October 10, 2024 • 22 mins
Republicans want to send us back to the dark ages, and technocrats like Elon Musk are willing accomplices. Dr. Jonathan Metzl returns to discuss our increasingly trying times.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
by the time that you listen to this episode, Hurricane
Milton will have made landfall in Florida. We have no
idea the type of devastation that the state of Florida
(00:37):
will be in for. Once again, as I'm coming on air,
my mother sends me a text and says, you know, Danielle,
I rarely watched CNN, but today I turned it on
and a reporter is asking a woman in Florida that's
standing in her wreckage about, you know what she thinks
about these two storms coming through within two weeks, and
(00:59):
her response was their man made. I cannot express to
you the absolute extraordinary damage that Donald Trump and the
Republican Party have done to this country and have done
to fucking common sense. It is a travesty what has happened,
(01:20):
the amount of disinformation and how susceptible people are to it,
to believe that in this day and age, that you
cannot trust science, your eyes, or your ears, or anything
any amount of education. I don't even care how far
you went in school, but that you would denounce all
of that and believe the fucking bullshit that is coming
(01:40):
out of Donald Trump and Marjory Taylor Green and JD.
Vance and Matt Gates in Rohn de Santis's mouth is
absolutely fucking wild. And you wonder what was it like
living inside of the Dark Ages. Well, you don't have
to wonder. We are here. This is the modern day,
as Brian Karem, you know, fellow Nerd Avenger said earlier
(02:02):
this week on Nerd Avengers, this is the technological Dark Ages,
where we're at a time when we're trying to convince
people that the world is round and that like a
man did actually land on the moon, in the age
of deep fakes and deep, deep, deep fucking distorted disinformation.
It is absolutely wild. And today I get into a
(02:25):
conversation with our friend or in house doctor, doctor Jonathan
Metzel about like how we've gotten here. You know, it
doesn't make any sense. It's absolutely disheartening and frustrating and
just like mind numbing trying to convince people that they
have become their own worst enemy. When you have welcomed
(02:47):
the likes of Fox News and Donald Trump and the
Republican Party into your home into your life, into your
mind space. It is like a fucking earworm, right that,
Just like burrows in they are power sites that are
eating this country from the inside out. And I am
just at the time of this recording, am absolutely fucking
(03:08):
beside myself with where we find ourselves. And you know,
Jonathan tries to, you know, to help me work through it,
but Lord help us all because I really do believe
that it is the end. I really do feel like
this is the end. This is this is the pivotal moment. Friends.
(03:29):
We either go over this cliff with a parachute or
we go over it with a fucking anvil. But either way,
we're going over the cliff right now. And it is
just it is alarming. It is alarming. So coming up
next my conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks.
(03:52):
As always, you know that whenever we have the opportunity
to sit and chat with our in house doctor, doctor
Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled because I feel like,
on a regular basis, I need some type of diagnosis. Jonathan.
We're living, as we always say, in extraordinary times, and
(04:12):
when I think about it, right now, we're speaking as
another hurricane is barreling towards Florida twice in two weeks.
Historic storms are about to hit, and yet fifty percent
of the population has been convinced by one of the
two major political parties that climate change is in real
(04:35):
that what they're experiencing and seeing with their own eyes
and their own ears isn't happening. That we're being flooded
and inundated with AI deep fakes of children floating on rafts,
and being told some of the most egregious lies about
hurricane relief not happening, about the money being spent on
(04:57):
migrants as a way to so hate and disorder. And
I want to get your thoughts, because this is something
that you have studied, that you know about. I don't understand,
and I don't think that we are talking still even
nine years later, about how these pervasive lies, how people
(05:21):
will discount their own thoughts and link on to Donald
Trump and it will cost them everything, but it doesn't
matter so long as it costs the people around them more.
And I still, Jonathan, nine years later, I still can't
(05:41):
come to terms with that. Help me, Well, good morning,
good morning.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know, I'm definitely I mean, if there's a diagnosis.
It's a diagnosis for all of us, which is staying
afloat in this crazy time. I'm saying hi this morning
from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and I'm speaking to four hundred
people tonight at the Convention Center as part of this
series called Conversations about Race. And it's a very multi racial,
(06:12):
multi everything group. And so I first want to say
that it's hard to see from social media sometimes that conversation,
real conversations are still happening, because I'm a part of
one out here today. But it is these moments of crisis,
these kind of polarizing moments of crisis. And so let's
talk through a couple points about this. Do you want
(06:32):
me to start with the most fair part, the most
fear answer, or the most ever, the most conniving.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Asser, whatever feels best to you to start with.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Okay, So please I get starting. You know, there is
an agenda of undermining It's not just like racism is
the means and the ends and the agenda. It's that
there is always another agenda here. I mean, we just
learned this morning as we're filming this that while Trump
was denying COVID, he was sent COVID tests to putin.
(07:01):
It was breaking news about an hour ago from Bob
Wooper's book that all these guys were saying this thing
is fake and all this kind of thing, and behind
the scenes they dan well knew that COVID was real
and Trump was secretly shipping COVID stuff to putin, and
I'm sure vaccines and other stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Also, I guess you just broke that news to me,
and I am just I am speechless. Okay, really, yeah, yeah,
didn't know, got it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So there's stuff about this that is incredibly performative in
a way that riles people up. But it's not like
people don't know. And I do feel like there's I'm
just speculating here just to be clear, but undermining FEMA
is an agenda that plays to racism, plays to social division,
(07:49):
place to all the things you're talking about. But then
if Trump wins, they can get rid of FEMA and
put Elon Musk in charge and privatize everything and stuff
like that. So there's a financial agenda here that is
maybe a bigger agenda than just that. Now that being said,
I just think that this idea of dismantling government, it's
(08:10):
not like there's going to be no government. It's going
to be privatized, for profit, unequal targeted, all the kind
of things. And so in a way, I just think
it's important to keep in mind that this is a psychology,
it's a bias, it's a history, it's all those things.
But it's also tied to a bigger financial agenda, which
is to monetize certain things and promote certain kinds of
(08:33):
commerce and screw people over who are already historically disadvantaged.
And so I think that, to me is the number
one point. I'm just seeing this again with this femous
stuff the way I saw it before, with the Affordable
Care Act and anti COVID and all those kind of things.
And so I think that's probably for me point number one.
Point number two. I saw AVI here in Minnesota, and
(08:53):
I flew last night next to a guy who was
flying this crazy circuitoust route. He was flying back to Minnesota.
He was a construction developer and worked in construction, and
he was going to get his truck and his supplies
and his coworkers so they could drive down to Florida
and help people out in the aftermath of the hurricane.
(09:14):
And you know, good salta of the earth kind of guy,
a really robust guy. We had a long conversation and
he was telling me how he really wanted to help.
This is a moment where people, in a matter of
their ideology, chip in to help each other. He had
gone to Ashville previously and helped at least rebuild some
kind of things. But then as we started talking, it
(09:36):
became clear that he was incredibly anti government and was
a Trump supporter. So he said, the main thing for
me is this is a moment where like, we chip
in and help people, but we don't need government regulation.
We don't need government telling me what to do. We
don't need government. While he had this whole diatribe against
what he called government, and so I said, well, you know,
(09:56):
I can see your point, right, which is the government
adds relation to staff. But don't you think you're maybe
prone to help certain people that seem familiar to you
and not help other people, Like if it's just random
of people just chipping in, want to reinforce biases and
things like that. So we had a long conversation. The
guy wasn't crazy in fact, I mean, who would just
(10:19):
drop everything and drive down to help people like it
was laudable in some ways. But his animosity toward government
was so deep that the stuff that Trump said really
resonated with like and the JFK Junior stuff and all that,
let's get rid of government, let's get rid of regulation.
