Behind the Bastards Presents: Hood Politics with Prop

Call Zone Media. And right now we've got a best of several episodes of Prop's wonderful show Hood Politics edited together so that you get a few less ads than normal.
One is on how the DOJ curbed Google, and the other is on the other Zionism. So check out Prop Show now, and then next week, everything will be completely back to normal.

Although it's not even missing, you know, episodes of Behind the Bastards.

They've kept running.

It is our sworn sacred oath to continue putting out episodes of that show from now until the heat death of the universe. So thank you for continuing to listen.
At Fairfield Subaru, we believe that cars are not just about safe transportation, but about the people who ride in them. As a family-owned dealership, we're deeply committed to our community.

From sponsoring local pet adoptions to supporting first responders, we strive to make a positive impact.

Our dedication has been recognized with the 2024 Subaru Love Promise Community Commitment Award.

Fairfield Subaru. Visit us at 2525 Martin Road in Fairfield or at fairfield Subaru dot com.
Fairfield Subaru, where love meets the road. Hey, do y'all still say curved or curved? Like if somebody curved you, I don't even know if it's I don't even know if it's curved or curved.
But essentially what we mean is and maybe I'm all head. What we mean is when you approach a young lady and she shuts you down, like, oh man, you got curbed.
You know, they just, I'm pretty sure it's curbed. Probably like curb your enthusiasm.
That's probably it. I don't know if there's anything more painful because most of the time for you to get curbed, it's usually because you are enthusiastic.
A lot of times is when you're super confident in the move you finna make. Now, I can't speak for every young man who finally hits his awakening of the sex that he's attracted to.
And I know mine when I was like, wait a minute, I like girls. when you have to start building up the bravery to actually admit it or maybe ask this girl to dance or sit by her or maybe even possibly get a little kiss on the cheek.
We was little boys. You're not really ready for full intercourse because we're still children.
remember like rehearsing and I have a sister that's six years older than me. So I could ask her like, how do I say this? You know, what outfit should I wear? Like, you know, and she was like down to make her little brother like, you know, she wanted a little brother to be fly.
So I could ask her and come up with lines and like, how do I approach?

What do I say?

Where do I stand?

Like, how do I?

I'm nervous.

I'm scared.

All for this little girl to giggle and run to her friends and go,

he not even fine.

Just destroy.

It took me three weeks to get the courage to say something to her,

just for this girl to be like ah like that's the child which I don't know if it's everybody's story but you have to understand like me who I went to schools in neighborhoods that were so diverse where there was just as many Filipino and Latino and you you know, Chinese. There was such as there was so many other communities that were at the spaces I was in.
Like, again, I read the demographics. Most of y'all are from Cali that listen to this.
I'm from the San Gabriel Valley. I was born in South Central.
I say it all the time, but I grew up in the San Gabrielabor valley and then i went to high school in the inland empire and like so i you experience so many

cultures you're exposed to so many types of girls where black dude is just not they type this is way

too long of an intro anyway the point i'm trying to make is it really hurts to get curved especially

when you're really confident and guess what google got curved hood politics y'all all right before i go into it but look it's like nerds what look is like this But look, it's like this. But look, it's like this.

But look, it's like this.

Look, it's like this.

But look, it's like this.

All right.

Well.

The darkest of holidays has hit.

It is the one year anniversary of the attack from Hamas on Israel, which in retaliation to such attack unleashed the Kraken towards all of Gaza and extending Palestinian areas. Way too many people died.
There was a memorial held in Israel where they played that last song before at that, know because the the attack happened like one of the parts happened during a music festival and the last song that was being played before the attack happened and hostages were taken and people were killed they played that song to mark you know the one anniversary of a horrible, horrible situation. And from the Israeli perspective, the city is torn because you can't argue that that wasn't, you know, one of the or maybe if not the greatest terrorist attack that they've experienced.
And I think like, I'm not adding snark to this because

it's like, I mean, like, I'm just trying to be real about it. I think, how do I say this?

Since they've been in their mind, the little engine that could the whole time and everybody

was against them, they felt like their only way to be safe is to be the aggressor. And they've continued to be the aggressor because they feel like everybody's being aggressive to them.
So there's a kinship to the idea that America has of itself, too, you know, where we say if you go into war, you're going overseas. Like the attack is over there.
Everybody's trying to come to get us, but don't nobody want to mess with us because they know won't play around. It only happened once.
And that was at Pearl Harbor. We blew up whole islands after that.
So they're, they carry in their psyche, that type of sort of same vibe, but that is not to diminish the atrocities that they feel in their heart and

the things that had happened. So you mark it, right? On the other hand, it also marks the beginning of the absolute decimation of Gaza with 11,000 people dead and just a completely untenable living situation that has now spread.
Everybody's fear has spread to Lebanon and Yemen. And now big dog Iran has jumped in.
it was what everybody that works in peacemaking was hoping wouldn't happen that like we would get to a ceasefire a two-state solution which clearly is the only option like I just don't understand how anybody could think any other way that like this is really the only option but with that being said all the blood the carnage, all the like, let's make this happen. Gaza could not have a sort of.
Moment to even breathe to mark the anniversary of this because it's leveled. I mean, there's like where, you know, they still running for cover.
And Israel not even letting, they barely letting aid in.

Like we got to fight to let aid in.

And then with all the carnage and it be coming into a regional war.

There's a ceasefire deal on the table and Netanyahu won't accept it. And you still ain't

got the hostages, all that blood and you still ain't got the hostages. So Israel as a nation is torn because they're like, fam, can we keep our eyes on the prize here? I just, we just want our loved ones back.
What did you

I ain't asked you to blow

the whole like

I ain't asked I just we just want our loved ones back what is you and ask you to blow the whole like I asked you to blow the whole city up we just want our hostages but what is you and then there's the other half that's like no we can't let them people live and then there's the really really small deck sect of hyper conservative religious folk within the Israeli world that are like, well, this is how we bring the Messiah. We got to control this region or the Messiah ain't coming.
So like, no, they got to go. So it's all that going on all in one place.

The JV team had their debate. Switching gears here.
The my dad can beat up your dad debate because who really cared what the vice president think? Because the vice president will really do nothing. Now, that being being said it was more substantive than any of us would have thought and it's one of those things where it's like be careful what you ask for y'all ask for civility and substance what you didn't ask for was truth my nigga the Trump ticket is getting his money's worth he is jd vance understood the assignment the assignment was to sanitize everything that trump stand for and even to the point of like almost like the opposite where it's like no we ain't say that and then when the mic slipped up and said, well, you weren't supposed to lie.
Fact check this. You revealed your cards, big dog.
But J.D. Vance absolutely 100 percent understood the assignment.
And you cannot take that from him. He was slick.
He was likable. And he didn't go on the full attack.
They did the whole I agree with what we're supposed to be doing. And he took all the shmarm.
Now, don't get me wrong. I personally like those like that repulse me that are too polished.
And every like that. I'm like, you're clearly hiding something.
Anyway. Everything was going great.
Until this man could not answer the January 6th question. Now, did the did Trump lose the election question? Now, the thing is, that's in some senses, it's a gotcha question because we all know that man can't answer that question.
Like what y'all expect this man to say? Yeah, no, Trump tripping on that one. But we're going to win this one, though.
He can't say he can't do that. Y'all know he can't do that.
That man can't get up there and tell the truth. like on boondocks you better learn how to lie like me you can't be telling the truth to these people you gotta lie that'd be the end of his job did trump lose the 2020 election like nigga duh like he can't say that he gotta be like look dude we're looking forward but didn't y'all and then proceeded to talk backwards boy I tell you man I love it here all right let's get back to it

all right so last year we did an episode that was called get your weight up and I taught y'all about anti-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri was over search engines and ads showing how this is just a brand new world where what Google is facing, especially when it comes to like search engines you had suit being brought to them by like you know

bing and like ass Jeeves that was like, you're creating a monopoly. I can even giggle with the idea of like Bing because it's like, bro, no one uses Bing.
Google's a verb. Like it's a company, but it's also a verb.
You Google something. They're like, you're a monopoly.

They're like, listen, I'm not, Bing is not my competition. Microsoft ain't my competition.
Full chat, GBT is. TikTok, Amazon.
I am not competing with you other browsers and search engines. Y'all lame.
Y'all need to get y'all weight up. And the argument was in this antitrust case, which I will back up and explain the term monopoly and antitrust and then give you a context.
So their argument was, you say we're cornering the market, we're making it impossible, but y'all could just get y'all weight up. I don't know why you mad at us for making a superior product.
Now, the last time you Googled something, I'm pretty sure you got frustrated because Google's trying to do the AI thing, again, to keep up with ChatGPT. And so the searches have been, I've had to like retype in what I'm looking for multiple times because I'm like, this used to be super easy.
So in my anecdotal opinion, it's gotten worse as they've tried to bring an AI. But the point is, the case was, do you have a monopoly on search and ads?

And when we talked about it at first, it was being brought to the Department of Justice. Well, they have decided, yes, you have a monopoly.
It's not fair. And you need to break it up, break it up, break it up, break it up, break it up, break it up, break it up.
Yeah, y'all ratchet. Y'all know that song.
Y'all got to break up your company. Now, the reason why this was so big, obviously, because Google's big, but it's because it harkens back to one that happened in 1998, Microsoft.
So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to explain to you what a monopoly is.
And if you've ever sold drugs, you already know, which means that we have to talk about capitalism and the version of capitalism that America says they love and believe in, how you protect that imaginary version of capitalism, why an antitrust is what it is

and why the government steps in,

what happened with Microsoft

and how that informed this Google decision

and then what Google gonna have to do, all right?

