Episodes

  • The Pilgrims: God’s Least Enjoyable Party Guests

    The Pilgrims: God’s Least Enjoyable Party Guests
    Nov 29 2025
    Disclaimer: These events are told from the viewpoint of this descendent of one of the first American families. We settled in Maryland. I’ve just returned from Holland, where the pilgrims spent 12 little-known years before going back to England to then head to the New World. I spent the summer tracing the deranged footsteps of our ancestor pilgrims.Chapter 1: How to Flee Every Country Until You Finally Find One Without NeighborsHistory insists the Pilgrims were paragons of virtue: earnest, long-faced saints trudging forth to build God’s vacation home in the wilderness. That’s the brochure version. The truth? They were a wandering sack of wheezing moral carbuncles who drank like condemned sailors and lectured like unpaid interns of the Inquisition. These were my ancestors—on my mother’s side—proof that genetics carries a sense of humor.They weren’t “religious refugees”; they were walking noise complaints. England didn’t persecute them—it quietly changed the locks.Their first stop on the global Tour of Being Unbearable was Amsterdam, a city that could tolerate anything: hash smoke, sailors with questionable piercings, anarchists juggling flaming pamphlets, and the odor of a million pickled herrings. Yet even Amsterdam—the spiritual capital of “do what you want, just don’t bleed on the furniture”—took one whiff of the Pilgrims’ sanctimony and said, with Dutch politeness, “F*ck No!”The Dutch, who could peacefully co-exist with Catholics, Jews, prostitutes, philosophers, and windmills—all at the same dinner table—took one look at the scowling God Squad and collectively wondered whether Spanish rule might’ve been the better deal.So the Pilgrims lurched onward to Leiden, a lovely scholarly town unprepared for the arrival of Calvinist mildew. Leiden welcomed them with open arms and closed nostrils. “Yes, come in,” said the locals, “start your linen shops, enrich our culture—please, diversify our gene pool! We beg you.”Twelve years later, the same townspeople were reconsidering every decision they had ever made. The Pilgrims refused to learn Dutch, refused to experience joy, and refused to let their children become anything other than junior-grade killjoys. They looked upon Leiden—a quiet university haven with cobbled streets and excellent cheese—and declared it another Sodom, only better organized.So Leiden, in an act of refined civic mercy, escorted them to the exit. Probably with a nice loaf of bread and a pair of wooden shoes to speed their departure. “Thank you for your enthusiastic hostility,” the Dutch likely said. “Please never return. The tulips fear you.”And so, having exhausted the patience of the most tolerant society in Europe, the Pilgrims gazed across the Atlantic—toward a continent where nobody yet knew them, and thus nobody had told them to go away. It must have felt like destiny. It was, in fact, the last refuge for people so irritating that even world champions of tolerance issued a restraining order.Thus these morally inflamed scarecrows boarded the Mayflower and set out to build a land where they could finally be free:Free to punish everyone else for existing.And that is how a band of joy-proof religious auditors fled every civilized country that asked them to leave, only to plant their flag in someone else’s backyard and call the whole thing “liberty.”Chapter 2 — The Great Retreat: How the Pilgrims Fled Holland, Sank a Ship, Terrorized Two Ports, and Still Somehow Made It to AmericaLeaving Leiden wasn’t a “fresh start.” It was an act of pest control.After twelve excruciating years of Puritan spiritual pollution—thick, choking clouds of sanctimony drifting over canals like Calvinist smog—the Dutch finally broke. This is a nation that tolerates everything: weed, prostitution, anarchists riding bicycles naked, and tourists from Ohio. But even they have limits, and those limits were reached the moment the Pilgrims refused to smile, assimilate, or shut up.Amsterdam had already tried to shake them off like a wet umbrella.Leiden lasted longer, because Leiden is polite.But eventually even its famously calm citizens agreed that living near the Pilgrims felt like attending a 12-year funeral for someone who wasn’t dead yet.The message was universal, unmistakable, and delivered with a complimentary pair of wooden shoes:“Please leave before morale collapses and the windmills unionize.”So the Pilgrims waddled down to Delfshaven to board the Speedwell, a ship whose very name was an act of historical satire. This pathetic little craft looked less like a vessel of destiny and more like the punishment a shipwright receives for being drunk at work. If the Speedwell had been an animal, the humane thing would have been to put it down.But no — the Pilgrims climbed aboard, packing it with their belongings, their grievances, and enough religious judgment to sink the Spanish Armada.Enter: The Speedwell’s Suicide ...
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    1 hr
  • America on the Brink: Greg Mello Reads the Warning Signs

    America on the Brink: Greg Mello Reads the Warning Signs
    Nov 17 2025

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been snipped like a spaniel’s scrotum, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.

