Marianne Williamson hosts Pinchbeck on a Substack Live in February 2025, opening by reading aloud his argument that American decline predates Trump and that Trump and Elon Musk serve as frontmen for a transnational financial elite conducting a controlled demolition of the country. Pinchbeck compares the strategy to the disaster capitalism described in The Shock Doctrine — engineer a crash, then buy up distressed public assets — citing the emptying of the Park Service and talk of privatizing air traffic control. He argues the larger factor is artificial intelligence, pointing to JD Vance's anti-regulation speech at the Paris AI summit and to Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind forecasting artificial general intelligence by 2030, which could make most knowledge work redundant. Williamson insists the moment calls for organized refusal rather than spiritualized denial.
Guest: Marianne Williamson
In brief
- Williamson says treating the political crisis as something to rise above is denial rather than transcendence, and the severity should not be minimized.
- Pinchbeck argues Trump and Musk are frontmen for a transnational financial elite that has detached from any American national interest.
- Pinchbeck says the administration is following a disaster capitalism playbook: degrade public goods so private buyers can acquire them cheaply.
- Pinchbeck cites Chris Hayes on the removal of $80 million in congressionally authorized funds from New York City's bank account, and calls it theft.
- Pinchbeck argues that if AI can do knowledge work better and faster, elites may abandon most of the population the way resource-rich states neglect their citizens.
- Pinchbeck proposes that opposition to unregulated AI could unite laborers, knowledge workers and farmers across the red-blue divide.
Full text
if we ignore what's happening we're not in Transcendence uh we're in denial this is not a time to minimize the severity of the problem so Daniel I thought if you'd like I would like to me something you wrote in one of your articles and you can figure out which one it is this would be your substack piece to me it's a really great encapsulation so uh I was thinking maybe I'd read your own words as a sort of jump off point America's decline is not solely Trump's doing rather this is the inevitable consequences of Decades of Western economic and Military dominance built on short-term exploitation corruption and Global predation Trump's role is to mask this systemic unraveling with populist rhetoric while enabling the true power holders the transnational financial and corporate Elite or what Bolson calls the ational owners and controllers of Global Financial capital capital to consolidate their wealth power and control as America is hollowed out and broken the goal of trumpism is a controlled demolition of America engineered to benefit the transnational Financial Elite at the expense of the people the American public remains mostly ignorant that their local oligarchic Elite has detached from any genuine National interest this Elite is now transnational and Global driven solely by profit with no loyalty to American Prosperity or stability Trump musk far from being American saviors are the appointed frontmen for the transnational oligarch Mafia takeover they distract the populist with slogans like drill bab drill while they enact policies intentionally designed to bankrupt American Industries like oil and energy seeding control to Apex Saudi Arabia and China musk's takeover of the technological infrastructure of the US government makes perfect sense within this larger framework I will explore this more soon certainly by stealing everyone's private information Trump musk will have the capacity to dox resistors submit them to unnecessary audits and so on as a foreshadowing of what's to come please read Trump and musk pluck $80 million in funding authorized by Congress from New York City's bank account Chris Hayes writes musk and Trump use the powers of the federal government to reach into New York's bank account to pluck back 80 million that Congress authorized they are taking money out of other people's bank accounts and calling it a clawback of taxpayer money a lot of people would call that stealing $80 million so those were your words Daniel and I just thought they were a really good place to begin because like I said I think you really um uh encapsulated I I also think and then I'm going to just throw this over to you I I think we are in the middle of a time and I want everybody listening to really take heart in this there is so much good conversation going on right now there is an activation there are so many good articles being written so much content being created um so you're not alone no matter no matter how you feel about any of this when you hear words like that uh none of us are alone and I do believe there's an Awakening going on and um you know I believe there will be ultimately a massive enough hell no uh to claw this back but uh none of it's to be minimized so okay my friend over to you yeah thank you I mean yes so um I do think that's a useful way of understanding what's happening I mean um It's A playbook that's happened in other countries I mean the US has done it to other countries right like um you know particularly if you read the shock Doctrine you know and and the disaster capitalism you know if you trigger an economic crash then if you're a billionaire sure you lose you know a little of your billions but you're still you know in a much better position to buy the distressed assets the bankrupt companies the bankrupt farms and so on so basically they're um yeah they want to privatize the public goods of the United States that's why they're emptying out the parks of Park Rangers The Parks will become more dangerous people will find they'll be like oh let's just let some private company take it over you know same with like the air traffic controllers I mean musk even tweeted you know somebody was complaining about all these plane crashes he was like oh like you know my Space X is going to take it over and we'll control it uh so so that's one element it's it's it's a um example like a hosle Takeover in a business you buy you you sell off the distressed assets exactly the another aspect which is I think very important for people to understand and um what makes the situation different is the uh the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence uh so you know if you if you read like there there was just a Paris AI conference where JD Vance spoke and he said that America wants no more regulation no more restriction we have to just push it to the max um you know Dario am Modi and some other one of the deep deep uh you know the alpha the go the Google Deep Mind had a conversation and they were both saying yeah we're gonna have artificial general intelligence potentially in five years or by 2030 for sure and so that's that's at a point where a a AI can do everything that a human can do better and faster than a human can do it so what they're basically looking at there's two articles that I that that I link to today in my substack are is a future where you know 90% of humans are basically irrelevant um you know the knowledge work will be handled by um AI you know legal phone service um graphic design you know music for commercials we're already seeing a bunch of this happen um and so yeah I mean you know so there's different ways that a society could respond to that that's really what I wanted to talk to you about today you know what what we have now with musk and Trump and their allies is kind of the least benevolent approach to this so they're basically saying they want to cut all the social services people will be abandoned to their own devices you know the the the wealth would be increasingly centralized um one of one of the pieces makes a very good argument that the way they're looking at this