But I swear to you, just like the very foundational truth,

the axiom of truth that this show is,

you already know this stuff. All right, next.
Okay, so capitalism. Oftentimes, we have, because we live in the world we live in, we have conflated the idea of capitalism with just economics.
That if you sell something, it's capitalism. You have to remember capitalism as a concept was invented.
Now, the idea of trading some sort of commerce for goods and services is as old as puka shells, is as old as when we moved from just bartering to, yeah, there is currency and the currency and I'm giving you this currency and you're going to return back to me a good and service. The institution that we talk about that includes a supply chain where the product is being created in multiple different factories that's being cobbled together into one piece.
The system that says each of these people that work in these factories is industrial revolution type situation that puts like if you're going to take a pencil, the eraser tip is made somewhere else. But that place is really only getting raw materials from another place.
And those raw materials are being sent there. And then the people carrying that stuff in the trans people that transfer it in the truck is a whole other company who brings this raw materials to this place.
And then that place has to buy the equipment from a whole other company to makes the equipment for you to process this thing to make the eraser tip. But still, if you're the pencil company, you have a contract with them with a wood company, who's got a contract with a timber company, who's got a contract with a lead company or a graphite company.
You just the people that put it all together. And then it's a whole other marketing team that just was hired by the brand name of the pencil to put it all in one place.
And then you got to hire a Shopify, right? A 3PL. And all of these people have employees and the price of that pencil is cobbled together in the way that makes sure or supposed to make sure that everybody, every company that was involved in this all got to pay their employees.
Bring that all together, get it on the shelf, and then they charge you $1.99 per pencil. Now, if you're making 1 million pencils, it may not have cost you the company.
They sell it for $1.99. It costs the company, I don't know, hopefully if they're doing it right, two cents.
So the cost of the pencil, you hear all them companies all had to make their money. But if you make enough of them, you can lower the cost that it takes to make the pencil so that when it gets to the consumer, you only paying $2.
And that $2 multiplied by 100,000 consumers is supposed to be able to make sure that everybody's happy and everybody wins. Now, the capitalism that we exist in is to say, okay, best product at the best price wins.
So if somebody got a better pencil and they only charging $1.50, the idea is, damn, you made it cheaper and better. So everybody's going to buy that.
So then what do you do? You have to figure out how to make your pencil better and cheaper. Hopefully you can charge $1.25, right? All the way down to where, get this the term of elasticity, to where the product is cheap enough to make to where everybody makes money.

There's a number. Now you have to enter the concept of branding.
I'm a brand ambassador for a company called Mir. Y'all know the people that make my mugs and the Porigamis, all the coffee stuff is this company called Mir.
Now Mir got a lot of clients too. And Mir was telling me about one of their clients for which I will not name names.
And because I ain't trying to worry, I ain't trying to mess up my money. This company is able to sell things at an absurd price point, but we looking at it, but my man Amir was looking at it and was like, okay, you're sourcing.
There's no way in the world you're sourcing at a different place than everybody else's sour. You're sourcing at the same place.
And he was like, and the owner or the buyer was like, yeah, yeah, sourcing at the same places as our competition. They charge $3.99, we charge $8.99.
It's called branding. So just the power of the branding, the fact that your name is on it.
Let me give you a little game about Kirkland and Costco brand. Now, Costco ain't paying me for this, but I wish they was.
The Kirkland brand liquor, the tequila, the whiskey, all that that they got in there. It's they bought a recipe from I believe it's Eagle Rare, like Maker's Mart.
I believe their whiskey is Maker's Mart. They just bought a recipe from them and just white labeled it.
It's actually very, it's very good whiskey. It's just named Kirkland.
Brilliant. So if you smart, rather than buying the label name, you getting the same product.
It's just cheaper. So now you take, when you talk about a national economy, you take all the pieces that we're talking about.
If we're talking about, again, capitalism, you take every person that is on all them jobs, how much money they make, how much money is coming into the company, how much money that company is spending, how much money the people that work at that company are spending. right the products for which they buy how much them products cost to make and how much

profit those products produce how much of that money is going out to other countries, how much of that money is coming back into the consumer's pockets because once the company makes money, the people that work at that company all get paid and then they buy other products, which brings the money back. So you take the totality of all that, the combination of all those factors, all trying to get you to spend your dollar with them, them competing with each other is called free market capitalism.
All of that is capitalism. And what's capitalism's goal is, if you haven't figured this out yet,

the greatest amount of profit for the least amount of cost. Now, how do you pull that off if that is the goal of capitalism? Well, you cut costs.
Where do you cut costs? Most of the time, your highest cost is your employees. It's payroll.
That's your highest cost. So you pay your workers at least as possible.

Why did America become such a superstar,

such a superpower so early? It's payroll. That's your highest cost.
So you you pay your workers at least as possible.

Why did America become such a superstar, such a superpower so early? Well, they didn't pay their workers at all. It was called slavery.
You was only paying for the raw materials. You only had to pay for the land.
You had to pay for the workers. Of course, you're going to get rich by no stretch of the imagination.
is the goal of capitalism itself itself human flourishing. Now, that might be the person that functions within the system.
You might want to approach this in a way that centers humanity in the sense that you're paying your workers well, you're ethically sourcing. So that means you're setting a price point that allows for you to pay workers well, to treat the environment well.
You have things like certified B Corps. At some point, I'll bring my homie Brian on here to talk about what it means to be an ethical capitalistic company, which some would argue is impossible.
I might agree with you. But again, like I say all the time, you know, she might as well swim, be as truthful as possible.
Like I said, we're all on a big corporation. This is I heart media.
Like let's not be delusional. You know what I'm saying? This is corporation guys.
So we're not delusional, but there's a way to be as ethical as you possibly can. But that's not the goal of capitalism.
That might be the goal of the person. There might be a advancement of a society to where, yeah, well, multiple people now have jobs now, which means like the way of life is just better across the board for everybody because now everybody's employed.
But one would argue that like we weren't starving before we had jobs. Before there was a factory,

before you bought your food at a grocery store,

you just grew your own.

For most of human history,

people just had small gardens

where you just traded back and forth

to where it's like, okay, we grow squash well.

I'm gonna walk across the street,

go visit another family over there in that other village. I know they grow spinach well.
You know what I I'm saying? I'm bringing up some squash. They bring me some spinach.
It's fine. Like we all, we, we were all right before we had to like work for like cotton pieces of dead men to turn in for our waters to work in our houses.
Cause somebody bought the lake and owns the clouds. I don't know if this, you can own the clouds.
You can own the land rights and all of the sky and atmosphere above it because capitalism is crazy right now. Anyway, I haven't even talked about antitrust yet.
This is absurd. So all that to say in our system, at least in America, we tried to set up this situation to say that if we keep this institution pure enough, it will police itself.
And how you do that, because people really make their decisions by their purchases. People buy what they want.
And if you charge too much, but your brand is trash and we don't believe you, people won't stop buying it. That's a price elasticity.
What's the highest you could charge before people are going to be like, all right, you done lost your mind. This brand ain't worth it, which is how you game the system.
You know what I'm saying? It's like you make your brand worth it, but you charge as high as you can, not as cheap as you can. You take somebody like Arizona IC, they charge as little as they can.
That's their brand though. For them it worked.
But anyway, we, we as in the royal we, not me, but the concept is you need to have competition in the market. You can't just be the only person selling a thing.
You can defeat your competitors by having a better product at a better price point, but you can't just box them out. Because when you box them out, when you're the only option, there is no reason for you to not price gouge.
And the quality of your product doesn't have to be great because you're the only people. That's what I mean by drug dealer.
You trying to be the only connect. If you the only connect, you charging people whatever you want.
They hooked on the product. You can step on your product if you want to, because what they going to do? Where you going to go? I'm your only option.
I used to feel like that with gas prices, because I'm like, what am I going to do? There's no difference to me between mobile and Arco. I still have to go to the thing or I don't go anywhere.
Like I now as a side note, I went to Rhyme Fest this past weekend at the Coliseum and I took the train and I was like, no native. Nobody I know takes trains because they just don't go enough places.
But this time it was like I didn't have to switch once. And I was like, bro, why don't every time every time I take the train, every time I take the Metro here in LA, I'd be like, why don't I do this? So yeah, maybe there is an alternative anyway.
So being mad over gas prices, I'm like, what did, what you going to not go fill up your tank? What you going, you going to not go to work? Like I felt so hopeless. I'm like, this is a monopoly.
You monopolize. So the idea was in the antitrust law, I don't know why they call it that.
They just do. Antitrust law is saying, we do not believe in the American economic system that it is legal or even in the spirit of who we are as a nation, that any one company should have a monopoly over a business.
There needs to be competition, meaning there needs to be other companies that are pushing you because what that does for the consumer is it means we're getting the best products because y'all are fighting against each other for our dollars. They're not concerned with just one company success.
We talking overall success of the entire country because they looking at it again as the economy, as capitalism, capital C, not just are you doing all right? We mean the whole country. So the whole country got to win, which means that I don't really care if your one company is doing aight.

We need a whole thing to work in theory because you could go get the off-brand stuff. You grew

up like us. Oh man, there was Cheerios and then there was Malto Meal.
There was Tasty-Os. You

feel me? I was like, them is nasty. I used to get so mad when my mom brought that off-brand cereal.