And so this mistrust of government is also such a
deep thread. And I don't know, there's two ways to
(10:42):
think about that, right, And I went in, yes, government
does add a lot of regulation. The other hand, like,
you can't just have a million random people driving down
to Florida with lumber and stuff like that, because it'll
reinforce inequity and be chaos and be disorganized and all
these kind of things. And so these things are all
playing out against each other. And I guess I don't
deny that it's racism and stuff like that, but I
(11:05):
would also say that there's all these other layers to
it would have to do with finance and capital and
governance and all these other things.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I get the layering, but I would say that the
foundation is racism, right, Like I don't think that we
can deny. We always want to say that there are
all of these other factors, and those other factors have
to do with economics. And I will always say okay,
and then run it back one more time, because it
always starts and ends with racism, this distrust in government
and what government is doing with your money. And I
(11:38):
think about this in the story that you just told,
in terms of the regulations, and right now down in Atlanta,
right in the suburbs of Atlanta, you have an entire
chlorine plume that is over ninety thousand plus residents that
are down there because of deregulation that happened with these
chemical plants that are allowed to be in residencedential areas
(12:01):
and that have navigated loopholes where they don't have to
follow any rules whatsoever in terms of creating safety measures
that would mitigate the effects of say a fire breaking
out inside and then causing extraordinary health damage that we
won't know. There are certain people that right now are
(12:22):
saying they have lingering headaches, eye irritation, skin irritation, and
body aches. But you don't know what the long term
ramifications are going to be of those illnesses that comes
from deregulation. And so like, when I hear these things
that are largely said by white Americans, what would be
the reason that they don't trust government and that they
(12:44):
want government to be deregulated because they don't like who
government is supposedly helping. When it's a majority of people
that are white and poor that are on government assistance,
either white and poor or rich and poor that are
receiving welfare, it's hard for me to navigate eight and
have conversations when at the core of it, all we're
(13:05):
doing is looking for euphemisms for racism.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Well, I mean, of course, I mean that's you just
summarize the talk I'm giving today, and you know, I mean,
I'm a structuralist, right, so of course I completely agree
with what you just said. But I guess the question
is what are you going to do about it? Right?
And I mean right now we have a real clear
choice about what you do about it. But I would
also say that is anti racism. The answer is changing
(13:32):
the financial structure. The answer is more government. The answer
is addressing people's concerns of government. The answer I just
I think it's important for me at least to know
people's agendas of how they come to that, just so
I can know how to kind of push back on
it a little bit more. Not denying that. But it's
just funny because for me the issue is in the
(13:54):
name of racism, divisions are monetized basically, you know. I mean,
I'm not surprised that a lot of white people are
resist that's I live in Tennessee. It's not very surprising.
But for me, as you know, the answer to those
divisions is to make structures equitable. And so that's the way.
You don't try to change people's identity, to increase structures
(14:14):
where equity is rewarded. But we're in the opposite potentially now,
which is weaponizing historical divisions. I mean, I feel like
anti Semitism and Islamophobia are also being weaponized right now
for financial gain in a lot of different ways. And
so we're just in a movement right now where these
divisions are being monetized and there's no count, there's no
(14:37):
what's the reward, right I mean? And so I guess
part of the issue why this matters I'm talking around
in circles I apologize, is if Trump wins, this is
going to be the whole country. And that's another reason
to just be worried about. Trump is giving us a
little hint here of this FEMA thing is exactly what
everything will be like, which is undercutting every government agency,
(14:59):
privatizing everything, targeting people who are already at risk, Like
that's going to be every agency. I mean, FEMA seems
like an extreme example, but I don't know. You're going
to see it in healthcare. You'll see it hell in
the traffic lights and everything like that.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Right, it will be everything, and it will be targeted
again directly at people of color, directly at black and
brown people and those communities, and then it will target
everyone else. And so it's like again low hanging fruit,
which is the fact that Donald Trump the Republican Party
(15:36):
are racists. They are pushing a white supremaist, white Christian
nationalist agenda, and it begins with sowing distrust in government,
in agencies and saying that you can only trust me.
And that's how you begin this game of distortion. I mean,
(15:57):
I looked Jonathan at the AI photo that Steven Miller,
Laura Lumer and all of these other right wing people
with huge platforms retweeted a fake photo of this young
girl holding a puppy on a raft and saying, oh, well,
Kamala Harris sent all the FEMA money to Haitian migrants,
(16:18):
And they retweeted this and they took it down after
the fact, but guess what, it was already fucking out
and liked by millions of people. So I'm like, they
know what they're doing. And the question that you ask
is a good one, like, well, how do you combat it?