development of AGI it's closer to how like if you have a country like um you know Congo or someplace that has just a a very like a resource like oil or something often the people in that in that in that country are are ruined because the the government doesn't need to take care of them or look after them so it just kind of abandons them as long as they have military guards around the uh the oil bu you know oil oil or whatever so similarly you know with with a with AGI um yeah that becomes the generative Force for whatever the system is I mean with some you know with some weird caveats because up until now you've wanted a middle class consumer base to buy the products so it's a different situation I think also you know if we look at Greenland and Canada and why musk is um um kind of like proposing you know Trump and musk are proposing taking those over that also has to do with the strategy both both around Ai and around climate change and global warming which they're not admitting to be reality but in fact they know very well that that's going to keep going off the charts that's a place where you know you have the resources for the artificial superintelligence but also whatever portion of the population they want to save can be resettled in the northern latitudes as the South becomes less um habitable so those are something forces at play and I guess um what I really want to share and maybe and I could see you maybe really taking this on in a way would be that this could be a a movement could constellate around um how we deal with artificial intelligence and whether those benefits just go to the few in the top or whether they're distributed more fairly as as sort of social Equity to society as a whole you know like samman for instance tried a Ubi program I think in Texas and it was very successful just giving people $ thousand dollars a month and found that people use them for basic necessities and were able to get better jobs and live better and so on so it doesn't take much maybe it's even 500 a month doesn't take much to really help people a lot but what they're looking at now is really the most cruel and barbaric you know we're seeing the Nazi signaling and so on so that's where I I really do feel you know I I you know I don't want to keep you you want to pick it up a little I have something else I could say back pick it up well I think first of all I wish I disagreed with you I don't disagree with you I I'm in alignment with uh the way you're seeing things and you're having a conversation that is more and more prevalent this is a techno authoritarian takeover of the US government um in the course of Miracles it says look at the crucifixion but do not dwell on it so how do we find a place within ourselves where we look at what's happening we refuse to be in denial but number one we don't want on it so much that we actually end up expanding the horror because it's where all our thinking is going and also how do we then um avoid spiraling down emotionally ourselves to a point of paralysis where we're certainly of no good to anyone so now we move into what they say in AA get into the solution so let's talk about the solution um to me that's a larger story as well how did we end up in a place in America where we were so vulnerable to this to begin with now some people seem to think I'm a little naive going back to the Declaration of Independence I don't think I'm naive at all after what I've been through uh the Declaration of Independence was a spiritual as well as political statement and when it says we find these truths to be self-evident the first one is all men are created equal the idea of the equality of people this is is a radical moral as well as political statement it was Radical in 1776 and it was Radical today to actually provide for freedom and justice for all is not necessarily the most efficient way to go this is the government of the United States is not supposed to be a business that puts efficiency first what our bottom line is supposed to be is a more perfect union in which as many people as possible have the capacity to thrive that's the ideal that's that's the core principle all of the great social justice movements in the United States from abolition to um uh women's suffrage to the establishment of Labor to uh desegregation have been forces of commitment to Justice pushing back against profoundly empowered forces of Injustice and if you look over time ultimately those forces of Justice prevailed we are simply reiterating the same struggle that was with us at the beginning on one side people who who get it who embrace it who are ablazed with the very idea that everybody should have a chance versus those who with their own ideological Andor Financial purposes find that inconvenient and that's what's happening here these Tech billionaires find democracy inconvenient to to their purposes it slows things down it gets in the way and so there is now a very empowered uh set of people with tremendous before uh yes whether it was the slave owners or the the the segregationist they had the money they had the political power they had the business power these guys have the technology never before has this been what it is now so the issue is how do we not be the first generation to wimp out on doing what it takes to protect uh the democratic ideals of universally uh franchised freedom and Justice to the best of our ability against forces that are bent on destroying it and I think that that's really important here we need to get out of any naive Tay we need to get out of any delusion we need to get out of any space where we are minimizing what is going on here these guys are on a rampage they are on a path of Destruction they did not they decided not to go incremental they decided to go fullon assault don't even think about about um resisting uh give now it creates is it is already creating a lot of obedience in advance uh where people know if I try to resist this uh I will have nothing now what Daniel was saying before was this can lead and I agree with what he was saying this would lead to basically um the at least the technological enslavement of the majority of people and also Daniel pointed out something very interesting which is that too many people on the planet itself would be an inconvenience and a burden uh to that authoritarian system so what do we do okay I am a believer um you know I grew up in a world that for the most part you could um depend on the Democratic party uh to kind of hold a loft the philosophical and principles that we all uh committed to and so forth I grew up in a time where you know if you take what we're going through now versus Watergate you know there were Republicans who stood up to to Nixon uh but our political system both political parties have so been hollowed out so been hollowed out of their real commitment to the principles money the undo influence of money on our political system has just seeked you know the the life force the moral Authority and life force out of America's political system has fallen away so what do we do that's not to say that there aren't people within the political system working it and trying what they can and so forth we could have that conversation but everybody knows exactly what's happening I think the point here is how do we the people that is the the the final line of defense and if we work it it will work and that is we the people um one of the things that you just said Daniel is you'd like to see an organized movement based on these humanitarian principles my belief and as I as I emailed you earlier today I tried that Dan and I ran for president you know I I tried at this point I believe that th this is nature is organizing the resistance nature is organizing the resistance what we are doing right here right now Daniel and me and everybody with us here on this substack live let's remember thousands if not millions of people are basically having the same ation we're having right now this is happening look on social media look on Tik Tok look at uh people who are staging protests look at Town Halls I personally believe the energy the a moment of big Collective activ activation has obviously not occurred yet but the energy is rising so I think what we need to keep doing what we need to keep doing Daniel is exactly what we are doing now when Gandhi was asked who is the leader of the Indian independence movement no it's not time to kill anybody whoever wrote that no it is not time to kill anyone the only way any of this succeeds the only way any of this is aligned with nature is through harmlessness and nonviolence but that doesn't mean you don't say no that doesn't mean you don't have standards that doesn't mean you don't push back but there must be love in our hearts it is our love for democracy not our hatred of individuals I that's what I liked about about what Dan wrote those guys are just symptoms you got rid of any of those guys there be others behind them that's not the way to go the way to go however is to to expand into all aspects of our own beingness you know um uh what's his name the Dal Lama oh yeah what's his name the Dal Lama said in order to save the world we must have a plan but no plan will work unless we meditate in meditation and prayer are like when your when your um your computer's not working or any electronic equipment and somebody says turn it off for a second reset go into a reset within yourself whatever your practice is the reset within ourselves preparing our nervous system because what's happening right now is an assault on our nervous system that's part of what's what's happening here and so I believe Daniel that as we all align ourselves you know it's all the religious stuff it's Buddha right speech right action right thought whatever our practice is whether it's religious spiritual secular whatever but finding that place within us where we are aligned with our dedication to the good the true whatever our perception of it is nobody we've got to come out of our silos that doesn't mean you're gonna agree with everybody politically it's all Americans who wish to see America retain a constitutional system that we remain a country of laws that we remain a country with three co-equal branches of government where we remain a country where the the health well-being and safety of people and planet comes before short-term profit for any corporate Behemoth and certainly not these Tech bro authoritarians who have actually proclaimed that the as as as vote Russ vote who is our head of em has said that this is a postc constitutional chapter because that's what's NE Neary to defeat the Liberals that's not the America we want we want an America where some people are liberals some people are conservatives some people are progressive some people are agnostic some people are religious that's the beauty of America and for those of us who seek to keep that that's what I think I think as I said Daniel nature is is uh is organizing the resistance as long as every day be at it be at it be in conversations like this educating ourselves showing up for what we can show up for and I believe whether it's a general strike that ultimately happens or whatever we'll all know and it won't be it won't be organized from above it will be something coming from inside us we'll all look at each other and we'll know and just one last thing I want to say if you read about World War II it's amazing in those countries where there were the Great resistance movements like France let's say there were no there were no electronics there were no computers it would be things things like somebody would be at dinner and somebody would be sitting on the other side of the restaurant and then when somebody left dinner they would either leave their napkin face up or they would leave their napkin on the chair and then somebody on the at the other side of the restaurant would uh would know what to do based on that so there were people using so many dimensions of Their Own intuitive as well as intellectual capacities and and none of it will work without courage uh they prevailed and so will we okay that's what I wanted to say and respons to L stuff you said oh thank you uh yeah it's beautiful to hear that I mean um yeah I guess in some ways I'm having some um kind of slightly different ideas um around for instance like I yeah I mean I mean I spent 10 years writing a book called How Soon Is Now that came 16 How Soon Is Now was the name of the book how soon is basically thinking about what kind of system could address the ecological emergency because it doesn't seem that our society whether we were ruled by the Democrats or the Republicans um it didn't seem like we were able to do that I mean you know under Obama we became even produced more oil you know climate change went up wealth inequality went up so I feel that the system was kind of broken in a way I me I do kind of agree with that you know feeling that the system is very much broken and that maybe it's not fixable part of the thing is it's like you know go back to you know the Declaration of pendence the Constitution this was all 18th century political technology that was the best that we knew how to do at the time and it was a time unfortunately when things moved a lot slower right like information moved slower ideas moved slower you know change the pace of change was slower it would take like a week probably to get a message from one side of the country to the other so this whole system was built for time that was much slower um and where change was happening much much more slowly so you know I I'm I'm completely against dictatorship authoritarianism you know I'm I'm much more of anything a kind of uh you could say Anarchist or ultim like a social ecologist somebody like Murray bookan really like um but it it may be that this system had to had to break down uh in order to um allow for something else to emerge so and you know just looking at an evolutionary way and from the Democratic side you know it was just stuck and and and and people were very angry and frustrated and uh yeah we were like allowing kids in Kentucky to have very poor education and dienal abuse mean we were sending all this money to Israel and Ukraine and all that stuff like you know there you know and I support the Ukraine war you know and so on but yeah so so things were very intricate and I can understand that a lot of people very shaft Ed by how this thing had developed and and maybe it it did you know maybe it's not we're going to go back to you know the old constitutional system you know maybe actually what has to happen is something new and different um and then we can begin to think what that could be like because technology you know on the one hand can be used to dominate and control and surveil and so on in theory um it could also be used to build a more participatory democratic system you know and and lot of the work that's going to disappear because of artificial intelligence yeah it's like you know 10% of the economy of the Philippines or something is like phone service people like you know which is great but that you know kind of um you know wasn't a great job anyway who wants to spend 10 hours a day doing phone service if a computer can do that better you know okay you know if a computer can you know even like drive a delivery truck or something I mean you know okay so but the question is what kind of society do we have from there that's where I think we to start ahead rather than being stuck on like even trying to to preserve um you know I mean there you know we want to we want to go back to a rule of law which at the moment we're in a kind of Lawless internum um you know which is very dangerous I would say and um you know we we're in a very dangerous situation because you know as we know absolute power corrupts absolutely and um now