It Could Happen Here Weekly 193

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to take it happen here show about things falling
apart and how to put them back together again. I
am your host, Na Wong for another It's both episode,
and what I say both, I mean we are talking
about something that we've been covering kind of some extent
in a bunch of different cities, which is a bunch
of hospitals incredibly cowardly decision to not provide trans youth

(00:51):
with gender firming care that they need out of a
combination of fear, greed, and malice. And with me to
talk about one of the places this has been happening
and how people have been trying to resist it, and
this in this case is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center,
And so we're talking to two people who have been
fighting back against they're just hideous cowardice. One is Selena Binnock,

(01:15):
who is a therapist at UPMC, and then also Dena Staley,
who's the executive director and founder of trans Uniting. Both
of you two, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Thank you for having us, Thank you, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
And thank you for doing this genuinely really critical work
to try to get this hospital to not severely harm
their translations.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Good lord, you know we'd be fighting this battle right right.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah. So, Okay, I guess the place I want to
start is, can you explain sort of the exact situation
of what happened after their sort of recent Supreme Court
ruling and what the hospital decided to do and not do.

Speaker 6 (02:04):
Yeah, So, from our understanding, what's been going on with
UPMC or the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is they've
decided to end all gender firming care. This includes puberty
blockers hormone therapy surgeries for people under nineteen. And this
is in response to an executive order that was put
out in the spring by the Trump administration saying that

(02:27):
providers who continued to prescribe these medically necessary treatments would
be at risk of felony charges and that providers who
supported accessing the type of care could also be in
trouble as far as getting felony charges for aiding and
a bedding. So that's the way that the hospital system
is interpreting this executive order. So there has been a

(02:50):
lot of pushback from multiple providers people throughout UPMC, and
the biggest issue is that they created a deadline line
of making these changes starting June thirtieth. This is an
arbitrary date that they decided within the hospital system. The
state was not given to them by any kind of
federal proceeding or legal mandate. And after that time they're

(03:13):
no longer going to be prescribing these medications. So, starting
in April, UPMC stopped taking any new clients who are
under nineteen who were looking for hormone replacement therapy or
any kind of gender firming care, and starting June thirtieth,
they are slowly tapering off all clients from their puberty
blockers or hormone therapy over the course of three to

(03:34):
six months, depending on what their current medication course is.
So what is happening and the thing that I think
a lot of people aren't saying out loud, is that
they're forcing these teens and young adults to de transition
or to or reverse their gender transition, which the fear
is that they will start seeking non medically advised care

(03:55):
to obtain and get the treatment that they're seeking for.
So that is kind of our understanding it's been going
on behind the scenes with EPMC.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I also just want to say, like I've had
like insurance bullshit, where like I've been taken off of
my stuff for like a month.

Speaker 7 (04:08):
And a half and it sucks. It is awful.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
It is psychologically painful in ways that are like difficult
to describe.

Speaker 7 (04:18):
It really sucks.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
Right from a physical standpoint, You're going to get side effects,
you have issues, we're coming off these vacations. But from
a mental standpoint, right, it's these people who are not
your doctors are determining what your care is and it's
incredibly harmful.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
In both the physical and the mental aspect of it.

Speaker 8 (04:36):
Yeah, and again we're just talking about healthcare pertrans you
at the end of the day, and a lot of them,
well puberty bloster and just a therapy are that they're
taken away any persons over eighteen years old.

Speaker 9 (04:49):
They're legally, you.

Speaker 8 (04:50):
Know, able to vote, should be able to make their
own decisions that they want to with their health care.
So it's really discussing and disheartening what is happening. And
here in Pennsylvania, UPMC was the first large health provider,
which is one of the largest in the state, to
start this domino effect of stopping care for transit.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, and I mean it creates this hiteous situation where
just like because of a combination of like some gender
bureaucrat at the White House was like, I get to
decide what your gender is now, and I get to
decide what your healthcare is because of that, and then
you have this like cascading effect of like some like
hospital admin was like, well, I don't know, I think
it would be easier for like me personally if you

(05:35):
didn't have health care. It just like it's cascading through
the hospital system. It's horrible.

Speaker 6 (05:39):
It's horrible, And I appreciate that data makes that point
of we use this phrase gender affirming care to specify
what's going on, but it's healthcare. It's you know, not
that different from someone being forced to come off diabetes
medication or medication for our heart problem. You know, this
medication that makes people be able to function in their
life and feel safe and physically, well, that's what's being

(06:00):
forced out of their lives. So it is healthcare absolutely.

Speaker 8 (06:04):
And one into spaces that are affirming for them, you know,
as kids. You know, so now that they don't have
this affirming space have to go into spaces that are
not affirming, they will further damage they're ment to you know,
when are going to spaces being this gender and all
of the other things that have you know, this is
what we're talking about, just a safe, affirming place where

(06:26):
you can access safe for farming health here.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
I think it's worth expanding on that a little bit
in the sense that like a space that's not affirming
isn't like a neutral space. It's one that's actively hostile
to you.

Speaker 9 (06:40):
Absolutely that also.

Speaker 7 (06:41):
Just sucks like it's hideous.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
So it's just like they decided to inflict this on
a bunch of children because they're mildly afraid, right.

Speaker 6 (06:51):
They're afraid, and they're afraid of losing money. And there's
no way to say that it's a neutral space, right,
It's you're affirming or hostile, and that's the rest great.
Kids can't come the doctor and feel safe at this point,
and it's.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Like cascading issues too.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
We've been talking about this a lot in like the
context of someone like the Medicaid cuts, but it's like
anything that deters people from going to the doctor, prevents
them from going in for like other stuff that you
know could be treated pretty easily. But then suddenly if
it's like okay, well my hospitals now hostile space, people
just like stop going in all together until something really

(07:24):
serious happens. I could have been prevented. The hospital wasn't
paying assholes to them, like.

Speaker 6 (07:31):
You know, I think the fear is what we're going
to see as the side effects or the consequences of this.
You know, we've been told by our supervisors or management
at UPMC that we should expect an influx of suicidal
teenagers or young adults. Teenagers were struggling with greater symptoms
of depression or even psychosis, like acute psychotic symptoms are

(07:53):
a studied side effect of abruptly.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Coming off your hormone.

Speaker 6 (07:57):
So not only do you now have these teens inting
all who will be scared to access their care feel
like they can't use their name, their pronouns, get the
care that they need, but they're struggling with mental health
crises that are due to the changes that we're seeing
due to the withdrawal of their health care.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
So you're seeing this in so.

Speaker 6 (08:15):
Many different aspects hitting them and then the providers in
this hospital system, and I'm sure we're seeing this all
over the country. The providers are here to pick up
what's happening. That's a decision based on administrative opinions. And
like we said before, fear.

Speaker 7 (08:31):
So that was shure.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
A hospital admin told you that that was what was
going to happen.

Speaker 6 (08:35):
So basically after this went into place, I work in
a suicide prevention clinic, so we were told by the
people that we work with to be ready and stad
start having meetings and having discussions around how to better
support these kids, knowing that through research we've found that
coming off of hormones can cause.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
Increased risk of suicial thought, psychosis, and depression.

Speaker 7 (08:58):
Sure as fuck does that.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
Yes, And so it's like physical side effects, but also
if you're forced to detransition, you're going to be physically
unsafe in a space where you're no longer maybe passing
or you're no longer able to be yourself, so you're
a greater risk of harassment and bullying, which then in
turn can cause higher risks of suicidal thoughts.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's just like so hideous that there's people like you
in the hospital system who can just tell them that
this is going to happen, and they're doing it anyways.

Speaker 6 (09:24):
It's hard because it's coming down so many layers, right,
So we're hearing it maybe from our direct management, whose
hearts are in the best place. They didn't make these decisions,
but where they're being told to follow upper management who
are making these decisions. And yes, because they work in
the hospital, they know the implications of it. But the
fear is outweighing the risks, and that's what we're trying
to fight against.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
The lightest possible response that I have to this as
I'm thinking about that Lord Farquott line from Shrek where
he goes, some of you may die, but that's a
sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Speaker 10 (09:51):
It's like these house relignments are literally doing that.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
They're like, yeah, no, some of these kids may die,
but like whatever, that's fine. I don't have to deal
with like maybe a lawsuit in like three years.

Speaker 8 (10:03):
But they will absolutely still have to deal with lawsuits.

Speaker 7 (10:07):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 8 (10:08):
At the end of the day, these are people's basic
human rights at the hundred of the times, So there
will be lawsuits that happened because of that. Again, what
the president did was not flaw at all, what somever.
It was just directed to say, hey, this is something
that we should do. This is not nothing that he
can actually put into law. So what they're doing is

(10:29):
off the end of the fans are sufficient to see
what they can't get away with and what they can't
get away with. This is all about having an autonomy
of our healthcare and off all at the end of
the day. And they're starting with the most vulnerable population
of people, which are trends youth.

Speaker 6 (10:46):
Yeah, they're just testing, right, This is a test to
see what else they can get away with.

Speaker 8 (10:50):
Absolutely, this is the test, and they're failing miserably. And
instead of fighting them back, you want to fight us back.
Instead of standing up and saying we're not going to
do this, because it's not going to stop transcape this
and never stop with transpit at all whatsoever.

Speaker 9 (11:04):
It starts with transit.

Speaker 6 (11:07):
And DTA makes a good point I mean, I know, Mia,
you aren't based out of Pennsylvania, but in Pennsylvania, gender
farming care remains legal from a state level, and the
city of Pittsburgh, which we are located in, has been
working really hard to protect trans youth. So the executive
order that was put in place by Trump one is
not a federal law and two is not at all

(11:27):
supported by state or citywide laws.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
So from a legal standpoint, you know.

Speaker 6 (11:32):
Which we've learned from consulting with people like Dana who
have been doing this work much longer than we have.
We've talked with our local ACLU and other government organizations
that this would not hold up in court. So you know,
that's why the fight I think is starting here and
hoping to get bigger.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah, a lot of the way this administration does stuff
is just by like writing it down on paper and
then hoping that they can just sort of shock and
awe terror people into complying. But like, if you don't comply,
they can't make you like it's you know, I mean,
this is only so this is only you've seen across
issue areas, right, Like if people don't comply with ice agents,

(12:08):
it suddenly becomes incredibly hard for them to just like
carry on massy rotations. If people don't comply with their
hospital crackdowns, it's actually really hard for them to stop
kids and getting gender affirming care.

Speaker 7 (12:18):
But if you give up, then yeah, it's really easy.

Speaker 6 (12:22):
Right right, there's giving up before the fight really starts. Yeah,
at some level of this, this is what they want.
They're okay with it.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
You know.

Speaker 8 (12:32):
The dogs don't really matter, Like, no, it doesn't matter
which way it goes. Did we really want to fight
it now? We don't want to, mister slog. Group of
people's we're not able to fight it. And if they
fight it and they win, then we'll give it back
whatever I can add. Armies of lawyers you can see,
has armies of lawyers that can really go.

Speaker 9 (12:51):
And really attack this from all different angles.

Speaker 8 (12:54):
Bring in community ad kids, bring together all these you
know the one that's lot project atm you all these
different folks that come in with them and really hammer
it to this administration. But they choose to not do
that and choose to be complicit in the bull crap.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, one hundred percent. Okay, So we unfortunately need to
go to ads. When we come back, we will talk
about how we're going to fight back. Yeah, it'll be great.
We are back so remarkably quickly after this stuff all started.

(13:37):
There's a pretty large protest, like outside of the hospital
to get them to stop doing this. Can you talk
about how this all sort of started to come together
and how these efforts got organized.

Speaker 8 (13:49):
So I started hearing rumbles about this in December and
in January. You know, once we got it into office
and things, you know, immediately he's signed DI exxective or
I think like a little bit after that, and by
April we started activating and figuring out what we wanted
to do because UPMC had made that first directive to

(14:12):
not accept anymore on trans youth at all, whatsoever you
think young adults, anyone under the age of nineteen.

Speaker 9 (14:19):
So we did our first action in April.

Speaker 8 (14:22):
May start following up getting information out to disseminate their
right information out to community members, and doing all of
the behind the scenes work connecting folks to the necessary
resources that they need, so we could, you know, start
fighting back at UPMC.

Speaker 11 (14:39):
Loan behold to us.

Speaker 6 (14:40):
DINA and Trans Uniting have been doing a lot of
work to kind of set the stage for us to
get involved, which is really awesome. We were made aware
of what's going on with UPMC well after you know,
DNA and some of the community members have been so
I believe.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
It was earlier June, maybe end of May.

Speaker 6 (14:57):
Some of my really amazing coworkers and I decided, you know,
we can't really just sit back and do nothing. And
I think at the clinic I work in, there was
a big feeling of helplessness.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
You know, what can we do?

Speaker 6 (15:08):
How do we fight back on our bosses? You know,
we were feeling stuck, and we are a suicide prevention clinic.
We're not specifically a gender clinic, but because we know
that there's a hard proportion of trains and gay youth
who are at risk of suicide in the general population,
we work with a lot of trans youth. So we
were seeing this impact us directly in the sense of
the work that we do. So some of my coworkers

(15:30):
wrote a letter to UPMC explaining the way that we're
feeling about this, asking them to reverse this decision. The
letter discussed several local laws and state laws that would
protect them as well as hit them where they hurt,
as far as discussing the money that they have and
the available funds they have to fight this. The letter
was incredibly assigned by almost four hundred actually think at

(15:51):
this point over four hundred staff at the hospital system.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
We work it.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
It's amazing.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
Yes, and while this letter was being drafted, some of
my coworks met with consultants through the ACLU and other
local organizations to one make sure what we were doing
was okay, that we were not jeopardizing too much of
our own safety as far as employment goes, but also
to get their opinions and start to rally organizations. So

(16:17):
the ACLU is to put us in touch with Dina
and Transuniting, and Dina jumped on it. In less than
two weeks, she and her coworkers had created and built
up a rally for us, which we had outside of
the UPMC building downtown just a couple of weeks ago,
and we had local lawmakers speak. I spoke along with

(16:38):
my coworkers who helped write the letter. Dina spoke in, Dina,
if you want to speak more of that rally, I
think that'd be awesome.

