#065 - The New Western Frontier w/ Matt Farwell (@HuntClancy)

We are absolutely brimming with joy this week as we welcome back the indomitable journalist, researcher, and all around swell dude, Matt Farwell.  Our day one homies will know that Matt was the very first guest we had on the show way back when we were just a wee baby podcast.  And we need not tell most of you that Matt’s Substack is a must read for any respectable noided leftist. But what you might not know is that Mr. Hunt-For-Tom-Clancy is a native of Utah, which is the backdrop for our episode today. 

Our entry point into this one is, of course, the Charlie Kirk murder at Utah Valley University. But don’t worry, this is not another Charlie Kirk assassination episode. Kirk’s killing is simply the first step on our path to discussing the larger geopolitical forces that have come together to reshape Utah and the broader American West in the image of the Military Industrial Surveillance Technology Complex.  What was once the frontier for American genocidal expansion Westward has become home to the next frontier for the new Data Center Imperialism—the information frontier.

We start out by hearing from Matt about his on-the-ground experience in Orem, Utah in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, and his observations of the eerily ubiquitous presence of the national security state around the otherwise unknown Utah Valley University.  And wouldn’t you know that right now the national security state, just like the entire rest of the US economy, is going bananas for AI. So we zoom out to talk about data center imperialism and the deep roots of the surveillance state in the American West.   We focus on the Utah Data Center in particular (thanks, Obama!). Finally, we set the stage for a part 2 of our excavation, wherein we will delve into the historical particularities - including the regions colonization by Mormons and other sects - that make the New Western Frontier prime for the picking by a new generation of billionaire barons and their doomsday preaching hired guns of the military industrial complex. 

Enjoy! 

Follow Matt on Twitter  @huntclancy

Buy Matt’s book https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541784/american-cipher-by-matt-farwell-and-michael-ames/

Subscribe to his Substack https://thehuntfortomclancy.substack.com