Radically Human

January 6 Hearings: White Rage in Review

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts

(9:45) New at the Radical Secular: Drew joins Christophe and Sean to discuss the next evolution of The Radical Secular, including how Drew, in future shows, will connect elements of popular culture to the progressive themes the team discusses regularly on The Radical Secular Podcast.

(22:04) Officer Harry Dunn’s Testimony: Christophe reads an excerpt from Officer Dunn’s testimony at the hearings at the House of Representatives related to the January 6th Insurrection. Drew and Sean join Christophe in connecting the white supremacy that underpinned the Insurrection with America’s long history of white supremacist violence and it’s explicitly racist founding documents.

(36:18) Wage Slavery: Christophe, Drew, and Sean define the term, “wage slave” and distinguish it from activities that might constitute dignified and meaningful work in a market-based economy. The team also discusses whether wage slavery is inevitable under a capitalist system.

(52:37) Vaccine Mandates: Christophe, Drew, Sean identify the positive role corporations might play in bringing the Delta variant under control via private sector vaccine mandates.

(01:19:14) Wrapup and Outro.

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Show notes:

January 6 House Select Committee Hearing Investigation Day 1 Full Transcript

Lafayette Square, Capitol rallies met starkly different policing response

'People Don't Want to Work for Poverty Wages': Union Leader Disputes U.S. 'Labor' Shortage

The floodgates have opened for vaccine mandates

Vaccination is not enough by itself to stop the spread of variants, study finds

Broadway Audiences Will Need Proof of Vaccination and Masks

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Vax the Filibuster: The Delta Outbreak

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts. Drew Scott joins The Radical Secular team.

(04:32) Pandemic news: Global perspective. The Delta variant outbreak. Many nations have no vaccines. Deaths are soaring worldwide. The decline of the social contract, and the failure of democracies to solve collective action problems through voluntary compliance. Decline in life expectancy in the US. Decline in vaccinations administered since April, and decline in testing.

(28:57) The misinformation infodemic. Parallels to climate change denial. New IPCC report is about to come out. The fallout from America's turn to anti-science. How secularism and science are inseparable. If you're anti-vax, you're not secular.

(35:38) Rand Paul vs. Dr. Anthony Fauci. The undermining of institutions as the central strategy of fascism.

(43:14) The spread of vaccine refusal even before the pandemic. The adoption of anti-vax propaganda by mainstream Republican politicians and media. Without gatekeepers, information has become a direct threat to democracy.

(51:06) When things get bad enough, even Republicans will flip and begin to support vaccines. Recent examples are Alabama governor Kay Ivey, and conservative talk show host Phil Valentine. Valentine is now critically ill and in intensive care, with Covid.

(59:58) The Biden Town Hall.

(01:05:31) Biden and the filibuster. The history of the filibuster. How it works. A century of civil rights and progressive legislation has fallen victim to it. It's one of the most powerful structures in our system holding back justice and equality.

(01:16:05) The Senate itself saddles America with a minority veto, even without the filibuster. This is a relic of our Constitution. Could the filibuster in the hands of democrats potentially be a bulwark against fascism?

(01:23:00) Wrapup and Outro.

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Show notes:

Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant

Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant

What to Expect from the Next Major Global Climate Report

California’s epidemic of vaccine denial, mapped

Alabama’s GOP governor says ‘it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks’ for covid-19 spike

Family says conservative radio host has changed his tune on vaccines after he was hospitalized with Covid-19

Filibuster in the United States Senate

6 Times the Filibuster Helped Senators Kill Big Bills

U.S. Senate representation is deeply undemocratic — and cannot be changed

GOP Senators Haven't Represented a Majority Since 1996

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Blavatsky, the I Am, and The Summit Lighthouse

Featuring guests Dr. Erin Prophet, and Joe Szimhart.

Erin Prophet is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. She specializes in religion and medicine. She has a PhD in religion, with a specialization in Western esoteric traditions, from Rice University, Houston, Texas. She has a master’s degree in public health with an epidemiology concentration from Boston University.

Joe Szimhart is an artist, a cult information specialist, and a mental health professional who currently works for a psychiatric emergency hospital in Pennsylvania. He made his living as a cult interventionist from 1985 through 1998 after exploring and rejecting groups and teachings derivative of Theosophy and New Thought including Agni Yoga, the Mighty I AM, and The Summit Lighthouse, also known as Church Universal and Triumphant.