Speaker 8 (16:43):
Sure, I just want to say this is what aw
I shouldst like, you know, acomplases in the fight against
this you know, heinous crime, because this is exactly what
it is.

Speaker 9 (16:52):
You know, it's been attack on trans labs.

Speaker 8 (16:54):
But we broke a lot of folks together, community members, politicians,
and workers from the UPMC all together. We had about
three hundred and some folks that showed up when we
were on the steps of UPMC's headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh.
And we also coordinated with some state wif folks that
are actually doing a couple of actions throughout this month,

(17:17):
but there were two actions that happened that same day
as well, and you know, what is happening is not right,
So we had to make sure that the community is
being educated and we're activating community members. At the same time,
you know, also wanted them to know about this fund
that we were launching to help the kiddos in this
situation because folks are still going to need to you know,

(17:40):
be able to access some type of healthcare, so you know,
making sure that they are aware of their options and
making sure they're able to have funds to do so,
because you know, with everything happening, they are probably going
to get cut off of their health care insurance as well,
you know, and that is a real scare.

Speaker 9 (17:58):
And that happens then what meana?

Speaker 8 (18:01):
So that was kind of what happened with that situation,
and it was amazing, you know, everybody was amazing.

Speaker 9 (18:07):
But I just you know, definitely want to shout out to.

Speaker 8 (18:10):
Lena and the whole team because listen, we need more
accomplices like that, and it's by you know, we are
a small but mighty community, and we will not be
able to get the things done that needs to be
done to protect not just us, but all of us
if we're not all united.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, thank you, Dan, I mean, we couldn't do it.

Speaker 6 (18:29):
I thought you guys and the power you've got and
the beautiful voices that you bring to the fight, it's
truly awesome.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
I think one of the things that we're seeing from this,
and you know that we've seen from all of the
anti trans repression is that like, on the one hand, yeah,
trans people are like one and a half percent of
the population, and we're disproportionately like the most broke and
fucked up percentage of that population.

Speaker 10 (18:54):
And also we are significantly better organizers like prison for
person than all of the people fighting us. It's like, yeah,
like they have unbelievable amounts of resources, however, Comma, we
are really good at like this specific.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Thing of organizing and fighting back.

Speaker 6 (19:09):
And yeah, well sadly, like trans people have had to
fight for so long learned to do it, and their
loved ones man, like they were there when we were
at the rally a couple of weeks ago, I had
parents of trans kids hugging me, you know, like they
show up and they fight for their people, and it's
really empowering.

Speaker 8 (19:27):
We don't have that cholice fun to do that, you know,
we don't have that cholices about the show. We don't
have that cholice about to fight because we had to
all of our lives in order to you know, continue
to walk in our true you know.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah, And like I mean, you know, I could talk
about sort of the structural factors that make that true,
but there's also just if you're going to be trends,
at some point you have to choose to accept it,
and like the fact that it's an identity that like
you have to make a choice to be like I'm
gonna fucking do this and like, Okay, I am this

(20:00):
person that I've always known that I am, etcetera, et cetera.
I think they're also just like it selects for like
a small extent for people who are willing to just
like fuck it, let's go. And I don't know, that's
been the thing I've always like appreciated about the way
that like these kind of organizing efforts unfold areria. Okay,

(20:30):
so let's talk about what the reaction has been to
the protest, to the actions, both from the hospital and
from the community at large.

Speaker 6 (20:38):
Looking at both of those things, I guess one of
the coolest reactions we're seeing is a lot of people
coming out in solidarity who work at the hospital system,
So the people who originally wrote the letter, who were
part of this rally. We are trying to organize more
community meetings, more town halls, contacting people through email, and
Dina has been very involved in that along with side

(21:00):
other local organizations. But the word is spreading and we're
getting in touch with a lot of people in a
lot of different departments throughout.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
The hospital who are here and want to show up.
You know, we're seeing.

Speaker 6 (21:11):
Physicians, social workers UPMC is also, of course a massive
insurance conglomerate, and we're seeing people who work in the
insurance side of things come out to support this so
that's been really amazing as far as what things are
looking like. As administration feedback, we are being told the
same response repeatedly that UPMC is doing what they have

(21:33):
to do to quote unquote abide with the law, and
they're making the decisions that they are making because of
the quote unquote law, and they will continue to offer
behavioral health support to trans youth and young adults to
support them through this crisis. So, you know, we are
trying to meet together and talk a lot about what
that means.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Of course, there is some fear of will that be
stripped away.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
You know, we actually saw not that long ago, I
think was only last week that you know, Ohio they
built into their state budget that Medicaid can no longer
cover quote unquote transffirming therapy.

Speaker 7 (22:08):
So this isn't.

Speaker 6 (22:09):
Even puberty blockers, it's not hormones, it's talk therapy.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
And what will that mean?

Speaker 6 (22:13):
You know, we hope that we're protected here in Pennsylvania,
but there's always resks that this can come into place
at a federal level. So these talking points that they're
sticking to, it's not too black and white as they're
presenting it. You know, they're not abiding with any certain law.
We don't know that therapy is protected, but that's what's
kind of they're sticking to.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
And that's just what's repeatedly being.

Speaker 6 (22:32):
Stated throughout various press contacts that are being made through
the hospital.

Speaker 9 (22:38):
They're doing whatever the fuck they want to do.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, to put it lightly, yes, yeah, this.

Speaker 8 (22:43):
Is what's happening, and we just have to continue to
fight because they want to take us back to the
nineteen fifties and that's not going to happen.

Speaker 9 (22:52):
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 8 (22:53):
And alsoever, it's Saint nineteen fifty, this is twenty twenty five,
and you can.

Speaker 9 (22:59):
Take away all you want to. We're going to fight
and we're going to put it back at place.

Speaker 8 (23:03):
A lot of times it is so much harder to
take things away and try to get them back. But
you know, unfortunately we're here and a lot of Americans
didn't think that we would be in this predicament and
it's not going to get nothing but worse. So hopefully
it opens up people's eyes and we have to unite
as a people.

Speaker 9 (23:23):
That's it. That's it.

Speaker 8 (23:24):
That's all around all of these issues. There's so much happening,
so much being thrown on us at one time. But
we have to unite as minority people or we will
be in a place like nineteen fifties, because I mean
we're abought to be in a great depression.

Speaker 9 (23:42):
By January, we will be in a great depression. Everybody,
get ready? Hope you got your CAG good?

Speaker 7 (23:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Well, And I think there's there's another element of this too,
which is like you can look at them doing a like, oh,
we're just following orders thing, but there's no actual orders,
which makes it even more pathetic than like the original
words just following orders people, which again, and I want
to note this, just following orders did not prevent you
from being tried at Nuremberg, Like that was found to
not be a defense, so like right, remembering of where

(24:13):
that went down. His shit. But the second thing too,
is like in terms of like there being so many
different things where like everyone needs to sort of pull
together and fight this the other advantage that we have
that's different from like thirties Nazi Germany, right, like this
stuff is all really unpopular, Like everyone hates it, Everyone
hates Trump is approve of ratings are terrible, the proof
ratings for everything he's doing across the bord are just

(24:33):
really bad.

Speaker 7 (24:35):
The thing about the Nazis was that, like Nazi Germany,
people wanted.

Speaker 9 (24:41):
They were imutified.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, like at least to something extent. They were able
to smash, like, you know, they were able to sort
of wipe out everyone who was opposing them, but like
significant portions of the population wanted all of that shit
to happen. And then it's just not true here, right,
And you know, our job is to make sure that
like the fact that nobody wants the shit to happen
actually turns into it not happening instead of just you know,
this unhinged autocratic like you're king is like writing decrees

(25:06):
on a piece of paper and suddenly hospitals are following
them even though there's just nothing else.

Speaker 8 (25:12):
Nothing, nothing, bugle crap. But again, we just have to
band together. I think folks still in a sense they're
in that mind frame of twenty twenty four. It's like
this is not twenty twenty four at all whatsoever. And
if you don't get with it, I don't know. Yeah,
but we're going to continue to fight. That's not going

(25:32):
to stop. We're going to continue to you know, make
waves and activate educate people about their rights, and you know,
create spaces or transit to be and be safe as
much as possible and do it all.

Speaker 9 (25:47):
But as much as we can do, we will do.

Speaker 7 (25:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
And I think that also raises a question for people
listening to the show, which is that what can people
do to put pressure on this hospital or their local
hospital to do this and how can people sort of
help the effort to get UPMC to fucking give kids
their health care?

Speaker 8 (26:12):
Absolutely, So what they can do is they can go
visit trends upg dot org. They can sign a petition
that we have up, you can donate to the fund
that we have gone currently. Locally, what they can do is,
you know, work with their borough or city councils to

(26:33):
create legislation to protect trans kids and use young adults
and on state wild levels as well. But what we
have to do is we have to put pressure from
the top and from the bottom, you know, on the
government to you know, the state governments to make these
changes because again there are no.

Speaker 9 (26:53):
Laws in place at all whatsoever.

Speaker 8 (26:55):
So now we have to take that and we have
to make laws in each state protect not just trans
you think of adults, blood trans individuals and any minority
groups that are being attacked by this Orange Man's regime.

Speaker 6 (27:12):
Yeah, it's a lot of railing together and I think
what we've seen here is amazingly we were all able
to come together as a community and fight, and I
think reaching out to your local organizations. I mean, if
every city had a Dina Stanley, they would be in
a much better position to fight this fight. But you know,

(27:33):
working together with the people who know how to organize
and fight, but also not be afraid to get your
feet wet in that act of organizing. You know, we
have been working with Action Network to open up letter
writing to our community so that you don't have to
be a UPMC staff to let UPMC know how you're feeling.
We're trying to host more town halls and community meetings.

(27:53):
We hit Instagram. We have an account Club Providers for
Trans Justice, where we're trying to get the work out
so we can rally more together. I think in big pieces,
if you're able to contribute financially, Transuniting has their Youth
Healing Fund. I believe Tina, that's what it's called, where
people can financially support trans youth who are having trouble

(28:14):
accessing their care, and especially knowing what we know what's
going to happen with Medicaid, this is even more important. So,
I mean, if you want to support us in our
fight against UPMC.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
I think it's be loud. It's not stop.

Speaker 6 (28:27):
I believe that hospital is just waiting for everybody to
quiet down. But we're only going to get louder because
these taper plans just started for the youth, teens and
young adults. They're still on their medications, and the further
way that gets, the louder we're going to be because the
risk is really going to increase as the months go on.

Speaker 8 (28:45):
Absolutely, so don't stop. Be loud all the time. The
accomplices in this fite because no matter what, and know
that your next, so you can either join in, you
can wait for your turn, and by that time maybe
too late and there won't be no one to be
able to stand up the light.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah. And I thing I've been saying on the show
a lot is it's not even just that after they
come for us, they're going to come for you. It's
that in order to come for us, they are going
through you first. Like that's what this whole administration has been.
They are willing to destroy the entire global economy. They're
willing to turn the US into a police state. They
are willing to again just grab people off the street

(29:27):
in order to destroy very very small groups of people.
They are willing to a miserate the lives of every
single person in this country. And the good news is
that means that because we're all targets, we all have
the capacity to resist together and to beat them, and
we're going to.

Speaker 8 (29:43):
It's just that people have to understand that. You know
that we are targets, and I understand what is actually happening. Right,
These are tacked on trans folks. It's not about trans individuals.
It's about autonomy of a women's body. The tacks over immigrants,
it's not about the immigrants. It's about citizens ships for
black and brown people that have it, you know what
I mean. So this is again, it's just about having

(30:05):
control over folks period. And as soon as people understand
that and know that, you will, you know, be a
slave of this country and in a way that you've
never been, because we all are but a slave of
this country like you've never been before. You better get
with it and open your eyes up and stand up
and fight back, or you will be in a situation

(30:28):
that you would just be sitting there thinking like I
should have could.

Speaker 9 (30:31):
Have what you did?

Speaker 6 (30:34):
The stand up now, the fight we're having with UPNC,
I mean, of course it's important. It's this is my employer,
this is where I live. But it is just a
small fight in the broader scheme of the fights we have.
And you know, this brings up a good point of
we fight for trans use because of what might come next,
but it's already coming.

Speaker 5 (30:52):
Right.

Speaker 6 (30:52):
We have a lot of people of color who are
already schedule leave the country because they don't know if
they'll be allowed back in with their passports.

Speaker 9 (30:59):
At US.

Speaker 6 (30:59):
We have you know, women who are no longer able
to access abortion care or reproductive care in many places
in this country. I mean, it's not if it's going
to happen, it's when, and it already is. So the
more we fight in the louder we can be for
the people who are hit the most, the more likely
that this fight will drag on and hit them, so
less fights can start in the future.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
But it's happening. We're seeing it everywhere.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, I think that's an amazing place to end. Thank
you to both so much for coming on and for
fighting this fight.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Absolutely, thank you for having us.

Speaker 6 (31:32):
I think it's really awesome to get the platform to
show what we're doing and hope people, hopefully people will
feel less scared. Right, there's power in numbers, There's power
and solidarity. The more people we have fighting along us,
the easier it gets to fight.

Speaker 9 (31:46):
The power is the people, and we are the people.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
I am incredibly looking forward to talking to you, to
you again, will be fucking win this.

Speaker 9 (31:52):
So I love everybody.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
That's gonna be great.

Speaker 12 (31:58):
Champagne over the microphone.

Speaker 13 (32:00):
Oh this is it could happen here A show about

(32:25):
things falling apart.

Speaker 7 (32:26):
I'm Garrison Davis.

Speaker 13 (32:27):
Today we're talking about movies, one of my favorite topics
that I never get to talk about on the show.
But I'm able to talk about it this week because
I've found a way to talk about how movies are
covering the death of woke and to help me in
this doomed endeavor, I have recruited artists and designer Bailey
new poster Welcome.

Speaker 11 (32:48):
Hi, It's lovely to be here.