I have no idea because by the time a lie
is around the corner, the truth hasn't gotten out of bed,
(16:40):
so we can fill them with all of the facts
and figures and say no, this is wrong, this is
a lie, but it's already happened. So Jack is already
out of the box. So at this point I'm not
really sure what it looks like to put it back
when you have fifty percent of the population that is
now saying, well, Biden, you know, hasn't provided any relief
(17:03):
or Fema is broke, and it's just like, wait, what
are you talking about? And you have Disantis just on
television yesterday saying we've gotten everything that we've needed from
the Biden administration and I'm sure they will provide us
with more he said it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, no, I don't. But the thing is, you know,
the argument of dying of whiteness is such a vicious
cycle that you think it's targeting other people and then
it comes for you basically. And so the problem with
FEMA now and Florida, for example, is that it's been
so undercut and undermined that they actually have massive worker
shortage for FEMA, so they're actually they have really hurt FEMA,
(17:43):
I mean, and a time of climate emergency to not
be doing more investing in climate is I'm praying that
this thing takes a right turn or something before it
hits Tampa. But these things have consequences that are not
just for the targets of who people will say they no.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I think that that is the thing that people
don't get is it goes back to the Martinia Mohler
poem from World War Two. First they come for right,
You think that they're going to come for everybody. Oh,
I love Donald Trump because we hate the same people.
And he's going to punish the people that have made
my life hard in this imaginary type of way. And
(18:25):
then when all of those people have been punished and
criminalized in what have you, you're next up to bat
And I don't understand how many times these things need
to happen in the course of history for people to
realize that you are not safe, that Donald Trump is
not the person who is going to keep you safe,
(18:45):
who is lying to you on a regular basis and
grifting off of you because you're that fucking stupid. I
personally am at a loss right now as I watch
this devastation hit these areas that are quote unquote red states.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And you know, we'll maybe talk about this next week.
I'm really curious about the whole Elon Musk effect here
also because I mean, there obviously are extreme interesting for
him of taking over all these things, and so I'm curious,
Like I guess, I wonder sometimes if Elon Musk had
done the same thing, but he was supporting causes that
(19:25):
I believe in, if Elon Musk could come to our side,
for example, what I think Elon Musk was greater, would
I still think that he was what he seems to be.
So I don't know the Elon Musk effect here.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
No one should have. I mean, here's the thing, and
this is me saying this, which is that like, no
one should have as much power as Elon Musk has,
And I don't care if that is a person that
is a Democrat or a Republican. One person should not
have a mass as much wealth and have as much
influence to do anything. Elon must in general shows me
(20:02):
that our economic systems are absolutely and totally broken because
this man is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire
and we have so much economic disparity in this country
and in the world. He is emblematic of everything that is.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Wrong, and he's just so unlikable, oh.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
God, and so fucking hard to look at, like as
a person.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Just ye, dear God, I just I guess I'm just
in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, like, is
Elon Musk helping Trump right now? Or is he? Or
is he like even on Twitter? I mean just looking
what he's done with Twitter and then telling me this
guy's going to run female like it's you know, so
at the end of the day, I hope you enough
(20:47):
people will come to their senses. But I guess the
question of over the top eln mask stuff, I'm curious
why the Democrats aren't using it more because it's so odious.