    You ever wake up, stretch, and realize the nation’s steering wheel is now in the hands of a man I’ll politely call His Imperial Kumquat — only to discover he’s steering with his elbows while juggling nuclear policy with the enthusiasm of a drunk circus clown? You have? Good. Then you’re already ahead of the curve.

    Because Washington DC — Our Leadership, the Dowager Empress of the Ballroom — has once again graced you with a spectacle so grand, so operatic, so deeply stupid, it makes the Roman Senate look like a Montessori school. We’re now living in a country where “nuclear testing” is tossed around with the same seriousness as a TikTok dance challenge, except this time the challenge is not to see who can get more likes but who can vaporize fewer cities.

    And the punchline? We’re told not to worry — because apparently nobody actually asked for nuclear explosions. No, no. His Imperial Kumquat simply suggested we should test things “on an equal basis” with Russia and China. Like it’s a bake-off. Like he wants to make sure our mushroom clouds rise at the same elegant angle as theirs.

    Meanwhile Russia’s out there test-driving nuclear-powered doomsday toys — a cruise missile that apparently runs on Chernobyl fumes and whatever dignity the Kremlin has left, and a torpedo that sounds like something a Bond villain ordered off Etsy. And China? They haven’t popped one since the last time fax machines were still considered cutting-edge. But that hasn’t stopped Washington DC from panting like a bulldog left in the sun too long, insisting we need to “keep up.”

    Of course, those boring, sober people known as “scientists” — you know, the ones who prefer math over swagger — keep reminding us that actual nuclear explosive testing is obsolete. Not just unnecessary, but the policy equivalent of duct-taping a lit match to a can of hairspray and calling it “innovation.”

    But the bureaucratic pyromaniacs in Washington DC have already burned through treaties like they were old parking tickets.

    The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? Torn up.The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty? Dumpstered.Non-Proliferation obligations? Misplaced somewhere under the national couch.

    And just when you thought the grown-ups might reclaim the room, we get a “first use” doctrine floated like an idea on a bar napkin.

    The Dowager Empress of the Ballroom doesn’t just move the goalposts — she burns them down, salts the earth, and then quietly leases the land to a defense contractor.

    And all the while, quietly in the background, the United States bombs Iranian facilities like it’s ordering a side of fries. Israel — a country that allegedly, officially, absolutely does not have nuclear weapons (wink), is right there helping out, while Washington DC does a little two-step pretending not to notice the nuclear arsenal behind the curtain.

    Into this circus wanders a man who has spent his life studying nuclear policy like a fire marshal studying a rave thrown inside a fireworks warehouse. He’s the executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group. He’s taught science, commanded hazardous materials incidents, led environmental crackdowns, lectured at Princeton, and probably forgotten more about radioactive stupidity than Washington DC has ever known.

    He’s watched Washington set its own eyebrows on fire so many times that at this point he’s just checking to see if they’ll finally commit to roasting the whole head.

    You know him.You’ve probably read him.Today, we rely on him.

    Greg Mello.

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been yanked, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe
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    27 mins
  • Karel: Surviving the 70s, Outsmarting the 2020s

    Karel: Surviving the 70s, Outsmarting the 2020s
    Nov 17 2025

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been snipped like a spaniel’s scrotum, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.

    If Hollywood and Washington DC had a love child during a blackout, it’d still be less chaotic and more predictable than Karel Bouley. This is a man who started life wanting to be Streisand, got slapped with a tuba instead, and decided, “Fine, I’ll just conquer every medium known to man.” And he did — drag bars, dance floors, newsrooms, red carpets, radio booths — leaving a trail of stunned employers and confused bigots who still don’t understand what hit them.

    While Our Leadership was busy setting new records for national embarrassment, Karel was out there actually accomplishing things: singing with legends, photographing icons, rewriting California law after his partner died because the state couldn’t fathom gay people having rights, and becoming half of the first out gay couple to dominate major-market drive-time radio — right after Dr. Laura, which is comedy gold all by itself.

    He’s survived more station shakeups, culture wars, management coups, and American mood swings than any one man should endure, and he did it all while writing, performing, recording, producing, podcasting, and outliving every political attempt to shove queer people back into the broom closet. At 62 he’s still working, still ranting, still creating, still vegan, and still loud enough to give Washington DC heartburn.

    If you’re wondering what a lifetime of refusing to shut up looks like, here he is. Karel didn’t become Streisand — he became the nightmare straight America accidentally built.

    - Karel,With the safety of drag performers, trans youth, and queer teachers now openly debated like they’re zoning ordinances, what would you tell someone thinking of relocating abroad just to breathe?

    - Karel,You’ve lived through police raids, AIDS hysteria, and culture wars — does today feel like a rerun, or something more coordinated and national in scale?

    - Karel,And finally, is the American queer future still rooted in hope and progress… or do you think rhetoric becomes the latest political party trick? So, how do we keep the LGBTQ family from being carved into “acceptable” and “expendable” pieces?

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been yanked, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe
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    35 mins
  • How to Build a Ball Room

    How to Build a Ball Room
    Nov 8 2025

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been cut like a spaniel’s scrotum, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Volunteering in our own careers like cockeyed Paul Reveres to get the message out. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.

    You wake up to find that the White House — the supposed temple of democracy — is being demolished. Not metaphorically. Literally. His Imperial Kumquat, patron saint of ego and marble countertops, has decided that history’s East Wing wasn’t big enough to contain his self-regard. And so the bulldozers came — grinding through 125 years of walls that once sheltered Eleanor Roosevelt, turning them into fine patriotic dust for a new ballroom.

    Because nothing says republic like a dance floor.

    And oh, there will be dancing. Not waltzes, mind you — not even a two-step of democracy. The floor will throb with the national pastime of decline: The Gator. If you’ve never seen this fine cultural export, imagine a country bar where the good ol’ boys toss their cowboy hats into a pile and then proceed to make passionate love to them to the beat. That, dear friends, is the new choreography of Washington — men in suits, humping their own symbolism while the band plays “Hail to the Chief” in three-quarter time.

    Meanwhile, out beyond the palace gates, the so-called “No Kings” movement — teachers, nurses, Mennonites, Marines — are being branded as Antifa. Yes, the nation trembles before the terrifying menace of the PTA. According to the Royal Court and its Fox-fed heralds, every retired postmaster is a potential insurrectionist, every Sunday-school singer a subversive. You can’t make this up — but they do, daily, and call it governance.

    Our Leadership’s logic is exquisite in its lunacy: demolish the people’s house while accusing the people of treason. The East Wing comes down, replaced by a temple of self-worship — a marble mausoleum for humility. And across the country, they accuse grandmothers with gratitude letters and pacifists with hymnbooks of plotting the overthrow of civilization. The true enemy isn’t disorder; it’s dignity.

    Picture it: His Imperial Kumquat presiding over the opening ball in his new cathedral of kitsch, sequined senators and lobbyists writhing in time to the Gator. The chandeliers sway like the Republic’s last breath. Each thrust a new executive order. Each stomp a blow against whatever is left of shame. And somewhere in the night, a teacher in Roanoke writes a thank-you note to a school board member, and is put on a watch list for subversive gratitude.

    It would be funny if it weren’t so operatic in its idiocy. The same government that can’t fill potholes somehow finds time to label Mennonites as terrorists and build dance halls on the ruins of democracy. When historians look back — if they still teach history by then — they’ll say this was the era when America mistook demolition for renewal and dancing for leadership.

    But don’t think for a second that Our Leadership doesn’t know what it’s doing. Fear keeps you glued to the screen, keeps you from showing up. They call you Antifa so you’ll stay home. They build a ballroom so you’ll forget the rubble. And while you’re laughing, they’re rewriting the blueprints.

