Ep. 51: Marcus Parks Exercises His Free Speech
Howdy FRs,
Well, we had a doozy of an episode last week as Marcus Parks joined us to vent some well-earned rage at the current crop of attacks on free speech launched by the Trump administration and his allies.
It got a little heated and we loved it. Thank goodness, you did too...
If you haven't listened yet, please do! For such troubling subject matter it was quite fun. In addition to raging against the MAGA machine, we threw rotten verbal tomatoes at Trump's UNGA speech, laughed a bit over the ridiculous NYT lawsuit that got pushed back to the administration, and took a look at a few polls that gave us slight twinges of hope. Also, apparently one f-bomb made it past the censor. đ
Seena's Corner - The Saudis Are Winning
The Saudis are knee deep in our culture. From LIV Golf to Wrestlemania, to the Riyadh Comedy Festival, to today with the announcement that EA - maker of Madden and Battlefield will be acquired by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund for $52.5 billion. The lines between what is American made / Saudi funded are becoming completely blurred.
Some people will call it sports-washing or culture-washing⌠as an Iranian - I call this SANDSTORMING - because you are going to get lost in an aura of glow sticks trying to keep up with the ways the Saudi Royal Family is covering up their frequent human rights violations.
Oh, a fun yuk-em up festival? Letâs have some EDGE LORD comics come out and show the world how truly progressive the Saudis really are. Theyâre hip, theyâre cool, they can take a joke! Just follow these rules via @atsukocomedy on Threads:
Iâm actually interested in what YOU all think about this⌠what job would you take for money alone? Whatâs your price? We ALL have to rationalize our economic choices to some extent. If we were human rights purists, we would all be throwing our iPhones in the ocean and only buying hand woven clothes from salaried workers that get a 401k, healthcare, vision AND dental, but we donât live in that reality.
What Iâve struggled with in my career is that I started comedy at 18, doing stand-up all over the country, and there were a couple times where I was asked to work clean⌠in my youthful irreverence I said âthe truth isnât clean!â I feel a bit dumb looking back now, but Iâve made choices in my career to protect my comedy - and that has 100% made my life more difficult. Protecting my art meant I didnât take certain opportunities, and now I run a creative agency (Zerocool) where we do branded content for different companies (finance, law, government). But my art is not fully in commerce, which feels good. At the same time, Iâm out here producing videos for people and companies that I definitely have disagreements with. But what the Riyadh Comedy Festival has shown me is that there is a line - no matter what amount of money, I would never do that show (not that they would ask!).
I think itâs an interesting thought experiment, as consumers we have little recourse from the direct investment by the Saudis in our culture - but we should be mindful.
Our greatest export was our culture (movies, tv, music, blue jeans) - so what does it mean when we allow a foreign government to sandstorm themselves over all of it?
Next up: Jay-Zâs Desert Album
Meanwhile in Ohio: What Travis is Reading--
For the last few weeks on TFR we've talked about how the recent murder of Charlie Kirk has caused conservatives around the country to start a strange "war on free speech" in response to how some liberals in America have reacted to Kirk's killing ââ like we mentioned, these "anti-free speech" actions are being felt in American cities big and small, with repercussions anytime anyone has a reaction that others may not like... In the big blue area of Cuyahoga County (home to one of Ohio's largest cities, Cleveland) several county council members were not notified of a moment of silence that was going to be held in honor of Kirk and opted to walk out instead, showing that the controversial conservative's death is still causing conflicts in county councils countrywide and beyond.
Kaitlin Durbin, cleveland.com
What's Coming...
FP Zaddy and T-Ceps will be back this week, likely talking peace proposals in Gaza. We also have some exciting guest announcements coming soon so stay tuned!
As always...
We want to hear from you! Let us know your thoughts on Seena's questions, tell us what we're doing right (and wrong!), or just say hello. You can send us an email at Theforeignreportlpn@gmail.com.