that we have these people at the top of the pyramid who have attained this kind of absolute power we can see that they're almost like losing their minds like they just you know they're they're there you know and anyway there's a lot we can discuss there and unpack about what happens to people in those types of positions but the point I think is like what's necessary now for the people for people like you and I to help as Leaders is to articulate you know where can Society go from here you know when we look at what's happening with art artificial intelligence and that it may not really be that we go back to that form of government which really wasn't working anymore anyway you know but we could have something where it's more like a participatory you know from local ities to bio regions you know to a planetary framework and you know and therefore you know America as the engine of innovation for the planet um you know could innovate in this way also at the moment it looks very very difficult but uh we have to hold out that possibility uh partly because I'm a student of religion and philosophy I find it ridiculous the way our generation thinks that anything 200 years old is too old to listen to 250 years ago with about five minutes and uh the idea that we shouldn't listen to anything 250 years ago some of the greatest ideals were promulgated by people who were speaking thousands of years ago whether it was Buddha you don't s to Buddha and say he was so long ago he doesn't have anything to say to us or whether it's Jesus or whether it's any of the great aads or anything like that so this generation I think every generation is arrogant but ours is off the charts uh anybody who has brought to the world to the state of disrepair that we have has no right to say we know better than anybody so I think if you actually read the Constitution of the United States if you actually read it Daniel nothing in the Constitution would in any way reject any of the newer ideas that you have the founders of this country were not trying to come up out of the Grave every generation and tell us what to do they were giving us certain principles and nothing that you are suggesting will be held can be held together without those particular principles so I really have a problem when people say let's just you know we're never going back to what that was we are not in a position to let go the things which could be the very guiding principles if you look at the Civil War if you look at Women's and and the abolition of slavery if you look at the women's suffrage movement if you look at organized labor if you look at the desegregation of the American South the reason they were even possible was because of people's dedication to the principles and in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution so I I think we you know what I I think we need to do is like have some book studies and actually what the Constitution says before we so easily poo poo it um because I just think it was it was a genius cluster unlike others yes yeah no I'm certainly not po pooing it it got us to where we are it it allowed for many incredible and and and Terrible Things by the way I blocked this guy Bill Marson because I couldn't listen good on you good on you I'm glad you did I'm learning the block function it's it's like yeah I didn't know how to but I was I was gonna politely ask him to leave so I'm glad you took the mommy and daddy handled it yeah I do want to say though that um you as wonderful in many ways as the Declaration of Independence the Constitution were I I also think there were things left out and flaws I mean as we know that's what the amendments are about a living document let let me just finish for a second yeah uh you know because it was obviously a society founded on you know slavery and and genocide of the indigenous people I mean these are you know wounds and scars you know in the American psyche that have never really been healed and and we can also you know talk about how Trump has um you know called up you know all the worst parts of the American psyche um which is very sad but you know before and you know one of one of the things that our system of governance was based on you know was the Native American governance that existed here before like the iroy Confederacy and there were some things that were part of that system that we also probably should look at again so for instance with the eroy Confederacy which had had an eroy Constitution you know the Chiefs or the leaders were the people who generally had the least like the whole point was that if you were Noble of character and somebody who was worthy of being a leader in your community the last thing you would do is amass wealth and resources you would distribute what came to you fairly so that everybody you know had their share you know and similarly in that Society property was passed down through the female line through the through the matriarchal line you know so there so there were things that were part of their system design you know that we might want to look at or you know we could even go further you know but uh that's a start you know okay well first of all I think the left you know I certainly am on the political left but the political left has some ideas about the Constitution and some lies that are promulgated no it was not based on genocide of Native Americans that had not even started yet for 31 of the 56 signers of the Declaration were slave owners so that struggle was definitely bu baked into the cake uh it was always there from the very beginning and it is reiterated sometimes more dramatically sometimes less dramatically uh in every generation including ours but it is actually the tenants of the of the Constitution which have also provided for the Amendments and for the further franchise so I'm just saying I think takes a much deeper look at what it actually says uh before some of the narratives that have been pregated about it about it uh should guide our thinking obviously there was nothing in the Constitution that says don't look further into the arqua there's nothing in the Constitution that says don't look further into you know matriarchal lineage there's nothing in there saying not to do that it's just setting a c the idea of rule by laws the idea of three co-equal branches the idea of checks and balances and the idea that we will to the best of our ability protect all people through Equal justice applied that's all and uh I think right now the the most important thing is not even thinking in terms of what are we going to have after this but what are we going to do to interrupt the rather horrific takeover authoritarian takeover that is taking place now so guys I I want to throw out one thing H and that is I I think about this as if each and every one of us so first of all let's go back to to a kind of metaphysical principle here think of the universe as a kind of um GPS so if you take a wrong turn the GPS will automatically recalibrate your way and give you another route we are taking a really long turn and one of the things that Daniel and I definitely agree about is we've been taking wrong turns for way too long to the point where it's a massive wrong turn right but the recalibration is occurring as we speak that's the way nature operates that's what an immune system is remember in the let's look at something like AIDS the pro someone dies of pneumonia well the problem wasn't the pneumonia the problem was that they didn't have a working immune system so the reason that this could even have happened is because as Citizens we had we had allowed ourselves to be turned into observers we had allowed ourselves to be turned into uh Spectators we had farmed out our own best thinking we forgotten who this country belongs to now each and every one of us needs to see ourselves as an immune cell okay just like in the regular workings of the body every cell is filled