(00:00) Intro

(01:38) News Segment: Covid and climate updates, rioting and looting in South Africa, the space billionaires, behind-the-scenes reports from Trump's coup attempt, and confirmation of Russia / Putin's long term cultivation of Donald Trump as an intelligence asset.

(25:35) Guest introduction.

(27:49) Guest segment. T-shirts.

(35:23) Discussion of the impact of conspiracy theories. What conspiracy theories are the most dangerous? The role of the conspiracy theory in the human search for truth. Danger point is when people consider that a conspiracy theory is "actionable."

(45:41) Why do people who create "new religious movements" tend to end up re-creating the same problems as the institutional religions they are rejecting?

(51:48) Are there links between QAnon and the "new age" movement generally? Why do you think the new age went so far right? Discussion of the ideological origins and political leanings of the "western esoteric tradition."

(01:08:58) The theocratic undertones of religion, independently of whether or not their doctrines are liberal or conservative. Purity, authority, transcendence. Tension between individual choice and submission to concepts of divinity. Ariosophy as a link to right wing esotericism.

(01:13:34) Christophe discusses growing up Black in The Summit Lighthouse.

(01:18:02) What were the teachings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky on race? The concept of "root races" as distinct from ethnicity.

(01:36:08) The Summit Lighthouse recently hosted a guest speaker Dr. James Lindsay, who is a big proponent of anti-wokeism and opposition to social justice and Critical Race Theory. What does this say about the connection between the racist right and this organization?

(01:44:35) Wrapup and outro.

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Show notes:

"Witch Hunt" a film narrated by Sean Penn

Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity

The QAnon Deception: Everything You Need to Know about the World's Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory

UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascal

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Extreme Heating

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts

(07:46) Current Events: The latest on the Delta variant and the scientific findings. The first Delta variant hot spots in the US. Those vaccinated may be relatively safe but they become disease vectors again. The Critical Race theory saga, the classic engineering of fear and hate for political purposes. How it is all related to power dynamics.

(23:18) A description of the recent extreme heat events that have struck North America. Why are they occurring, the science behind heat domes; the global wind patterns, the jet stream and the effects of human activity. How to make sense of the math.

(53:58) An explanation of how humanity has been experiencing the consequences of climate change for a long time. The destructive aspects of fossil fuels on human society, health and the environment. Civilization and the earth’s vulnerabilities, mitigation and coping prospects.

(01:18:12) A look at possible solutions, including the viability of alternative energy sources and other economic considerations. Being both sober and hopeful about the prospects of surviving climate change disruptions.

(01:27:06) Wrapup and Outro.

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Show notes:

The Engineered Panic over Critical Race Theory

The Pacific Northwest Heat Wave

A Surge in Climate Related Deaths Predicted

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The Vile Pseudoscience of Charles Murray

(00:00) Our one year anniversary episode! A look back on our first year of podcasting. New opening and theme music. Our Patreon launch. T-shirts.

(19:21) The race pseudoscience of Charles Murray is playing a much bigger role in the racist GOP agenda, especially their opposition to the teaching real American history. IQ and crime data may be perfectly accurate, and still don't support Murray's policy proposals. Deriving a terrible "ought," from a terrible "is."

(30:47) Charles Murray's tragic view of human nature. The false dichotomy of the fragility of the American system, being forced to choose between ruthless Social Darwinism and the feared "Utopias" of socialism / communism. The strong connection between laissez-faire capitalism and racist outcomes.

(44:08) Murray's use of the "American Creed" that all men are created equal, and quotes from Martin Luther King to justify perpetuating America's systemic racism. The straw man argument that so-called "identity politics" means that liberals believe that people are inescapably defined by their racial group. Murray's bad-faith claims that any attempt to redress systemic oppression, is actually the the real oppression.

(55:09) America's demographic transformation. Over the past 60 years, cities have become multicultural, while rural areas have remained overwhelmingly European. Misattributing America's political polarization to demographic shifts. Blaming white alienation on black demands for justice. Racial IQ data. The real shape of America's cognitive bell curve.

(01:05:55) Liberals generally have a problem with IQ testing, but according to the American Psychological Association, they are very predictive of educational / job performance. Leveling off of improvements in black IQ scores. Racial IQ disparities in employment. The question of affirmative action policies for universities, balancing fairness between Asian and African minorities.