Speaker 13 (32:50):
Bailey also is behind the new Top Cup City show
Art which will eventually go public, maybe in a few
weeks whenever I finally finished that episode, so keep pounding
me about it. So we're going to talk about two
films that came out this past July, Superman and Eddington,
which I think are actually very closely related despite being

(33:14):
very different from each other. I believe they're kind of
equal and opposite films. And I realized this after I
saw Eddington at a theater in Brooklyn and walked outside
to the posters for Superman and editing being right next
to each other, which are very different, and then I
realized this is actually kind of the same movie but
doing like or they're very related films. Right now, I

(33:39):
think they really are like the equal and opposite of
each other. Both are like uber contemporary, They're very online.

Speaker 7 (33:46):
They have a.

Speaker 13 (33:46):
Sort of like gestural politics, and I think they're both
reactions to a conflicting view of American decline. Both have
surprised Tucker Carlson appearances, and both have failed cancer relations.
There's a lot of overlap in some of the plot
points of this film, and I think what they're actually

(34:08):
kind of saying about current American culture, current American politics,
and how it relates to social media. I think we
should first talk about Superman to get over that, so
we can I discuss Eddington because I need to discuss
Eddington in relation to Superman in some ways. So I
guess people have been enjoying this film. I think a

(34:28):
big part of why is how the film tackles geopolitics.
Oddly enough, the geopolitical conflict in the film was most
likely based on what it was written trying to pull from,
like Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But because the film took
a long time to write, by the time they shot
the film, there was a whole other geopolitical conflict happening,

(34:50):
which influenced at the very least the visual language of
the film, which which pulls from Israel and Palestine.

Speaker 14 (34:56):
It's nice to see it like represented, I guess on
on a blockbuster film, like that's what it feels like.

Speaker 11 (35:02):
It felt like nice to see it.

Speaker 13 (35:04):
You know, it's like an acknowledgment of the atrocities happening. Yes,
Like essentially a Benjamin net and Yaho stand in is
basically like the secondary villain of the film. And at
this point, I guess we'll just have to talk about
hashtag spoilers. If you haven't seen these and you want to,
you can. You can go see them. If you're okay

(35:25):
with hearing us talk about it, and that might make
you want to see them more, then feel free. I
don't think spoilers actually ruin a movie, but yeah, like
Net and Yaho dying in the film gets like a massive,
a massive crowd reaction at least when I saw it
opening night, and people definitely feel a degree of like
catharsists like watching you know, superheroes stop the IDF from

(35:46):
massacring you know, civilians who are you were like, you know,
like like Arab civilians, Like it's it's it's at that
point they transcend like the Russia Ukraine aspect, and it's
like very very clear what they're visually pulling from.

Speaker 11 (35:58):
Yeah, I think the falafel car guy is the one. Yeah,
that's crazy.

Speaker 13 (36:04):
Les Luthor executes a falafel card owner. And I'll talk
about more about how the film like riffs on Palestine
in a bed. There's other aspects I think of how
Superman is reacting to what James Gunn sees as like
American decline, because I think Superman as a film is
kind of a partially vapid take on like the corruption

(36:25):
of sincere positive futures and like the loss of hope.
It honestly feels very like Biden twenty twenty. It's like
a battle for the soul of America type thing. And
I also see this as like a reaction to the
victory of toxic masculinity, especially among like the twitch streamer
class and like manfluencers like Andrew Tait, and instead you

(36:47):
have Superman as this like Goodie two shoes boy Scout
the way he like he should be. And this is
the aspect of the film I think works. The best is,
honestly is their characterization of Superman. The cast is phenomenal.
David Kornsweat does a really good job. And I do
like this version of masculinity. It's it's it's it's still
funny to see like post online of people being like, Wow,
I'm actually gonna try, you know, being nice to my

(37:09):
neighbors now that I saw Superman, Like what the fuck?

Speaker 14 (37:12):
I want to pick up my girlfriend today and be
happy when I'm around her.

Speaker 13 (37:18):
Yeah, So that feels a little odd, but like, I
guess it's good that people can feel like Superman when
they're doing good things, helping an old lady cross the
street or whatever. I think that aspect of like decline.
I sympathize with this, this like loss of like positive masculinity,
and I think a Superman can be as simple for
that for for new people who are addicted to watching
like sneak O or whatever. Yeah, I think that's probably good.

(37:42):
And in some ways, I think this film, honestly, like
the exact same film would have been received a lot
worse if Kamala Harris was president. I think that the
fact that everyone feels so hopeless, like depress, hopeless and
defeated because of Trump, I think this actually contributes to
the positive reception the film is take. And myself and
a few other people kind of even predicted this, like

(38:03):
back in November, trying to like forecast like the reception
of Superman and like Fantastic Four, and like all these
companies were trying to like save the superhero genre from
like eating itself right now. Yeah, but for me at least,
there is a more insidious aspect of Superman that I
do not see being discussed as much beyond you know,
James Gunn still still obviously upset that he got canceled

(38:27):
and is making that a core plot point in this
film is he's actually super bad and he shouldn't have
been canceled.

Speaker 14 (38:35):
He shouldn't be canceled, and the people canceling him were
monkeys at typewriters.

Speaker 13 (38:41):
And which way, honestly that that part is true. Yeah,
people try to cancel James Gun were monkeys and gone typewriters.

Speaker 11 (38:48):
I thought that bit was great.

Speaker 14 (38:50):
I thought that bit was very I was like, that's
very like one panel gag in a comic, which is,
you know, wonderful.

Speaker 11 (38:56):
Very The movie felt very great.

Speaker 13 (38:58):
Morrison, Totally, those are the aspects that I really like.

Speaker 11 (39:02):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 14 (39:03):
Staying on the political subject, I think you could draw
a very good analogy between this and or Not.

Speaker 11 (39:10):
Just this feels like this year's Barbie, if that makes sense.

Speaker 14 (39:15):
Sure, like the kind of like corporate political not girls
get it done this time. Obviously, this is like more
of like anti not even anti toxic masculinity. I think
it's just pro this form of masculinity, which I think
is more productive. Yeah, but I also think, yeah, there's
like neolib stuff going on. And also the fact that
the movie, because it's a blockbuster can't properly handle anything

(39:37):
like it kind of has to just leave everything at
the road.

Speaker 11 (39:40):
Yeah, on the side of the road by the end
of it. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 13 (39:44):
This is very much similar to Barbie, in which I
kind of had the same reaction to. It's like they're
like o K movies, But I find the political posturing
actually slightly insulting in a certain way based on how
shallow it is. And I'm gonna I'm going to actually
get into that more on Superman here, I've seen people
talking about how like emotional they got during the scenes,

(40:06):
like very evocative of the palestinding a genocide, like the
people like, you know, crying and tearing up and feeling
so seen. And again, on one hand, that's good, but
that also gives me a bit of an icky feeling.
And someone else expressed this very well, the co host
of the Hit Factory podcast at Deep Impact Crier on tweeter.

(40:32):
She's the host of the podcast Hit Factory. Wich was
about nineties to cinema. I think her name is Carly,
and she expressed this kind of soft disgust that was
growing in me. But both kind of during some of
these scenes and frankly watching people's reaction to it, She said,
quote that's the point, isn't it, To immerse you in
a fantasy where civilian life matters, to distract you from

(40:54):
the reality where civilian life does not matter, To offer
you abstractions of already abstracted images of imperial violence so
that you can experience catharsis, escape and absolution. A movie
like Superman exists to take the literal spectacle of genocide
filling our feed for two years, and further mediate, slash,
abstract the spectacle so it can be transposed onto another
product of empire and strategic interpassivity to keep us ideologically

(41:19):
and emotionally confined to its order. Any empathetic impulse engendered
by forms and aesthetics of imperial violence and memetic rhythms
of technology it trades in confines us to the limits
of the language of empire.

Speaker 7 (41:31):
It keeps us.

Speaker 13 (41:32):
Operating on its terms. We need cinema that ruptures familiar
imperial forms and its rhythms. So movies like Superman and
the way that they depict atrocities actually like make us
more indebted to the imperial system, because the imperial system
can give us a product to make us feel Catharsis
about the violence that the empire actually does, and that

(41:54):
Catharsis keeps us going, like that's what allows us to
not like fucking destroy everything around us, because we get
enough of that Catharsis that it makes us able to
keep living. And that's in the end, what products like
Superman are kind of doing. They're making us feel just
good enough by expressing the displeasure we have at what
our government is doing, but still making us like fully

(42:17):
married to the existence of that empire, like we can't
live without it because of the comfort it provides us,
including this cathartic comfort watching fucking Guy Gardner stop the
Palestindian genocide, which if you told me that sentence like
five years ago, I would have not believed you. I
would have not believed that a cinematic depiction of Guy

(42:38):
Gardner is going to stop the Palestinian genocide, that that
Hawk girl is gonna is gonna kill Netanyahu. I would
have not believed you for a single second. And that
kind of shows the level of absurdity that we're kind
of dealing with, and that aspect, I think is what
makes what Superman is doing actually far more insidious than
any of the controversial politics in something like Eddington.

Speaker 14 (43:00):
I also think that the whole like indended to empire thing.
I think this is like the case in point example
of that considering Superman is literally a symbol of American values.

Speaker 13 (43:12):
Or certainly has like become that, and like, yeah, you know,
had a more positive version of that in some ways
during his like birth in World War Two as a
way as like a symbol of like Nazi resistance, but
now is you know, very much turned into like truth
justice in the American way, to the point where a
lot of his you know, like immigrant aspects have been
have been kind of undercut in the in the past,
in the past few years.

Speaker 14 (43:33):
Yeah, I saw an article I didn't actually end up
fully reading because it was on the I forgot what
it was then the Washington Post or maybe it was
the New York Times where it was it was like
blocked or.

Speaker 7 (43:43):
Something, one of the big two. Yeah.

Speaker 14 (43:45):
Yeah, it was an author who I think was an immigrant,
and it was like talking about how Superman undercuts the
the immigrant experience and that he is like literally born
on the planet anyway, so it's not really like an
it's not necessarily and he doesn't go through any like
cultural conflict.

Speaker 7 (44:03):
I guess, you know, totally.

Speaker 14 (44:05):
I also wondered about, well, you know, I g I
guess it doesn't.

Speaker 11 (44:09):
I guess it doesn't.

Speaker 14 (44:10):
I was gonna I was gonna think about the taking
the immigrant aspect and then talking about one of the
main parts of the movie, which was his parents are
like you need to go and make a harem on
Earth or whatever, is sort of interesting.

Speaker 13 (44:25):
Yes, the aspect that his immigrant background has been very
corrupted in this film, Like there's like a certainly like
foreign evilness associating with Superman.

Speaker 14 (44:35):
Now, yeah, you're an immigrant, and like that's good, and
that's great and very American, but you shouldn't be what
your parents were, your like foreign parents because they wanted
a harem of lovers and to like conquer the West
or whatever. Yeah, which, you know, considering the fact that
this was written during the Russia Ukraine thing and not

(44:56):
mainly during the Israel Palestine thing, I don't know if
that's like because that's in the movie.

Speaker 11 (45:02):
I have to think about it, you know.

Speaker 13 (45:04):
Yeah, I don't think James Gunn was conceptualizing of that
when he wrote it.

Speaker 14 (45:08):
I think it's an unfortunate product of what happened aesthetically,
but it's not that big of a deal, but it
is weird, like it's something to think about.

Speaker 13 (45:16):
That effect did not bother me as much as it
did like for some other people. For my overall thoughts
in the film, I think it's basically as good as
every other James Gun film, which frankly just is not
my cup of tea. I've never really loved the Guardians films.
I don't think James Gun's a very compelling filmmaker. I
thought it was just fine. It definitely felt like episode
thirteen of a TV show that doesn't exist, which as
a comic book appreciator I like. As a film appreciator

(45:39):
I don't like, But certainly the more campy aspects I
enjoyed a lot. I think now is time to go
on a quick break, and then we will return to
discuss the anti woke cinematic masterpiece of the twenty twenties Eddington.

Speaker 11 (46:05):
All right, we're back, So I.

Speaker 13 (46:08):
Would like to now talk about Eddington for the rest
of the episode. Essentially, But like I said before, Eddington
is the equal and opposite of Superman. Both are both
are very contemporary, very online. Both their politics, gesture and
I think they're they're reactionary, but they're specifically reactionary in
very different ways. I think they're they're reacting to two
very different types of decline in America, or like perceived

(46:32):
decline in America. So Eddington is directed by Ariastor, who
made Hereditary, Midsummer and Both Afraid. I'll talk more about
my thoughts on ari Astor at the end in a
conversation with Jennie Danger. But I think Eddington is not
anti woke. Actually I was lying. I think Anything is

(46:52):
a post woke expression of kind of scared nihilism, or
like like a depiction of the nihilism inherent to American
politics right now, like everything as a conspiracy theory, there's
this specter of cancelation around the corner, and like speaking specters,
I think so so much of both Superman and Eddington

(47:13):
for me, is like there's this specter of wokeism that's
haunting America, and both films are trying to deal with
that specter. I think Superman partially mourns that wokeness, and
Eddington deals with its more like actual and like haunting
and like in like a ghostly quality. Some of its
more like uncanny qualities. Sometimes more than anything, Eddington digs

(47:34):
into how we have created a profoundly anti social culture,
which even leftists contribute to and in some cases actually
conceptualize that as a form of like based process, and
how we've all become just reflections of our Internet feeds
and used politics as a justification for personal cruelty, or
the very least, used politics as an outlet to channel

(47:55):
anti social behavior in a way that you can self
perceive as being morally good. And I think the left
and the right do this obviously, Like the right does
this with their like pedophile crusader shit. Never mind the
whole Epstein thing, just just ignore that, ignore all of
the actual right wing pedophiles.

Speaker 11 (48:10):
But well, it's entirely about aesthetics.

Speaker 14 (48:12):
It's about absolutely yeah, who looks like a pedophile to me?

Speaker 11 (48:16):
And it's the gay person.

Speaker 13 (48:18):
Ascetisize politics rights, which is huge on I think political
extremism in general, politics start developing more aestheticized forms. You know,
this is true among anarchists, and I think fascism more
more purely, I think is actually like politics asceticize to
the point we're aesthetisizing, you know, like like people and
like culture and like race, right, Like that is a
whole a way different version than you know, like crust

(48:41):
punks or like yeah, like like you know black Bloc.