I wanted the name brand cereal. It was cheaper, but it was but that ain't like that ain't work.
Now, what that meant was that made Cheerios because my mom sometimes was like, I ain't buying the Cheerios. It cost too much.
So that means the Cheerios, because there's such thing as Malto meal and Tastyos, fruit rings, not Fruit Loops, because those things things existed that meant that like yo cheerios got to work harder to make sure that their products stay bomb and at the price point is something that we willing to pay that's why there's a hundred different car companies why they fighting for our attention why everybody racing to get an electric car like thing with tesla is they was just there first well actually saturn was there first you should see a documentary called who killed the electric car anyway but they not the only ones they couldn't they couldn't get to electric car and shut the door there's companies like rivian who i they trucks are amazing you know but there's there's other companies there are other. So it's like, yo, get your weight up, like do something great.
Now, it could become a monopoly if they do this. They take all the road mapping that they've done with a self-driving, get it perfect, and then make sure every new electric car has to buy their software for the road mapping of self-driving.
Like if every new electric car had Tesla's software in there for their self-driving cars, which right now would be a disaster. But if they continue to develop what they got and then they box out everybody else, it wouldn't matter if it's a disaster or not because every car comes equipped with their software.
That would be a monopoly. To which they could argue, I mean, you're welcome to uninstall it and put your own one in there.
Do you know how to uninstall software on your car? Are you going to Google it? Think about the dial-up modem sounds your aim username we all got sidekicks but i don't even know if we got sidekicks it was in pagers there you know i'm saying you're about to have a sidekick boy the early internet was feels like caveman energy.

So Microsoft, led by Bill Gates,

was young, scrappy startup.

You gotta remember, at this point,

Macintosh, those was just the computers in the school lab.

When you went to the computer lab at school, there was these funny- looking things that we just had to learn when we did our typing classes. You know, you just did it on that.
So Microsoft at the time was developing Windows. Right.
So Windows, you know, Windows 95. And that's which was the operating system, which you guys know already.
and then Microsoft Office. So spreadsheet, PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and everything that comes, just Microsoft, it's like, it's Windows, like it's Microsoft.
What they started doing, because Bill Gates ain't dumb, is he was taking over while Apple and them was working towards school and fun and stuff like that.

Microsoft was taking over the corporate world. And every company, every, you know, work computer was a Windows and Microsoft Office.
And then eventually, once we hit Windows 95, you know, that whole like, you know, the the the the Apple like, you know, sessions where they launch new products like Windows invented that like that was a Microsoft like it was just goofy.

Even the user video, the training video for how to use Microsoft Office and Windows 95 had, believe it or not, actors from Friends, from the show Friends was on it.

Jay Leno did the monologue. It was the biggest thing in the world because it was just changing.
You got to remember,

this is where tech was. And what else that they did that was amazing was if you bought a laptop,

you got to remember, there was a million different types of laptops. You remember HP? You remember

Acer? You could get any type of, just like before the iPod, there was Zooms. There was a million different other products, and then somebody takes over and just wins the thing.
What Microsoft did was they cut a deal with PC and laptop companies and was like, yo, so let us be your default operating system. So if anybody wants to use

another operating system, an OS, like a Macintosh, you got to take all that stuff off and put a new one in. Now Macintosh was smart enough to say, no, our operating system works on our products only, but set that to a side right now.
Microsoft was like, cool. Y'all can have your own little weird egg-shaped computers.
We'll take over every other computer on Earth. And that's kind of what they did.
They just cut a deal. And it was just like, yeah, dude, like, yo, if you're selling a laptop, you're selling a desktop, it's got Microsoft operating system already installed.
So we already got a deal. So we didn't even got to sell it to the consumers.
It's already sold to the manufacturer. Kind of brilliant.

I mean, why wouldn't you do that?

Now, while this is happening, something else was being invented.

A little old thing called the World Wide Web.

The Internet was being made around this time.

Let's talk about that next. Okay, so okay so now that the internet's being made you know you gotta buy your modems what nobody thought about because you have to remember nobody knew what the internet was is you have to have a way to get on their browser no you need you need a browser a browser.
It's so stupid. Like, it's so stupid I have to point that out, right? Because there was no separate apps for your emails or for, there was no apps.
The apps were Microsoft. You need a browser to get on the internet.
The browser, there was a lot of different types. There was Navigator, there was Netscape.
And at the time, that's all that Netscape made. They were the only browsers.
I mean, it was fine. What else did we know? You got on the internet on a Netscape browser, you bought your little AOL disk, which we're going to talk about in a second, bought your little AOL disk, popped it in, you click the disk, and then it would throw to Netscape.
That was the only, that's how you opened the internet was the browser. Of course, now we got Chrome, Firefox, Safari, we got those things, but you got to remember, none of those things, we didn't know what those things meant.
None of those things existed. Netscape was how you got to the internet.
Bill Gates ain't stupid. He was like, yo, this the future.
We need a, hold up. We need a browser.
And his browser was called Internet Explorer. That's how you got on the internet.
His browser was trash, right? Because they was too busy making too many different things. They was making laptops, they was making office, they was making windows.
They was making all these different things. They didn't really make browsers.
But he's not stupid. He knew that this was the future.
So the browser got better and better and better. And then he realized, like, wait a minute.
I have a million vendors I work with. Every laptop already has my product in it.
Stupid. Why don't I bundle Internet Explorer with As a matter of fact, I'll throw an Internet Explorer free.
It just comes with it comes with Microsoft. It comes with Windows.
Windows is already on every laptop. I'll just it's so stupid.
Like, duh, I don't have to sell it. I'm already nobody.
Can you name another word processing? What's the Mac with numbers? Adobe Pages. I'm saying even now we don't use it.
Maybe you write in Google Docs, which we're going to get to later, but nobody writes it like you use Word almost two decades, right? What else is there? So they were like, duh, let's just add our product. Let's just add Explorer to every laptop.
netscape's like well wait a damn minute bro are you serious so you're just gonna sell the product for free well like i mean there's nothing well i mean can what can you're already on every laptop like this is they were like you're breaking antitrust laws so they wrote a letter to the department of justice like yo fam i can't like can't nobody compete with this this ain't right 200 page letter justice department was like huh you might be on to something because like you're like this is what seems to us like this is anti-competition like you just boxed everybody out like you just gave everybody the product for free just gave everybody the weight free somebody come in your hood and just passing out weed for free it's like well how can i run a business like i don't understand like if if every car come through your neighborhood has already got a vape in it like well i mean what i'm supposed to do why you think the gas company's so mad or why you think these oil companies so mad about electric cars? Because it's like, oh, I don't need you no more. Like, wait a minute.
This is leading us to obsolescence. But there.
But but what's specifically about an antitrust is or this monopoly is like this is the same product. And you guys are like, this is David and Goliath out this mug.
Like you already like there no I can't compete with this this is like there's there is no competition I don't want to get into the like operating system business like we make an internet browser and you're just giving yours away for free and and even if people don't want it aha which is where we get what has to do with Google even if people don't want it it just comes with the last so of, like just the psychology of it is like, well, this is the one that come with it. So like, why would I go out of my way? Unless I'm a tech geek, why would I go out of my way? It's just, it come with it.
We don't know enough about the internet to have a preference about it. We don't know about incognito, like that stuff don't exist no more or yet.
So what difference does it make? All right, let's internet explore. And it made sense to us because it was like, to the it made sense to the consumer because it's like was made from the same company that when I opened the laptop, that's how it runs.
They was like, yo, this is unjust. Like this ain't they can do whatever they want there.
And I remember I remember the browser was trash. Like it wasn't it wasn't that good of a browser.
Like it just like, what do you, I don't know what I can, I mean, and they had no incentive

on making it better per se because they done already sold the product completely. They done already made their money off Windows and off Office.
So there's no like, you've cornered the market. There's no, there's, no one can compete with you so they brought that case to the

department of justice netscape did so netscape bring brings brings a case to the department of justice they was like just like i just explained like yo this is a monopoly dog like there's nothing we can do about it like i mean what are we gonna do it's already on your laptop i bet you you open your day you get a new computer today bet you it's already there like how do i compete with that like That's not, what am I supposed to do?

They bring in Microsoft to be like, okay, well, and this is legendary. So Bill Gates and him and Microsoft come in and Microsoft was just like, okay, that's funny.
Wait, what? Wait, are y'all serious? Hold up. There's no way in the world you're serious right now.
What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous. Let me get this straight.
Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. Let me get this straight.
We made a product. We made smart business moves.
We used our connections. We developed a new product.
We took our own product, bundled it with our other own product and use the connections that we took years to develop.

And you saying that's a problem. What you mean? Like what is the problem?

You can't possibly be. So we're smart.
You're punishing me for being. What are you talking about?

You're saying this is anti-capitalist. I don't understand.
So should our products up?

Should we not try? You want us to not make money what are you talking about this is absurd fuck you mean we made a product that we hustled i don't understand tell them fools to get their weight up ain't nothing stopping you from finding a computer you could you could approach them with the same contract we approached them with get your weight up i don I don't understand. We approach these people.
We approach these manufacturers. They could have said no.
They said yes. What do you want me to do? You want me to tell the consumers don't buy our product? What are you talking about? Absolutely ridiculous was Microsoft's argument.
The problem was they just walked in super smug and super arrogant. And they were just like, I'm saying, like, we smarter than everybody else.
It was our fault we're smarter than everybody else. Department of Justice ain't like that.
They ain't like your little attitude. They asked him very, very direct questions like, yo, do you remember this email? They pulling up emails where them fools was talking.
This is the first time that was like a part of like, remember emails just now were born pulling up emails where

they were like knife the baby like talking about like really we're trying to kill Netscape like

that's our goal like we're actually trying to get like just cutthroat like Silicon Valley like OG

like no we're actually trying to kill kill it they was like yo you remember this email he was like no

like you don't remember the one you just replied to he's like no I remember it he was just a jerk

about it like they were like hey uh did you have any concern about any other companies he was like what i don't understand the question and i was like what what don't you understand he's like what do you mean by concern i don't know what you mean by that and they were like do you know what concern means like i know what it means i don't know what you mean by that it was like sir do you okay um just this like smug I'm smarter than you. I know what it means.
I don't know what you mean by that. It was like, sir, do you? Okay.
Just this like smug, I'm smarter than you. I'm 10 steps ahead of you.
It just turned everybody out. But ultimately their point was, okay, dude, you can't punish us because their product sucks.
Like that can't possibly be our fault. We're good at business.
This is what happened. Department of Justice was like, no, that's a monopoly.
Y'all got to break this company up. Because the straw that broke the camel back was carrying Office and Windows with Explorer.
That's the part that did it. Because it's like, now nobody has any other option.
That's the same example I was given with Tesla because the point is on general principle, consumers are supposed to have options. And the argument is having options keeps everybody in check, right? Because if you have options, that's going to force you to make the better product.