with natural intelligence uh you be an artist you be a a scientist you own a business you go get married and have children whatever it is just like you go to the bones you go to the pancreas you go to the blood right now all of us um as immune cells so first of all you just take that in it's not a moment to I know we're westerners so we're all going to what do I do what do I do the first question right now is who do I be and it's you be available be receptive be educated be open and be loving and from that no matter who you are no matter what you do no matter what state it's and it it's obviously it's call your Congress people call your Senators be active in your state state house be active on local measures because all of this takeover is happening on every level it be clear about what's happening in your state show up at the city council meeting show up at the protest at your C at your at your um uh at your State House show up at whatever the activity is and you go with your Dharma your where your passion is your Dharma is a clue as to your assignment if you have a thing about the environment look what they're doing with drill baby drill if you have a thing about the Parklands if you have a thing whatever yours is so this when you say even like Daniel said a couple minutes ago those of us who are leaders you have that the Z guys of this moment is that we're all leaders the Ze guys of this moment is it's not an age of soloists you know I'm old enough to remember when there were soloists the kennedies and Dr King they just shoot the soloists so this has got to be the zist of this moment is a choir the Gast of this moment is each and every one of us showing up in whatever way you're guided to do on any given day and any given moment sometimes it is something like just being part of a suback live and being a part of other people having the conversation sometimes it's action sometimes it's reading sometimes it's fasting there are all whatever your world is by which you interrupt um that's what this is about right now and um that's how I see it Daniel that uh all of us need to play our part and need to recognize nobody's is any more or less important than anybody else's yeah for for sure I mean I can't you know completely agree with that I mean um uh I am a little bit concerned that I feel you know there needs to be a bit more like say organization or orchestration uh and you know once again I feel that you know as you know from your own experience that the Democratic party has really failed us uh and you know I don't know if it's cuning and like institutional kind of like cotton wool or something they just they don't they don't seem to really be able to grasp that this is like a different thing that's happened now um so I'm kind of concerned about where yeah we're gonna because you know my my intuition but I've had this intuition for many years is that if an actual movement of change is going to come and there are many reasons why it's hard to imagine that happening in the US right now people have been very brainwashed young young people have been kind of um disempowered by social media by anti-depressants by you know even in a way the negative aspects of some of the progressive culture you know which you know the right of weaponized by calling it woke but there was a way that people have really been you know kind of given the sense that their identity as victims is is their core part of their identity and and that's not a very easy place to be courageous from uh and and push back against this thing uh so yeah so I'm interested I think there needs to be um kind of um somehow a little bit more of an orchestration and and I think and I think also um really this you know there there's certain key points that I think will really help people and you know one thing that's good about the AI um takeover I mean it's it's terrible in a lot of ways but what's good about is that it's actually not only impacting laboring people in fact it's impacting more like well-resourced people too like I just had a friend here today A lot friends in the media and lawyers and you know a lot a lot of people who have a lot of Education Harvard educated you know whatever you know IB League schools whatever you know they're also being impacted or laid off or having their their future careers threatened so in a way that's good you know if we were going to say like we need like a new kind of you know I know quote unquote revolutionary like a change aging you CH change agent like subject that um kind of knowledge workers and the cognitive work ERS could find a new kind of Coalition with the laborers and the American workers and this is also what I wrote about in that piece about the precariat could also if they can get out of this racism and demonization of minorities and other Sexes and so on could also find much more common cause with the workers in the third world who they're actually exactly horizontal with like they're you know people here who don't have health care who are living paycheck to paycheck for horrible minimum wage they're not doing any better than people in you know Peru or or Mexico at this point or Africa like like there could be a really like a more of like a movement of global solidarity among the workers of the world you know like knowledge workers and laborers and Farm Workers you know yeah well you know first of all let's go back to that image of the choir that doesn't mean that sometimes people don't take a solo there will be leaders rising up there will be leaders rising up but when we rise up that somebody has has the notion you know what I'm going to do this and that gathers certain people but enough of us have seen it is because of the ethical breakdown in this society that most political coalitions in America today are based on Alliance not real deep communion and collaboration and those alliances even thieves have alliances and that is as true on the left as it is on the right so I think as we all seek to sort of purify our own hearts dwell in the space of what can I do there will be people who stand up leaders of all ages within all of those groups it can't be saying well I don't like this group they're not this and the left is just as bad as the right on that I don't like them that stuff's just not the level on which the answer arise from which it arises but it will be people as we all sit the people will rise up there will be points of collective activation but you know look at something like the Occupy Movement I mean it was just brilliant people got it people got it and uh I I I think that there is right now we're pregnant with it you know you you have to be pregnant you you're pregnant with a book before you write it you're pregnant with a child before the child is born and I think we're all pregnant right now I think right now we're processing we're learning we're listening we're taking this in and and if we hold it in a Sacred Space you know uh Gandhi said politics should be sacred he didn't mean Doctrine and Dogma he meant the place of Consciousness that we hold it in like look at some of the people who are writing here there's some great ideas people having great ideas um by the way we I'm happy to continue this conversation or deepen it on like my subst notes um you know if you want to expand on what you're saying here and we can we can kind of open it up and then maybe um make that the subject of another Facebook live I mean yeah I think uh I mean you know I love everything that you're saying Mary and I do have to say that um I have you know there there are times when societies become long-term totalitarian uh societies and so I'm I'm I'm I'm feeling you know it's nice to think of it's all gonna happen and its nature expressing no it won't happen unless we make it happen I mean I agree with you but it's a little bit at the moment it's like and you know and I love I think Alexa is posting all these great