Speaker 14 (48:45):
Did you see the uh? I don't remember what the
account was. There was like something of defense tweeted like
some AI like from one of those like mill military
fiction like accounts or something. And it was like a
picture of like a white dude holding like a fucked
up looking m for because it was AI generated and
he's got like a bald eagle.

Speaker 7 (49:03):
On his head.

Speaker 13 (49:05):
No, but that sounds great.

Speaker 11 (49:07):
It got tweeted today.

Speaker 14 (49:08):
It's like the fucking lamest thing I've ever seen, and
like I just don't even know, like not only the
fact that he's like obviously he's using a photo of
somebody else, but it's not even a real picture of anybody.

Speaker 11 (49:21):
It's like a fake image of somebody that somebody.

Speaker 14 (49:23):
Else made, like that he got off of like one
of those like gun larp aesthetic accounts.

Speaker 11 (49:29):
I just found that very interesting.

Speaker 7 (49:32):
I don't know, Bailey, what did you think of Eddington?

Speaker 11 (49:36):
I adored it. I loved it.

Speaker 14 (49:38):
The moment that I knew that I was going to
enjoy it was probably where it's revealed the energy plant
is called perfect Gold, Magic carp or whatever, which is
like so funny, like all those AI guys making all
their products, like they're calling it Sourn's Eye or whatever.

Speaker 7 (49:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so good.

Speaker 14 (49:58):
But I adored it. I think I think that Waking
Phoenix is wonderful in it. He's a great actor. I
think Ari Astor is like one of the few directors
that can perfectly slot him into this like just neurotic,
impotent man role, you.

Speaker 7 (50:13):
Know, very impotent. Ye.

Speaker 9 (50:14):
Yes.

Speaker 14 (50:16):
So the scene that I really like that I think
about probably the most, or the character I think of
probably the most, is the homeless guy. Yeah, the homeless
guy who wanders into the film and is the you know,
he's this a stranger walks into a strange town like
opening of the film, and then all of the scenes
where he's like he kind of bothers everybody, like he's

(50:39):
you know, like in Gavin Newsom's like anti homeless policies.
You know, it's a it's a very bipartisan. We have
a bipartisan anti homeless thing going on, obviously. And he
is also like even when his character like snaps and
kills somebody, he like kills the homeless guy first, which

(50:59):
I found very interesting.

Speaker 13 (51:01):
Yes, I think this is really crucial that when when
the sheriff starts his murder rampage, the first expression of
violence that he feels personally justified in doing or feels
Catharsis isn't doing, isn't isn't like the fake woke mayor.
It's not Antifa. It's the homeless guy that is the
first target of acceptable violence in the mind of the sheriff.

(51:23):
And I think that is a very accurate look at
American politics, and that's not something I've seen discussed very
much in relation to the film.

Speaker 14 (51:32):
No, and I in a way, he's still impotent after that,
He's like he's he's not even enacting.

Speaker 11 (51:38):
I wouldn't even label that as political violence.

Speaker 14 (51:40):
I just labeled that as violence, right, Like earlier in
the movie, all the like teen woke protesters are like
sitting out in the street, and the homeless guy's kind
of just standing and like he's like, hey, man, I
don't have any money. Like he's not even asking for anything. Yeah,
he's just kind of standing there and making them all uncomfortable.

Speaker 11 (51:56):
You know.

Speaker 14 (51:57):
He is he is the specter of the other wandering
into this town and then everybody has to like and
he's like the you know, the beginning of conflict. You know, yeah,
they're they're like the easiest group to other is the
homeless and the mentally unwell.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
No.

Speaker 13 (52:12):
I think that that part of the film works really well.
And I guess this film has received a mixed reaction,
which I talk a little bit about with with Jane,
which you'll you'll hear in a sec. And I guess
I'll start by talking about how I believe Eddington works
as a as a piece of post woke cinema. And

(52:34):
I was talking about this with someone and they asked
me what post woke was, and I was a little confused,
because that's a term that I feel like I understand
really well, but then I failed to accurately describe it
to them. And I think it relates to this whole
cultural moment that we're in now, especially after the twenty
twenty four election, where we're facing this larger cultural backlash
against you know, woke TM and how that highlights like

(52:57):
the limits of diversity representation and complicated language to explain
topics that might actually be you know, reasonable, but by
expressing them you sound very unreasonable, and I think what
post woke is and the reason why Eddington is post
woke and is not anti woke, Like Eddington's not a

(53:18):
centrist movie. I think it actually is fairly political, but
it's post woke in such that it is a continuation
of radical politics which incorporates critiques of the woke era,
what critics would describe as an overreach or excessive focus
on language or singular identity, trading inaccessible education in favor
of in group signaling to prove personal political purity. I

(53:41):
think post woke shoes a shallow performative politics adopted to
provide social capital, and instead may deliberately flaunt humor, camp,
or irreverence in ways that may have been labeled problematic
or taboo during the peak of twenty tens online activism,
but often in a way that signals both curate awareness
of social issues as well as an exhaustion with or

(54:03):
a playful rebellion against socially alienating language and ideas. And
this can include using irony, parity, and camp to engage
with social issues without the existential gravity or earnestness of
prior education focused eras there may now be jokes themes
or performances that skirt or playfully violate previous norms of

(54:24):
cultural sensitivity, but not out of ignorance, but as a
conscious reversal or escalation, while actually emphasizing material support over
linguistic gestures and systematic pressure over individual personal action. So
that's what I mean by post woke. I had to
workshop this definition with a friend earlier this morning, But

(54:45):
I think that works for both, Like what Eddington is doing,
I think that works for what events like Twins Versus
Dolls is doing. How's it's not anti woke but and
it's not purely reactionary against woke it is it is
actually a continuous and an escalation while adapting to fit
the current political climate and still like reflecting on some

(55:06):
of the shortcomings of the quote unquote Wolke era, which
we see throughout Eddington a lot in the form of like,
you know, performative politics, especially that like one like Zoomer
Guy character, Oh yeah, you know, goes on that whole
rant about like abolishing whiteness to his parents based on
like googling these concepts like thirty minutes ago, and now
feels like he has like an academic level understanding of

(55:28):
whiteness as a concept.

Speaker 14 (55:30):
The intro to him, I guess it's the second it's
the second time you see him. But he's at the
he's at the party or whatever.

Speaker 11 (55:36):
Uh, and like he.

Speaker 14 (55:38):
Gives kind of an opinion to this girl that he
has a crush on. They're talking about like, you know,
whiteness and like privilege and stuff like that, and he class. Yeah,
and class is the really like because clearly he I
think I think he's supposed to kind of be like
a lower class like character that then yeah, jumps up

(55:58):
the ranks through political opportunism, right yeah, but yeah, he
brings up class and is immediately shut down.

Speaker 13 (56:04):
And Google's Angela Davis seconds before, but only but only
so that he can flirt with a girl more effectively,
which is very funny.

Speaker 11 (56:13):
Incredible, It's so good.

Speaker 13 (56:15):
Other small bits like that. I really enjoyed that. The
like fake woke Mayor who's actually just like a tech
company shill has he him pronouns on his zoom profile.

Speaker 7 (56:25):
Ye, very very funny to me.

Speaker 11 (56:29):
There are so many little things in this movie.

Speaker 13 (56:32):
It's a lot of little stuff. Yeah, and like very
obviously this was a film that Ariasta wrote well, like
way too online during twenty twenty, like he was in
specifically Twitter, right, this is an extremely Twitter movie, which
is both works for the movie and sometimes works against
the movie. I have no idea how this film is
gonna age. Maybe it'll age very well because we'll use
it as like a cultural artifact to like look back

(56:53):
on and be like, yeah, that's kind of what twenty
twenty felt like.

Speaker 14 (56:59):
In a couple of years, we're all going to be
looking back on it and saying, how dare they made
fun of our new currency, crypto, our new bitcoins.

Speaker 11 (57:06):
Everybody has bitcoins.

Speaker 13 (57:07):
All of the bitcoin stuff is really good, like I do.

Speaker 14 (57:11):
Also, I like that they gave the I don't remember
his name, the black police officer, who's like kind of
another like main through line for the movie. Yeah, but
he his only other thing is that he's really into crypto.

Speaker 11 (57:25):
He's so funny, so good.

Speaker 13 (57:28):
If anything, I think Eddington is really good at showcasing
types of guy. There's so many like type of guys
in this film, and I think that's one of the
real highlights. And at least for me, Like I'm obviously
been very politically aware and engaged since you know, twenty
eighteen or so especially starting in twenty twenty, So like

(57:52):
knowing this film is set in twenty twenty and knowing
it kind of gets into what that year was, like,
I actually was able to get go into the film
pretty pretty blind, and I was able to start calling
shots really fast as soon as as soon as I realized,
like what what Ari was doing. So like the film
starts off as this like political satire on like the

(58:12):
absurdity of COVID Lockdown America, and then we get into
this like crime thriller genre. Then it concludes with this
action genre. But at the very start of the film,
when it's just like this kind of kind of quaint
like like like parody of Lockdown America, I was like, okay,
so at like forty five minute mark, we're gonna get
George Floyd. Right at at one hour in there's gonna

(58:34):
be riots our you know, hour fifteen, there's gonna be
some like Antifa type situation. And I called so many things.
They just started happening like exactly what I thought they
were going to. So I was not really surprised by
anything in this film necessarily. I saw everything it was
doing like I saw it coming because I, you know,
lived that for so much of a twenty twenty, especially

(58:56):
like the twenty twenty protests in Portland, but also my
familiarity with it was also I was also able to
then like diagnose how the film was subtly like diverting
from reality and just showcasing what twenty twenty felt like
and like what twenty twenty was in the minds of
like people who believed in conspiracy theories more so than
the actual reality of twenty twenty, which I will also
discuss more with Jennie Danger later. But I think specifically

(59:18):
like the genre switching and then setting up all of
these like twenty twenty hallmarks, I think the film does
really well doing like pretty solid foreshadowing and hitting all
the points you're going to have to hit if you're
gonna make a film about twenty twenty.

Speaker 14 (59:31):
Yeah, yeah, we have the wayfarar pedophile closets.

Speaker 13 (59:36):
Totally Q went on cults, child trafficking.

Speaker 14 (59:39):
Yeah, So I watched the movie Network like for four
days before.

Speaker 11 (59:43):
I watched this.

Speaker 13 (59:44):
I need to see networks. Oh my god, Robert's been
trying to get me to watch it for years. I
just have never found the time. I guess I don't
know ari.

Speaker 14 (59:52):
Astro like explicitly brought up Network and staid like he
was thinking about it while making this movie, but that he.

Speaker 11 (59:57):
Wanted it to be more.

Speaker 14 (01:00:00):
The Network is definitely more like it tells you what
it means, sure kind of thing, and like what it
thinks is the right way to do things.

Speaker 13 (01:00:06):
And this film purposely does not get into that too much.
It lets its own depiction tell you.

Speaker 11 (01:00:12):
It doesn't.

Speaker 13 (01:00:13):
It doesn't like stop you and explain whatever, like you know,
like what its politics are. I think the movie does
the politics.

Speaker 14 (01:00:20):
Yes, but I also I thought in comparing it to Network,
which I will try my hard it's not to spoil
the Network, but there is definitely a theme in this
and in the Network of like forces above, this movie
is about political puppets about like non political actors, right

(01:00:42):
walkin Phoenix's character talks about how like he's not for
the government, he's for the people kind of thing. So
he's clearly doing like a populist thing. And then by
the end of the movie he's all the more like
he's literally a puppet, right Like, he's like just a
sack of meat that is like it has to watch
his mom is not even his mom in law.

Speaker 13 (01:01:03):
His mother in law, mother in law, ex mother in law.

Speaker 14 (01:01:07):
It's just incredible, one of the most horrifying concepts. But
this movie is about like, yeah, a bunch of stuff happens,
like stuff that's like they're trying to kind of throw
off the balance.

Speaker 13 (01:01:19):
Yeah, people are trying to make political change while dealing
with this problem that politics is both very real, it's physical,
it determines almost everything about our lives, but it's also
very vague and nebulous and removed. So like, how do
you exert agency over something that is both real and
non real? To be a political actor, do you have

(01:01:42):
to literally be like an astroturfed paid actor. The people
that seemingly have the most political agency aren't even acting
on any personal agency but instead of just furthering the
interests of other entities.

Speaker 14 (01:01:57):
Yeah, but the corporation's the big money people whoever's like
in the background, right the the plane with the giant
hand holding the globe.

Speaker 11 (01:02:07):
And the Antifa globe jet.

Speaker 14 (01:02:10):
Yeah, yeah, the the So Okay, here's a question because
because when I watched it, I thought that it was
it's like paid actors, right, Like they're paid like a
paid Colson group.

Speaker 11 (01:02:21):
That's what that's what I write it as.

Speaker 13 (01:02:23):
I think it's left for audience interpretation whether whether or
not this is like the George Soros funded Antifa, like
Specop's crew, who are genuine about their beliefs, or if
they're like a false flag crew who's just going around
so in chaos to promote like political discord, but not
for like ideological reasons, like just just through like false
flag attacks. I think it's intentionally left up to the audience,

(01:02:46):
and I think it's it's depicting that because of all
of like the Antifa conspiracy theories going around in twenty twenty,
and I view that as like a it's like a
manifestation of how the right wing viewed this concept of Antifa,
even though Antifa is actually teenagers wearing black hoodies. Yeah,
but they treated it as if it was this like
organized group going around doing push ups.

Speaker 14 (01:03:07):
On their private chat, smoking big cigars, getting air dropped
into into small towns to go exactly blow things up.

Speaker 7 (01:03:17):
Is like exactly, so funny of Antifa are coming in.

Speaker 14 (01:03:22):
Yeah, And then that leads into what I think is
the best joke in the movie, the TikTok zoomer guy
shooting while holding his phone and then like it cuts
immediately into like a now this uh like TikTok about
the antifas.

Speaker 11 (01:03:39):
Like militia time is and then.

Speaker 14 (01:03:42):
He's like a hype guy and he's got like a
podcast where he's talking about if Michelle Obama's gonna run
for president or whatever, like so good, what do you
what do you think of kind of the the semi
cliffhanger conclusion of some of the threads.