But maybe it speaks for itself.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I think that, honestly, I think that it speaks for itself. Yeah,
first of all, we also know and we're out of
time here, but we also know that the numbers that
Elon Musk puts up on Twitter about people liking his
posts and all of the it's all lies. It's all
inflated lies. And no one is advertising on that broke
down site because he's absolutely destroyed it and a majority
(21:22):
of people except for journalists, have fled.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So to me, the argument then, is is this the
guy you want running disaster ely for the country. I mean,
he's really bad at tweeting, and also he's so firstly
bad at tweeting, So anyway, TB TBD. All right, I'm
gonna have to talk about the boards of equity, So
how would you be having a positive vibe day here?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Good Jonathan. As always, we deeply appreciate your analysis and
we will catch up with you again next week.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Take care, everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
af as always, power to the people and to all
the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
by the time that you listen to this episode, Hurricane
Milton will have made landfall in Florida. We have no
idea the type of devastation that the state of Florida
(00:37):
will be in for. Once again, as I'm coming on air,
my mother sends me a text and says, you know, Danielle,
I rarely watched CNN, but today I turned it on
and a reporter is asking a woman in Florida that's
standing in her wreckage about, you know what she thinks
about these two storms coming through within two weeks, and
(00:59):
her response was their man made. I cannot express to
you the absolute extraordinary damage that Donald Trump and the
Republican Party have done to this country and have done
to fucking common sense. It is a travesty what has happened,
(01:20):
the amount of disinformation and how susceptible people are to it,
to believe that in this day and age, that you
cannot trust science, your eyes, or your ears, or anything
any amount of education. I don't even care how far
you went in school, but that you would denounce all
of that and believe the fucking bullshit that is coming
(01:40):
out of Donald Trump and Marjory Taylor Green and JD.
Vance and Matt Gates in Rohn de Santis's mouth is
absolutely fucking wild. And you wonder what was it like
living inside of the Dark Ages. Well, you don't have
to wonder. We are here. This is the modern day,
as Brian Karem, you know, fellow Nerd Avenger said earlier
(02:02):
this week on Nerd Avengers, this is the technological Dark Ages,
where we're at a time when we're trying to convince
people that the world is round and that like a
man did actually land on the moon, in the age
of deep fakes and deep, deep, deep fucking distorted disinformation.
It is absolutely wild. And today I get into a
(02:25):
conversation with our friend or in house doctor, doctor Jonathan
Metzel about like how we've gotten here. You know, it
doesn't make any sense. It's absolutely disheartening and frustrating and
just like mind numbing trying to convince people that they
have become their own worst enemy. When you have welcomed
(02:47):
the likes of Fox News and Donald Trump and the
Republican Party into your home into your life, into your
mind space. It is like a fucking earworm, right that,
Just like burrows in they are power sites that are
eating this country from the inside out. And I am
just at the time of this recording, am absolutely fucking
(03:08):
beside myself with where we find ourselves. And you know,
Jonathan tries to, you know, to help me work through it,
but Lord help us all because I really do believe
that it is the end. I really do feel like
this is the end. This is this is the pivotal moment. Friends.
(03:29):
We either go over this cliff with a parachute or
we go over it with a fucking anvil. But either way,
we're going over the cliff right now. And it is
just it is alarming. It is alarming. So coming up
next my conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks.
(03:52):
As always, you know that whenever we have the opportunity
to sit and chat with our in house doctor, doctor
Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled because I feel like,
on a regular basis, I need some type of diagnosis. Jonathan.
We're living, as we always say, in extraordinary times, and
(04:12):
when I think about it, right now, we're speaking as
another hurricane is barreling towards Florida twice in two weeks.
Historic storms are about to hit, and yet fifty percent
of the population has been convinced by one of the
two major political parties that climate change is in real
(04:35):
that what they're experiencing and seeing with their own eyes
and their own ears isn't happening. That we're being flooded
and inundated with AI deep fakes of children floating on rafts,
and being told some of the most egregious lies about
hurricane relief not happening, about the money being spent on
(04:57):
migrants as a way to so hate and disorder. And
I want to get your thoughts, because this is something
that you have studied, that you know about. I don't understand,
and I don't think that we are talking still even
nine years later, about how these pervasive lies, how people
(05:21):
will discount their own thoughts and link on to Donald
Trump and it will cost them everything, but it doesn't
matter so long as it costs the people around them more.
And I still, Jonathan, nine years later, I still can't
(05:41):
come to terms with that. Help me, Well, good morning,
good morning.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know, I'm definitely I mean, if there's a diagnosis.