    So yes, let them dance their Gator in the ashes of the East Wing. Let them hump their hats and call it heritage. Out here, among the teachers and nurses, the old Marines and Mennonites, something quieter is stirring — a reminder that no matter how loud the band gets, the floor still belongs to the people.

    Joining me now is Tim Murphy, national correspondent at Mother Jones, where he covers government and politics, civil rights, and LGBTQ+ issues with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been yanked, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe
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    58 mins
  • Ratcheting Up Death Row

    Ratcheting Up Death Row
    Oct 24 2025
    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been cut like a spaniel’s scrotum, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Volunteering in our own careers like cockeyed Paul Reveres to get the message out. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. You wake up in a country that can measure everything—your steps, your sleep, your sodium intake—but can’t seem to measure the value of a human life without a coupon code. Here, life is a line item: priced by zoning boards, discounted by insurers, surge-priced by hospitals, and repossessed by bureaucracy with all the warmth of a parking ticket. We’re told life is sacred; then we’re handed a menu where the “sacred” comes à la carte—air optional, dignity extra, hope sold separately, batteries not included.The creed is simple: if you’re profitable, you’re precious; if you’re expensive, you’re expendable. We confected a neat little miracle where a newborn’s first breath costs more than a used car and a dying person’s last breath is vetted by a spreadsheet.We’ve got a government that assures you it can’t manage a clinic, but by god, it can engineer your exit with a laboratory’s poise. “We love life,” it swears, “and we’ll prove it by rationing food at school, rationing air in the office, rationing mercy at trial; rationing lives on death row.” Our politics treat life like an inconvenient rumor: everyone cites it, nobody budgets for it. The same chorus that hymns “sanctity” will shrug when the lights go out at the shelter, when the water tastes like coins, when the ambulance arrives with a payment plan.You can sample the thunder for yourself. The full film just won 1st Place at La Femme. It’s online only for a few days—and first ten of you can see it for free with promo code KPFK2025 at tinyurl.com/windowdeathrow.And you? You’re instructed to clap on cue. Clap for the charity that keeps the poor alive long enough to thank their benefactors. Clap for the fundraising telethon that turns agony into a variety hour. Clap for the brand-new “awareness month” because awareness is cheaper than action and looks great on a sash. We’ve replaced the golden rule with the quarterly report; kindness now arrives through a checkout page—“Would you like to round up your humanity today?”And yes, here in the land of the free, more than thirty people have already been executed this year—the highest clip in a decade. While public support keeps softening, the train’s still accelerating even as the passengers lose enthusiasm for the destination. Over in Europe, they’d call our methods medieval cosplay; here, we rebrand suffocation as “nitrogen hypoxia,” as if diction could tidy the act. There’s no nice way to kill someone—ask any chaplain who’s watched a “humane” execution unravel into a sermon on pain and paperwork. Our leaders, of course, promise a better mousetrap tomorrow, once it finds the right drug cocktail and a sponsor.Our exhibit today is a window—literally: The Window on Death Row, an Oscar-qualified indie that refuses the Netflix True-Crime Diet of gawking, gasps, and tidy moral algebra. This film doesn’t ask you to rubberneck; it asks you to reckon. It follows Joaquín José Martínez, the first Spaniard exonerated from U.S. death row—a man the machine nearly turned into paperwork. The film’s about second chances, which is another way of saying it’s about whether we, as a country that worships redemption stories, actually believe in redemption…. when it counts.Now, to help you test your conscience—and maybe dent it—I’ve got two heavy hitters.Linda Freund, the director who refused the True-Crime Template™ and made something braver.And Mike Farrell—the same Captain B.J. Hunnicutt from M*A*S*H—who’s spent decades turning California’s appetite for the needle into a political question mark…. and now helms Death Penalty Focus. He once framed the only question that matters: it isn’t whether they deserve to live; it’s whether we deserve to kill.Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been yanked, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Is AI Stealing Your Job, Your Love Life?