Speaker 11 (01:03:59):
I guess, hmmm, because and.

Speaker 14 (01:04:01):
I'm only thinking about this as a cliffhanger because he's
talked about it him making a sequel, if that makes sense, Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:04:08):
Like a like a loose sequel, Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:04:10):
Yeah, with like some of the same characters.

Speaker 9 (01:04:13):
I guess.

Speaker 7 (01:04:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 13 (01:04:14):
I have felt pretty satisfied with how this wrapped up,
because I mean, twenty twenty did not have a real ending.
We are still living in the shadow of twenty twenty.
There's still is loose threads, like COVID still is a
thing that exists. We're still living with, like the way
political violence escalated and never fully went away with, especially
like January sixth, and how even the concept of pedophilia

(01:04:37):
still runs almost all of politics. Like this is what
politics is about. Is like deciding who is and isn't
a pedophile. Yeah, like the whole conspiracy theory angle. More
people are conspiracy theorists now than I think they were
in twenty twenty, including like liberals, Oh yeah, no, the
whole like blue and on conspiracy theories, the alt National Park,
Blue Sky accounts, the Trump assassination was stayed, like all

(01:05:00):
of that kind of stuff is like, this has just
become all of what politics is.

Speaker 11 (01:05:05):
It's what your mom does.

Speaker 14 (01:05:07):
It's what like your mom, or like your every one
of your parents.

Speaker 13 (01:05:10):
Does, and not just your right wing mom. Now, like
this is like everybody's mom.

Speaker 9 (01:05:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:05:14):
And I think that's the sort of American decline that
ori Astra is depicting, as opposed to the type that
James Gut is depicting. I think it's much more accurate,
I agree, And it's much more holistic.

Speaker 11 (01:05:24):
Yes, I don't think you could.

Speaker 14 (01:05:25):
I obviously, I don't think you could kind of really
hold the schizophrenia that the post twenty twenty post lockdown
political schizophrenia that we exist and currently I agree, where
like everything is ungrounded.

Speaker 11 (01:05:40):
You know, you can't do a superhero story like that.
I don't think there's like no way to do that.

Speaker 13 (01:05:44):
No, unless you use my favorite superhero, the question Yes,
in which you could do that and James Gutt if
you're listening, I will write to a question film and
it will be crazy. But like in terms of like
like filmmaking, I think I think post woke as like
a filmmaking style, and like what our aster is doing

(01:06:05):
here is a reaction to the past, like ten years
of liberal self aggrandizing movies as content slop right, which
tries to get points for like diversity casting without having
any actual like substance of politics or will like gesture
to things relating to class, even though it's made by
these big, you know, multi billion dollar corporations. And I

(01:06:25):
think I think that whole era produced this sort of
schizophrenia because everything feels so paradoxical and self contradictory. And
I think part of the feelings that evokes is what
Eddington is trying to pull on and depicting those feelings
as a subject itself, not just as like a background
thing that we try to either like acknowledge sort of

(01:06:46):
or try to like not acknowledge and like ignore. I
think viewing that that cultural schizophrenia as a subject. If anything,
that's like the main character of Eddington, and I think
that's the part that that worked the most for me.

Speaker 14 (01:07:00):
Yeah, I think structure wise, a lot of people were
talking about like it feels like too scattered of a movie.
I think I saw that a lot, and like the
critiques of it, and I think, like, sure, if we're
talking about like just you know, does it become a
little confusing to follow. Maybe, but it's like that's the point,
like and not to say like that's the point, so

(01:07:20):
it watches that away. But like, I don't think you can.
I don't think you can make a movie accurately.

Speaker 13 (01:07:25):
You can't make a movie about that era without it
feeling scattered like that.

Speaker 11 (01:07:29):
Yeah, that's why I really respect ori Astor.

Speaker 14 (01:07:32):
I think I was talking to my partner yesterday about
who's the guy that made like.

Speaker 11 (01:07:37):
Nosferatu and all those movies. Robert Eggers.

Speaker 14 (01:07:41):
Robert Eggers very good filmmaker, but he's explicitly talked about
how he doesn't.

Speaker 13 (01:07:46):
Ever want to do modern films.

Speaker 14 (01:07:48):
Yeah, a modern film, I guess. I haven't seen The Crouds,
but I've heard very good things about it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:53):
Me neither me neither.

Speaker 11 (01:07:54):
Yeah, I want to see that movie.

Speaker 14 (01:07:56):
Because I think Cronenberg is another one who's like I
also want. I watched so great lineup for this movie.
I watched Corningberg's What's the Video Drome?

Speaker 7 (01:08:05):
Recently?

Speaker 13 (01:08:06):
That did I can definitely see Eddington kind of being
a grandchild of video drone in some ways.

Speaker 14 (01:08:13):
I would also recommend. I've also I've been reading Mark
Fisher's Flat Line Constructs.

Speaker 7 (01:08:18):
This is a very Fisher movie.

Speaker 11 (01:08:19):
Yeah, very Fisher.

Speaker 9 (01:08:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:08:21):
I literally I listened to the stupid Russell Brand audio
Book of Capitalists.

Speaker 7 (01:08:28):
No, oh, that sucks.

Speaker 14 (01:08:30):
I know Russell Brand sucks, but I was at work
and I just needed something to listen to. So I
didn't like blow my head off, and it didn't end
up working out actually because I was working my shitty
job and listening.

Speaker 13 (01:08:41):
To capitalist Brandy Russell Brand, Russell Brands Capitalist Realism.

Speaker 11 (01:08:48):
Oh God, what a bummer.

Speaker 13 (01:08:50):
Yeah, truly, Mark Fisher is only l Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:08:53):
It is unbearable to have to listen to his voice,
but it's a great book. I would definitely recommend reading
that if he want to go into Eddington even more
like Locked In, I guess, but this is a very
like yeah, like you know, capital can convert anything into
the image of something else. There was one shot that

(01:09:14):
I really I found very evocative, which was the shot
of like him walking Phoenix's characters having his haircut by
his whatever stepmom ex stepmom, and she's talking about like
conspiracy theory while filming it. That's good for TikTok, And
it's like this is so perfect and so morbid, and.

Speaker 13 (01:09:35):
Like, yeah, no, there's there's a little bit of like
Butdriard's book on America here, there's certainly a lot of
ged Aboard in this, and I think that also was
part of what relates it to me to Superman is
how much like Superman is accidentally doing geed aboard regarding
the genocide and Palestine, and how much I think that
critique is actually built into Eddington.

Speaker 9 (01:09:58):
No.

Speaker 14 (01:09:59):
Absolutely, yeah, I I Superman is such an an interesting
movie to take on that subject because obviously, in a
way you're kind of like, well, good for James Gunn
for doing something daring.

Speaker 11 (01:10:11):
I guess daring, I say with air quotes.

Speaker 14 (01:10:14):
But it's also like you have the Israel Palestine stuff
placed right after a scene where Superman saves a green
baby from a river of like cosmic sludge.

Speaker 7 (01:10:25):
Of like CGI squares.

Speaker 14 (01:10:27):
Yeah, which, by the way, I'm sure I don't know
if this is the general consensus, but I thought that
that scene was ugliest sin and I kind of hated it.

Speaker 13 (01:10:36):
Also, I hated the whole Pocket dimension. Yeah, aspect. I
don't know why they didn't do a quick like ten
minute interlude into the phantom zone keep hit that. But no,
I think that that whole Pocket Dimension like forty minutes
like derailed and stagnated a lot of the film for
me and did not look very good.

Speaker 14 (01:10:54):
He's doing like Lex Luthor's Peter Thiel, Lex Luthor is
Elon Musk Lex Luthor's, which could work. Yeah, yeah, which
I think. I think I found it funny at least
I said, like totally. I watched it and I thought like, oh,
I know what he's doing. You know that he's Peter Thiel,
shut down Gawker or.

Speaker 7 (01:11:09):
Whatever, crying men baby.

Speaker 11 (01:11:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:11:12):
Yeah, so it's like I get it, But I also,
I mean, it's been done before, kind of thing, like
I don't find it, you know that I don't know,
but he Hey, his performance is great, But then the
whole Palestine stuff is also capped off with a scene
where lesh Luthor gets like bullied by a dog. You know,
it's sandwiched between two things that are just like I

(01:11:33):
don't know if you can do this or if you
should do this, Like I don't know, No.

Speaker 9 (01:11:38):
It is.

Speaker 13 (01:11:39):
I think it's it's part of that sort of cultural
schizophrenia that I think that Eddington is pulling on. Yeah
is moments like that in the David Zaslov Winner Brothers, Discovery,
Superman twenty twenty five.

Speaker 11 (01:11:53):
And Eddington just is.

Speaker 14 (01:11:55):
You know, it's a film that is like its entire
thesis is that is the yeah is, the jumping around
the just ret like his car is covered in shit
for the entire movie.

Speaker 11 (01:12:06):
I love it so funny.

Speaker 14 (01:12:08):
All the all the slogans are like kind of like
they're all trying to put in their own little thing,
you know, Like he's like, can we make it about bitcoin?

Speaker 11 (01:12:16):
Can we make it about.

Speaker 13 (01:12:17):
It's like a twenty twenty conservative Facebook feed brought to life.

Speaker 14 (01:12:20):
Yes, Yes, it's a great movie. I love Eddingson. I
think that this movie will age very well.

Speaker 13 (01:12:27):
Well, what would you like to plug Bailey new poster?

Speaker 14 (01:12:31):
I think you should follow me If you have an
X you should follow me.

Speaker 11 (01:12:37):
On at what is it called at New Poster two
on x.

Speaker 14 (01:12:42):
If you're on Instagram, you should follow me at postalytical Bling,
which is a terrible username, but I made.

Speaker 11 (01:12:49):
It's my writing user name, like ages ago, I think.

Speaker 14 (01:12:52):
And then on Blue Sky, if you use that, you
should follow me it what even is michaelue Sky?

Speaker 11 (01:12:57):
I don't even use I'm gonna be honest, I don't
use blues guy.

Speaker 13 (01:13:00):
But if you if we got to fix the vibes
on there, baby, we we got it, we got we
got we got to get more like crazy crazy unhinged
art on Blue Start all.

Speaker 14 (01:13:08):
Right, Uh, it's it's New Poster Dot, Bluesky dot social
or whatever.

Speaker 11 (01:13:14):
So there you go if you need that. There, there's
the there's the plugs.

Speaker 13 (01:13:18):
Well, thank you for coming on to talk about Eddington
and Superman.

Speaker 11 (01:13:21):
Thank you so much for inviting me. This has been wonderful.

Speaker 14 (01:13:24):
I love Eddington, I enjoyed Superman, so this is a
good talk.

Speaker 13 (01:13:29):
There you go, Lovely Lovely. For the last segment of
our post Woke Cinema episode, I'm gonna play a conversation
I had with Atlanta musician Janey Danger, who we talk

(01:13:51):
about her thoughts on the film Eddington and the way
it manifests twenty twenties hyperreality.

Speaker 11 (01:14:00):
A little background.

Speaker 15 (01:14:01):
I guess, like I really like ariost I remember talking
with you about Bo's Afraid a while ago.

Speaker 11 (01:14:07):
I remember you weren't a huge fan of it.

Speaker 7 (01:14:10):
Not so hot.

Speaker 13 (01:14:10):
I'm Bo's Afraid. I'm Afraid. I wanted to like it too,
because whenever people talk about this like like like off putting,
long slow cinema about like anxiety, like I want to
like that, Like Illa Dumpayer is one of the best films. Ever,
there's other other other films that do is that that
that also tackle its not just like David Lynch. Yeah,

(01:14:31):
and like the rest of ari Astor, I was always
like lukewarm to kind of positive on Like, I don't
hate him as a filmmaker. I don't have that as
part of my personality way some people do. Yeah, I
think his movies are just fine. I think he does
dabble in or. I guess he like overlies on a
degree of shalk value, which you could even see in
his earlier like student films. Yeah, I think are like

(01:14:52):
very juvenile and not interesting. I think Hereditary's fine. So
aria Aster has always been there but I've never been
like a a story in Bio.

Speaker 15 (01:15:01):
I think he's kind of cool to hate now, Like
I think with he's very cool to hate now people
really like hating him.

Speaker 13 (01:15:07):
But Eddington I think has done him a lot of
favors though among the people who used to hate him.

Speaker 15 (01:15:12):
I've kind of noticed that it seems like with Hereditary
in Midsummer, those were generally like very well received by
like the A twenty four crowd, and it was kind
of like, I guess the cool opinion would be to
be like those movies are mid and then like Bo
Was Afraid as a masterpiece or whatever.

Speaker 11 (01:15:29):
I like his horror movies.

Speaker 15 (01:15:31):
I think they're slick, well made films with good stories.
I love bo Was Afraid though, I think it's incredible,
but it is not the kind of it's the kind
of movie that, like, as much as I love it,
as much as it means to me, as seen as
I feel by that film, it's not the kind of
thing that like, if you don't like it, I'm not
gonna like convince you, you know, like there's probably like

(01:15:53):
if you told me you didn't like Maholland Drive, like
I'd be like, you're fucking stupid and wrong.

Speaker 7 (01:15:58):
You're dumb if you tell me you don't like was.

Speaker 15 (01:16:00):
Afraid, It's like fair enough, It's it's sure certainly the
kind of thing that's not for everyone. I bring it
up mostly because I think with bo and Eddington, it's
a very interesting thing he does that is kind of
I guess I compared to maybe like French new wave directors,
maybe like something like Selene and Julie go Boding, where

(01:16:23):
the like protagonists are living in like a fake insane reality,
where in other directors, like most other films, like you'd
have someone who's like going insane and hallucinating and like
everyone's trying to kill them, et cetera.

Speaker 11 (01:16:42):
And then maybe there would be like a cut.

Speaker 7 (01:16:44):
Which is kind of what happens to bow Is Afraid.

Speaker 15 (01:16:46):
Yeah, but in other movies there would maybe be like
a cut away for someone else where they see like
the character like arguing to a shadow like.

