#1783 - Ben Burgis

Ben Burgis (0:08)

All day.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

So this is for you.

Ben Burgis (0:20)

Thank you so much.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

This is your own. It's got a little JRE label on the back of it. This is your own in the side, this little thing. Oh, yeah. This is a part of a thing we did with Fight for the Forgotten, which is, I don't know if you know what that is, but it's a charity that my friend Justin Wren put together.

They build wells for people in the pygmy population in Uganda and in the Congo as well.

And so they did a thing with Buffalo Trace where we picked out one very specific batch and they literally gave us a barrel of whiskey. So we have one giant bottle and then a bunch of these bottles to give out to guests. So there you go.

Ben Burgis (1:03)

Nice.

Man, this feels strange. I've got to tell you, in the late 90s, I watch news radio all the time, so it feels weird having a drink with you.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

It feels weird just being me.

It's weird for people to feel weird to meet me, so that's odd, too. So your book speaks to my heart. Did you bring a copy?

Ben Burgis (1:30)

I did not.

Joe Rogan (1:31)

You have a book with you.

Ben Burgis (1:32)

No, I have a book with me. This is a book by my friend Adolf Reed.

So it's about growing up in New Orleans under Jim Crow and how the South and the country has changed and how it hasn't changed. This is good stuff.

Joe Rogan (1:48)

Well, that's a good book, too. But tell everybody about your book.

Ben Burgis (1:51)

Yeah. So my book is called Canceling Comedians While the World Burns, A Critique of the Contemporary Left. I wrote that a while ago, so that was before we went through this surreal experience where during weeks that the United States and Russia have been closer to the brink of war than they have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Somehow we've had weeks of news cycle about Joe Rogan. I don't know how that happened.

Joe Rogan (2:17)

Yeah, I'm a controversial character apparently.

Ben Burgis (2:19)

Apparently, yeah. And apparently those controversies are the most important thing in the world.

Joe Rogan (2:25)

Well, the most important thing in the world in media is ratings.

And unfortunately, outrage is what sells. And if you can be upset at something, and so there's like a perfect storm with me. First of all, it was questioning the COVID narrative. And then it was having on doctors who also questioned the COVID narrative. And then it was me getting COVID and recovering very quickly, but taking the wrong medication in their eyes.

And then it was, you know, like posting up the brought to you by Pfizer videos and like showing like these, these people like bought and paid for by pharmaceutical companies. And then it's all the other things. It's like every clip that we talked about before the podcast. It's like every clip that I've ever said taken out of context and if you smush them all together, how horrible it looks. But it's not really it's it's not really that they think it's important. They don't give a fuck what's important. They're just trying to stay alive and they're trying to get as many views as possible. And they're trying to escape what is this undeniable demise of modern mainstream news.

Ben Burgis (3:36)

Well, that's the yeah, we're talking about this a little bit before before we started. And I think what's really I mean, whatever, this is not like a mind shatteringly original insight or whatever. You know, lots of people have said this. But I think what's really gone on is that the economic collapse of traditional media has meant that the profit incentive now is just to cater to whoever you have left, right? So if you have, you know, like if you're on Fox, then like, you know, whatever, like couple million conservative old people are, you know, watching at a given time, you want to give them the narrative that's going to keep them scared and angry and watching the news. If you're on MSNBC, then, you know, you spend the entire Trump years talking about Russia, you know, because like that's what like that's what scares their audience.

And people don't, you know, and one thing that really disturbs me about this, I mean, like the book is about all of the things that people who I basically agree with are getting wrong, right? So, in other words, like, I'm a socialist, I'm a columnist for Jacobin Magazine, I...