And if you're making a better product, that make all of America look good.

Consumers are happy.

Money's flowing.

That's the argument.

And again, using a Tesla as an example, like I just said right now.

Didn't I just say that?

I'm sorry.

I'm just talking.

If every electric car in the future, if you want to do self-driving mode, you have to use this because it's the default setting and this gives tesla no incentive to like they can charge every car company whatever they want because who else you're gonna go to which means that that is gonna raise the prices for all of our cars which means it's gonna rain the prices for chips and all this good stuff it's just like there's no like this doesn't help nobody this just makes you by yourself rich and all of us got to suffer by it. So that's that's the theory.
Nobody's happy with that except for y'all. And we just decided as a nation back in the 1700s that we wasn't going to be like that.
In theory. Now, what they told them that they had to do was break the company up.
You have to put Windows in one place as one company and Office as another company. Is that how you understand Microsoft? Of course not, because that didn't happen.
Essentially, what they did was just they paid the fines, they did what they had to do. And then they just promised to not be jerks.
It's just really, really ain't nothing happened. So ultimately nothing changed.
Netscape ended up selling to AOL. Microsoft just had this ruling stand that they were operating as a monopoly.
But since God is good and just,

when last time you opened an Internet Explorer browser.

Now, this is what the Department of Justice was considering

when they looked at this Google case. So so

now let's talk about specifically the ruling now remember google the company's called alphabet but whatever reason the ruling was that they illegally monopolized the search engine market now and here here's here's how they did Now, they did it the same way Microsoft did it in the sense that you just, if you're a software company, duh, make deals with hardware companies. So what Google did was like, I don't care if you're using Chrome, even if you use Safari, whatever phone you got, when you open it, make a deal a deal with us where automatically your search engine goes to Google.
When the last time you said, I'm going to Bing something, I'm going to ask Jeebs something. No, you Google it.
So they made deals with phone makers and other hardware folk to be like, look, just let us be your default browser. Now, you all know you could go into your phone.
You could go into your settings and say like, I want this other thing to be the default, but who's going to do that? Some people do like some of y'all folks who just are like anti-iPhone because you believe in freedom. You want to, you want to Android, which is just another company.
Like, I don't understand how y'all don't understand that. But your belief is you want to be able to customize it in the way that you want to customize it because Apple tell you what to do.
And one of the things that Apple tell you to do is like, it's automatically going to go to Google. Now, with that being automatically your search engine and them gathering a trillion, kajillion, mega, kabillion, probably flillion megabits of information on us, they can sell ad spaces.
So if you are a person like me who make they living online, I mean, you have to use the Google market. You have to use their ad spaces.
You have to do search engine optimization. You have to be able to show up in their ad revenue space because that's where everybody at.
Why in the hell would you buy an ad at Bing? What is that going to do for you? and if and since they the only people in town they the only people that it really makes sense

to spend your money on they could charge you whatever they want let me tell you why terraform

cold brew wasn't on Amazon. Because I would lose $2 per can.
Like, I would be paying them. Like, there's no, but at the same time, Terraform Cold Brew out of money.
If you went to the website, ain't no coffee there because I'm out of money. You understand what I'm saying? Like they make it where, I mean, what are your other options? That's that phrase.
Like what's my other option? That is a monopoly. Now what Google argued was the same thing.
And Microsoft argued, which was like, fam, I'm sorry for being good at my business, but people can do whatever they want. We just happen to try to give people an offer they can't refuse.
Now, what was interesting this time was the Supreme Court brought up not just X's and O's. It wasn't just business and like nerdery around the law, they brought up psychology.
And it's this concept called the psychology of the default. No, no, no.
Let me say it right. The power of default.
Now you and I, I don't even have to explain that. You understand when something's just your default setting and you just, after a while, because something just becomes so normal, you don't even think about that there are other alternatives.
You'd have to go out of your way to do that. That's the default.
What they were arguing is that is proof of a monopoly in our brains. Google's a verb, despite the quality of Google, because you probably experienced the same thing I'm experiencing.
When you try to Google something, it's like because of the AI thing, I'm like, y'all, your product's getting worse. Now, that's probably because we're old and we're not searching on TikTok, which is where the rest of the people search, which was Google's defense.
Google's like, I'm not worried about Netscape or AskJeebs. I'm worried about TikTok.
That's a search engine. And they're like, fam, no, it's not.
What are you talking about? The psychology or the power of the default is when your brand is so strong that you just don't think of, you don't even think, of course there's alternatives. You don't even think of it, which is like a new strategy to argue that somebody has a monopoly.
So what's the solution? The solution is to break up the company. That's usually what it means.
Now, like I told you before, what happened with Microsoft was basically like they were supposed to split up Microsoft Office from Windows. So that was the plan for Google.
It's like, you got to remember, Alphabet's a $2 trillion company. So one of the suggestions was like divest divesting the Android operating system was like the most frequently discussed option by the Justice Department's attorney.
And then some were suggesting the force of the AdWords, like you have to sell that. and Google got to let go of that program, right?

The search ad program, right?

A divestment from that,

from its Chrome like web browser.

But at the end of the day,

they haven't landed on an actual verdict

as to how to solve this.

They've just said,

no, you violated antitrust laws.

You have to break up this code.

Just curved. antitrust laws you have to break up this code just curved Now, things like this is where your super conservative capitalist argues is a problem because it seems as though this is not free market capitalism.
They're like, let the consumer decide. We just did good business and the government shouldn't interfere.
These are saying people that don't want the EPA to exist, you know, so if there's mad cow disease in your beef, they like people will stop buying it. So just leave us alone.
That's their argument. Like, well, I mean, tell everybody else get their weight up.
They don't want no interference. Which I guess I would understand too if I owned a company and was making a kajillion dollars.
But I'm a consumer that really just want to be able to have good products, afford the products we have and not hear somebody like Jeff Bezos in his rocket that looked like a penis. Who didn't even actually make it in the space and then to say, hey, you guys did this by buying stuff.
Like, don't nobody want to see that. Like, OK, listen, here's the underbelly.
We know. All right.
The thing is. We ain't got no choice.
Amazon might be next in this. This is the deal we've made without having an option to make this deal.
We know we making y'all rich, but we also need to live. And sometimes if you that person, man, the consumer like us, it kind of feel good that there's some big homies that might be able to come in and say, hey,

y'all don't get to treat the little homies like that because, man, that's some good stuff.

Good politics, y'all.

All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to these credits.
I need you to finish this thing so I can get the download numbers, okay? So don't stop it yet. But listen, this was recorded in East Los Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda.
Tap in with me at prophiphop.com. If you're into cold brew coffee, we got Terraform Cold Brew.
You can go there, .com. And use promo code HOOD, get 20% off, get yourself some coffee.
This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your boy Matt Ossowski, killing the beast softly. Check out his website, mattosowski.com.
I'm going to spell because i know m-a-t-t-o-s-o-w-s-k-i.com matt osowski.com he got more music and stuff like that on there so go check out the heat of politics is a member of cool zone media executive produced by sophie lichterman part of the iHeartMedia Podcast Network. Your theme music and scoring is also by the one and only Matt Ossowski,

still killing the beat softly. So listen, don't let nobody lie to you.
If you understand urban

living, you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
We'll see y'all next week.

words are funny that's how i'm opening this because look there's sounds that we just decided meant stuff i to the point to where sounds can make you take somebody life and sometimes the same sound can mean different things, depending on their spelling, their context. I'll give you an example.
When Black people say barbecue, we could be talking about three different things. We could be talking about the food barbecue.
We could be talking about, as in like the style of cooking barbecue, the food. We could be talking about the actual act of cooking that food to barbecue.
We could be talking about an event. We are going to the barbecue.
You not invited to the barbecue. What the East called a cookout, we call it a barbecue out here, out West.
You know, it's the same with the Latinos. Like with Mexicans, they say the carne asada, they mean one of three things.
They mean the act of grilling. We are going to have a carne asada.
That is, we're going to have a barbecue. We're going to grill and we are going to eat carne asada at the carne asada.
Like they just, it's the name of the food. It's the act of grilling and it's the event.
So that's the Mexican version of saying when we like, oh, you ain't invited to the barbecue. They say you're not invited to the carne asada.
Like that's what they mean. The word is the same.
It means three different things. And depending on the context and when it's coming out their mouth, you could figure out what's happening.
Now, I say all that to get very serious. I want to talk about the word Zion.
Oh, it's about to get, I felt like I heard the record scratch right now. Because if you've listened to reggae music, if you've heard anything made by Bob Marley, you done heard the word Zion many times.
You a fan of Lauryn Hill? What's the name of her child zion now the joy in my world is zion black people love zion more zion a boy on the side of babylon trying to front like he down with most zion oh la la la is the way that we rock when we doing our thing the black hotel rasta you know chew stick we'd love zion we're chanting down babylon babylon is will be defeated by mount zion is that the same zion in israel and palestine what y'all mean by that then what the hell is a Zionist so is that somebody that believe in Mount Zion like what how what is Zionism and I'm sure if you listen to this show data ops right you you convince Zion like those are the ops so I don't know if the thought has ever crossed your mind to be like, well, is is the Zionism that y'all talking about the same Zion and Zionists that the Rastas are talking about? What? Maybe this never crossed your mind, but it's the the word needs to be dissected. So I am using this moment to teach you two things.

What do the Rastas mean when they say Zion and what is Zionism and its history?

