Update 11-5-2019
I find it unsurprising to discover that the podcast has been pulled from Rogan’s site. Fortunately it’s still on Youtube, liked below and what the hell, here as well for the sake of convenience.
Original Post
So. I really enjoy Joe Rogan Podcast. He interviews the most fascinating people, from Jordan Peterson to Bernie Sanders, and he always remains open minded and inquisitive, allowing his guests to express and explain themselves instead of engaging in arguments or passing judgement. He appears to seek understanding, and I really respect that.
Plus it gives me something productive to do in traffic. Instead of going through the same bunch of songs in my Apple Music I’m learning stuff and things. Being’ all smarticle and stuff.
Just two days ago he interviewed Edward Snowden. Holy shit. Linked here. Look, I’ve got four more blog posts I’ve been meaning to publish AND a 600 page novel to finish editing, but this knocked all that to the bottom of the priority list.
And I bought several copies of his book, Permanent Record, from Amazon. Everybody’s getting it for Christmas! Get yours before the government figures out a way to take it down.
First off, I’ve been cheering for that man since the very beginning. He is a true American patriot who burned his life to the ground in the name of the public good – this man literally gave up his life, his liberty, and his sacred honor to enlighten us as to the machinations of our government. And what did we, as citizens, do about it?
Nothing.
Nada.
Niente.
Because we suck. Because we’re lazy and spoiled and complacent. When what we should have been sticking our heads out our windows, yelling “We’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take this anymore” and dragging a whole bunch of powerful rich important people into the streets and holding them accountable for their extralegal actions in a manner that would have made the Sons of Liberty proud.
Here’s a hard-hitting industrial jam that uses this powerful scene.
Go listen to it. If you’re more visual, here is a link to the Youtube video of the interview.
Joe mainly just lets him monologue, and it’s a fascinating one. He goes into the growth, depth, and breadth of government surveillance and the mass collection of data post-911, and gives us a really chilling insider’s look at the self-serving nature of the intelligence community. But the most significant piece of this whole ugly clusterfuck is the unconstitutional undermining of our most basic civil liberties – freedoms that have been written in the English language since 1215. Back in 1775 we had a whole war over this sort of thing! We should be FURIOUS. Listen. Get educated. And then GET MAD, goddamnit!
Assorted Musings from an Unknown Historian 