It's a diagnosis for all of us, which is staying
afloat in this crazy time. I'm saying hi this morning
from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and I'm speaking to four hundred
people tonight at the Convention Center as part of this
series called Conversations about Race. And it's a very multi racial,
(06:12):
multi everything group. And so I first want to say
that it's hard to see from social media sometimes that conversation,
real conversations are still happening, because I'm a part of
one out here today. But it is these moments of crisis,
these kind of polarizing moments of crisis. And so let's
talk through a couple points about this. Do you want
(06:32):
me to start with the most fair part, the most
fear answer, or the most ever, the most conniving.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Asser, whatever feels best to you to start with.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Okay, So please I get starting. You know, there is
an agenda of undermining It's not just like racism is
the means and the ends and the agenda. It's that
there is always another agenda here. I mean, we just
learned this morning as we're filming this that while Trump
was denying COVID, he was sent COVID tests to putin.
(07:01):
It was breaking news about an hour ago from Bob
Wooper's book that all these guys were saying this thing
is fake and all this kind of thing, and behind
the scenes they dan well knew that COVID was real
and Trump was secretly shipping COVID stuff to putin, and
I'm sure vaccines and other stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Also, I guess you just broke that news to me,
and I am just I am speechless. Okay, really, yeah, yeah,
didn't know, got it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So there's stuff about this that is incredibly performative in
a way that riles people up. But it's not like
people don't know. And I do feel like there's I'm
just speculating here just to be clear, but undermining FEMA
is an agenda that plays to racism, plays to social division,
(07:49):
place to all the things you're talking about. But then
if Trump wins, they can get rid of FEMA and
put Elon Musk in charge and privatize everything and stuff
like that. So there's a financial agenda here that is
maybe a bigger agenda than just that. Now that being said,
I just think that this idea of dismantling government, it's
(08:10):
not like there's going to be no government. It's going
to be privatized, for profit, unequal targeted, all the kind
of things. And so in a way, I just think
it's important to keep in mind that this is a psychology,
it's a bias, it's a history, it's all those things.
But it's also tied to a bigger financial agenda, which
is to monetize certain things and promote certain kinds of
(08:33):
commerce and screw people over who are already historically disadvantaged.
And so I think that, to me is the number
one point. I'm just seeing this again with this femous
stuff the way I saw it before, with the Affordable
Care Act and anti COVID and all those kind of things.
And so I think that's probably for me point number one.
Point number two. I saw AVI here in Minnesota, and
(08:53):
I flew last night next to a guy who was
flying this crazy circuitoust route. He was flying back to Minnesota.
He was a construction developer and worked in construction, and
he was going to get his truck and his supplies
and his coworkers so they could drive down to Florida
and help people out in the aftermath of the hurricane.
(09:14):
And you know, good salta of the earth kind of guy,
a really robust guy. We had a long conversation and
he was telling me how he really wanted to help.
This is a moment where people, in a matter of
their ideology, chip in to help each other. He had
gone to Ashville previously and helped at least rebuild some
kind of things. But then as we started talking, it
(09:36):
became clear that he was incredibly anti government and was
a Trump supporter. So he said, the main thing for
me is this is a moment where like, we chip
in and help people, but we don't need government regulation.
We don't need government telling me what to do. We
don't need government. While he had this whole diatribe against
what he called government, and so I said, well, you know,
(09:56):
I can see your point, right, which is the government
adds relation to staff. But don't you think you're maybe
prone to help certain people that seem familiar to you
and not help other people, Like if it's just random
of people just chipping in, want to reinforce biases and
things like that. So we had a long conversation. The
guy wasn't crazy in fact, I mean, who would just
(10:19):
drop everything and drive down to help people like it
was laudable in some ways. But his animosity toward government
was so deep that the stuff that Trump said really
resonated with like and the JFK Junior stuff and all that,
let's get rid of government, let's get rid of regulation.