All right. The politics.

okay listen first before i get into it this week is like this it's like this son it's like that son let me take the news serious all right this week it's like this, son. It's like that, son.
I'm pumping. Let me take the news serious.
All right. This week is like this.
Well, the Olympics ended and I'm only excited about breaking. I'm sad that it's not going to be in 2028 and it's not because of Ray Gunn.
They decided before her that they weren't going to do it in L.A., which sucks. I don't know why they decided that, but they decided that way back in 2020.
Having said that, speaking of Ray Gunn, I know she's taking over the memes. I feel bad for these amazing B-boys and B-girls, specifically logistics.
Sorry, that's a text. Specifically logistics, Anak murdered them fools.
And while she was in the middle of slaying, absolutely slaying Ray Gunn, here's the thing. Have you ever been in a battle? Okay.
Now I'm from LA. So that double time, kind of what you think is bone thugs and harmony chopping stuff that originates at a place called the good life project blowed, this group freestyle fellowship and that is a sound that just kind of came from the la underground my figure we're gonna rhyme we're gonna time like i don't rap like that so if you're at a spot and you're battling somebody and they killing it on the double time it's killing the crowd you have you i can't compete with that you got to go all way the other way.
You got to get real creative and try to do something else. So for me, it becomes, I'm going to try to do the contrast and do sort of a slow flow with a gang of wordplay and get really creative with a pattern.
My time rhymes to find a mind Saturn. Roller skate rhymes to find a kind pattern.
Boom, boom, boom, pattern. Do for the full flatter.
You you will flatter you know i'm saying i'll make you scatter like just something else you got to take a chance and sometimes it lands sometimes it doesn't okay you get creative you take a shot like take old dirty bastard he don't rap like the rest of Wu-Tang. Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't. And I picked up when she was throwing down.
She was trying to rep the Aussie land, do animal style kangaroo hops to rep her soil and be creative. Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it don't. Now, I don't know nothing about her husband being in charge of no thing and all that good stuff that they were saying.
All I know is you have to battle a lot of people to get to the top. And battling is very subjective.
And sometimes creativity and style points count. But when your creativity just swinging a miss, she clearly don't have no power moves.
She was battling logistics who got style, finesse, flavor, dance, intangibles, and power moves. What are you going to do? I saw a headspin in there, but she clearly don't have no power moves.
So she's trying to fight back with style. It just didn't work.
So I'm saying this as somebody who has been in a battle and sometimes you lose your train of thought and the words sound like gibberish. She took a creative chance and it was a swing and a miss.
Sometimes it happens. On a serious note, okay, receipts are being pulled on walls and on JD and everybody involved.
And we trying to figure it out. The Democrats are doing their best to make project 2025 Trump's thing, which it is not.
It is somebody trying to tie it to Trump. I can't believe I'm saying this in his defense.
That is a lot of overlap, but that's their own thing. Now, Trump is all cap saying Trump.
He don't know who them people are because he know who they are and he know what they want.

So that's cap. But it's in his defense is not his.
Now, secondly, in J.D. Vance's defense.
I know I know what it sounds like, but I'm going to say it. He being dragged over this app harvest startup.
So that was a company that was an agricultural company that was supposed to be in Appalachia and was going to give hundreds and hundreds of jobs to the area. Everybody got excited.
It was like, dope, man, he one of us, or at least you told us he one of us. It's going to be a fresh job.
Now, again, he was an investor and he was just on the board. Now I have sat on a couple boards and just because you're on the board don't mean you in charge of operation.
now. And just because you an investor don't mean you in charge of the money.
Now, you got a lot of say, obviously, but you can't necessarily be blamed for everything to go bad. And you can't necessarily take the praise for everything that go good.
Now, not only did this business fail before it failed,

they was talking about it was 110, 120 degrees inside that building because it's a greenhouse. The conditions were terrible.
And while everybody was like, man, I can't work in here. They brought in not a couple of migrant workers, not even undocumented, 500 of them, 500 undocumented workers, which in any other scenario, all right, what do I care? The reason why any of us care is because you supposed to be Captain Appalachia.
You called yourself that. If you didn't call yourself Captain Appalachia, it would have just been a failed thing.
But you set yourself up as Robin Hood of the woods. So since you did that, I mean, what you going to say, homie, that's on your watch.
You confront like you one of us, but that ain't really hurting nobody. Now you hurting us saying you one of us.
So he going to have to answer to that. And his answer was, yeah, it sucked.
I invested and I was on the board, but I mean, I wasn't in charge. And in his defense, he's right.
Now, if these walls could talk, y'all still calling that man tampon 10 as if you ain't. All you got to do, beloved, is read it.
You can read the law. It is all over Beyonce's internet.
I'm a reader for you. Article one, general education, section one, 121A.212, access to to menstrual products a school district charter must provide students with access to menstrual products at no charge the products must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 through 12 according to the plan developed by the school district for purposes of this section.
Menstrual products means pads, tampons or other similar products used in connection to menstrual cycle. That's it.
That's what the law say. Now the whole, you're putting tampons in the boys' bathrooms.
I mean, OK, I just read you the law. That's what the law say.
So just, you know, cap down a little bit. Now the DNC has started.
We looking for you to put some words to your excitement, auntie. We looking for Joe to like, you know, go out in a blaze of glory.
And it's all week this week. Now I did get to watch a lot of Mondays, not enough to do a full recap, but the thing that's most interesting right now is the comparison to the 1968 one, which was, there's a lot of similarities.
There was a huge protest that happened in 68 against the Vietnam War, and right now there's a huge protest going on against the war in Gaza. The difference in 1968 and now is the cops beat the brakes off them protesters on TV.
Like we all saw it. This time, see Robert and Sophie and Gare are out there and they pretty much kind of behaved.
It's pretty chill, you know. Now we'll see, but right now it's been pretty chill, relatively speaking.
And what's different this time is Joe went off script. Joe said, you know what, them protesters out there, they got a point.
It's innocent people being killed on both sides. Now, Sophie says she got a view of the teleprompter.
That wasn't on the script. Now, of course, we're all grabbing for scraps, but good for him.
That's a good scrap to grab. I'm so glad you acknowledged it rather than acting like it's just a party on the inside.
The campaigns of Harris and of Trump have been hacked by Iran, according to the US intelligence. It's not like this wasn't expected.
Country's been tapping into our elections as a sport. They've been doing this for a long time.
Iran is not happy iran is like you not only did you kill qasem sulemani you just popped another we believe you just popped another person on our soil recently because you gotta remember like israel and america are interchangeable to them they don't ain't no difference sure that means that y'all need to double check all sources That mean you need to question everything coming at you and keep your antennas high. You know, another interesting difference is, is that the news didn't report it.
They didn't report the stuff that was in the leak. You know, man, in 2016, this was like catnip all the leaks, you know, butter emails.
It's almost like like we learned a lesson like you know uh and there's a few ways to look at it right it's like hey like if it's something in there that's like really like american people need to know it's like what's your duty as the media to be like okay i know how we got it but like this kind of too real to talk about it to not not talk about it. On the other hand, it's like, you know, when people make fun of your little brother and they be right about him, but you can't make fun of him.
I don't want to hear from you. Like you can't say nothing about my little brother.
Your mom being like, you telling on your little brother, your mom like, why are you snitching? I don't want to hear from you just because like, no, you don't get to talk about it. So the news was like, I mean, thank you because they sent they sent the content of the hacks to ProPublica.
It was like, yo, you can have it. ProPublica was like, OK, cool.
Thank you. But like, I don't need to get this from you.
I mean, respect. And finally, there's another rumor of a ceasefire deal.
And I say rumor because that's exactly what it sounds like, because Anthony Blinken, like, yo, it's good. We just waiting on Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu said, like, I ain't agreed to nothing. I don't know what you're talking about.
They still haven't met our terms. And in the middle of that, we just still sent 20 million dollars to them people.
So, let's be real. Can't nobody really tell another country what to do.

You can't really. There's no way an American president can stop a country from going to war to another country.

But what they can do is not pay for it. Anyway, let's get to what Zion is.
All right, now I'm back. Now, listen, I am going to do both these things an incredible injustice because both of these topics will take a lifetime to understand.
And both of these topics could have many different interpretations depending on your understanding of history, politics, religion. And remember when I wanted to talk to y'all about the Houthis, Hezbollah, all of these different topics where I'm like, when you get into a religion, just like, listen, listen, when I say Christian, it's the same concept.
When I say Christian, we talk about Mount Zion all the time. Matter of fact, if you black, you probably went to Mount Zion A.M.E.
New Gethsemane Church of God in Christ. Now, I made that up right now.
There's probably is a new guest. There's probably a Mount Zion A.M.E.
I know there is. There's one in South Central.
What I'm trying to say is we use these terms all the time because they in the Bible. But when I say Christian, that's what I mean.
Now, when you say Christian, you may think Holy Roller Pentecostal. You may think Trump.
You may think Catholic. You may think there's so many other things you might think that are all these different.
So you ask 10 different Christians, what does it mean to be Christian? You're going to get 10 different answers, most likely. Remember we did the terraform episode with the homie Kevin Garcia, and I tried to to break down in the beginning it was tough but i tried to give y'all a cursory understanding of like western church history you see how i had to give that caveat that i'm talking about western church like we ain't talking coptic we not talking greek orthodox we not talking uh russian jesuit like Like there's.
You could really get lost in the weeds. So please give me that grace that what I am about to talk to you about is grossly truncated.
But it's just to help y'all understand so that as you have your picket signs out, that at least you don't sound like a her.

So first, let me teach y'all what the Rastadem, what the Rastadem mean when they say Monsayan.

