How America's 'System' Shuts Down Dissent | NonZero World feat. Barry Eisler

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org

0:30 Barry’s new novel, ‘The System’ 2:33 CIA lessons & seeing like a Martian 7:17 Fiction, empathy, and geopolitics 9:55 No cartoon villains 10:58 How power really works in DC 15:25 Feinstein vs. Brennan: the 'sit down' 18:32 Why we excuse ourselves 20:05 Jobs, jets & hidden threats 21:28 The problem with the House 26:15 Valeria’s dilemma: bend or break 30:10 How power corrupts 37:35 Humiliation and geopolitics

Recorded June 27, 2025.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Non-Zero World.
0:04.0	I'm your host, Connor Eccles.
0:07.0	Each week, I break down the latest developments in U.S. foreign policy and other global news,
0:14.0	and I interview a leading expert or activist.
0:17.0	To gain access to full-length episodes and other exclusive content, become an NZN member today at
0:23.1	Robert Wright's Non Zero Newsletter at NONZero.org.
0:30.3	Hey, Barry, how you doing?
0:32.2	Hey, Connor, I'm good.
0:33.2	How are you?
0:34.2	Pretty good.
0:35.0	Why don't I go ahead and get us introduced.
0:37.4	So I am Connor Eccles,
0:39.1	the managing editor of Non Zero and the host of this, which is Non Zero World, the weekend
0:45.4	edition of the Non Zero podcast. You are Barry Isler, best-selling spy novelist, but here to talk
0:52.3	about a slightly different novel that you have out right now.
0:56.2	I should note in terms of previous series that people might know about, you wrote the John Raine series, the Livia Lone series.
1:03.1	Am I missing any big ones there?
1:06.0	Four different series, but Livia and John Rain are probably my best known.
1:10.7	And yeah, the previous books have been
1:12.9	driven more by we're just talking about this before we started recording i would say they're driven
1:18.3	more by extraordinary government skullduggery and uh this book the system is driven more by ordinary
1:25.9	government skullduggery.
	...

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