No One Is Competent

People around the world are used to expecting a certain level of corruption from their leaders. Greed and self-interest are a part of the universal human experience. What most people aren't used to, however, is the idea that the leader of their country may be subservient to a shadowy religious figure that has been manipulating their life for over three decades. Join us for this episode of "No One is Competent" as we go over the Park Geun-hye scandal, one of the most intriguing and bizarre events in South Korean politics.

America's presidential elections are notoriously byzantine in their complexity, with thousands of counties all counting votes to report to states that then select electors that themselves vote for the president in a process dating back to the late 18th century. In spite of all of this complexity, for the most part elections end up, well, working. Every now and then, though, the system throws up a result that is close or questionable enough that the power to decide the next President of the United States ends up being thrown into the hands of the other two branches of government. In this episode of "No One is Competent" we'll be discussing the 2000 American presidential election, one of the most infamous elections in recent memory.

We tend to think of big wars as turning points in the history of nations. Battles and campaigns are picked apart at length, and how and why one side wins or loses is subject of much discussion. What comes after these wars, however, is often overlooked. The Civil War is a famous turning point in American history, as its outcome determined whether the nation would exist as a whole or remain split in two, yet the period that followed the surrender of the South was just as important in determining how our society looks and operates. "Reconstruction" was meant not only to bring the Confederacy back into the Union but to remake its society in a more fair, more equal manner. The failures Reconstruction would instead ensure the continued existence of system based entirely on white supremacy, the effects of which continue to be felt to this day.

Of all the ills to spring up in the aftermath of the first world war, perhaps none were as ruinous as the ideology known as fascism. As political extremism spread throughout Europe like a plague, fascist parties, often with the cooperation of traditional conservative and business interests, threatened numerous governments and in some cases successfully gained power for themselves. Yet across the Atlantic America remained relatively safe from fascism, her democratic ideals safeguarded by centuries of constitutional democracy. Or so the story goes - but how true is that story? In this episode of "No One is Competent" we'll look at one of the strangest events in American political history, the "Business Plot" of 1933, and examine both the historical context of this supposed scheme and the evidence for and against its significance.

For over half a century Boeing dominated the commercial aviation industry. Boeing's jet airplanes have carried billions of people in almost every country, and in the process the company built a reputation for safety and solid engineering. It was thus a shock to the world when not one but two of Boeing's latest airliner crashed in a matter of months in late 2018 and early 2019. A look at the decisions that lead to these tragedies reveals how a shifting corporate culture that put profit above engineering and a regulatory body that ceded authority to those that it was meant to be regulating combined to result in the deaths of 346 people. Join us on this episode of "No One is Competent" as we discuss the Boeing 737 MAX.

The year is 1204 AD. Over 800 years after its consecration, the great city of Constantinople, the wealthiest and largest metropolis in all of Europe, lies in ruins. Flames burn through its streets as men in armour pick through its palaces, churches, and even tombs searching for plunder. Constantinople was medieval Europe's greatest connection to its ancient past, a city where much of the knowledge and art of classical Greece and Rome lived on, a wealth that its new masters view as mere prizes to be converted into coinage or shipped off to Italy, France, and beyond. On this episode of "No One is Competent" we'll be talking about the decline of the Eastern Rome and the Fourth Crusade, two stories which would intersect one another in a violent, brutal manner and end up nearly destroying one of Eurasia's oldest empires.

Trust the plan. The great awakening. Where we go one, we go all. All of these slogans and more came to represent one of the most conspiratorial and insidious political movements in American political history: QAnon. In the first "No One is Competent" episode on Q, we discussed the conditions that lead to the creation of this movement. In this second part, we'll go over the history and evolution of QAnon itself, and what effects it has had on both its most ardent believers and the rest of society.

The US Capitol Building. 175,170 square feet that house the seat of legislative branch of the most powerful nation on Earth. For over two centuries the Capitol has stood as a symbol of American law and governance. For it to be breached and desecrated in a time of peace is almost unimaginable, yet on January 6th, 2021, that is exactly what happened. Join us on this special bonus episode of "No One is Competent" as we dive into the series of bad decisions and faulty assumptions that led to the most serious assault on the Capitol in 207 years.

Q. A single letter that represents an entire movement, one that unites both the fringes of the far-right militia movement and the most conspiratorial sections of the internet with mainstream conservative sentiment. We could spend ages talking about the many outlandish and ultimately incorrect predictions credited to the supposed "QAnon," but it's worth looking at just where this movement came from and what conditions have allowed it to flourish in modern American society. In many ways the story of QAnon spans decades and involves countless actors, from Barry Goldwater to Christopher Poole. On this first part of the "No One is Competent" look at QAnon we'll be exploring the origins of QAnon.

"Stalingrad." The mere name of the place evokes imagery of violence, death, and grim desperation. From August 1942 through February 1943 over a million soldiers and civilians would be killed, wounded, or captured in one of the largest battles in human history. At the end of the day, however, the Soviet Union stood triumphant, having inflicted upon Nazi Germany their greatest defeat at that point in the war. On this episode of "No One is Competent" we'll follow up our discussion on Operation Barbarossa by looking at the decisions and events that resulted in the destruction of German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad.