
Speaker 2: funding of COVID nineteen research even as the pandemic contentntinues
Speaker 2: and we're only seeing the beginnings of what's going on
Speaker 2: with long COVID. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't love the phrase long COVID, to be honest,
Speaker 4: because I feel like it really makes people think and
Speaker 4: I know it's a patient derived term, and it's whatever
Speaker 4: it is what it is by now. But I think
Speaker 4: a lot of people don't still somehow don't realize that
Speaker 4: long COVID is just COVID. It means that you have
Speaker 4: something from COVID. It means long term damage from COVID.
Speaker 4: And so all of these people will be like, well,
Speaker 4: I've gotten COVID five times and I've never gotten long COVID.
Speaker 4: It's like, long COVID is not a distinct thing that
Speaker 4: you get. It just speaks to the damage that your
Speaker 4: body has incurred from COVID. And yeah, COVID is still circulating.
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't move on. We haven't moved on
Speaker 4: from like rabies or like measles, or like, I don't
Speaker 4: know what this is even talking about, Like.
Speaker 2: You're still talking about measles and rabies.
Speaker 4: What my god? Like it's just stupid because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: these are ongoing like issues. This is infectious disease. We
Speaker 4: need to care about infectious disease. But of course we
Speaker 4: know that people like RFK don't care about in anxious disease.
Speaker 4: They go out talking about chronic disease. What's the number
Speaker 4: one driver of chronic disease, infectious disease that causes chronic
Speaker 4: health issues like and I mean among environmental factors, which
Speaker 4: he also doesn't want to deal with, aside from selling
Speaker 4: people water filters or whatever, like he's not regulating any
Speaker 4: of these chemical companies or regulating anything to make us
Speaker 4: safer and healthier, and neither are the Democrats. By the way,
Speaker 4: they're also trying to ban masks, Like we've just seen
Speaker 4: the complete dismantling of public health. And it's only possible
Speaker 4: because liberals and leftists have gotten completely on board. Like
Speaker 4: what it's ironic that literally, word for word, what the
Speaker 4: Trump administration is saying is also what all these quote
Speaker 4: unquote leftists on Twitter say every single week. It's just
Speaker 4: they're parroting this far right eugenics talking points and they
Speaker 4: refuse to acknowledge it, and it's terrifying. It's denialism. I've
Speaker 4: covered anti vaxx stuff for years, and even before the pandemic,
Speaker 4: I covered anti vax misinformation online. And the fundamental belief
Speaker 4: in anti vax ideology is that disease is good for you,
Speaker 4: and your immune system is this muscle where you have
Speaker 4: to keep getting infected and that's what keeps you healthy
Speaker 4: is constant infection. That is the bedrock of anti vaxx
Speaker 4: ideology is that disease is good for you. And that
Speaker 4: is now what all of these people on the left
Speaker 4: and right believe. It's a conspiracy theory. And Julia Doubleday
Speaker 4: wrote about this really well actually in a post on
Speaker 4: her sub sect. But it's terrifying. And that's also why
Speaker 4: you're seeing the dismantling of public health across the board.
Speaker 4: It's because it's the right has been on that right,
Speaker 4: like the right has always been about this type of stuff,
Speaker 4: but the left is the people that are enabling it
Speaker 4: and facilitating it and carrying it out. So I just
Speaker 4: want to be careful because I don't want people to think, oh,
Speaker 4: Trump came in and destroyed public health. No, the Democrats
Speaker 4: also are destroyed pubblic health. The left, the socialists that
Speaker 4: refuse to mask. Okay, these people that call themselves communists
Speaker 4: and won't even put a fucking mask on so that
Speaker 4: they don't kill their neighbor, like the tailor.
Speaker 2: You're just saying that because you don't have friends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, I have a lot of friends, and guess
Speaker 4: what they wear masks. It's like these people are such
Speaker 4: losers and they never want to acknowledge people like myself
Speaker 4: and others like I am a high relatively high profile
Speaker 4: media figure, like I travel constantly, I do speaking things constantly,
Speaker 4: Like I take a lot of steps because I'm severely
Speaker 4: immunal compromise, Like I can't mess around with health, and
Speaker 4: so I take a lot of these steps. And you know,
Speaker 4: they love to call like ammunal compromise and disabled people
Speaker 4: like shut in, and it's like, what are you talking about? Like,
Speaker 4: first of all, the people that are home bound or
Speaker 4: bed bound, they don't want to be that way. They
Speaker 4: want to participate in the world, but you've made it
Speaker 4: so that they can't say if we participate in the world.