Speaker 13 (01:16:54):
The quote unquote real perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 15 (01:16:57):
And I think that bo Is Afraid it's like it's no,
this is real, And I think Eddington does a very
similar thing where the beliefs of the characters are real,
and that's why like you know, all the conservatives, Like
I mean, if you remember twenty twenty, they're like there's
Antipho super soldiers that are going out and doing terrorism.

(01:17:19):
It's like so in this world, in the Eddington universe,
it's like what if that was real?

Speaker 11 (01:17:24):
Like what if Fox.

Speaker 15 (01:17:26):
News was actually in motion here? And I think that's
very interesting.

Speaker 13 (01:17:31):
The approach that he does in Eddington, I think is
a little bit more subtle than the way there's in
bos Afraid, because you start the film way way more
as like a as like you know, a political satire
on the absurdity of like pandemic era America, and then
the reality starts diverting from what we can agree as
like as like a shared consensus reality. Yeah, and then

(01:17:52):
it it diverts from that the same way reality diverted
away from that in twenty twenty for people, and we
created this like yeah, massive like reality fracture.

Speaker 11 (01:18:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:18:01):
Like the first time I noticed this in the filmmaking
was there was like a news clip about like a
Portland riot in twenty twenty, and it had people like
exchanging gunfire on rooftops and it was played next to
actual news clips of like the Third Precinct burning down,
like it was played off as like a real, legitimate
news clip. Yeah, and like I was, I lived in
Portland in twenty twenty. I know that's not real. But

(01:18:22):
to many people viewing, they might not catch that. That
might just be like, that might just go into the background.
So at that point I realized that actually the way
that reality is getting diverted in the film is way
more subtle. And then of course you get like the
Antifa super soldier private jet later and it's more obvious
like what he's doing. But even like small things like that,
I started to really appreciate you, Like, no, you're like

(01:18:44):
getting into the mind of people who believe these things,
and that's what we're that's what's being depicted, Like the
feelings of twenty twenty are more important than the reality
of twenty twenty, and that is what he's trying to show.

Speaker 15 (01:18:57):
That's even kind of like a meta in a sense,
because it's like if you watch that that scene of
like the footage of the Portland like shooting and stuff,
and you as the audience or like questioning if that
was real, then it's like your consensus reality is also
diverging from the regular consensus reality. It's like it kind

(01:19:19):
of makes you a cipher for the characters, which which
also leads me to something something else. So something I
don't see a lot of people talking about. But the
vagrant character that that starts the film where he comes
in and he's just like mumbling like messages. And if
you've ever been around like a you know, like a

(01:19:40):
homeless person on a bus or something, they like to mumble.
And it's I read that as someone who's like just
essentially doing what everyone else in this movie eventually comes
to do totally, yes, which is just taking all of
your like internalized like messages, traumas, like things you've heard,

(01:20:03):
things you believe, and just like grumbling it, spitting it out.
And so anyone who talks to you, you just incessantly
just like messages, messages, messages.

Speaker 13 (01:20:12):
Dissimilarity of that character to like the Mom character, who
does the same thing but is seen in a very
different way. Yeah, because of a house, she has like
a home to live in and has like family.

Speaker 15 (01:20:23):
Yeah, absolutely, And there's no there's no place for a
person like the vagrant in this world, but there is
a place for all these other types of insane people.
And they're all able to find their little little niches
and such, when maybe in a world before that and
a world before it was so easy to find such niches,

(01:20:47):
maybe like you would I don't know, go to therapy,
maybe like maybe your.

Speaker 11 (01:20:51):
Family would would be concerned.

Speaker 15 (01:20:54):
It is very interesting because people very are are very
prone now, and it's like that's because they're able to
like get pulled into these cults. They find their own
kind of Austin Butler figure who's able to talk to
them directly and be like, no, come with me, you're okay,
and just to go back to the point of like

(01:21:15):
messages and stuff. I think that the uh, the Joaquin
Phoenix character. I think he starts out as a very
like uh like Hank Hill, like very I mean he
doesn't he doesn't want to wear a mask. He's obviously
leans a bit conservative, but.

Speaker 13 (01:21:29):
But he's like trying to kind of be like a
reasonable guy.

Speaker 15 (01:21:32):
Right, And I see him as someone who's trying to
like avoid the messaging from everyone. Like even when people
tell him about like certain news stories and stuff, he's like,
I don't know, like he just doesn't know. And yeah,
in the process of him like avoiding all these messages,
what does he do. He buys a truck and covers

(01:21:54):
it in fucking messages.

Speaker 13 (01:21:55):
In messages he starts broadcasting his reality to everyone around
him exactly.

Speaker 15 (01:22:00):
It's like, I don't know, I think that normally, normally
I would call it bad writing for like every character
to be like a cipher. But I think what he
does in this is is really really interesting. Like I
think it's a I don't know, I guess, like one
more thing that I really like, do want to say,
is like Ari Astor did an interview with Will Minker

(01:22:21):
and Hesse of like Chapo, and he said that he
kind of wanted to make this movie like a Rorshack
test of sorts, and I think he maybe overly succeeded
in that definitely. And in fact, if I had one criticism,
it's that maybe I wish there was like a few

(01:22:44):
things like tied together that and I just wish Austin
Butler and emm A.

Speaker 11 (01:22:47):
Stone got a little more meat to do things.

Speaker 15 (01:22:49):
But aside from that, one of the biggest criticisms that
I'm honestly just going to dismiss outright as people saying
that this is like a centrist movie totally, or comparing
this to South Park or something like that. And if
you view this as a centrist movie, I mean, the
liberals in this are like kind of annoying and effectual.

Speaker 11 (01:23:10):
A lot of them don't really believe what they do.
Some of them do.

Speaker 15 (01:23:13):
I think the girl character is very sympathetic, but like
the younger girl. But Joaquin Phoenix, the ostensible, like you know,
right wing version of this, kills a child, like he
kills three people, including like a teenager.

Speaker 13 (01:23:26):
Like the woke characters engage with politics in a that
but and self serving way to mask their own insecurities
and shortcomings and for their own personal benefit. The right
wing characters murder and have rape cults, and.

Speaker 15 (01:23:42):
Yeah, right, Like I don't I don't see how you
could look at the actions of the characters in this
film and just be like, yeah, I guess everyone is stupid.
I guess everyone is wrong because it's like no, like
I mean, I guess everyone is a little stupid and
everyone is kind of wrong about things. But like, that's
not like what it's getting across. I think that's a

(01:24:04):
very shallow read of the film.

Speaker 13 (01:24:07):
This is what people outside of the Brooklyn theater were
complaining about when I eavesdropped for like nearly forty five
minutes after the film, just to hear what people were
talking about. I love eavesdropping, I love snooping, So I
was really feasting out there. And Yeah, a lot of
people upset at how quote unquote little this film had
to say. It's just it's just depicting these things but
doesn't have the audacity to actually like say anything about

(01:24:31):
them or like take a quote unquote stance, and like, yeah,
that's so not what the film is trying to do.
That the film is pointing out, like the social media
style engagement with politics is it's incredibly self serving thing,
and it's this performance that we put on for other
people and sometimes put on even for ourselves. And twenty
twenty was away because of the conditions of the lockdown,

(01:24:54):
the Internet and real life combined in a way more
like totalistically than they have ever before. And then that
combination grew pressure and shot outwards into physical reality in
a very bombastic way, both for the twenty twenty protests
and eventually something like January sixth, right, both these things, Yeah,
I think you can you can look at a similar
like a political pressure like building and manifesting, and it's

(01:25:17):
not saying these things are like equal. It's not the
centrist I'm better than thou for you look at all
these crazy guys. But it's it's talking about how we
as a culture associate with politics now, and like how
as like American culture we associate with politics now, and
maybe that's kind of troubling and kind of scary. That's
like the horror of the film is ye, the way

(01:25:37):
that we associate with social media politics now is really frightening.
Which isn't like a revolutionary thing to say, right. This
isn't like, you know, breaking new ground here, but he
is expressing something that everyone I think has felt at
a certain point. Sure, but it's it's it's presented in
a way that I think is it very much is
a Rorscha act test for a lot of people.

Speaker 15 (01:25:57):
I think a lot of people are uncomfortable. I think
some people just see too much of themselves, and like
I was speaking specifically to like liberal audiences, I think
a lot of them are seeing something of themselves and
they feel like they're being made fun of and they
don't appreciate that. I'll just say I was I was
at the Black Lives Matter protests and stuff. I was
there and I don't feel that way. No, I don't

(01:26:19):
think I was being made fun of. Yeah, I don't
like Like I think that like that's kind of on
you as a viewer for like expecting a movie to
like look directly in the camera and be like, I
believe the same things you believe, you know, because that's
I mean, that's bad filmmaking, that's bad writing.

Speaker 13 (01:26:38):
Explains the exact type of communist that I am.

Speaker 11 (01:26:41):
Right, Yes, I'm the exact kind of leftist you are.

Speaker 15 (01:26:44):
We are on the same side and we're all laughing
at the same things together.

Speaker 13 (01:26:47):
It's like, no, and if if your engagement with like
social justice and anti police brutality protests is shallow enough
to feel called out in a film like this, I
think that is cause more for self reflection and for
while you participated in those things.

Speaker 11 (01:27:01):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 13 (01:27:03):
Not a fault of the film where it's not the
film taking a stance against those things. I think it's
it's showing there's certain types of people who who participated
in an extremely performative and like self serving manner, and
like specifically the way that like the main like like
like zoomer guy character who in the end becomes a

(01:27:23):
right wing grifter. It's like it's I think this manifests
this like like like perfectly, like I think his his character,
I think is one of the funniest characters in the film.
One of one of the best jokes is just him
like liking a.

Speaker 11 (01:27:37):
Tweet googling Angela Davos.

Speaker 13 (01:27:41):
So I think that kind of stuff is more what
it's talking about. And when you have those types of
people being some of the most vocal people at these events,
it contributes to this like kind of psychosis and that
I think that's what the film is is specifically saying.

Speaker 15 (01:27:57):
I mean, did we forget that people like Sean King
were like popular in twenty twenty. Look, if you see
this and like the portrayal of like these liberal characters
doesn't apply to you, I don't know why you're mad.
I don't know why you would like look at that
and be like, oh, they're making fun of me and everything.
I believe because if it doesn't apply to you, then

(01:28:18):
it doesn't apply to you. And that was how I
watched the film, Like I didn't feel like any of
these characters applied to me.

Speaker 11 (01:28:26):
So I don't really care.

Speaker 15 (01:28:29):
And I guess a final point is like I haven't
heard anyone else say this, but like Sheriff Joe at
the end of the film is I feel like it's
very unsubtle symbolism to say that he's lobotomized.

Speaker 11 (01:28:45):
With if Ice stabbed in the in the head with
a knife.

Speaker 13 (01:28:48):
That's what's happened to all of us in a way.

Speaker 15 (01:28:50):
And I mean, it's funny that Ariastra avoided a lot
of mother related trauma up until the very very end
of the movie.

Speaker 13 (01:28:59):
The very last he had to squeezed it in there.

Speaker 15 (01:29:02):
I know, I know which it was, I know, and
he's being like raised in the bed and this kind
of like angelic like ascension kind of thing.

Speaker 11 (01:29:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 15 (01:29:13):
I think that it's I think it's a pretty unsubtle
and funny way of saying that, like there's really for
some people after going fully there in like being insane,
after like just plunging yourself into the heart of all
of this like chaos and unreality, that the only thing

(01:29:36):
that is going to save you is a lobotomy, if
nothing else. I think that's very funny. So yeah, I
enjoyed it a lot. I've wondered after about a week
after I saw it, I was kicking it around in
my head more and I was wondering, like, will this
grow on me?

Speaker 11 (01:29:53):
Will this age well?

Speaker 15 (01:29:54):
And I think it definitely has grown on me the
more I've thought about it.

Speaker 13 (01:29:58):
Same it has also grown me more over time. Once
I got out of the theater, I was storting through
a lot of different feelings about what I just saw
and it has definitely grown me over time. Where can
people find you and your work?

Speaker 15 (01:30:12):
Yeah, so I'm a musician. You can go to Janie
Danger dot com and find most of my links and stuff.
I have a new song and video out. I'm working
on a new album that should come out later this year.
And if you're in the Atlanta area, I'm playing a
show at the end of August at Bogs Social and
the Mainline Music Festival in September. But if you follow

(01:30:35):
me on like Instagram or whatever, you should have all
your updates there and you can follow me on letterbox
at Janey Danger.

Speaker 11 (01:30:42):
So yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 7 (01:30:44):
Thank you Jane.

Speaker 13 (01:30:46):
That does it for us at it could happen here.
Thanks once again to Jane Danger and Bailey new Poster.
Follow them both online. They do great work. If you
want some good music, listen to Jane. If you want
some cool art, look up a Bailey new poster.

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
Hope.

Speaker 13 (01:31:00):
I guess I will hopefully see you on the other
side of this post Woke Nightmare, Bye Bye, Welcome to

(01:31:29):
It could happen here a show about things falling apart,
and today the thing falling apart is the Internet. And
today we have a special guest episode with Bridget Todd.

Speaker 16 (01:31:41):
Hello Bridget, So Garrett, it's kind of funny that we
are talking just a few days after the Trump administration
put out there Woke AI executive Order.

Speaker 13 (01:31:51):
Yes, I have not read this yet. I have to
for next week's executive Disorder. I'm not looking forward to it.

Speaker 16 (01:31:58):
I liked that the Cool Zone team kind of sections
off all the Trump federal nonsense so you don't have
to be mired in it all the goddamn time.

Speaker 13 (01:32:08):
I still kind of am. I just schedule it throughout
my week. I guess there's certain days where I have
to do it.

Speaker 7 (01:32:14):
Yeah, you gotta pepper it in. You've got to pepper
it in.

Speaker 16 (01:32:16):
Well, yeah, not to give you a spoiler for when
you dive into it yourself, but it's all nonsense. Basically,
the Trump administration is saying that right now, the biggest
threat regarding AI is it being too woke and essentially
telling folks who make AI tech leaders essentially to be
more like Elon Musk and Grock and make sure that

(01:32:38):
your AI models, the only AI models that we will
accept in this country are the non woke ones, ones
that don't incorporate DEI would love to know more about
what he thinks that means, but that's a little preview
for you.