And so this mistrust of government is also such a
deep thread. And I don't know, there's two ways to
(10:42):
think about that, right, And I went in, yes, government
does add a lot of regulation. The other hand, like,
you can't just have a million random people driving down
to Florida with lumber and stuff like that, because it'll
reinforce inequity and be chaos and be disorganized and all
these kind of things. And so these things are all
playing out against each other. And I guess I don't
deny that it's racism and stuff like that, but I
(11:05):
would also say that there's all these other layers to
it would have to do with finance and capital and
governance and all these other things.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I get the layering, but I would say that the
foundation is racism, right, Like I don't think that we
can deny. We always want to say that there are
all of these other factors, and those other factors have
to do with economics. And I will always say okay,
and then run it back one more time, because it
always starts and ends with racism, this distrust in government
and what government is doing with your money. And I
(11:38):
think about this in the story that you just told,
in terms of the regulations, and right now down in Atlanta,
right in the suburbs of Atlanta, you have an entire
chlorine plume that is over ninety thousand plus residents that
are down there because of deregulation that happened with these
chemical plants that are allowed to be in residencedential areas
(12:01):
and that have navigated loopholes where they don't have to
follow any rules whatsoever in terms of creating safety measures
that would mitigate the effects of say a fire breaking
out inside and then causing extraordinary health damage that we
won't know. There are certain people that right now are
(12:22):
saying they have lingering headaches, eye irritation, skin irritation, and
body aches. But you don't know what the long term
ramifications are going to be of those illnesses that comes
from deregulation. And so like, when I hear these things
that are largely said by white Americans, what would be
the reason that they don't trust government and that they
(12:44):
want government to be deregulated because they don't like who
government is supposedly helping. When it's a majority of people
that are white and poor that are on government assistance,
either white and poor or rich and poor that are
receiving welfare, it's hard for me to navigate eight and
have conversations when at the core of it, all we're
(13:05):
doing is looking for euphemisms for racism.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Well, I mean, of course, I mean that's you just
summarize the talk I'm giving today, and you know, I mean,
I'm a structuralist, right, so of course I completely agree
with what you just said. But I guess the question
is what are you going to do about it? Right?
And I mean right now we have a real clear
choice about what you do about it. But I would
also say that is anti racism. The answer is changing
(13:32):
the financial structure. The answer is more government. The answer
is addressing people's concerns of government. The answer I just
I think it's important for me at least to know
people's agendas of how they come to that, just so
I can know how to kind of push back on
it a little bit more. Not denying that. But it's
just funny because for me the issue is in the
(13:54):
name of racism, divisions are monetized basically, you know. I mean,
I'm not surprised that a lot of white people are
resist that's I live in Tennessee. It's not very surprising.
But for me, as you know, the answer to those
divisions is to make structures equitable. And so that's the way.
You don't try to change people's identity, to increase structures
(14:14):
where equity is rewarded. But we're in the opposite potentially now,
which is weaponizing historical divisions. I mean, I feel like
anti Semitism and Islamophobia are also being weaponized right now
for financial gain in a lot of different ways. And
so we're just in a movement right now where these
divisions are being monetized and there's no count, there's no
(14:37):
what's the reward, right I mean? And so I guess
part of the issue why this matters I'm talking around
in circles I apologize, is if Trump wins, this is
going to be the whole country. And that's another reason
to just be worried about. Trump is giving us a
little hint here of this FEMA thing is exactly what
everything will be like, which is undercutting every government agency,
(14:59):
privatizing everything, targeting people who are already at risk, Like
that's going to be every agency. I mean, FEMA seems
like an extreme example, but I don't know. You're going
to see it in healthcare. You'll see it hell in
the traffic lights and everything like that.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Right, it will be everything, and it will be targeted
again directly at people of color, directly at black and
brown people and those communities, and then it will target
everyone else. And so it's like again low hanging fruit,
which is the fact that Donald Trump the Republican Party
(15:36):
are racists. They are pushing a white supremaist, white Christian
nationalist agenda, and it begins with sowing distrust in government,
in agencies and saying that you can only trust me.
And that's how you begin this game of distortion. I mean,
(15:57):
I looked Jonathan at the AI photo that Steven Miller,
Laura Lumer and all of these other right wing people
with huge platforms retweeted a fake photo of this young
girl holding a puppy on a raft and saying, oh, well,
Kamala Harris sent all the FEMA money to Haitian migrants,
(16:18):
And they retweeted this and they took it down after
the fact, but guess what, it was already fucking out
and liked by millions of people. So I'm like, they
know what they're doing. And the question that you ask
is a good one, like, well, how do you combat it?