(01:20:56) Racial crime disparities are real, and are almost certainly a symptom of systemic racism. Possible alternative explanations such as high levels of economic inequality. The GINI coefficient. Murray's outrageous proposal to solve crime and restore urban property values by ethnically cleansing America's inner cities.

(01:32:42) "If We Don't Face Reality." Charles Murray's final chapter reveals his true agenda, which is to reinforce the widespread and paranoid right-wing threat of "disaster" for America if it doesn't restore itself to official white minority rule, which he falsely calls "equality under the law." His words: "The new ideologues of the far left are akin to the Red Guards of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and they are coming for all of us." Yowza.

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Show notes:

Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America

Child scolds school board about BLM posters in school despite ‘no politics’ rule

The stark relationship between income inequality and crime

Episode 52 Transcript, including all charts and graphs discussed

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Power, Ethics, and Global Crisis: Part 2 - The Lifeboat

(00:00) Race vs. Ethnicity. The importance of the language of categorizing social groups. Race was used to justify conquest during colonialism. Ethnicity had to do with categorizing largely European cultural groups. Challenging the essentialism of racial categories: real in terms of culture and experience, but not biology.

(13:53) Intersubjectivity. Objective vs. subjective is one thing. Intersubjectivity involves common beliefs of a culture. They might be false or unreal, but they become culturally reified. Challenges to widely understood truths, or objective facts, have become a cultural signal for conservatives. You can find a group to deny any objective fact you want, and that denial will grant you status among that group. Morality is also intersubjective, and a given cultural morality may or may not support human flourishing.

(24:13) The developed vs. underdeveloped world, and how the terminology has changed from the Cold War era. How economies are ordered, versus how they should be ordered for highest human flourishing. How capitalism has replaced militarism. Population inequities. High consumption societies have higher footprints.

(29:46) The horrific impacts of sea level rise. Climate change since the industrial revolution has raised global sea level by 10 inches. The IPCC estimates an additional 1-3 feet by the end of the century. New estimates are much higher.

(34:50) The lifeboat analogy. When growing populations face a resource crisis, there may only be so many slots available in the lifeboat. If there are drowning people, (who are usually impoverished people suffering from population or climate-induced resource crises), you might not be able to save all of them. How our actions can expand or contract the lifeboat. Political responses. The climate crisis just exacerbates the inequities of capitalism.

(41:44) The refugee crisis. The numbers are staggering. There are 80 million refugees around the world and an increasing number is related to climate disruptions. And there's a direct connection between climate and the Central American refugee crisis that has led to people trying to enter the US. That number will rise as conditions get worse.

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Show notes:

Exterminate all the Brutes

The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish

The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof

Judgment on Hansen’s ’88 climate testimony: ‘He was right’

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Power, Ethics, and Global Crisis: Part 1, Population / Footprint

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts

(04:56) News: Joe, Sean and Christophe discuss the meaning of Pride Month, and the state of the quest for LGBTQ equality. The past struggle for equal rights. Don't be afraid of recognizing majority privilege. Transgender rights are the current frontier.

(10:53) The tension between compromise and progress. Ethics don't allow us to compromise on principle, but political realities often intervene and require us to be satisfied with less than what we want. Poisoning climate action with the culture war. Post-liberalism as a response to "progressive" purity ethics that result in the dreaded circular firing squad on the left.

(18:07) People who want to push ethical change forward must consider questions of power. Violence, domestic and otherwise, is ethically unacceptable. Ethically there's zero tolerance for it. But being able to prevent it through better policy takes having political power. Power in a democracy must have checks and balances and feedback, and that makes quick and ethically perfect solutions politically impossible. Democrats are terrible at playing political hardball. The balance between ethics and raw power.

(29:05) Transgender sports bans. Bans on gender-affirming care. Republican hypocrisy. Culture war issues as pure power grabs. The science strongly supports gender ambiguity. Absolute gender binaries don't exist. Gender is also one of the bedrock categories of hierarchy, which is what makes this battle so fraught.

(38:08) Population and the lifeboat metaphor as the ultimate climate trolley-problem. Neo-Malthusians vs. Cornucopians. Footprint as a an upgraded measurement for resource calculations, that have previously only considered population. Options for managing footprint without depopulation (killing people). Bringing the business community on board. The Exxon proxy fight.

(54:28) Wrap up and outro.

