No Easy Answers

Today on the show I'm speaking with another longtime friend of mine, Nick Ross. I met Nick while we were working for the same music store in Nashville. We were both wet behind the ears punks at the time. He was a sales hotshot and I had just been made manager over our department, so Nick and I tended to clash on the sales floor. You could probably say that we didn't like each other when we first met and looking back, I was just not a good manager.

When we stopped working together, he and I became the best of friends. We spent a lot of time in our early twenties drinking beer and playing video games and in that time the person that Nick is came into focus, which is part of why I wanted to have this conversation.

If you've ever hung out with the guy, you know he's immediately likable. He's an intense dude, but that intensity mainly comes from his drive, determination, competitiveness, and heart. When I describe him using those terms, I want to emphasize that all of those traits are rooted in such awesome authenticity. His drive doesn't come from a place of insecurity, his determination isn't rooted in his ego, his competitiveness is fueled by his passion and his heart is fiercely loyal to his friends.

He and I have kept in touch since then but a few years ago, as you'll hear, things took a really bad turn for him. If you were to see a picture of this guy today, in the year 2020, you'd never imagine that anything like that happened to him. And that's a big reason I wanted to have Nick on the show - Nick is a beacon of positivity in these dark times. Dude is literally living his best life RIGHT NOW. IN THIS VERY MOMENT - and he radiates positive motivation to those around him, and so I wanted to dig further into all of that in hopes that our listenership can find ways to take some of his positivity, motivation, and inspiration and maybe apply some of that to these difficult days we find ourselves in.

Nick Ross is the Sales Manager for Iron House Strength and Conditioning in Nashville, TN.  Follow Nick Ross on Insta:  @r0ssfit

Music provided by 'Self-Taut':  https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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Today on the show I'm talking with Samuel Thomas. Sam is a longtime friend of mine I met while we were both attending college in Phoenix. He's a music producer and audio engineer, and his artist name is 'self-taut'. If you like the music on this podcast, well that's my friend Sam and I always link to his work in the show notes. The reason I wanted to have Sam on the show is partly that he's my friend and I wanted to catch up with him, but the other reason is that Sam and I are both biracial. We've never really had a conversation about our lived experiences in that context, so I thought when better to discuss that than right now, while our national conversation is centered on matters of race, systemic racism, and political struggle. This is a long conversation and so I've decided to break up the show into two parts, and I'll be releasing them on the same day. Part 1 will be Sam and I speaking about childhood and part 2 will be about adulthood. Music provided by 'self taut':  https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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Today on the show I'm talking with Samuel Thomas. Sam is a longtime friend of mine I met while we were both attending college in Phoenix. He's a music producer and audio engineer, and his artist name is 'self-taut'. If you like the music on this podcast, well that's my friend Sam and I always link to his work in the show notes.

The reason I wanted to have Sam on the show is partly that he's my friend and I wanted to catch up with him, but the other reason is that Sam and I are both biracial. We've never really had a conversation about our lived experiences in that context, so I thought when better to discuss that than right now, while our national conversation is centered on matters of race, systemic racism, and political struggle.

This is a long conversation and so I've decided to break up the show into two parts, and I'll be releasing them on the same day. Part 1 will be Sam and I speaking about childhood and part 2 will be about adulthood.

Music provided by 'self taut':  https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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Today on the show I'm talking with Rainer Shea. Rainer is a friend and comrade I've gotten to know over Facebook and Twitter. He's a writer, a podcaster, and a revolutionary socialist. We're talking about Anti-Imperialism, and the reason I feel this is a conversation worthy of having in his historical moment is that I think many Americans are feeling like we're witnessing the decline of the American Empire.

Things are really bad right now in the United States, both domestically and on the world stage. As we lose favor and respect among our geopolitical allies and hemorrhage credibility, America's standing in the world is on a steady decline. The world order established at the end of World War 2, with the United States being the premier military power and strongest economy, has dissipated. Although the military budget is still roughly three times the size of the Chinese military budget, our country has found itself unable to contend with any other obstacles other than a foreign war. In fact, we are a country that has made its peace with being perpetually at war, and in so many ways, America's imperialism has come home to haunt us.

The rise of the police state, the surveillance state, and the patriot act leave the American public in a panopticon - but the very people who feel they're trapped in this failing capitalist system know American Empire is wounded, overextended in its territories, occupied by wars abroad and crisis at home.

With all of this in our national conversations, I felt like Rainer, who makes anti-imperialism the central focus of his work, would be the perfect person to speak to about this.

Our conversation is vast, but as far as tracing it back to theory, there's some Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Althusser, and Mao.

Rainer Shea - You can follow Rainer on Twitter @rainer_shea and read his journal on his website www.RainerShea.com . His podcast 'Revolutionary Socialist Review' can be found on his YouTube channel https://tinyurl.com/y2thakxq.

Music as always is provided by Samuel Thomas 'Self Taut' and you can check out his Soundcloud here:  https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2/

This week we're talking about Truth, as in capital T truth, and what happened to it.  It's a deep question.  We examine truth from the lens of continental philosophy, taking into account the ancient philosophers that French intellectuals were problematizing and answering to.  It's a short episode, but the content is dense.  Hit us up with questions at [email protected]  

Transcript:  https://medium.com/no-easy-answers/anti-foundationalism-non-essentialism-and-deconstruction-a-crisis-of-language-truth-41919521b51e

Music by:  Samuel Thomas (Self Taut) - https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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This one is sure to ruin your national pride, patriotism, or whatever positive sentiments you have left about America.  Just in time for your 4th of July holiday weekend. 

Topics discussed include:  Francis Bellamy and the pledge of allegiance, the declaration of independence, the American Revolution, Sally Hemings, American Ideology

Intro music by:  Samuel Thomas (Self Taut)

https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2/are-we-gonna-do-this

Transcript of the show:  https://medium.com/@julestaylor_27979/the-american-revolution-was-really-about-slavery-thomas-jefferson-is-a-bastard-and-coupling-c9298ac2fa9a

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This week's episode is about the George Floyd uprising, calls for defunding police, and the global challenge to racism and colonialism.  Topics covered include criminology, historical racism, and the global impact of the murder of George Floyd.  If you like the show and wish to support us, you can donate to https://www.paypal.me/julestaylormusic .  A percentage of the donations will go directly to the Black Lives Matter movement.  

#blacklivesmatter #enoughisenough 

Sources cited for today's show:  https://1drv.ms/w/s!AgjZIcsa2BAvzRXNLqLIGPWuGsvi?e=FqXcwn

Music by:  Samuel Thomas (Self Taut).  More of his music can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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In this episode, Jules tries to relate the whole of moral theory to politics and philosophy over a broad stroke of human history.  

Mentioned in this episode:  Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Robert Nozick

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In this episode, Jules takes some philosophical premise he's heard recently and tries to direct it into something meaningful we can apply towards our world.  He refers to it as 'The Notion'.

There is a solid pathway for obtaining the answer to any question

The right answers fit together in some sort of cosmic jigsaw puzzle

If you like what you hear, you can follow Jules Taylor on twitter @realjulestaylor and be sure to check out his music on Spotify or wherever you get your streaming music and podcasts.  

Intro / Outro Music:  Jules Taylor - Pining 

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