Speaker 13 (01:32:49):
Fantastic, you know, seems like the most important issue facing
our nationent right now.

Speaker 7 (01:32:54):
Definitely, definitely.

Speaker 16 (01:32:56):
And so it's funny that we're talking about AI because
I don't know if you're on TikTok, but there have
been these kind of shockingly racist AI generated videos all
over TikTok, to the point where I would say that
we are witnessing the revival of the Minstrel Show using
AI on social media. This is not a claim I

(01:33:18):
used lightly. That is how extreme some of this content is.

Speaker 13 (01:33:22):
I'm not on TikTok, but I think I've seen some
of this content permeate across platforms, certainly on like Instagram
reels and even even bits of X the everything app
I love that you call it that that's the full name.

Speaker 16 (01:33:40):
So for folks who don't know, I want to scround
the conversation in what a minstrel show is. So the
minstrel show was a incredibly popular form of American theater
and entertainment in the nineteenth century, where mostly but not all,
white performers would wear black face makeup to make themselves
look like These exaggerated racist versions of black people and

(01:34:01):
essentially portray very racist stereotypes of black folks being lazy buffoons.
And a common trope in these skits was black people
trying and failing to gain American citizenship because at the time,
black Americans did not have full citizenship, and so a
big plotline would be like, Oh, we had to take
a test for citizenship, but we were too stupid to

(01:34:23):
figure it out. Are we spaced the data and overslept
because we're very lazy. When these shows would depict black women,
we were often shown as what you might think up
as like a sapphire caricature, which is rude, loud, malicious, stubborn,
and overbearing, kind of like the angry black woman trope
that you probably are familiar with in media today. So
these skits were incredibly popular entertainment, but they also served

(01:34:48):
the purpose of reaffirming political and social ideologies.

Speaker 7 (01:34:52):
And so, you know, the dominant.

Speaker 16 (01:34:53):
Way that people consumed media regarding Black people showed us
as lazy, stupid, angry, loud, and important, not really able
to conform to the dominant culture of like mainstream, hardworking
white Americans. That is obviously an incredibly powerful tool to
uphold and reaffirm the idea that black folks should not

(01:35:14):
be given full citizenship, should not be given full rights,
cannot be you know, integrated into polite white society. And
it almost kind of became this for their own good
attitude that provided like a polite justification for things like segregation.

Speaker 7 (01:35:28):
Well like, oh, well, you know.

Speaker 16 (01:35:30):
I've seen in minstrel shows that black folks are very
lazy and stupid, So it's an as for their own
good that we treat them like shit in society, do
you feel me?

Speaker 13 (01:35:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sort of like infantilization exactly.

Speaker 16 (01:35:43):
And so even though the minstrel show did die out,
I would argue that we are kind of seeing a
little bit of a comeback using AI in the digital realm,
and just like the minstrual shows of yesteryear were used
to affirm political and social ideologies under the guise of
just being in a payment or just being jokes or
just being funny. I really think it's not a coincidence

(01:36:04):
that we're also seeing the rise of digital blackface, where
non black creators are using AI to create these viral
racist skits that are steeped in black stereotypes, and that
they're really taking off all over social media today.

Speaker 13 (01:36:18):
That sounds not fun to hear about, but I'm excited
for you to explain it to me.

Speaker 16 (01:36:24):
Yes, So I will say, initially, the first iteration of
one of these videos that I saw was not really racist.
It was made by a black creator, I think, trying
to use AI to create sort of humorous skits. But
when that first video took off, people on TikTok started
using AI to create more and more extreme, more and

(01:36:44):
more racist iterations of these kinds of videos, which is
what we're seeing today. So I will play a little
snippet of an example for you. What's up, bitch, is
this bigfoot one hand the baddest bitch in the woods?

Speaker 7 (01:36:55):
Part time cryptic, full time problem. Don't follow me if
you scared a please.

Speaker 16 (01:36:59):
So, but this is a TikTok that got over two
million views, and it basically it uses AI to generate
this black woman stereotypical version of Bigfoot, and this account
is so popular that has generated so many copycats, Like
this is a format that has really hit with TikTok.

Speaker 7 (01:37:20):
There also is another kind of bucket of these.

Speaker 16 (01:37:23):
That people call slave talk, where it uses AI to
sort of reimagine enslaved people on plantations if they had
social media and we're doing vlogs and so a lot
of those videos were taken down by TikTok, which is
I think good, but essentially it would reimagine these AI
in generated enslaved people basically saying like, oh, well, yeah,

(01:37:45):
I do have to work out here in the cotton fields,
but at least I'm going to get meals. At least
I have a roof over my head, essentially really affirming
the idea that, like slavery, wasn't that bad.

Speaker 11 (01:37:56):
One of the more heinous.

Speaker 16 (01:37:57):
Examples that I saw of these that was removed from
TikTok was a TikTok shop sponsored video that showed an
AI generated enslaved person working in the fields wearing a
solar powered hat with a sand in it, and basically
he was like, Oh, this work in the field would
be so horrible if I did not have this hat.

Speaker 7 (01:38:16):
And then there's a little.

Speaker 16 (01:38:17):
Link to the TikTok shop and you can buy the
actual hat, which is just some really dystopian awful shit.

Speaker 13 (01:38:24):
No, that is like quite literally, it's like evocative of
like cyberpunk tropes that people I would assume would not
want to use it due to fears of insensitivity, but
it's just on your phone, like as like a real thing.

Speaker 7 (01:38:37):
Yeah, I completely agree, and I love that comparison.

Speaker 16 (01:38:40):
And I think, like I would imagine if I were
running a TikTok shop that using.

Speaker 11 (01:38:45):
The AI generated image of.

Speaker 16 (01:38:47):
An enslaved person, I would think like, oh, well, this
is certainly not something that I would use to like
sell some cheap fan hat.

Speaker 7 (01:38:54):
But I mean, I think it is exactly what you're
saying that.

Speaker 16 (01:38:57):
I think that the extreme quality of these videos, people
are just like, well, it'll get views and then I'll
get more eyeballs on my TikTok shop.

Speaker 11 (01:39:06):
I don't think there's any kind of sure.

Speaker 13 (01:39:08):
Yeah, no, it's a very gross way of doing like
outrage farming. For engagement, I guess, like because surely they
know that these are not going to like go over
easy like. I think a part of part of this
is generating some degree of like attention based on it
being offensive or extremely gross and knowing that people will

(01:39:28):
like comment things of that nature exactly.

Speaker 16 (01:39:32):
And it's funny that you mentioned that, because the AI
component of this is sort of what makes this novel
and new. But that kind of thing has been all
over social media for the longest time. Sure I remember
how big stuff like skit culture was on TikTok. And
I don't mean skits like Saturday Night Live or Portlandia.
I mean skits where they are trying to get you

(01:39:52):
to think this is somebody's cell phone footage of something
that happened, but really it's like, well that those are
two actors. And there there was a type of these
skits that would really tick off on TikTok where it
was purporting to be oh, this is a parent who
is going off on a trans teacher for trying to
indoctrinate their kid, and all the comments would be like
good for them, good for that mom, and then the

(01:40:14):
screen flips and it's like, oh, well, the woman you
were just telling me is the trans teacher, Now she's
the mom.

Speaker 7 (01:40:19):
Who was the next video? Yes, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 13 (01:40:23):
No, I like the ones that are set on airplanes
where they all use the same airplane set. Yes, and
they get into like fake fights on airplanes using the
same like five actors playing different roles.

Speaker 16 (01:40:34):
Yeah, and then if you look carefully in the background,
you start thinking, well, airplanes don't have those strip led
lights that you can buy on Amazon.

Speaker 7 (01:40:43):
Does not actually the.

Speaker 13 (01:40:45):
TikTok lights and the hallways like five feet wide.

Speaker 16 (01:40:48):
Yeah, exactly, And listen, I am not above getting taken
in by those kinds of skits. And I guess I
don't love the idea that someone would be dedicating energy
and brain space to getting upset about a set of
circumstances that never really happened.

Speaker 13 (01:41:04):
But it's the Internet. Come on, that's that's like, that's
half of the Internet.

Speaker 7 (01:41:08):
Yes, Like, you know, I don't love it.

Speaker 16 (01:41:11):
But when the stakes so, like when the stakes are
low and it's just like a random fight on an airplane, fine,
when the stakes are higher and it's like, this is
a skit meant to like attack or demonize trans people,
queer people, black people, that's where I'm like, well, what
are we really doing here?

Speaker 7 (01:41:36):
I think whether or not this.

Speaker 16 (01:41:38):
Kind of content, like when it's AI generated, we're looking
at things that never actually happened. Even though these these
circumstances in these situations never really happened, they still very
much affirm the worldview of the people who are consuming it, right,
And so if you are consuming a skit in involving
whether it's human actors or AI generated black people, if

(01:41:59):
that skit reaffirms your worldview that these people cannot be trusted,
these people are bad in some way, it kind of
doesn't matter if it's real.

Speaker 13 (01:42:07):
Or not, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, totally.
That's like the concept of like hyperreality, where you're trying
to like blend the Internet's exaggerated version of reality with
our physical, lived existence, and how these things start combining
into each other to create this idea of reality in
our heads that's more real than it actually is, to
the point where we take things on the screen to

(01:42:28):
be more accurately reflective of what's going on in the
world than what we actually experience in our day to
day lives. And so much of that concept is what
drives like American like reactionary politics exactly.

Speaker 16 (01:42:39):
And when you actually go into the comments of these videos,
which in my opinion are very clearly AI generated.

Speaker 7 (01:42:46):
People are in the comments.

Speaker 13 (01:42:47):
Well, I mean that easy for you to say. Someone
who spends their time like researching what's going on and
on the internet. I'm not sure if Mema and pop
are finding these videos to be like, well, this one's
obviously AI generated.

Speaker 16 (01:43:03):
No, And that's my point is like I don't even
think they're thinking about it that way, and I don't
think they care that it's not real. In the comments
of these videos, it'll be a video, an AI generated
video of a black woman behaving in this very stereotypical
racist way, and the comments will say they're all like that,
and it kind of misses the point of like, well,
there's there's no they in this video because it's AI generated.

Speaker 13 (01:43:25):
This is just a computer puppet. This isn't real.

Speaker 16 (01:43:27):
Like, yeah, I completely agree, But I think when you
see something online, whether it's obviously AI generated or not,
if it reaffirms your worldview, it kind of doesn't matter.

Speaker 7 (01:43:38):
It's the same reason why when there's like.

Speaker 16 (01:43:40):
Four legged veterans in AI slop holding a sign that
says everyone forgot about me, wish me happy birthday.

Speaker 13 (01:43:48):
Three billion likes on Facebook.

Speaker 16 (01:43:52):
I mean, what do you think is going on there?
I find that so fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Oh.

Speaker 13 (01:43:56):
I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I don't know.
I think it isn't just the simple reaffirming of someone's
previously held view people are very receptive to. And we
even see this with like you know, with like fake
news headlines, right, and people might point out that this
story isn't isn't actually real. And when people are confronted
with this idea of that they've been tricked by unreality,

(01:44:18):
they'll be like, no, maybe this one isn't real, but
it could be real. And that's and that's what really
matters is that this this feels true, not that it
is true, but the fact that I feel it resonating
is actually more important than any kind of physical trueness
out inside, like the flesh world like that. That that
is honestly that that matters far less than how it

(01:44:40):
impacts how I feel and how how it reflects the
world as I see it.

Speaker 16 (01:44:44):
So I did an episode of my podcast or oar
Norgles on the Internet all about the sort of weird
economy of AI generated disinformation, essentially fan fiction that came
out of the trial of Sean P.

Speaker 7 (01:44:57):
Didy co.

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
Oh.

Speaker 7 (01:44:58):
That sounds incredibly upsetting.

Speaker 16 (01:45:00):
It was so upsetting, And the reason I looked into
it is because I have to be honest and say,
one of these AI generated videos got me.

Speaker 7 (01:45:08):
Right.

Speaker 16 (01:45:08):
It was a video that claimed that the late musician
Prince was able to testify in Ditty's trial from the
Beyond the Grave, and that they played a video that
Prince made warning everybody that didty is this bad guy? Right?
I am probably the world's biggest Prince fans. Well, I
was like Prince always like. It got me and it
totally affirmed what I want to be true.

Speaker 7 (01:45:30):
But it was all a lie.

Speaker 13 (01:45:31):
It's compelling, it's trying to like, it's trying to impact
you emotionally, especially for people who who like Prince, who
who miss miss Prince. This could be emotionally compelling, and like,
that's that's what they're like intentionally going after. I think
that's that's why something like that could work so well.

Speaker 7 (01:45:46):
It got me.

Speaker 16 (01:45:47):
And when I looked into kind of how these videos
are cranked out on YouTube, so basically any celebrity that
you can imagine. There is an AI generated video on
YouTube saying that they were some how involved in the
Didty trial. And what's so interesting is in the comments
of these videos that are again pretty obviously AI generated
or not real, and even the description of the YouTube

(01:46:09):
account will say this is just for entertainment.

Speaker 7 (01:46:11):
Nothing here is supposed to be true. People won't read
that part.

Speaker 16 (01:46:14):
Basically, if you've ever had a bad feeling about a celebrity,
which who haven't totally see, there's a video that that
affirms with that worldview that is like, well, did you
know they were involved in the ditty frea comps?

Speaker 7 (01:46:25):
And everybody's like, I knew it.

Speaker 13 (01:46:27):
That person always gave me the ac can Fine, I
knew it. I was smart enough to pick it up.
Not everyone else was smart enough, but I was. And
that's that's a whole other emotional feeling that it's being
targeted by these like AI slop creators where they're trying
to yeah, like affirm people's like like narcissism about their
ability to judge the moral character of strangers.

Speaker 16 (01:46:48):
That is so it because the people that celebrities they choose,
it's people that maybe you would have like, I have
no real reason for this, but I hate Kevin Hart
and so in the videos, don't even.

Speaker 7 (01:46:59):
Ask me why. I don't even have a real reason.
I just don't like him. Well, he is short.

Speaker 2 (01:47:02):
He is short.