I have no idea because by the time a lie
is around the corner, the truth hasn't gotten out of bed,
(16:40):
so we can fill them with all of the facts
and figures and say no, this is wrong, this is
a lie, but it's already happened. So Jack is already
out of the box. So at this point I'm not
really sure what it looks like to put it back
when you have fifty percent of the population that is
now saying, well, Biden, you know, hasn't provided any relief
(17:03):
or Fema is broke, and it's just like, wait, what
are you talking about? And you have Disantis just on
television yesterday saying we've gotten everything that we've needed from
the Biden administration and I'm sure they will provide us
with more he said it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, no, I don't. But the thing is, you know,
the argument of dying of whiteness is such a vicious
cycle that you think it's targeting other people and then
it comes for you basically. And so the problem with
FEMA now and Florida, for example, is that it's been
so undercut and undermined that they actually have massive worker
shortage for FEMA, so they're actually they have really hurt FEMA,
(17:43):
I mean, and a time of climate emergency to not
be doing more investing in climate is I'm praying that
this thing takes a right turn or something before it
hits Tampa. But these things have consequences that are not
just for the targets of who people will say they no.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I think that that is the thing that people
don't get is it goes back to the Martinia Mohler
poem from World War Two. First they come for right,
You think that they're going to come for everybody. Oh,
I love Donald Trump because we hate the same people.
And he's going to punish the people that have made
my life hard in this imaginary type of way. And
(18:25):
then when all of those people have been punished and
criminalized in what have you, you're next up to bat
And I don't understand how many times these things need
to happen in the course of history for people to
realize that you are not safe, that Donald Trump is
not the person who is going to keep you safe,
(18:45):
who is lying to you on a regular basis and
grifting off of you because you're that fucking stupid. I
personally am at a loss right now as I watch
this devastation hit these areas that are quote unquote red states.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And you know, we'll maybe talk about this next week.
I'm really curious about the whole Elon Musk effect here
also because I mean, there obviously are extreme interesting for
him of taking over all these things, and so I'm curious,
Like I guess, I wonder sometimes if Elon Musk had
done the same thing, but he was supporting causes that
(19:25):
I believe in, if Elon Musk could come to our side,
for example, what I think Elon Musk was greater, would
I still think that he was what he seems to be.
So I don't know the Elon Musk effect here.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
No one should have. I mean, here's the thing, and
this is me saying this, which is that like, no
one should have as much power as Elon Musk has,
And I don't care if that is a person that
is a Democrat or a Republican. One person should not
have a mass as much wealth and have as much
influence to do anything. Elon must in general shows me
(20:02):
that our economic systems are absolutely and totally broken because
this man is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire
and we have so much economic disparity in this country
and in the world. He is emblematic of everything that is.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Wrong, and he's just so unlikable, oh.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
God, and so fucking hard to look at, like as
a person.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Just ye, dear God, I just I guess I'm just
in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, like, is
Elon Musk helping Trump right now? Or is he? Or
is he like even on Twitter? I mean just looking
what he's done with Twitter and then telling me this
guy's going to run female like it's you know, so
at the end of the day, I hope you enough
(20:47):
people will come to their senses. But I guess the
question of over the top eln mask stuff, I'm curious
why the Democrats aren't using it more because it's so odious.
But maybe it speaks for itself.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I think that, honestly, I think that it speaks for itself. Yeah,
first of all, we also know and we're out of
time here, but we also know that the numbers that
Elon Musk puts up on Twitter about people liking his
posts and all of the it's all lies. It's all
inflated lies. And no one is advertising on that broke
down site because he's absolutely destroyed it and a majority
(21:22):
of people except for journalists, have fled.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So to me, the argument then, is is this the
guy you want running disaster ely for the country. I mean,
he's really bad at tweeting, and also he's so firstly
bad at tweeting, So anyway, TB TBD. All right, I'm
gonna have to talk about the boards of equity, So
how would you be having a positive vibe day here?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Good Jonathan. As always, we deeply appreciate your analysis and
we will catch up with you again next week.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Take care, everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
af as always, power to the people and to all
the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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