Forbidden Conversations

My guest on this episode is none other than the wonderful writer, host, podcaster, and comedian Bridget Phetasy. This happens to be our second conversation, with the first taking place during my appearance on her own terrific podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome. So, in a way, this is round two for us. We decided to just let loose and see where the conversation takes us, but we make a lot of stops along the way. We talk about rising extremes, the right fighting with the same tactics as the left, labels, political homelessness, how to avoid falling into thought traps, trusting your own opinions, nurturing an audience that feels empowered to disagree with you, the economics of being an independent speaker, and how to deal with noise of social media.

Bridget Phetasy is a writer and stand-up comedian. She incorporates vulnerability, satire, and mischief into themes about independence, recovery, wellness, and the critical importance of dialogue in our daily civic life.

Bridget has contributed to a wide variety of publications such as SpectatorUSA, Huffington Post,Playboy, Tablet Magazine, The Washington Examiner, The Federalist, The New York Post, Mel Magazine and New York Daily News, sharing her opinions, advice and stories of struggle, faith, grit and resilience.

Her weekly podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome, has become staple listening for many influencers in the social media space. Her relaxed and conversational style provides an easily accessible environment for the sharing of important and topical ideas.

Her YouTube show Dumpster Fire is a satirical commentary on the ridiculousness of the 24-hour news cycle, the culture wars, media, social media and humanity in general.  Bridget is passionate about issues related to addiction, recovery, mental health, sex, and relationships, and is honest in sharing her own experiences. She is a fearless advocate of free speech and tackles the topics of self-censorship and cancel culture with vigor, providing a refreshing dose of common sense in an increasingly insane culture.

Find her on Twitter, Instagram, and consider joining her community of supporters.

What responsibility does an employee or executive have to its corporate employer when it comes to limiting or using their freedom of speech? Does a corporation have the right to control speech? What about their spouse's? What happens when it’s at cross-roads with their own agenda or image? Is some speech deemed more acceptable than other? That’s at the core of much of our discourse on this episode of FORBIDDEN CONVERSATIONS where I’m joined by Jennifer Sey, who had risen through the ranks at Levi’s over her 20+ year tenure at the company and was on her way to become its CEO, until she was pushed to resign due to her vocal opposition to public school closure at the height of the pandemic.

Jennifer Sey is an American author, filmmaker, business executive and retired artistic gymnast. She was the 1986 USA Gymnastics National Champion, and a 7-time member of the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Twitter: @JenniferSey

IG: jenseysf

Substack: jennifersey.substack.com

This time, author, journalist, environmentalist, and former gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger joins me on the FORBIDDEN CONVERSATIONS podcast to talk about “homelessness” as well as a bit of TwitterFiles discourse thrown in for good measure. We discuss the real problems, ethical and practical challenges, as well as potential solutions. 

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER is founder and president of Environmental Progress, an independent nonprofit research organization that incubates ideas, leaders, and movements. Michael is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment," and Green Book Award winner. And he is cofounder of the California Peace Coalition, an alliance of parents of children killed by fentanyl, parents of homeless addicts, and recovering addicts.  

Shellenberger has ran for election for Governor of California twice.  

Shellenberger is a leading investigative journalist who has broken major stories on crime and drug policy; homelessness; Amazon deforestation; rising climate resilience; growing eco-anxiety; the U.S. government’s role in the fracking revolution; and climate change and California’s fires. And he testifies and advises governments around the world including in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.  

Shellenberger has been called a “environmental guru,” “climate guru,” “North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,” and “high priest” of the environmental humanist movement for his writings and TED talks, which have been viewed over five million times. He has been a climate and environmental activist for over 30 years. He has helped save nuclear reactors around the world, from Illinois and New York to South Korea and Taiwan, thereby preventing an increase in air pollution equivalent to adding over 24 million cars to the road.   Michael lives in Berkeley, California and travels widely.

The latest guest on the FORBIDDEN CONVERSATIONS podcast series is none other than Zuby, an independent rapper, author, podcast host, public speaker and creative entrepreneur. Born in England and raised in Saudi Arabia, Zuby is a graduate of Oxford University.

On this episode we discuss his roots going from selling CDs on the street to building up a loyal following of over 1.7 million on social media. We also talk about a high profile incident that had him caught in the middle of guns blazing—literally—and an attempt at politicizing and unfortunate situation. We dive into a changing political landscape, Zuby’s evolution from musician to commentator, his outspokenness, why we’re so divided and what makes engagement more productive, the role of community, and much more.

Zuby has sold tens of thousands of albums independently, performed in 8 countries, and gained 25 million+ online video views. His podcast 'Real Talk with Zuby' has surpassed 5 million downloads and reaches thousands of listeners every week.