Speaker 4: And thankfully I live in la Oh. Everything is indoor outdoor.
Speaker 4: I have a great group of friends. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of people here that care about COVID, Like it's totally
Speaker 4: normal to see masking in my neighborhood, like just in general.
Speaker 4: So I live in like a really great place, but
Speaker 4: most people don't. And think about this for two seconds,
Speaker 4: like how does how How is what you're doing right
Speaker 4: now aligned with your ideology? Because you care you claim
Speaker 4: to care about marginalized groups, You claim to care about
Speaker 4: all this stuff, and yet, and yet, during an ongoing pandemic,
Speaker 4: you won't take the most basic public health mitigation protection
Speaker 4: to ensure that you aren't actively killing someone. I just
Speaker 4: don't understand it. I can never understand it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tom Holland, even Spider Man himself, he's going around
Speaker 2: in a mask.
Speaker 4: On Let me tell you something. I was on a
Speaker 4: shoot just this past weekend, and unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 4: protections have been dismantled for shoots. But because I'm immune compromised,
Speaker 4: like any set that I set foot on, everyone's in
Speaker 4: a N ninety five, it's not even a question. And
Speaker 4: I shoot things constantly like I've been. I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: on multiple Netflix documentaries right now, Like every single one
Speaker 4: of those, every single person is masked tested for even
Speaker 4: setting foot on set. So it's it's very doable. It's
Speaker 4: just that these leftists on Twitter that want to costplay
Speaker 4: as communists and don't understand the most basic like I
Speaker 4: don't know, they have no concept of community or community
Speaker 4: care or just like literally just not harming people around you.
Speaker 4: I cannot imagine being so morally depraved that you don't
Speaker 4: care if you kill or disable someone. If I'm still
Speaker 4: now that I know about like a damage and stuff,
Speaker 4: and now that I know how susceptible people like me
Speaker 4: are to viruses, I always wear a mask, even if
Speaker 4: I was perfectly healthy, because God forbid I infect an
Speaker 4: immunal compromised person with some other disease that I don't
Speaker 4: know I have because I'm asymptomatic. Like it's just the
Speaker 4: most basic thing, and it's completely normalized in other countries
Speaker 4: in Asia. It was recently in India where the air
Speaker 4: quality is so bad and everyone's wearing masks. It's totally normalized.
Speaker 4: So we could have it normalized here. But people on
Speaker 4: the left don't want to normalize it. They want to
Speaker 4: go along with Trump.
Speaker 2: So I have to see I hate to see it,
Speaker 2: but Taylor tell me some good news can can be
Speaker 2: where what can people read on user mag What's coming back?
Speaker 4: You can read my online culture analysis and roundups. I
Speaker 4: do a lot of like honestly, just like rundowns of
Speaker 4: everything that you might have missed on the internet. So
Speaker 4: if you want to feel like you're up to date
Speaker 4: with internet culture and online culture, definitely subscribe. I usually
Speaker 4: write like one piece on top, and then I have
Speaker 4: like a list of news stories and recommendations for articles
Speaker 4: to read on all of these topics that we've talked about.
Speaker 4: And more, like I said, it's all about sort of
Speaker 4: like how the Internet is reshaping politics and culture and business.
Speaker 4: So I cover a lot of this stuff. And I
Speaker 4: also have a YouTube channel, so subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: All right, folks, that was Struggle Session Taylor. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, great episode, great talking with you. Sorry we
Speaker 2: had to cover you a little bit short, but I'm
Speaker 2: so glad to have happy to finally have you on
Speaker 2: and I hope to have you on again.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: All right, h'all, Thank you so much for listening today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for Taylor for coming on this show.
Speaker 2: Thank you to our new assistant producer, Chase. Struggle Session
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Speaker 2: Hit us up on email the Struggle Session at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. On our next episode, we'll be talking about
Speaker 2: Captain America, Brave New World, and Black Superheroes with Trevor
Speaker 2: bowl U of Champagne Sharks, one of my favorite guests
Speaker 2: to have on. It's a great episode. Can't wait till
Speaker 2: y'all hear it. Until next time, Peace
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