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Show notes:

The Science of Transgender Humanity

The Tragedy of the Commons

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Tulsa, Self-Discipline, Anti-Racism

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts.

(04:02) Tulsa Race Massacre: Christophe summarizes the events of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 192. Christophe and Joe honor the memory. They go on to discuss the Massacre’s erasure from American history books and well as the populist, emotion-laden rhetoric that tends to lead to such incidents.

(18:30) Anti-Semitic Backlash: Christophe outlines the extent of the anti-Semitic discrimination and violence faced by the Jewish diaspora in the wake of the violence in Gaza. Christophe and Joe confirm that anti-Semitism is always wrong, despite Israel’s role as oppressor, for the same reasons that racial slurs leveled at Tim Scott are always wrong. Christophe ties the causes of the current wave of anti-Semitism to those which animated the Tulsa Race Massacre as wall as liberals’ use of the “Uncle Tim” slur.

(39:30) Philosophy, Self Control, and Anti-Racism: Christophe and Joe express the vital role that self control and thoughtful reflection play along the path toward self actualization. Christophe and Joe agree that these are also elements that are central to true anti-racism. Christophe and Joe provide a high level overview of Hedonistic ethics and Stoic ethics, and explain the ways in which Ancient Greek philosophers got some ideas right, and how those ideas are relevant to anti-racism.

(01:06:01) Wrap-up and Outro.

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Show notes:

Tulsa Race Massacre; By History.com

Biden warns of echoes of Tulsa massacre in the United States today

Europe’s Worrying Surge of Anti Semitism

U.S. Sees String of Anti-Semitic Attacks Amid Gaza Violence

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Models and Citizens: with Andrew Sweet

(00:00) Intro and T-shirts. Black Power and TRE45ON.

(04:21) The tide of anti-woman legislation in red states. The SCOTUS decision to hear a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks and the implications for Roe v. Wade. Giving context to the theocratic agenda of evangelical Christians. Poor women will bear the brunt of any abortion restrictions. Purity as a gateway to religious power, and minority power.

(12:27) The inverted golden rule as the key to conservative psychology. How Christian intolerance makes them fear how they will be treated in a truly pluralistic society by atheists. Today's majorities fear becoming a minority, because of how they've treated today's minorities.

(17:09) By a large national survey, atheists are actually the most tolerant toward groups they dislike of all groups, and Christians are the least tolerant toward minorities they dislike.

(23:30) Discussion of America's slide toward minority rule.

(26:05) Andrew Sweet interview: Andrew Sweet was born in Houston, Texas to an African-American mother and a man of Irish descent, less than 10 years after Loving vs. Virginia, and seven years after the lifting of anti-miscegenation laws in Texas. Andrew has written three novels, two of which are out this year, Models and Citizens and Bodhi Rising, which launched on May 30th, 2021. Both are science fiction stories of the same dystopian future, in which models or clones are the new slave caste.

Note: This interview contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the book Models and Citizens.

(01:09:28) Wrapup and outro.

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Show notes:

The Inverted Golden Rule: Are Atheists as Intolerant as Evangelicals Think They Are?

Models and Citizens, by Andrew Sweet

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I am Tim Scott

(00:00) Intro

(01:55) “Models and Citizens”: Christophe and Sean preview the latest post on The Radical Secular blog written by guest writer, and novelist, Andrew Sweet.

(03:30) T-Shirts: "Say Their Names," and "Black Power."

(05:15) Christophe, Sean, discuss the Gaza crisis, and the travesty that is Tim Scott’s politics in general, and his April 28, 2021 speech in particular.

(09:15) Liberals’ Racism: Christophe explains why it is racist to fling “Uncle Tim/Tom” slur at Tim Scott regardless of how deplorable Scott’s politics are.

(20:05) White Supremacy: Sean and Christophe express their personal struggles identifying and battling the system of White Supremacy which has its hooks in each and every one of us, regardless of our skin color or nationality.

(34:18) Apartheid: Christophe and Sean go in depth about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and determine whether Israel is an apartheid state under the definition established by international law, and they compare and contrast it with apartheid in South Africa.

(47:16) Nuance Versus Sloganeering: Christophe and Sean wrestle with their somewhat different approaches to thinking about, and talking about, thorny, contentious issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict.

(01:07:20) Summation and Outro

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Show notes:

Playing In The Poisoned Air, by Andrew Sweet

What is the current Israel-Gaza crisis about and where is it heading?

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