He has been featured on The Joe Rogan Experience, BBC, Fox News, Sky News, The Adam Carolla Show, The Rubin Report, The Candace Owens Show and The Ben Shapiro Show, amongst others.

You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

he conversation with my latest guest on 'Forbidden Conversations' was sparked by his insistence that he does not believe that there is such a thing as “bad people.” Naturally, we had to discuss his claim. But before we got around to it, we also end up covering an assortment of other topics including how we can communicate better, the trouble with social media, humanism in the age of hysteria, and more. What has made me interested in ANGEL EDUARDO in the first place is his humanistic approach towards difficult subjects and his creation of the rhetorical concept of star-manning.   

ANGEL is a writer, musician, photographer, and designer based in New York City. He is currently a Senior Writer & Editor for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).  He previously worked as Managing Director of Messaging & Editorial for the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR), and continues to serve on their Board of Advisors as well as a FAIR in the Arts Fellow.   

Angel graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from CUNY Hunter College in New York City, and contributes a column for the Center for Inquiry titled Searching for Better Angels, where he writes on topics such as science, morality, communication, and skepticism.   His writing has also been featured in Quillette, Newsweek, Areo Magazine, and The Caribbean Writer, among other print and online publications. Through his work at FIRE, Angel hopes to continue promoting a culture of free speech, free inquiry, and freedom of expression through honest, good-faith, and compassionate engagement with people across the political and ideological spectrum.

Violence is not something that many of us often think of as a “gift” and yet my latest guest in the “Forbidden Conversations” series, Matt Thornton, wrote an entire book dedicated to the subject, under the title of The Gift of Violence.

The truth is that violence is inherent to the fabric of our society and is part of each of us. But, for many of us, it is perhaps less accessible. And for some of us, it is too accessible. At the core of Matt’s book is the idea of wanting to make “good people more dangerous to bad people.”   

During our extensive conversation, we discuss the role that violence plays in society, jiu jitsu (of which I happen to be a new practitioner), his ideas around the concept of ‘aliveness,’ when violence is useful, when to avoid it, and much more.   If you know Matt’s background, you know there’s perhaps no better person to talk to about the subject.  

The first person in Oregon to receive a black belt, he holds a 5th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and has been teaching functional martial arts full-time for 32 years. His organization, SBG, has over 70 locations worldwide, and he has produced champion MMA fighters, as well as world class self-defense and law enforcement instructors.   Matt founded the first Straight Blast Gym in Oregon in 1992, and has an online Jiu-Jitsu university as well. Some notable competitors that trained at his gym include six-time UFC champion Randy Couture, famed UFC coach and the father of MMA in Ireland, John Kavanagh (trainer to UFC legend Conor McGregor), former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin, UK’s most successful MMA coach, Karl Tanswell, Dan Henderson, and others.   He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Salome, and their children.

Nicki Clyne began her career as an actor, most notably on the hit television series "Battlestar Galactica." She has worked as a writer, a news analyst and television host, but it wasn’t until she experienced the failings of the criminal justice system first-hand that she decided to dedicate herself to much needed advocacy efforts in the field. She works directly with people inside prison and their families, and produces media that raises awareness around important, sometimes controversial, issues.  In this interview, we discuss NXIVM, media narratives, victimhood vs personal responsibility, the #MeToo movement, the role of power dynamics, the consequences of going against the status quo, the state of Keith Raniere's case today, and more.

This conversation is with American cartoonist George Alexopoulos (@GPrime85 on Twitter and Instagram). Here, we discuss whether there’s a limit to how far he can  take a joke, censorship and its impact on exercising his free speech, why there’s fewer conservatives in the arts, the trouble with our interactions on the Internet, and much more.

This time, I chat with Isaac Saul, who I’ve been welcoming into my inbox for many months now.  You see, Saul is a journalist and the founder of Tangle (readtangle.com), an independent, nonpartisan politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the right and left on the big news of the day.   We discuss how Tangle got started, what Saul has learned while publishing Tangle, how journalism has lost trust and how it can regain it, political division in journalism, and much more.

Today's guest is Colin Wright, evolutionary biologist, the Founding Editor of Reality's Last Stand, and an academic advisor for the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.

In this episode we discuss one of the topics that probably scares me most to talk about publicly. And that’s exactly why I’m talking about it.  How did we get to a place where it can be so terrifying to speak on certain topics, and especially so when my own point of view isn’t even particularly controversial? What does that mean for society to find ourselves in this place? How does it harm us and the people that this shutting down of discourse purports to be protecting? How do we dig ourselves out of it? As you might have have guessed, we will be discussing various issues around gender identity. The most dangerous topic on the Internet.

Colin and I agree on some things, probably disagree on a few too, but are more than willing to have a thoughtful and civil conversation.

Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @swipewright.