3170 - Empire In Afghanistan; McKinsey Exposed w/ Noah Kulwin, Brendan James, Garrison Lovely

It's another EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Noah Kulwin and Brendan James to discuss the most recent season of the Blowback podcast. Then, she's joined by freelance writer Garrison Lovely to discuss his recent piece in The Nation entitled "Confessions of a McKinsey Whistleblower." Emma starts off by reacting to remarks UAW President Shawn Fain made on CNBC, in response to a question about UAW withholding their endorsement of President Biden. Then, she's joined by Noah and Brendan to discuss Season 4 of Blowback, and Emma's devastation that a postscript from the movie "Rambo" did not, in fact, hand it to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, despite the movie being a love letter of sorts to them regardless. Noah dives into some of the history of the mujahideen, and how the U.S. began involvement with them and supporting them as a Cold War battleground state in the conflict against Russia. Brendan breaks down the antecedents to the Iraq and Afghanistan war, and how all of the elements of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan from the 1970's-1990's, especially their support and eventual rejection of the mujahideen, lead directly into the 20+ year conflict that defined the 21s century. Then Emma is joined by Garrison, who discusses his early employment as an intern, and then full-time staffer at McKinsey Consulting, and how it shaped his views on America capitalism. Garrison explains his work involving the carceral state, and how McKinsey tried to make its mark on American prisons, and also dives into some of the absolutely unbelievable corporate-speak that McKinsey has introduced into the lexicon, like "right-sizing", and how those signifiers mask and obscure some of the more insidious characteristics of the work being done at the firm. 

And in the Fun Half, Emma is joined by Matt Binder and Brandon Sutton and check in on some of the Senate Republicans, like Josh Hawley, who are getting a little antsy about Mitch McConnell's leadership as Minority Leader after his most recent freeze-up. They then dive into Mehdi Hasan's masterful skewering of Vivek Ramaswamy, who was constitutionally incapable of answering why Trump was the best President of his life time, but also a sore loser who committed abhorrent acts on January 6th. They then get into the REAL, hard-hitting news of the day: Tucker Carlson's bombshell interview with convicted felon and serial fabulist Larry Sinclair, who outlined the (most likely fictional) night where he had (alleged) sex with Barack Obama and smoked crack with him (it was actually cocaine, we think.) They top it off by hearing Tim Pool's thoughts on the matter (would it shock you that he compared it to Christine Blasey Ford's testimony against Justice Kavanaugh)? Plus, your calls & IM's!

Check out Blowback here: https://blowback.show/

Check out Garrison's piece here: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/mckinsey-whistleblower-confessions/

Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow

Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/

Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/

Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/

Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app

Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter:

@SamSeder

@EmmaVigeland

@MattBinder

@MattLech

@BF1nn

@BradKAlsop

Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning

Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse

Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/

Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder

Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/

The Majority Report with Sam Seder - https://majorityreportradio.com/