Cenk Uygur

He could catch the guy on about, you know, I think it's lucky.

Now, a great irony is I actually totally agree with that. That's why I mentioned the physical 100. Technique's going to win almost every time. We're having a debate about whether it's 8 or 1 or 0.01. Either way, technique wins.

Yeah, so... When you're a kid, you're taught a whole bunch of things. That's the software that we talked about earlier, right? So cultural software is media, family, friends, social media, et cetera. And so growing up in any tribe, whether it's a religious tribe or an ethnic tribe, you're going to get indoctrinated into that tribe's way of thinking.

So you take a Turkish person who's super progressive, loves Bernie, believes with all their heart and peace. And you tell them something about Kurds and they'll say, oh no, not those guys. They're terrible and evil and we have to do what we do to them. Ah, you see, that's the tribe taking over, right? And so you tell any religious person what's wrong with the other religions.

They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's totally true. You get to their religion, tribe takes over. No, how dare you? I'm offended, right? So I grew up with Turkish propaganda. So I'll tell you a couple of funny instances of it. When we were kids, we'd go to Turkish American Day Parade. I'm like 10 or 12 years old. It's in the middle of New York. Cause I grew up in Jersey.

That's why I got in all those fights. And, and we would chant in Turkish, Turkey is the biggest country. There's no other country that's even big. And I was like, this is crazy. I'm like, dad, isn't this crazy? America's big, China's big. Why are we chanting this nonsensical chant, right? So that's the beginning of beginning to realize you're indoctrinated.

I'm in college and I read about some battle that the Ottoman Empire lost. And I'm like, that can't be right. The Turks have only lost one war, World War I, right? And then I was like, oh my God, I'm an idiot. I got taught that in third grade in Turkey. Of course that's not true. That's ridiculously untrue, right? All those thoughts are in your head. You don't even realize it.

And so on the Armenian genocide, I read the Turkish version and the Turkish version has all of these, this evidence, right? So it's real in that it exists, but here I'll give you a great example of it. Uh, I think it was Colonel Chester, some random American, uh, military guy after world war one. And he says about the Armenians after the mass, uh, March, uh, The forced marches.

He says they returned to the area fat and entirely unmask. Okay. I'm like, Hey, that's an American Colonel. That's saying that. So that's obviously true. You see, they didn't happen. Right. Or at least in the way that the Armenians say now as a grownup, I look at it and I go, are you kidding me? That guy's obviously trying to get a contract with the Turkish government. Right.

Nobody returns from a forced March fat and entirely unmask occurred. Right. So that's propaganda. And so. And that one was so indoctrinated that it was tough to let go. So at Penn, I write that op-ed, et cetera. And then over the course of time... And so Anna and I disagree on things from time to time.

And we've been co-hosting now for... She's been at the Young Turks for 18 years and co-hosting for almost 18. And so... She's Armenian. And by the way, I love America. I mean, look, we came to America because we love this country, land of hope and opportunity. That's part of why I fight so hard for the average American for the American idea.

So here's a Turk and an Armenian doing a show together and it becomes the number one online news show. That's the beauty of America. Right. So she's telling me things and we're having some on air discussions about it, et cetera. And then it just dawned on me like, no, this was, this too was obviously propaganda.

So at that point, once you realize that it becomes easier, that's why I'm trying to unplug people from the matrix. Because once you realize it's propaganda, oh my God, it gets infinitely easier to start telling what's true or not true.

You have to keep testing it against objective reality. Okay, they said something. Did it happen or did it not happen? So here, here's an easy one. Alex Jones, for a long time, especially under Obama, kept saying, they're going to put us on FEMA camps.

Nobody's been in a FEMA camp. Obama left. There was no FEMA camps. So what I asked, like, for the right-wing conspiracy guys, guys, Has any of their things ever come true? Like they always say all these crazy things that never, ever happened. So the third time it doesn't happen, can you please start to wonder, maybe I'm on the wrong side, maybe. And, but, but that's not just for right-wingers.

That's easy. Right. But it's also for mainstream media. And that's where I get the biggest pushback. And that's where, because my tribe is, Is, is what the kids call PMC professional management class. Okay. They're curious. You go up the ladder, you have a, this route, that route, et cetera. And so for that class, the status quo is pretty good.

So when Biden gives you 15% change, you're like, what else do you want? That's amazing. He just course corrected a little bit. Now it's perfect, right? But for the average guy who needs 100% change, not 15, they look at it and they go, What the fuck? He only did 15% and everybody's declaring him a hero, right? So those are the hardest guys to get through on.

And those are the guys who get most mad at me, not the right-wingers, the establishment. That's why I'm nails on a chalkboard for them because I'm on the left, but I call out their crap and their marketing and propaganda. And that's why I mentioned earlier that

No one probably, he might not even consciously know it, but no one dislikes Bernie more than Obama because if Bernie got into office, he'd embarrass Obama by doing a lot more change. And Obama told us that change wasn't possible. You could only get 5%. And so if Bernie does 50%, then Obama's humiliated and his record and his legacy is ruined, right?

So I don't think he makes that conscious decision, right? But it's subconscious. It's a way of thinking. So if you're watching Morning Joe, test him. He says something that Biden is for $15 minimum wage. When Biden takes it out of the bill, know that Morning Joe was lying to you. He says that Biden said he was for the public option, but he never even proposed it.