groups and there's indivisible general strike and so on um and yeah maybe that'll be enough um there but I mean um I guess my my concern is um unless we somehow begin to move more into um accelerated uh urgent action um yeah there it's going to be a very much of a locked up situation soon because of the you know the US military power surveillance I mean um you know Larry Ellison who's one of Trump's allies and musk's mentor has said that he wants to build a AI based digital surveillance system for the United States that'll quote keep everybody on their best behavior unquote so very much like the Chinese social credit system and Trump you know has pledged $500 billion doll to Ellison andman to to build the system ironically because a lot of the Maga people were very antiac and anti-rna vaac and we don't want to be experimented on with this weird technology Ellison has also said as part of the Stargate thing he wants to develop all kinds of m RNA vaccines and inject people with them uh so you know what one of the ironic so so another thing I think is a very crucial thing to once we've reached coherence on what's actually going on and maybe what needs to be done you know then we can ask about like communication strategies like you know is there a way to talk to the magga base you know for instance um you know which is quite a large number of people um in a way that begins to shift them you know out of the sort of Trance or the hypnotism that they've been subjected to and so for instance the um the fight over the H1B visas was very interesting and instructive because suddenly it was clear that these Tech Bros that have you know paid for Trump you know are actually not America First at all they actually are completely happy to have Tech workers flown in from around the world and they they're used a surfs basically where they're not not paid that well they're not like the cream of the crop they're like run-of-the-mill programmers and so when Elon Musk for instance took over Twitter he fired you know all of the you know American workers but he kept all the H1B Visa holders because they have to do everything that he says no matter how immoral or corrupt because otherwise they just get deported if they try to leave you know so so you know once again I mean I think that yadus varu fakas I don't know if I pronounced his name right do you know that guy I'd love to meet that guy but his whole idea of techn feudalism he the former Greek foreign minister um boy okay you don't want me to talk anymore Mary all right well I'll pass it back to marann then sorry about that no you're not talking too much I think both of us have a lot to say and I think that's the value of the conversation um I do want to take on that same woman had asked about God I want I want to point out something here um most of the great social justice movements in the United States did emerge from spiritual religious sources among the white abolitionists there were black abolitionists and white abolition the movement itself was segregated of course at that time but among white abolitionists uh the movement emerged from the early Evangelical churches in New Hampshire among in uh uh the women's suffrage movement most of the leaders of the suffrage movement were religious Quakers and the idea of the Inner Light in which we're all equal it suffrage emerged from that and also let's not forget that Dr King was a Baptist preacher the value there is two two things in terms of the sort of character ological effects of genuine spiritual belief first of all there's an intolerance of what someone sees as evil that you are capable of saying that there's a there's a red line and and secondly that there is um an absolute conviction that another world is possible and that you stand on that possibility so whether someone sees this from a spiritual and religious perspective Ive or not is irrelevant it's just that uh it is interesting to note that when that woman said where does God come in it's it's about God expressed through US of course but it's love that you stand on love and that that which is completely Loveless is intolerable and I think that's the point of of totalitarianism there's no love there there it is spiritually devoid it's an amoral system and that's what unfetter capitalism that led us to this a strain of capitalism um in which there was absolutely no sense of ethical responsibility you know um Adam Smith who was the main architect of of modern free market capitalism said it cannot exist outside an ethical context but what has happened is a paradigm um we've become in religious terms a nation of idolators we allowed short-term corporate profit for these huge corporate entities to come before humanitarian and um democratic values and this is where we are now so I I don't think Daniel you and I don't um have a disagreement that there are particular organized um uh activities that will be necessary and we're not in a disagreement about the urgency but there's a dis um not a disagreement but I just know in my life having been part of some huge and successful movements at the time the beginnings were the urgency was in the sense of like the the line the urgency of now the urgency was not so much I got to go do something as I am very clear and I'm calm within it and I what is urgent is that I be my best right now you know I once heard uh Warner aart uh who was the founder of EST many of you were like too young to remember what all that was about but it was definitely a profoundly changed the society and he talked about how he had become he developed a hob a hobby and that was being a race car driver and he went to some convention with the best race car drivers in the world and he found himself I don't know it's later in the evening and they were all in the bar having just hanging hanging out together and he found himself with them and Daniel he was saying oh my God I'm going to get to be around these guys who who are at these unbelievable speed and he was just so amazed like what it must be for them he said what I what I realized listening to them is that for them at those high speeds they were just kind of hanging out in their living room so there's a level of the highest level of urgency if you're really urgent about this moment you're not in a fra oh my God we got to do something space you're in a very calm intentional what am I doing this moment space so it's it's it's paradoxical the best way to respond to the urgency of this moment is to be so clear that your mind can can hear The Whispers uh of your own soul saying do this and then do this and do this do this I think that is how we respond to the urgency of now in this moment oh beautiful I really like that I have a question for you um you know one thing that I I you know among many things that are so bizarre right now but how the uh you know Christian nationalist movement has completely um twisted around uh this whole idea of Christianity and basically it seems like it's a complete opposite of everything that's written in the gospels I mean h how did that happen Maran what can we do about that is is that is that a leverage Point could you you can you bring that up to uh you know I'll tell you what's particularly ironic about that at a time when they're going in and cutting out everything cutting out everything they are building this department of Faith with Paula White and you're right it is absolutely about the effort of Christian nationalism and I think everybody needs to understand what Christian nationalism is Christian nationalism is the belief that all the major institutions of the United States must be led by Christians now our first amendment religious freedom is absolutely one of the first principles of the United States that you are free to worship however you wish and whether you wish this country was founded in large part on the rejection of the old world where people had to pray a certain way or