July 23, 2018

EP. 249 — Surprise! America Already Built The Wall

The US-Mexico border is many things: a line on a map, a setting for ‘Sicario’ movies, a heinous crime scene. North America’s most famous border is so prominent in our minds and our hearts, it’s easy to forget it’s also a place most of us have never been. Do we really understand what it’s like down there, or has it been misrepresented by every anti-immigration “tough guy” we see on TV? Is it really the unique migration crisis we think it is, or are other countries’ borders even deadlier flashpoints? And most surprising of all: what if that potential wall that dominated the 2016 election ALREADY EXISTS, and has existed for over a decade?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Dr. Reece Jones, a scholar who literally wrote the book on our modern violent borders. They’ll draw on Dr. Jones’s experiences at walled borders from Arizona to Morocco to Bangladesh (fun fact: some “fences” sure are wall-shaped!). They’ll explore 230-plus years of predatory & inconsistent American migration policies. And you know those Executive Branch photo ops where Fearless Leaders examine Strong Border Walls that Make Us Stronger? Turns out they’re even more full of crap than you think they are (and we say that knowing you can imagine a lot of crap).

Footnotes: https://goo.gl/pdbHzZ

Recent Episodes

January 26, 2020

Freedom sucks…and that is why we have to defend it. Because our democracy involves doing a lot of stuff that takes energy, takes time, and lacks that Michael Bay Quality that only a surprise missile launch can provide. So on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the better.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/why-fear-based-democracies-arenE28099t-free-with-jason-pargin/

January 19, 2020

How’s your local shopping mall doing? Have you checked on it lately? Swing by sometime, because its department store might’ve turned into a call center or a hospital or a go-kart track. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bailout. Surprise! Listen for details!

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think

January 12, 2020

Movies, TV, gaming: three things that are theoretically a waste of time. Oh sure, they deliver value in the art sense, and comfort in the goofing-off sense. But what if they’re more valuable than that? What if consuming shows and playing video games (accidentally) turns people into real-life heroes? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/writers Caitlin Gill and Alex Watt for a look at the surprising number of times that exact thing happened. They’ll explore stories of regular people who saved a life thanks to skills gained randomly from cartoons, sitcoms, ‘World Of Warcraft’, and more silly entertainment.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/