And I'm sorry about my patois, Rastadem. okay first let me step back and say what i'm what is rastafarianism now i would say like globally it's probably one of the youngest world religions getting its roots by name in the 1930s deriving from the Ethiopian emperor, Hali Selassiei.
Okay. Now, as I say this again, like Rasta, Rastafari, like this is not a compartmentalized philosophy or religion.
This is a way of life, right? A liberty. You know, this is our culture, our heritage, our history, right? and our way of being, right? A liberty.
This is our culture, our heritage, our history, and our way of being, which some could argue is, well, that's the definition of a religion, a religion, a way of being, right? Your liturgy. Anyway, there is an encompassing around this.
Now, it is impossible to separate Rasta from the African-ness of it. OK, so the belief is this.
When you listen to Roots Reggae, when you listen to, you know, Bob Marley and them, like there's so much to cover. Dancehall, like that's the club music.
Roots Reggae, like you think, think of this as worship. This is praise and worship.
There is a tie going back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Now, I'm getting into my Old Testament.
This is why there's so much Judaism and Christian tied to it because there is a belief that, and rightfully so because if you believe the Bible, it's in the scriptures, is that the queen of Sheba, which was believed to be an ancient queen from the region of Ethiopia. Now, obviously, Ethiopia is a nation state, but Ethiopia as as a continual connection of tribes, Romo, Tigray, just the different tribes that are there, they have Ethiopia and Thailand shares the legacy of being the only two countries that were never colonized or conquered.
Not Israel. Italy almost did, right? The British almost did, but they were never able to actually colonize Ethiopia.
And Ethiopia takes a lot of pride in this. So a lot of their lineage and heritage, because their history wasn't cut off or attempted to be erased, you can know a lot about them.
Ethiopia in the scriptures in the Bible is called the land of Cush also, right? It's believed that Moses's wife, Zipporah, was from Ethiopia when Moses, this is all Old Testament stuff, but it all makes sense. It all makes sense as to why the connection is so important to them.
Moses, before the whole let my people go, before the Ten Commandments type joint, Moses supposedly, according to the story, saw one of Pharaoh's guards abusing one of the Jewish slaves, and he hopped up and killed the guy, and then he had to run. And so then when he ran, he ran to Midian and he married Jethro's daughter.

And it was believed that that area was Ethiopia. So at least the region that we now call Ethiopia.
So there's this belief that Moses' first fight was Ethiopia. You fast forward to Solomon, King David, King David's son, right? The writer of Psalms.
And it's believed that according to the passages that he had never seen anybody more beautiful or a kingdom more amazing than the kingdom that the Queen of Sheba came from. Now you fast forward to Emperor Selassie and Emperor Selassie, a Romo Ethiopian man who became the emperor of what we know to be Ethiopia, right?

Geopolitically.

But it's a belief that his bloodline can be traced back to King Solomon, right?

The emperor bloodline of Ethiopia can be traced back to King Solomon. That's the Rasta belief.
Again, ask many Rastas, you might get many answers, but overall, this is the belief, right? Now, set that aside, okay? Another connection is in, I know it's a lot of Bible stuff, but you got to follow me because we are talking about Jews and Rastas. So of course we're going to talk about the Bible, right? Now the book of Acts in the Bible has this story of this one of the apostles named Philip.
And Philip runs into an Ethiopian eunuch who, according to the Bible, was reading the book of Isaiah. And Philip sees him on the road and he's like, you know what you're reading? And the dude's like, how can I know if nobody teaches him? So he sits down with him and he, according to the scripture, according to the Bible, explains Isaiah, the prophecies, the Messiah, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus,

and how that stuff was prophesied in the book of Isaiah, blah, blah, blah. So he ties all the things.
And then it says that this Ethiopian eunuch got baptized right then. Now, it is then

believed that he brought Christianity as we know it. Their belief is like, we saw it right there.

But prop, I thought Rasta was Jamaican. I'll get to it.

So that's tie number three, right? Now, the fourth tie, which is one of the most compelling things to me between the Jews, Zion and Ethiopia, is the city of Axum. So the city of Axum is in the northern part of Ethiopia and is known to be, and it's truthfully, the oldest, the first and oldest Christian city.
Because contrary to what your little white pastor will teach you, the faith went to Africa before it went to Europe. Okay.
Hell, it went to Mongolia before it went to Europe. The point is, the white man ain't teach us who Jesus was.

Now, it is also believed that the Ark of the Covenant from the Old Testament is an axiom. There are ruins at different churches that have good archaeological evidence to believe that they set up the tent with the dimensions that Exodus and Deuteronomy and them and them Old Testament scriptures have taught them to do this.
There are, if you go to Israel now, black Ethiopian Jewish people, as a matter of fact, to be able to, now I'm getting into the modern politics, to be able to repatronize, to be able to come back to Israel as a Jew, you'd have to prove by your DNA that you have Jewish heritage. You are, in fact, an ethnic Jew.
And the Ethiopians, there's a sect of Ethiopia that not only can prove it, but are, some argue, closest like DNA related to what might be the ancient Israeli, right? They're the like that. Some would argue that as far as the diaspora, not as far as like people ain't never left.
I'm talking about as far as the diaspora, right? So they are, it can truly say, and there's a lot of traditions that in certain parts of Ethiopia that they continued far longer and are actually far more closely related to the ancient practices than what modern Israel looks like. This is just, it's just history.
Now, because anti-blackness is universal, when they got to Israel, the modern Israel, a lot of Ethiopian women were sterilized. And if you walk around Jerusalem, just like everywhere else, the people doing all of the dirty work, all of the brunt work, all of the jobs nobody want are the black ones, unfortunately.
That being said, the tie between Ethiopia, the ancient religion of Judaism and the ancient people of Israel, one because of the region, one because of folklore and one because of DNA has Ethiopia is verifiably connected to whatever the ancient Jerusalem was. Okay.
You fast forward to Holly Selassie in the 1930s, who they believe, according to the Rastadim, is, I want to say 225th. I think that's what my cousin told me.
225th, don't quote me on this. I'm just quoting my cousin, of the Solomonic dynasty.
So they believe that like the actual king, like a descendant of King David, right?

A son of David, kind of like who Jesus was, a descendant of David, right? Was also Selassie. You following me? Okay.
Now the word Rastafari comes from Hali Selassie, which is Rastafari, right? It was his name, right? So he was one of the only independent black leaders in Africa at the time, right? So he bears this cultural, political, historical, and symbolic importance to just the African diaspora. Now, once you get into the practices of Rastafarianism, like again, like the Rastadem, the way of life, like the diet, you know, avoiding shellfish, eating seafood, like it's pretty similar to like kosher practices, again, because they have this tie to the land, the history.
So there's a lot of practices that are like, that are that they have a lot of practices about being welcoming to the sojourner, about the way that we collectively sing. Jah is a Jamaican version of saying Yah, which is short for Yahweh.
So when we say Jah Rastafari, you know, it's your Jah is Yah, Yahweh or Jehovah, right? So these, a lot of them are vegetarian. They don't eat meat at all.
Definitely not beef or pork because you keep the temple clean, right? You very rarely are going to find an overweight Rasta. Like they're usually in incredibly good shape.
The dreadlocks have to do with what's called the vow of the Nazarite, because, again, we're talking Old Testament. Samson in the Bible, you know, Samson with his golden locks, you know, the Samson and Delilah, like Samson that took what's called a Nazarite vow, which was a vow to keep himself holy to the Lord.
And the symbol of that holiness to the Lord was not cutting your hair. This is as a symbol of our holiness, the vow of the Nazarite, you grow your dreadlocks, right? Dreadlocks was a term given to us by the British that we just own.
Naughty dread! So because our hair, our locks were dreadful. So dreadlocks.
There's also sects that believe that God grabs the dead souls by their dreadlocks and brings them to heaven. Again, the symbol's beautiful, but either way, it's a symbol of the promise, your commitment to keeping yourself sanctified to the Father, right? If you're being a traditional rastadem.
Now, their belief, different than, it's still, again, so follow me,

this is still an Abrahamic faith. That's why you're going to hear terms like Mount Zion, right, which I'm going to get to specifically in a second.
But their belief, different than Christianity, although similar in a lot of ways, similar to Judaism in a lot of ways, Their belief is that, like I said, Selassie was the Messiah, right?

This is an Afrocentric belief. How did it get to Jamaica? The transatlantic slave trade.
So it gets to Jamaica via the slave trade. We got carted off.
Remember, this is an Afrocentric belief. And when Africans got brought to Jamaica, they brought their beliefs.
And then it synced, you know, had a lot of syncretism with a lot of like the voodoo and tribal and Caribbean practices. You know, a lot of the stuff that was happening in the Caribbean that because, again, this is East Africa, West Africa with the Arishi and the, you know, and a lot of the West African beliefs are a little more animus and not so Abrahamic, if you will.
All that to say, just like any other faith, tradition, or practice, when it travels, it takes on a lot of the personalities, traditions, and practices of the people that it traveled with

and the location it lands. So the music that you hear, because obviously if you hear music in

Ethiopia, it don't sound like reggae because reggae is Jamaican, right? So what you consider