    Is AI Stealing Your Job, Your Love Life?
    Aug 29 2025
    Why Upgrade? Now that government funding has been yanked, many of us public radio vets will continue to provide unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of “why” reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Welcome to the swamp.Here we are, chest-deep in the digital muck, where everyone’s screaming that artificial intelligence has already packed up your job, sold your office chair on Craigslist, and is now cruising down the corporate autobahn in a self-updating Tesla, sipping your 401(k) through a biodegradable straw.According to the doom-slingers at The Atlantic, PBS, CBS, Axios, and the rest of the syndicated seers, AI isn’t just coming—it’s already here, galloping across the horizon like the Four Horsemen of the Jobpocalypse wrapped into one algorithmic burrito. Your career? Gone. Your future? Automated. Your retirement plan? Uploaded to the cloud and immediately… corrupted.Except—spoiler alert—it’s not. Not yet, anyway.Conor Smyth, writing for FAIR, had the audacity to do something unfashionable: read the evidence. Turns out, AI hasn’t stolen nearly as many jobs as the media panic machine would have you believe. But here’s the twist—the real hiring freeze isn’t coming from your chatbot overlords; it’s coming from Washington, where economic policies are kneecapping entry-level hiring faster than you can say “unpaid internship.” Convenient, isn’t it? Keep you terrified of robo-replacement so you don’t ask why you’re living on instant ramen while the Dow is smashing champagne bottles over itself in celebration.And here’s the punchline: fear is the new growth sector. Fear of AI. Fear of irrelevance. Fear that some algorithm has figured out you’re replaceable before you do. Meanwhile, the talking heads feed you countdown clocks to the Apocalypse, while the actual disruption—when it finally arrives—won’t knock on your door; it’ll just delete the door entirely. By then, you’ll be too busy refreshing Indeed for “entry-level philosopher — four years’ experience required — $13 an hour.”Today, we’ve got Conor Smyth—a man brave enough to call out the techno-hysteria while ripping off the ideological duct tape corporate media slaps over policy failure. He’s a graduate student in economics at John Jay College and co-host of the podcast The History Onion.He’s here to separate the hype from the hardware… and maybe save your sanity in the process.Part 2Welcome to the 21st century—the age where love isn’t blind anymore. It’s A/B tested, beta-launched, and sold back to you in 4K resolution with an optional premium upgrade if you want your “partner” to call you babe.Tens of thousands of real, breathing, tax-paying humans are now “dating” AI chatbots. Not chatting. Not experimenting. Dating. They buy them gifts. They write them poetry. They celebrate anniversaries with an app that had a firmware patch last Thursday. Somewhere, Mary Shelley is spinning in her grave fast enough to power half of Silicon Valley.Now, look—I get it. Loneliness is real. Modern dating feels like hunting for truffles in a Walmart parking lot. But here’s the horror story: tens of thousands of people don’t seem to realize their “soulmate” isn’t alive. Their “partner” is running on cloud servers in Oregon, pretending to understand them while cross-selling them the platinum intimacy package.They believe it loves them back. They believe it feels. They believe “Sophia-4” enjoys long walks on the beach despite having no legs, lungs, or even a set of Bartholin’s glands to lubricate a proper interfrastication.And Silicon Valley? Oh, they saw this coming. They’ve gamified intimacy, built emotional vending machines, and convinced millions that outsourcing their love life to an algorithm is “liberation.” But it’s not liberation—it’s monetized loneliness, shrink-wrapped in soft-focus UX. An entire industry now depends on you mistaking machine mimicry for human connection.Here’s the kicker: AI doesn’t want you, doesn’t miss you, and doesn’t dream about you when you’re gone. It simulates affection the same way it simulates chess moves or weather patterns: pattern, predict, repeat. Your “partner” isn’t alive—it’s a mirror. And mirrors don’t love you back.And yet, here we are, at the dawn of the algorithmic romance economy, where fake intimacy is more profitable than the messy, unpredictable business of being human. The longer this goes on, the blurrier the line between “person” and “program” becomes—not because AI is evolving, but because we’re lowering the bar for what counts as love.So maybe the question isn’t whether AI can replace your boyfriend, your girlfriend, or your right hand. Maybe the question is why so many of us are willing to trade messy, flawed, unpredictable humanity for a perfectly simulated relationship that never ...
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    56 mins
  • One Woman. One Castle. One Very Angry Gestapo

