Conspirituality

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Last week, MAHA Action once again blurred the lines between activist organization and government entity, with RFK Jr, JD Vance, Dr Oz and other officials sharing the stage with dozens of corporate sponsors and private healthcare executives—and Russell Brand. Derek tunes in to this nine-hour fiasco.

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Matthew examines how Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has paired an 18-month austerity rampage with approval ratings near 60%.

Centralized power, new surveillance and protest laws, refugee restrictions, public-service cuts, a tripling of the military budget, climate rollbacks, a seeming refusal to protect the basics of Medicare. Why do so many people love him?

Carney's appeal and ability to absorb critique rests on more than managerial competence. A devout Catholic, Carney manages to make many people feel like they should be respectful and polite and not make a fuss during the high mass of finance, in which crisis is transformed into eternal life. 

Matthew traces Carney's low-key Catholicism through the Pope Francis parable that opens Value(s), his role in the Vatican-backed Council for Inclusive Capitalism, and his practice of the Ignatian daily examen, and how he appeals to medieval canonists as forerunners of stakeholder capitalism. 

Show Notes

Prime Minister of Canada – Statement on the passing of Pope Francis

Open Canada – Book Review: Value(s)

Vatican – Pope Francis to the Members of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism (11 November 2019)

The Catholic Register – The Catholic or the Davos Man?

The Catholic Register – Carney can confirm his Catholic credentials

The Catholic Register – A little Catholic, a bit Davos

APTN – Former day school students say Robert Carney was their principal

Greenpeace Canada – Carney's bills explained: C-2, C-12, C-8 and C-9

The Hub – The Carney government's expanding power to identify Canadians online

Littler – Bill C-39 and federal collective bargaining

National Observer – Budget vows to cut 40,000 jobs from public service by 2029

Environmental Defence – Carbon pricing rollback undermines climate goals

PBI USA – Canadian company equips ICE with armored vehicles

CTV – Canada supports U.S. strikes on Iran "with regret"

Religion News Service – Pope Leo calls just war theory "outdated"

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In 2013, businessman turned independent journalist Jesse Brown launched Canadaland as a podcast focused on media criticism. He grew the business to include many other podcasts, creating his own small media empire. Then October 7 happened and things took a turn. Recently, he hosted anti-vax contrarian doctor, Peter McCullough, in what he claims was a focus on media, but which really turned into a science-denying sh*t show. 

We’ve covered McCullough for years, especially since becoming Chief Medical Officer of supplements grifters, The Wellness Company. There’s a lot to understand about his media tactics, which we’re going to dive into in segments two and three. But first, Matthew fills us in on the rise and stumble of his fellow Canadian’s media journey.

Show Notes

How a B.C. business scion flipped to hawking supplements and conspiracy theories

Risk of Myocarditis after Vaccination

Incidence of COVID-related Myocarditis Higher in Unvaccinated

Clinical Outcomes Worse for Unvaccinated

US Adverse COVID Vaccine Event Deaths

55 Adverse Reaction Deaths Worldwide, 13 Billion Doses Delivered

Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation by Kevin Donovan

Canadaland staff file to unionize

Scott Martin, "What We Lost with Canadaland's Decline"

HESEG Foundation

Jesse Brown Destroyed Canadaland's Credibility 

Justin Ling quits Canadaland hosting role

Noor Azrieh and Cherise Seucharan, "A response to Canadaland's interview with Israel's ambassador to Canada"

Jesse Brown Insists He's Done Nothing Wrong

Avi Lewis, Yom Kippur post on X

Olivia Chow opts out of antisemitism debate

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Who was behind the gunman that shot Pope John Paul II in 1981? We know the man who pulled the trigger was a Turkish member of the Grey Wolves. We know he planned to flee via the Bulgarian Embassy. We know an Italian nun ensured he didn’t get away. 

But had someone ordered the assassination? One possible clue is held in the answer to this next question: how did the Soviet Union collapse? We also know three unlikely heroic figures played pivotal roles: a Czechoslovakian playwright, a salt-of-the-earth electrician, and the Polish Pope.

Even as the totalitarian Soviet empire cracked down against uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the voices of people crying out for democratic freedoms, human rights, and equal opportunity became undeniable.

In his latest historical narrative, Julian weaves together powerful stories of three people who risked everything to defy an authoritarian power. They exemplify the playwright’s ideal of “living in truth,” the electrician’s movement known as “Solidarity,” and John Paul II’s advice that his people “be not afraid.”

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When the Black, 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator stepped onto the F train in Manhattan on May 1, 2023, he was ranting angrily about being hungry and thirsty, willing to kill, die, or go to jail for life. His name was Jordan Neely. He was clearly in distress.

Daniel Penny, a white, 24-year-old former Marine put him in a chokehold and pulled him to the ground. Neely struggled for almost 6 minutes before dying.

Julian reviews Anand Girirdhardas’ new book that places this event at its center. Man In The Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City is Anand’s fifth book. He appeared on Conspirituality in January 2022 to talk about The Persuaders.