Rastafarian, you think Caribbean because that's, I mean, I get it, right? And Ethiopia is Christian, right? Of course, there's obviously it's a modern country. There's millions of religions there, not millions, but you know what I mean? There's a lot of different religions there, but Ethiopia is Christian.
Rasta, that's birthed out of the diaspora that has its tied to Ethiopia. Y'all following me? Okay.
You have people like Marcus Garvey, right? Who we need to at some point do a whole study on him and the back to Africa movement. And I don't have time to get into the depths of Marcus Garvey, but the point was, as far as the pan-African experience, were those who, the diaspora, we who got separated from our land,

whether it was your run-of-the-mill Black Baptist slave in Tuscaloosa, right, in Mobile, Alabama, backwoods of Pritchard in Macon, Georgia, that we was on the plantations. If a Bible got into our hands, it was so easy to see ourselves in the children of Israel.
Like, it's not hard to see. If you read the book of Exodus, you like, well, damn, that's us.
It was too, it was too, the connection is too obvious. We're like, oh my gosh, carted off into slavery from a distant land.
And then there's a longing for a return to your promised land. And the capital of my promised land is the city of Zion.
You following me? It would be the same in the Caribbean for the Rastadem. But they look it back at Selassie.
It is Rastafarianism is by definition anti-colonial, obviously. And they believe that Africa is not only their literal ancestral homeland, but it's their spiritual homeland.
And the country of Ethiopia gets a particular reverence because of the role it played in the 19th century for the resistance of, because of Selassie, for the resistance of European imperialism. Everybody else fell.
Ethiopia didn't. So the gold, green, and red colors of the modern Ethiopia flag are the traditional colors of the Rastafarian because it can in some ways get its roots from there, right? Okay.
I know that was a long preamble, but you got to understand what you're talking about. So once you have this understanding of your connection to Judaism, practice, anti-colonial, dispersed, taken away from your homeland, and longing for a return to your promised land, now we could talk about what Zion is.
Now, Rastafarian has two basic tentpoles. Zion, Babylon.
You hear that stuff in all the reggae you listen to. Right.
So these are the theological ideology, ideological tentpoles. The dichotomy is tied again to the anti-colonial origins.
because Babylon, remember, again, in your Old Testament, is the symbol of the evil powers, the evil empire, just like in the Bible. It's the opitome.
It is everything that's wrong in the world. It's the system is symbolized in King Nebuchadnezzar and the kingdom of Babylon.
And we long to see Babylon fall. We chant down this worldly system that enslaves and attacks and seeks to control not only the outward person, but the inside of you, what Christians would call your sin nature, worldly Babylon, right? So if you're following,

again, the saga of the Old Testament, Israel fleeing Egypt or getting away from Egypt, becoming free, and then being enslaved by Babylon again. Babylon's the problem.
Does that make sense? Now, in the Bible, Zion is just another name for Jerusalem, right and it can refer refer to the land of Israel fully. Now, the Rastafarian.
OK, this is where our differences repurpose the biblical definition to an Afrocentric direction. For the Rasta, Zion is the continent of Africa, specifically Ethiopia.
But the term represents not just a physical place because Ethiopia is just Ethiopia, but it's an ideal. It's what we would call to become cross.
This is paradise. This is thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Zion, heaven and earth meets. So it's physical and so much more, which in a lot of ways is the same for the Jew, but we'll get to that.
It is the destruction of a worldly system and the raising of a selected godly kingdom where all of us, what we would talk about, the Christians would talk about the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It's to be a part of the kingdom.
So it's a both place and it's an idea to strive for, right? Where the Rastas, they would equate with preserving and glorifying black African culture, right? The Iron Lion of Zion, you know, Bob Marley's, you know, song. But for more information, like Rastafari is kind of like, like how we have denominations.
There's a divided into mansions and they got it from like the gospel of John when Jesus says in my father's house, there are many mansions, right? Again, I'm telling you, it's an Abrahamic faith. A lot of people don't think it's just a, it's a black, you know, anti-colonial African outpour of it, right? So you have like the Bobo, the Ashanti, the 12 tribes.
That's a, that's a, a, a denomination, if you will, they were called the 12 tribes of Israel. The Naya, I never pronounce it right, but the Naya B, the Naya B, B, like I never pronounce it right, but, uh, they're a certain type.
Now, some, again, they're, some look more traditional than others. And then a lot of people just follow like an individual, like Rastaf way of viewing it.
But at the end of the day, um ethiopia is for lack of better term the new jerusalem

this is zion when we're talking about rastadem okay now what the zionists believe next next. All right, we're back.
Now, Zionism, the overall name for right now, if you're pro-Palestine, that's the name of the bad guys. They're Zionists.
And people have tried to separate the idea of anti-Semitism from Zionists, being anti-Zionist, that these are different things. Now, that would mean that you'd have to understand all those things and their history from them.
Now, I'm trying to handle this with as much respect as I can because I'm talking about a culture that's not mine, right? So please grant me that grace that I'm probably going to overlook. Like I said in the beginning, I'm probably going to overlook some stuff that I'm not trying to overlook.
I'm trying to give as best as I can an understanding, right, of these different things. Anti-Semite, that's, I mean, those are the Nazis.
You just don't believe that. It's a type of thing.

It's a type of overall term for the concept of the convolution of just this weird idea that all that is wrong. It's almost like you've made the Jew Babylon.
You know what I'm saying? Like we just talked about. They are everything that's wrong.
They are both the killers of Jesus. They are the vermin that, I'm trying to describe anti-Semitism, the religion and the ethnicity that somehow or another is poor and subhuman, but also quietly controls all of the inner workings of money and power in the world.
And your only solution is to wipe them out. That would be anti-Semitic.
That's the idea of that. That comes from this thing called the Protocols of Zion, which again, the word Zion I'm going to talk about, which is something that we've talked about on the Behind the Bastards episodes of the Protocols of Zion.

Now, that's anti-Semitic. Now, once we get into, now, if you remember the one of the You Wasn't Outside episodes when we pulled a clip of a rabbi explaining the idea of what makes a Jew, a Jew, according to the faith, is their covenant with Yahweh.
That it's not necessarily a location. As a matter of fact, to see it as a location is to minimize it.
Where he was like, the promised land, our claim is because we are in covenant with Yahweh. And that can happen anywhere.
The location don't matter. So to say that the capital has to be in Jerusalem or has to be in Tel Aviv because that's God's will is he's like, no, you're missing the point.
Like who cares where a modern nation state plants? Like that's a secular system. That is like the Rastadim would say that is.
To worry about what other nations say, I am a part of the kingdom, and the kingdom exists because I am in covenant with Yahweh. We are a covenant people.
That's what gives us our Jewishness, is our covenant with Yahweh. Who cares what the borders are? That would be a specific type of Judaism, right? A religious type of Judaism.
Now an ethnic Judaism,

well, that's something different. A political Judaism is something different.
And that's what we're going to talk about right now. Zionism, as we're talking about, not the Rastadem, but Zionism, you could say, I'd say go back to August 29th, 1897.
It was a meeting on the Rhine River in this small city

like in Switzerland

called Basel, right?

Ugh. August 29th, 1897.
It was a meeting on the Rhine River in this small city like in Switzerland called Basel. Right.
Basel. Now, this meeting had people from all over the world and it was to discuss this concept of Zionism.
Now, like I said, in the like I said, Zion is just a biblical term for Jerusalem. Right.
So they choose that term because if you're paying attention to Europe, pogras, it ain't a good place for Jews. It's been all bad for them for a while.
And this discussion was to say, we have to have a place because it seemed like no matter where we go, we not want it. Now they pull in all the way back to more freaking Canaan to Egypt.
They are talking about their deep history. And they're like, no matter where we go, we not want it.
So we need to find a place where we could just be ourselves. And they thought, what better place than our ancestral homeland? Now, if you're looking around this room, you would think the same thing I would think.
Y'all white as hell. Like, you're European.
I don't understand the same way that you would probably look at that Ethiopian and go, but you're African. But follow me now.
So people during the time from like Munich, from Germany, from Poland, from Switzerland, they're like, oh, what is you talking about? Like, I'm just as German as everybody. They German.
They like, we speak German. Like, this is just our religion.
Like I ain't never seen, I ain't never been to Israel. I never seen Israel.
Israel is not a thing at the time. That place is Palestine.
You know, like it's not a, that's not a, that's, it would be the same as me saying, I need to go back to Nubia. It was like Nubia is gone.
You know, black people like, again, a Marcus Garvey thing. But that was closer to their time.
Like you need to go back to there's no place here wanted for you. I'm like, well, that's I don't I don't I don't even know the language they speak at Tobol.
I'm guessing that because I took an African ancestry and they were saying I'm a father's side that maybe I like, oh, what know about I don't know anything about that so the Jews at the time were like what I don't this what are you talking about like it would be the equivalent to a back to Africa movement to where it's like I mean it sounds cool but like I mean it's already people there and I mean it's been hundreds of years like I'm German like we're German a lot of the, look, first of all, this is blasphemous. We're not supposed to return until the Messiah come.
Like that's what the prophecies are. And he going to bring us back.
I don't know about what the hell you doing. Right.
And then the others, like the more modern ones were like, well, we're not a nation. Like that was actually the point.
Like, don't you, then you read your, yo Torah, you don't need a King. I'm your King.
You're not a nation. Like that's the point.
The point is you're supposed to be different. I'm your king.
You're a part of a kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, and I'll bring you back when it's time, when the Messiah comes. So whatever y'all doing, that's not even...
Now I'm saying that, again, this is 1897. That was the belief of them.
Now, again, those were some rabbi. And not only that, like I said, they're like, well, I'm French.
I don't know what. Anyway, enter this guy named Theodore Herzl, right, who was a journalist who covered this.
Actually, probably one of the most radicalizing moments for anybody, for any Jew in Europe. Right.
And it was the case for this man named Alfred Dreyfus. Right.
Which basically became like the trial of the century. It was, they called it the Dreyfus affair.
And the journalist who covered it was Theodore Herzl. Basically, Dreyfus was accused of treason and found guilty and sentenced to like a work prism, totally wrongfully convicted, completely out of nowhere.
Y'all made all that up but how that work

was like because he was jewish it became not just about him but that you can't trust the jew and theodore herzl's watching all this and he's watching that the people get whipped up into a frenzy people that was just your neighbors you like again i'm just as german as you i'm just as you are. Like, fam, I remember the feeling when Trump first started taking over the brains of the white Christian where I was like, dog, we was at Cracker Barrel yesterday.
What happened? Like, we used to, what just, what has bewitched you? Like, all of a sudden,

would you like this the whole time? It was super confusing. It's like, all of a sudden,