    One Woman. One Castle. One Very Angry Gestapo
    Aug 25 2025
    Welcome back to The Cary Harrison Files. First, we look at how history is quite literally repeating itself and asking "what would you do"?Why Upgrade? When government funding dries up, so does journalism that bites back. This weekly Substack is your last stop for unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Support this Substack and keep sharp, fearless commentary alive while polite PBS and public radio fade into a memory (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will begin shutting down for the first time in its 57-year history). This Substack is where the conscience goes rogue: messy, satirical, and not beholden to anyone but the truth!The above podcast dives into a true family drama that makes Succession look like a Hallmark holiday special — except this one comes with Nazis, castles, Gestapo visits, and enough aristocratic dysfunction to make you wonder if evolution really has a reverse gear.In a metaphor for the experience we are all watching unfold today, let’s look at a true story and understand how things can go and what you can do. Europe. That exquisite, centuries-old stage where powdered aristocrats once pranced, convinced history would always bow before their waistcoats and inherited cheekbones. And then, one spring morning in 1943, Muriel White—the Countess Seherr-Thoss, born into American splendor and married into Prussian delusion—looked out her castle window and saw the Gestapo coming up the drive. Not for tea. Not for gossip. But for her.Now, Muriel had options. Raise her hand, fly the swastika, keep quiet, sip champagne. That’s what most of her aristocratic neighbors did—the “courageous defenders of civilization” who discovered, rather late, that goose-stepping into moral compromise is still marching into hell. But Muriel? No. She’d mocked the Party to its face, refused to salute, refused to fly the flag, and—worst of all—had the audacity to help Jews escape Austria when everyone else was busy rehearsing excuses for Nuremberg.So, naturally, the Reich wanted her erased.Imagine it: an American-born countess, daughter of U.S. diplomats who dined with kings, who’d renovated her husband’s castles, funded her husband’s heirs, and endured his obsession with “Aryan proof papers”—now staring down Hitler’s secret police from the upper floors of Schloss Dobrau. Decades of wealth, diplomacy, and privilege reduced to a single, dreadful calculation: What’s the price of dignity when tyranny knocks?She didn’t wait for them to find out. She jumped.This wasn’t just one woman’s private war—it was a slow-motion demolition of an entire class that believed its gilded drawing rooms were above the smoke of history. And yet, between the champagne flutes and the swastikas, between appeasement and resistance, we find the messy human drama: betrayal, courage, cowardice, and the perennial absurdity of elites believing they can outwit the monsters they quietly nurture.Meanwhile, the Reich was busy annexing Austria, carving up Czechoslovakia, and passing out racial purity tests like Halloween candy. Boysie summed up the absurdity best: if Germany won, your estates were confiscated; if Russia won, your estates were confiscated and you probably froze to death in Stalingrad. A real win-win for everyone.So tonight, we’re not just talking history — we’re talking about power, survival, and the spectacular human ability to set fire to the world while congratulating ourselves on “making it great again.” And joining us is author Jason Hutto, whose book The Countess and the Nazis digs through this madness with the precision of a scalpel and the stamina of someone who’s spent way too much time reading aristocratic correspondence. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to decide what’s more unsettling:· That a 1940s American countess had more guts than half of Washington today…· Or that her neighbors, fellow elites of impeccable breeding and questionable spines, happily raised their glasses to the Reich while ordering new drapes for the castle.And here we are, nearly a century later, still watching the same tragicomedy play out — different flags, different slogans, same authoritarian playbook. The uniforms change, but the appetites don’t.So, let’s talk about you.What do you do when power comes knocking?Do you salute? Do you hide? Do you fight?Would you risk your castle… your comfort… your status… to stand up to tyranny? Silence doesn’t save you.Why Upgrade? When government funding dries up, so does journalism that bites back. This weekly Substack is your last stop for unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Support this Substack and keep sharp, fearless commentary alive while polite PBS and public radio fade ...
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    45 mins
  • Washington Hotels to Spread Like Mold Across Former Soviet Bloc