they'd be killed or they'd be exiled this is very big a big big deal look at what's happened already with the president having taken over the Kennedy Center and you might see that he has already cancelled the performance that was going to be the Gay Men's Choir and the Washington Symphony so the whole idea of Christian nationalism is that if you are not the religion that we want of Christianity but also that there's this Unholy Alliance so it's it's two sort of demonic forces not only Christian nationalism it it's in uh it's tied in with white uh white supremacy that there is if you are what we think because remember guys what many of us see as the richness of America is the Multicultural the multiethnic the multi-religious the multisexual the multi whatever to many of us that's the glory of America there are people in this country for whom that that I just described is an annihilation of their own sense of selfhood and they believe that their sense of selfhood whether it's just that it's white just that it's Christian just that it's whatever uh would be uh everything else just they're just their contract is is gotten rid of and I had an experience of that kind of control when I ran for president and um there were some high play highly placed people who just decided nope nope what it means is that Legacy Media doesn't have you on what it means is that people won't do business with you what it means is that people won't get your contract that is what a totalitarian American society based on white supremacy and Christian nationalism would be it's not that they would make for instance being Jewish um illegal or being Muslim or being whatever it's just that you would know don't even think about it you're not getting the grants you're not getting the loan you're not getting the job you will not be able to arise to positions of power and that is why what's Happening Now is so dangerous it is not just a political takeover it is a cultural takeover that's why some something like the presidents saying that we are going to cancel the the the symphony working with the gay men by the way going back to the Constitution all men are created equal the reason it's important for Gay Men's Choir to be able to sing at the Washington uh uh Center uh I mean the Kennedy Center is not because they're gay but because they're American because in this country tree the whole ideal is that everyone has an equal shot and America has never fully actualized that but I can tell you even when I was young it wasn't like anybody thought we were all there but there was a national consensus we were supposed to try and that's what's so dangerous about this moment that there are so many people who honestly don't have a problem with the fact that gay people couldn't sing at the Kennedy Center and that's what Christian nationalism and white supremacy are about it's about certain groups that they think should be the ones who are seen the ones who are promoted the ones who are empowered and that gets down into the granular the one who has given the educational loan the one who has given the grant the one who's be given the job and also as you said in that section of your article that I read at the beginning Daniel musk has your data it means being a Ed it means all the different ways that they have of controlling your life and one of the things that happened to me when I went through that experience of knowing oh somebody doesn't want me here you never necessarily know who the actual people are you don't have to they're nameless they're faceless but you can feel them in the background and what they are doing now is and this is what's so dangerous this is why the Judiciary matters this is why those three co-equal branches matter what they're doing now is getting us to the point where even if you knew who was doing it to you it was no longer illegal you have no recourse and that's when that's when it's over because the majority of people have to pretty much do as we're told and accept what is and they've got a lock on it and I agree with you Daniel that if we don't act quickly once they become entrenched enough then you do have something like Russia like the Chinese Communist party where it would take decades or longer to claw back somebody asked a question about uh the new head of the DNC Ken Martin are you are you uh connected with him you have any perspective on that well I did run uh and I'm very glad I ran because I I was really curious about the the mechanism that had so suppressed my own candidacy and I really wanted to know what is going on here and I knew that that's where the keys to the kingdom first of all individual Democratic legislators there's some people doing great stuff I think Senator Murphy from Connecticut Jasmine Crockett from Texas uh Greg Cesar from Texas uh this congresswoman stanbury from New Mexico there are some when we're talking about the elected officials there are some people doing the goods good stuff I am hoping and praying that any day now a republican elected official will break free of the herd and I'm sure that they're they're already afraid because they're being threatened in their careers but hey I would say to that all of us have to make ethical decisions at work but an article I read yesterday said that some of those Democratic even sen Republican even Senators have said that they fear physical violence and for their own safety that's how that's how this is how how far this has gone um in terms of running for the DNC in terms of Ken Martin um I I felt when I was running that the only hope was for the Democratic party so first of all let me let me say you've got the Democratic legislators and then you've got the DNC this governing body um I didn't this is my experience of the DNC corrupt at the top clueless in the middle and childish at the bottom uh at the uh conference there were some very lovely people but uh nothing near the Consciousness that I felt was required in order to absorb uh the the meaning of the object failure of the democratic party losing the house losing the Senate losing the White House and losing so many state legislators to the point where in many cases you've even got Republican um you've got Republican uh super majorities I felt um and I did drop out at the end I knew there was nowhere I would get the numbers and I um I endorse Ken Ken is the best of the old there were only two serious progressives running was fa Shakir fa Shakir who ran ber Bernie Sanders 24 campaign he and I were the only genuine uh progressives um there was no no one was going to take seriously the idea that we were going to actually birst outside the box uh so Ken is the best of that um we need to give him time to get his feet on the ground on the other hand if it have been me man we would have come out there swinging I think if it had been Faz it would have been come out Faz it would have been coming out swing I think the bottom line is um don't look to any institution at this point we're on our own but us together it's We the People now it's We the People now we never should have farmed out as much of our best thinking our conscience um and our citizenship to any institution at this point um at this point it's it's us babes so I mean in that sense um I guess I I I was having an idea um you know are are there people are there Progressive billionaires like maybe even some of the the Ex-Wives of the tech worldarts like bezos's ex-wife or I think there's a few of them who have been funding a lot of amazing things right but they when you look at someone like like Mc Kenzie Mc Kenzie beos exactly but they are funding from what I understand they tend to be funding um charitable causes and no amount of private char can uh can compensate for basic lack of social justice now Nicole Shanahan it's interesting Nicole Shanahan had had had supported my campaign in 2020 then because of some personal issues of her own family and her