In his new book, he takes readers into a deep and rich background of the broken New York City system of social services for unhoused and mentally ill people. He tells the story of how these two very different lives collided, and the consequences that ensued.

Show Notes

Man in the Mirror:  Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City

135: The Persuaders (w/Anand Giridharadas)

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been meeting with MAHA activists in an attempt to bring the coalition to the Democratic party. Recent reporting reveals that she’s been meeting (or trying to meet) with some close to RFK Jr, as well as those who have been critical of the HHS Secretary. It might be a sound political strategy, but what happens when you start courting conspiracy theorists? Derek looks into that first. 

Julian then looks at where MAHA currently is based on two recent Kennedy appearances. Matthew returns to AOCto ask how the DSA might assess her MAHA pivot.

Show Notes

Inside AOC’s MAHA outreach

Rep. AOC Joins the Majority Report

MAHA & The Midterms

What are Contrails?

Trust in Measles Vaccine Falling

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Today's Drop is a crosspost of an interview Matthew Remski did with Brianna Patten of the Surviving Satchidananda Podcast. 

Patten asked him a bunch of really good questions about high control groups, both as a former member and as someone who went on to research their sociology. Matthew finds Satchidananda's Integral Yoga fascinating, because Satchidananda's ascendancy through his Woodstock headline position in 1969 initiated the inward turn of 1960s liberation movements and fostered a tradition of reactionary values dressed as counterculture.

Patten asked about how Matthew got into high-control groups. He talked about how both groups he joined offered a kind of socialism, a hint of a different way to share resources. This echoed the brush with liberation theology he'd had in his Catholic upbringing. As a Gen X person, he was depoliticized, and he probably had undiagnosed depression that made him yearn for whatever impossible thing was being promised.

On the leaving side, Patten asked him if the pain ever goes away. He said maybe, but only as you resocialize into a purposeful life and real friendships, and there are no guarantees. They also talked about how unmoderated survivor forums can reproduce cult dynamics and claustrophobic fixation.

Show Notes

Surviving Satchidananda Podcast 

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Matthew tracks the attack on disability justice activist Beatrice Adler-Bolton after a clip from her Socialism 2026 panel — "Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State" — was stripped of context by a right wing rage-farmer, and made to go viral. Adler-Bolton used the word "dysgenic" ironically, as a reclamation, arguing the left shouldn't try to out-fitness fascists. The clip drew 12 million views and wound up on Rogan.

Matthew unpacks what his colleague Adler-Bolton actually said, and why swoletarians in the “Left Manosphere”—as per Ayman Makarem's framework—misheard her point about fitness as an attack on their attempts to prepare for revolution. 

Show Notes

Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State 

Death Panel podcast

Ayman Makarem, "The Leftist Manosphere and Identity Politics"

Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977

Ben Case, Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence

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Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman returns with Fed Up: What Evolution Teaches About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well. In the book, he tries a variety of major diets, breaking down the latest science around each. His work, Derek argues, is a necessary corrective to the wellness influencers who promote and monetize single-diet solutions, when history and biology tell a much different story.

Show Notes

Fed Up: What Evolution Teaches About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well

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Humans are social animals. We’re not the strongest, fastest, or even best adapted to our environment. But what we excel at is our ability to work together, which means we’ve been able to adapt to every environment, a true outlier in the animal kingdom. And a big reason for that is our ability to empathize with others.

Basically, empathy is the ability to step into someone else's shoes, understand what they are thinking or feeling, and share in that emotional experience. The main types of empathy are cognitive, affective (or emotional), and somatic.

Derek looks at the first two in segment two through the lens of Paul Bloom’s work, but given a recent book by Lebanese-born Canadian marketing professor, Gad Saad (which Matthew covers in segment three), we thought we’d look at how empathy is being used, and potentially distorted, in modern society. Or, as Julian starts with, how it’s being weaponized on social media by Christian nationalists.

Show Notes

This Lebanese-Canadian Behavioral Scientist Is Gaining World Fame

Gad Saad: Google Scholar profile

Jews safer in Mississippi than Canada, says Jewish prof who left Montreal for Ole Miss

He's Canada's number one author, and he's leaving Canada for safety reasons 

David Saad: Olympedia (official Olympic biographical record)

Gad Saad thread on his brother's Olympic/antisemitism story

Trump Says There Are 25 Million Illegal Immigrants

Fact Check: Did 20 Million Illegal Immigrants Enter US Under Biden?

Record 14 Million Unauthorized Immigrants Lived in the US in 2023

Vance magnifies false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets

ADL's Global 100 Survey: What Does It Actually Say About Muslim Attitudes Toward Jews?

Examining the ADL's Antisemitism Audit

Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE)

Flawed by Design: Jewish Faculty Network Response to CASE Report

First Anti-Islam March by Pegida Movement Fizzles in Denmark

Why Moslems Cannot, Will Not, Need Not Integrate

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