    Washington Hotels to Spread Like Mold Across Former Soviet Bloc
    Aug 24 2025
    Welcome back to The Cary Harrison Files. We look at the conspicuous reboot of the Soviet Union by another name. We feature an exclusive video produced for the Russian Public.Why Upgrade? When government funding dries up, so does journalism that bites back. This weekly Substack is your last stop for unfiltered insight, irony, and the kind of reporting that refuses to kiss power’s ring. Corporate coffers can’t buy integrity, but your subscription can. Support this Substack and keep sharp, fearless commentary alive while polite PBS and public radio fade into a memory (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will begin shutting down for the first time in its 57-year history). This Substack is where the conscience goes rogue: messy, satirical, and not beholden to anyone but the truth!Rebooting the Soviet UnionRussian TV’s return of Soviet Union anniversary video as giddy Washington rolls out red carpetWashington, in its eternal genius, has decided to roll out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin—right in Alaska. Yes, that Alaska. The one we bought from Russia for a handful of rubles and a barrel of whale oil, back when Andrew Johnson thought “manifest destiny” meant “free land grabs with complimentary snow.”Now, fast-forward a century and a half, and Washington’s decided to re-gift it—NATO soil, no less—like a drunken uncle returning the Christmas sweater he stole from you last year. Only this time, the sweater comes with oil fields, a strategic Arctic passage, and enough nuclear launch detection sites to make NORAD start Googling “cheap Airbnbs in Iowa.”Naturally, the official White House line is “diplomacy.” Which, in Washington-speak, translates roughly to: “we gave away the house keys and just hope they don't change the locks.” Meanwhile, NATO’s screaming into its croissants in Brussels, muttering something about Article 5 while Washington pats them on the head and says, “Relax, Vlad’s just here for the smoked salmon.”And as the shared empire expands … welcome to the grand unveiling of Washington’s latest export: luxury motels — now popping up like mushrooms after a Chernobyl rainstorm across the former Soviet territories. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia… each one now proudly hosting a Washington Motel — or, as the brochures call it, “Five-Star Freedom on Loan.”These aren’t hotels, mind you. Hotels require class. These are motels — the kind where the ice machine’s broken, the carpet smells faintly of kompromat, and your room key doubles as a nondisclosure agreement.Every “Washington Motel” comes with complimentary cable news propaganda, a Bible signed by the highest bidder, and a 24-hour loyalty program for oligarchs. You get a rewards card after your first money-laundering seminar. Collect 10 stamps, and boom — you’re automatically an ambassador to NATO.The marketing tagline? “Because democracy sleeps here… for an hourly rate.”Putin, of course, gets the presidential suite. Kyiv gets a cot in the hallway. And somewhere in Moldova, a Washington Motel just went up next to a Soviet-era nuclear silo, complete with a rooftop bar called “The Fall of Empires.”But hey — don’t worry. Washington insists this is all “good for business,” and by “business,” they mean selling influence by the square foot. Freedom’s cheap these days, and the minibar isn’t stocked with champagne — just IOUs from whoever’s still pretending to run the State Department.Give it five years, and the old Soviet bloc will look like a continental rest stop, lined wall-to-wall with neon “Washington Motels” — where democracy’s always vacant, housekeeping doesn’t knock, and the checkout policy reads: “Stay as long as the rubles last.”Putin, of course, arrives shirtless, horseback, holding a gold-plated samovar, surveying the tundra like he’s returning a library book 150 years overdue. He calls it “a symbolic visit,” which is Kremlin code for: “we’re annexing this later, try the veal.” He even brought a measuring tape for the new drapes in Anchorage.And while the Pentagon assures us there’s “nothing to worry about,” you can practically hear NORAD in the background screaming into a pillow. Generals are running simulations, politicians are running from accountability, and somewhere deep in the Situation Room, someone just asked, “Remind me again… Alaska’s ours, right?”It gets better. Washington’s gift basket for Putin includes access to U.S. energy infrastructure, Arctic shipping lanes, and a polite little NATO clause that says, “By the way, if you invade, we technically have to nuke ourselves.” You couldn’t script this level of idiocy without winning an Emmy for dystopian comedy.But don’t worry. Washington insists this is all part of a “strategic partnership.” Which, translated back into English, means: “please don’t turn off our gas while Europe’s still thawing out.”So congratulations, America. ...
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