interest in vaccines Etc she went with Bobby in 2024 and so that is definitely an example she had been married to one of the you know the biggest billionaires and so forth but now she's gone full on Trump yeah because of Bobby I I guess what I'm wondering is I so my my personal feeling is there needs to be kind of like a third four Civil Society movement organized around the impact that artificial intelligence is going to have in the next few years which I also believe is one reason that musk and Peter teal took over the government at this point because they're aware that the whole thing is about to shift uh you know in in a very uh you know deep direct you know deep way and they wanted to this was the time for them to take it over from the inside and you know part of what musk is doing as he gets into the guts and the operating system of all the you know Treasury and so on is adding like AI Bots and AI agents so he wants to do what he did to Twitter and you know cut the workforce by a lot but then have a lot of it just automated by Ai and that's what they want to do obviously to the whole country in a way but you know so so this movement around our future with artificial intelligence at AI coming in like 3 to five years or 3 to seven years you know could we have like let's say a na wide like barnstorming you know this is it doesn't have to be like against you know Trump or you know it's actually just like you know we we need to have a new form of social Equity um to protect people you know because what what what they're doing right now is more of like oh we're just going to cut all the social services we'll privatize everything and um yeah is there is there maybe a possibility you know of going across the country going to the people bringing red and blue together like you know I interviewed Laura lumer recently who's a big Mega influencer I want to introduce you to her because on some of these no I met her she came to one of my advance in New Hampshire yeah well I think you guys should do some talks together also but but but she's also very aware of how you know where the tech Elites are taking us is deeply against this idea of constitutional republic or government for the people or America first and so on so you know I'm just I'm just I wanted to S plant that idea in your mind that maybe that is a different way forward rather than trying to keep you know bashing one's head against the sort of corrupt and stuck kind of democratic apparatus at a time when it's really quite likely we're not ever you know we're not in this constellation goingon to have Fair elections because yeah they're getting rid of the post office they're they're getting rid of the voting machine oversight you know it's quite also possible that the last election was hacked by by the rightwing there was also massive voter suppression so just to keep banging one's head against that wall uh I think is not going to work but I could see maybe a different kind of you know Grassroots you know going from place to place maybe with some you know musicians or whoever and like really trying to get a new awareness of what this Tech future is because I don't I don't think most people are are are are there yet you know yeah well you know I see it within the larger context of a species that has come to an inflection point um if a species is at a point where it's Collective behavioral patterns are malfunctional for its survival one of two things will happen uh it will either go extinct or it will evolve into a new space and that's where we are right now our Collective behavioral patterns are completely malfunctional and they are malfunctional because we see ourselves as having separate needs from everyone else so AI is a perfect example there are two ways to look at this you could look at it as a competitive model where multi-billionaires want to make more multi-billions and then there's the Cooperative or collaborative model whether it has to do with climate change whether it has to do with nuclear energy and whether it has to do with AI the only way we can reasonably guarantee the possibility of human survival in the next 10 100 years is if we see AI as something that the world is going to collaborate in because of the realization that while this could absolutely solve so many of the world's problems it can also and probably would if only stuck in the lower consciousness of competition um could kill us all but I think so much of this is accomplished this change and this is where I don't think it's a contest between what you're saying and what I'm saying it's both and to some extent but where I am is I think the work right now on the vertical is as important as the horizontal your could we get musicians together and have a whatever and then you got to get funding and do we form a 501c3 all this stuff it's all external external external I'm a go vertical so that to me it's more about each and every one of us really understanding what's happening here reading listening thinking processing understanding what does it mean and I also hope everybody listening understands certainly Daniel knows this but I want to make sure you all do Daniel has mentioned about the 500 billion about Sam Alman how Trump and all those guys and the Japanese multi-billion they're all going to get together and they're going to spend a half a trillion dollars and they're going to have this major uh AI program blah blah blah well China has already a startup in China has created something called Deep seek for five and a half million so um so it's about each and every one of us I think uh Daniel becoming very aligned with the realization um right now what's happening is that the forces of competition with AI are absolutely squashing the forces of as you would say social Equity we have to have guard rails we have to be collaborative and I have to tell you something everybody should be aware right now the United States is not the biggest grownup in the room right now the United States and all these techn Bros and what they're doing and with Trump We Are The Reckless destructive irreverent irresponsible children and that's why we the people need to grab the wheel and put this car back on the road of righteousness cool well maybe we uh we've been talking for uh an hour and change maybe that's a good spot to leave it uh but I feel this is productive I'd love to do this again with you next week or something I mean absolutely everybody almost a thousand people popping in and uh yeah I mean for those you don't know my work my my substack is Daniel pinchback substack docomo teric side I'm I'm starting a course about Rudolph Steiner that starts tomorrow that'll last for a month uh at you can learn about it li. newws uh I would really I mean I sort of put out what I think needs to be done here um in terms of like trying to sort of yeah organize you know while remaining vertically centered and so on uh around this AI threat because I think that's something that could unite the red and the blue uh it's for you know it's both for the laborers and the knowledge workers the farmers everybody needs to get together on this and if people want to leave some thoughts around that or any of the issues raised on on my notes I'll try to answer them and loved all the comments too except for that one guy we had to get rid of uh um and yeah thank you so much Mar for making the time to to share to share share this uh this place with me thank you so much Daniel thank you and thank you also to all of you and my substack is marann liamson Dos substack doc um I too am interested in uh all of this conversation with Daniel with you um and also don't forget uh there are a lot of people doing really good work uh out there just make sure you're one of them and uh much love to everybody bye Maran speak to you soon thank Bless The World God bless you honey 999 folks bye bye great
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.