we're different. Y'all, it's me like I've been me this whole time.
So Theodore Herzl was like, yo, OK, listen, we clearly not wanted here. And it's only going to get worse.
Turns out he was absolutely correct. So he comes up with this idea that is like he's like, OK, I'm going to suggest a Jewish state in in the current state of nation of Palestine.
Y'all think I'm crazy right now. But in about 50 years, you're going to see.
This was 1897. Guess what happened in 50 years? 1948.
Israel became a nation. Ain't that crazy? So now Zionism, you want to be able to distinguish it between two different types of Zionism, right? And this is where I would critique making the concept the bad guy, because there's two types here.
Okay. There's the Zionism that comes out of a longing for a home.
That's where us and the Rastas actually share, a place where we can be fully accepted, fully ourselves, and fully safe. Because again, we're not wanted anywhere we are, right? So there's a longing for a home that you've been ripped away from, right? Now, when they say ripped away from, like we're talking, guess who I'm talking about? King of Babylon.
We're talking about the nations being scattered like 580 BC when the Ark of the Covenant went missing and this beautiful, amazing kingdom of Israel that used to exist in modern day Palestine, Israel, in that region that was called Judea at that time, where they existed. And then if you know your history, I've said this so many times in the You Wasn't Outside episodes, that little strip of land has been conquered and colonialized and ran by every possible kingdom, every possible empire in the modern world, finally by Britain.
And then, but as that was happening, the people who were ethnically Israeli, as we mean in the ancient sense, were scattered all over the world. So that's why you could be white as hell in Jewish and you could be black as hell in Jewish because they were scattered, right? And then of course, now you're not going to marry people while you're there, but somehow or another, they've been able to keep on to their traditions and their religions because they were also, it's one of those things which are ethnically and religiously and your identity.
So anyway, scattered all over the world, but as we know, there's plenty of people that didn't leave. Again, I'm giving you, you wasn't outside history, which you understand.
So there's this longing of being like, man, this, we used to have a place to be in the world. And you feel like you looking around and everybody else got a place to be in the world.
This is born from despair and rightfully so. But then there's this other type of Zionism that is more like this idea of reclaiming an enthusiasm about our heritage and our culture.
Like we need we need to be like the same way I would be like loud and black. Like we need to be black as hell out here.
Like we need to reclaim, take up space and be ourselves rather than like shrinking ourselves. Like I want to reclaim all that it is for us to be us.
Now, minority that shouldn't be hard for you to understand I mean that's us sitting here in America and then you got the Republicans being like well you're American first and I'm like nah nigga I'm black I got my red black and green on the wall you know it's the Latinos flying they Mexican flags and like nah we who we are you feel me and you're like when you're American you know it's you're a no savo kid you know when you finally discover the concept of Aslan you want to know a little about your own heritage yeah you American you know I mean you from East Los but you want to reclaim your history your heritage your language you want to learn Aztec dances it's like so there's that version also so in that sense it'd be weird to you when you like you like, yo, like, yo, we're Jews. You're like, I'm German.
It's like, hey, good. You French like word.
These people don't love you. Like why you identify as that, you know, so there's you see that as a lens of Zionism.
You so those so you have these ideas happening all at the all around the same sort of time and idea with the same term Zion.

So it could be seen as somebody that's like, yo, like I want to learn our ancient language.

I want to learn our practices. I want to do the Shabbat.

I want to like I want to bring back it became this umbrella term for just what it meant to like reclaim your culture, reclaim your identity, reclaim the

fullness of what y'all are. And then there's the geopolitical idea.
Now this geopolitical idea borrowed from all of these particular concepts. And if you read the writings of Theodor Herzl and a lot of the people involved in this, they were all bright eyed about the idea that like, oh, this is going to be a colonial takeover of Palestine.
You have to remove the indigenous population for this to happen because there's no way they're going to give it to me. And there were certain ways they tried to do it.
They tried to do it peacefully. One way they said was, well, first of all, let's go talk to Britain.
Because remember, the British Empire actually drew the partition. The British Empire is the one that drew the line between Israel and Palestine because, remember, it used to belong to them.
Another idea that the Zionists had was, yo, let's go talk to the Turkish Empire, right? Because remember, the Ottomans were there before the British. And they was like, OK, so if you let us be a government, how about we pay all the debts? Well, what if we pay off debts? They were trying.
Matter of fact, Israel, the location wasn't even their first choice because they was like this little too complicated. They thought about going to Africa.
They looked at a couple of different places as to where to land this geopolitical idea of Zionism. I'm telling this out of order.
Let me back up. So the idea that like, it's just a myth that the Zionists were not aware of the Palestinian Arab population.
They were well aware of it. But the question is what to do with that information.
Because, yeah, as Jewish as Herzl was, he's also a European. So that like he saw the Arabs as barbaric, like that they were.
I mean, it's just there's no other way around it. They were well aware that you are going to have to displace people to build a nation like this.
So that was not they knew right now. Again, I'm talking about the geopolitical idea of Zionism.
But their idea was like, surely y'all can see that. Like, we're not a big empire.
We're not here. Like we're just we're just looking for a place to be, you know.
And since we're from here anyway, it should, this shouldn't be a problem. So yeah.
So like I said, Herzl went to the British. He went to the Ottoman Empire and he asked them like, yo, can we just go settle? Keep in mind, it's like European Jews had been moving to Tel Aviv for a while.
You know, they actually formed the city of Tel Aviv, right? Those were Jewish settlers from Israel that's formed the city of Tel Aviv. This is well before Israel became a state, right? So they had already been moving.
Now they were just like, we just need legitimacy. So how about we buy it from the Ottomans? And, you know, the emperor of the Ottoman Empire was like, bro bro I can't sell you land like it belongs to the people and they fought to conquer this place I'm not just finna just finna just sell it to you and not only did he not sell it to him he started building policy to make sure that they can't just be immigrating and just buying up Palestinian land he was like I'm not really I'm not really here for this and like why would I welcome like a large religious minority into my empire you might take it over so like I said he was like I can't look they're not just letting us come now they're restricting our thing our movement he even like I said he went back to the British Empire asked asked for a spot in east africa like can we just and the jews back home it was like nigga we're going we're going back to zion the hell you talking about east africa for he's hurts was like bro i'm trying right so eventually they found the city of tel aviv they create their own like anybody else like you createdatown.
You created like you create your own community.

Then them niggas got organized. Now, now the timeline I'm telling you this, like I said, remember, he had this first idea, 1897.
So this is all during the times between like World War One, World War Two. Remember, Britain didn't take over until 1917 because that's why he was building with the Ottoman Empire dudes.
Once and and then once they was gone, once British, once Britain took Britain took over, 1917, we're seeing the end of World War I, right? You're thinking maybe this was a new world and all hell broke loose with the Nazi empire. And at that point, once the Nazis thing started happening, it was like, oh, nigga, we got to go.
We can't be playing games. We trying to play nice like like that.
The Nazi thing kicked this mug into high gear. So now by 1947, it's like now it's like the Jews are like a third of the population in in Palestine at the time.
Right. So so now it's getting a little itchy.
You know, I'm saying like now y'all just y'all just over here. And if you are Arab nation, you like, OK, wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait okay why we gotta lose our home because of stuff Europe did why are we paying the price it's like I feel you you know I'm saying like that's terrible what you're going through but like why you gotta come why you gotta take our house why why y'all gotta be like what's going on right now but anyway since nobody's handing it to him now we got numbers since nobody's just gonna let us be here the only way to do this is by force so them dudes made a military now it's time to scrap for it but as you know this is still a british outpost finally britain's like okay listen i i'm done with all this when are we we going to do? Y'all get that part.
Y'all get that part. They created the partition, but they said now y'all figure out what is what and who run this and all that.
Like I'm done. And there at that moment, the birth of the nation of Israel, the lines created by Britain after they left in Palestine, looking around here going, man, what?

What just happened right now and then like i said in you other in other you wasn't outside episodes rest of the arab nations was like oh hell no like if they went to war immediately everybody jumped them egypt everybody jumped it was like and then and look Israel won like defeated like they just what is y'all doing like who are you why are you getting to be a nation but that's what happened and we still scrapping over it nation states again have more to do with the recognition of other nations and who gets to decide who gets what power and all this good stuff. Like we said, borders are made up.
They're drawn by conquerors. It's not, don't let that fool you.
The concept that has people out in the streets is the type of Zionism that has to do with the displacement of an indigenous population by force because you believe God wanted you here. That's one way to look at it.
And that, my friend, is just run-of-the-mill imperialism is basic. Then there's the Zionism that says, like I said, I am preserving my culture.
And then there's the Zionism that says, I am longing for a place for us to belong. A Zionism that is much more an idea of a promised land rather than the hostile takeover of a place where people already exist.
Spiritual, religious, political, all of that in this one term. So I am not going

to tell you what to think of when you say Zionist, Just like I don't know what to tell you.

What you think of when you say Christian.

But I tell you what.

It ain't what the Rastas mean.

And I tell you what.

If you sitting in Palestine right now.

Do it even matter?

Hood politics. All right.
Now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to these credits.
I need you to finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. OK, so don't stop it yet.
But listen, this was recorded in east los boyle heights by your boy propaganda tap in with me at prophiphop.com if you're in the cold brew coffee we got terraform cold brew you can go there.com and uh use promo code hood get 20 off get yourself some coffee this was mixed edited and mastered by your boy Matt Ousowski, killing the beast softly. Check out his website, mattosowski.com.
I'm going to spell it for you because I know. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com.
MattOusowski.com. He got more music and stuff like that on there.
So go check out the heat.

Politics is a member of Cool Zone Media executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeart Media podcast network.

Your theme music and scoring is also by the one and overly Matt Ossowski still killing the beat softly.

So listen, don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand

politics. These people is not smarter than you.
We'll see y'all next week.