Speaker 13 (01:47:03):
There you go love to my short kings.

Speaker 7 (01:47:06):
One of the reasons I don't like him.

Speaker 16 (01:47:07):
This is just me speckel, Like, he just does a
lot of ads and you can't get on social media
without his cryptocurrency ad, his draft kings ad.

Speaker 7 (01:47:14):
I just like hate seeing it. Sure in the AI.

Speaker 16 (01:47:17):
Generated video claiming that he was mixed up in the
Diddy Trials, every comment is like I knew it. I
always hated him, And that's affirming. People like feeling like
they knew something that other people didn't see, and they
knew it early on.

Speaker 13 (01:47:30):
Well, And I think what's something that's similar to this
that's happening right now is there's a massive media campaign
right now against Pedro Pascal with with AI generated videos
of him like touching his female co stars. And these
these videos have been have been digitally altered, and it's
in service of this this big harassment campaign against someone
who's like very vocally Protrance writes, there's other possible reasons

(01:47:54):
for why he's he's being targeted by these videos. But no, Similarly,
it's trying to create this like ick around Petro Pascal
using a altern media and it's gaining a lot of
traction right now, and it's something people need to be
like very very cautious of. But yeah, it's trying to
affirm whatever. Maybe you, for some reason have never liked
Paedro Pascal. I can't imagine why. But if you find

(01:48:14):
a video like this talking about how he's using a
social anxiety diagnosis to inappropriately touch his co stars, do
you like I knew it.

Speaker 7 (01:48:23):
I knew it.

Speaker 13 (01:48:23):
I never trusted Pedro Pascal, and I don't like it.
He's pro trans writes, and you're like, there you go.
They've completely got you. They've been able to like automate
and monetize internet hate campaigns against people that you don't know.

Speaker 16 (01:48:37):
Garrett, Literally, right before you and I got on this episode,
I saw a video on Reddit and it's a scene
from an episode of Always Sunny where one of the
guys is like essentially lifting d the female lead up
by her crotch, and the caption was Pedro Pascal when
he feels anxiety. Next to me you got a co star,
And I remember thinking, like, this is such a weird

(01:48:58):
fucking video.

Speaker 7 (01:48:59):
But what order of the Internet have I wandered into?
But I didn't. I did not know that there are
horses trying to make me get the ick about Pedro.

Speaker 16 (01:49:07):
Pascal Coincidentally, he is someone who speaks up for LGBTQ rights,
you know, progressive causes.

Speaker 13 (01:49:14):
Of course, yeah, no, it's it's it's a it's a
it's a huge thing sweeping the internet right now.

Speaker 16 (01:49:19):
And I think it really goes to show how kind
of easily we can be manipulated using digital content, whether
it's AI generated or AI manipulated or not. Like our
understandings of the sort of general temperature of what's going
on are so so much more tenuous than we think,
and so much more easily manipulated than we realize.

Speaker 13 (01:49:39):
No, absolutely, no one is immune to propaganda. That is
a great way of putting it.

Speaker 16 (01:49:54):
I'm happy that you used the word propaganda, because that's
what I really do think the AI generated essentially menstrual
show videos are. I think it's not a surprise that
we are seeing them the same way that back in
the day menstrel shows were very popular at a time
when there was an active campaign of attacking black folks

(01:50:17):
and saying they weren't smart enough and did not deserve
full citizenship, did not deserve rights, all of that.

Speaker 7 (01:50:22):
I think we're basically seeing the same thing today.

Speaker 16 (01:50:25):
I think the rise of popularity of this kind of
content is against the backdrop of a very real attack
on marginalized people from this administration. You know, there was
just this very medipiece in Republica about how Trump and
Musk their goage stuff really was an attack on black women, specifically,
like black women with stable federal jobs totally, and that

(01:50:47):
these attacks essentially it was like you were able to
smear black women career civil servants as you know, they
were DEI hires, they were undeserving of these jobs, they
really just deserve to be fired. And you know, really
black women just became these easy targets for an administration
hostile to marginal life people. So if we have all
of that happening against the rise of this form of

(01:51:09):
digital media that is using AI to reaffirm these stereotypes
about black women, that we aren't able to behave ourselves
in polite society, cannot figure out a way to solve
conflicts without resorting to violence, are loud and obnoxious. Then
when you hear about real life human black women getting
pushed out of their employment or attacked by this administration,
you might think, well, maybe it's for the best, because

(01:51:30):
they're not suited for that work anyway. Because the kind
of content that I have been consuming on TikTok and
I think it just reaffirms this world of view that
real life human black folks are not self actualized human beings.
We're just a collection of tropes and stereotypes and caricatures.

Speaker 13 (01:51:47):
I don't know what to say there, but I agree, yes.

Speaker 16 (01:51:51):
And I do think there's a kind of platform accountability
question and all this.

Speaker 13 (01:51:56):
Because oh, most certainly.

Speaker 7 (01:51:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:51:58):
Like, the reason why we're seeing the rise of these
videos is because of the recent introduction of Google's vo
three creator. It came out about a month ago and
it's Google's latest AI video generation model, and essentially it's
designed to create these realistic looking videos from text prompts.
And the thing that kind of makes it a step
above is that you can incorporate things like synchronized audio, dialogue,

(01:52:21):
sound effect music. It is really taken off with creators
online who are using this tool to create everything from
these AI skits to AI influencers to AI muckbangs you
know where people eat tons and tons of food.

Speaker 11 (01:52:33):
Oh, this is so upsetting.

Speaker 7 (01:52:36):
It is.

Speaker 16 (01:52:37):
And then like another kind of offshoot of this is
you have people who use VO three to make content
like this and they get tons of us and then
they're like, oh, if you want to learn how to
make this yourself, pay me and I'll teach you how
to do it too.

Speaker 7 (01:52:52):
So it's like there's always a weird.

Speaker 13 (01:52:54):
Like MLM grift in there somewhere that is the content
creator classic is like a mid tier influencer. We're not
like that good at what they do, but is able
to supplement their income by offering courses to people to
teach them how to make similarly some subpar content. And
it's interesting that we've reached the full AI automation aspect
of this, right. This used to be a big thing

(01:53:16):
among like YouTubers. I was not aware that this is
now a thing among like AI TikTok influencers, but that
makes sense because this is like the easiest thing to automate,
So of course there's going to be like an influx
of people trying to make a quick buck on racist
AI slop.

Speaker 16 (01:53:33):
It makes me so sad, And I do think I
mean when I guess I would be curious how Google
feels about the fact that, like, this is what their
tool is being used for.

Speaker 9 (01:53:45):
Right.

Speaker 16 (01:53:46):
I wonder like if leaders have a sense that this
is harmful, not just harmful to black women like me
who are depicted in this kind of content, but harmful
for the Internet as a whole. It makes the Internet
experience worse for everybody. And I guess, I guess I
would imagine that like Google probably doesn't care that this
is what their their technology is being used for. Like
if I had a direct line to some darpachi, the

(01:54:07):
head of Google, I would show him these clips and say, like,
is this what you had in mind for VO three
or is this a misuse of this tool that you
just put out and unleashed on all of us?

Speaker 13 (01:54:17):
Yeah, And are you going to dedicate some like millions
of dollars of research into stopping this from happening? No,
of course not, Like they're not going to build comprehensive
tools that prevent platform abuse like this, Like that's not
going to happen as long as people are using it,
and then people are hearing about it and it's spreading,
like that's that's what they want. If if there happens
to be offensive use cases of it, if anything, that's

(01:54:38):
good because that drives engagement.

Speaker 7 (01:54:40):
It gets people to know about the product.

Speaker 16 (01:54:41):
And I think that's another one of the reasons why
Trump's you know, executive orders on AI.

Speaker 13 (01:54:48):
That we saw early AIY.

Speaker 16 (01:54:50):
I mean, like, I will be the first person to
admit that we have very deep problems when it comes
to AI. Anybody who listens to Better offline knows this,
Like the is not a secret.

Speaker 7 (01:55:01):
AI is often biased.

Speaker 16 (01:55:02):
AI is often wrong because it is trained on us
humans the bias little bucks that we are right, and
so that shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. I also
will say, like, some of the solutions of how we
fix that are complex and not super simple.

Speaker 7 (01:55:16):
But what Trump's executive order, he.

Speaker 16 (01:55:18):
Basically is signing an order saying all AI must be objective.

Speaker 7 (01:55:22):
It must it must.

Speaker 16 (01:55:22):
Adhere to the objective truth of the United States. And
it's like, well, who determines that?

Speaker 13 (01:55:27):
Who who determines the objective truth of the United States?
The President?

Speaker 16 (01:55:33):
I mean, if you ask Trump, yes, him and I
guess that's the thing that pisses me off, is that
there actually are complex issues and problems when it comes
to AI, but this executive order just is like, Oh,
the problem is is that it's woke. The solution is
me signing an executive order saying no woke in AI,
and rather than getting any kind of actual solution or

(01:55:56):
having the conversation, we just get fucking nonsense.

Speaker 5 (01:55:59):
You.

Speaker 13 (01:55:59):
No, it is worrying for multiple levels, including the fact
that the president thinks he's the orbiter of objective truth
and it thinks he can legislate that or thinks he
can executive order that into being by either benefiting or
punishing tech companies who follow his policies.

Speaker 7 (01:56:18):
Yeah, I mean spoiler alert for that executive order. That's
exactly what he's saying.

Speaker 16 (01:56:23):
And you used the word propaganda earlier, and that really
is if there was like a thesis statement of what
I wanted to say in this episode, is that that
is exactly what I think is going on here. It
really does remind me of minstrel shows because even though
minstrel shows back in the nineteenth century were this popular
form of entertainment, it also was an entire manufacturing enterprise

(01:56:44):
where people made very good money selling racist blackface figurines
as novelties and all of that. David Pilgrim, the founder
of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Farris
State University in Michigan, put it like this. They were
everyday objects which portrayed black people as ugly different and
fun to laugh at. They were, in a word, propaganda,
And I think that's exactly what's going on here.

Speaker 9 (01:57:05):
Like people like.

Speaker 16 (01:57:06):
To think about racism as if it's just this thing
that hangs in the air, as opposed to a system
that specific people are personally and intentionally perpetuating because they
are cashing in on it. I don't feel Google letting
creators use their tools to create content like this is
any different, Like no, yeah, it's that is exactly what's
going on in my book.

Speaker 13 (01:57:24):
That's flatly like that's just like one to one, Like
you're using tech to create like unreal depictions of racist
chricatures to please audiences, to reaffirm their own their own biases,
to reform their own racism, and you're monetizing it and
you're automating it to create hashtag viral moments like it's
it's the most explicit and like gross, blatant form of

(01:57:48):
this that I've seen. Like I think Robert a few
years ago reported on people using AI to like make
like you like true crime videos of like like like
animating like victims of crimes or like murder victims and
talking about how they were killed or something, which is
very gross and very very disgusting. But this sort of
like organized like like racist video propaganda stuff can lead

(01:58:11):
to a lot more like actual, like real world damage.

Speaker 16 (01:58:14):
I completely agree. I mean those true crime videos, I
remember that. Imagine if your kid was murdered and then.

Speaker 7 (01:58:21):
No, it's so gross.

Speaker 16 (01:58:22):
Twenty years later someone is like, oh, I've made an
AI depiction of your murdered child telling their story.

Speaker 13 (01:58:27):
No, yeah, it's it's it's it's evil. But I think
the damage that can do is is kind of limited.
The damage that this whole altered reality where racism can
get affirmed leads to I think a lot more actual,
like political and personal consequences.

Speaker 16 (01:58:42):
Completely agree, And I also think just taking a step
back in the conversation about AI, we're all being told
how the proliferation of AI is going to be the
lynchpin of our economy.

Speaker 7 (01:58:53):
It's so important, it's going to change everything. And then
you actually.

Speaker 16 (01:58:56):
Look at some of these use cases that are taking
off and it's like, well, was this really worth all
the fucking climate degradation to make this racist AI version
of a Bigfoot that.

Speaker 7 (01:59:05):
Looks like a black woman.

Speaker 13 (01:59:06):
No more rainforest, but at least we get racist Bigfoot.

Speaker 11 (01:59:09):
So, oh my god.

Speaker 16 (01:59:11):
It Well, Garrett, I think that's a good place to end.
Thank you so much for letting me rant at you
about this. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (01:59:18):
Where else can people find your work? Bridget Well?

Speaker 16 (01:59:20):
You can listen to my podcast There Are No Girls
on the Internet. You can listen to my other podcasts
with Mozilla Foundation about ethics in AI called IRL, and.

Speaker 7 (01:59:28):
You can find me on Instagram at Bridge at Marine.

Speaker 13 (01:59:30):
DC fantastic, Oh the Internet.

Speaker 17 (01:59:54):
Hi everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a
very special edition of a Could Happen Here, in which
we are very lucky to be joined by Inland from
Live that the World is Dying and what will be
the first of many crossover episodes where the folks from
Strange Hit Tangled Woodenness are going to share with us

(02:00:14):
some of their preparedness Advice.

Speaker 7 (02:00:18):
Welcome to the show. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Speaker 1 (02:00:20):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, James, I'm in
man Marowin and I use say them pronouns. And I'm
one of the hosts of Love Like the World Is Dying,
your podcast for What Feels Like the End Times, which
is a lefty prepper podcast about community and individual preparedness
for disasters of all kinds. And really excited to be

(02:00:43):
on the show with you. Yeah, on a different show,
because you're on that show with me sometimes, which is great.
I don't know.

Speaker 17 (02:00:50):
Yeah, I'm bringing together the two like I'm sure there's
a superhero reference I could make here, but I don't
really understand that world, so I don't either.

Speaker 5 (02:01:01):
No.

Speaker 17 (02:01:02):
Great, Okay, two people talking about a thing they don't understand.
That is what pubcasts saw sometimes, but not today.

Speaker 7 (02:01:10):
What are we going to talk about today?

Speaker 1 (02:01:12):
Well, what I'm really excited to talk about today is
preparedness in general, how community preparedness differs from some more
conventional modalities and being really nice with that phrase.

Speaker 7 (02:01:25):
Yeah, that's one way of saying it.

Speaker 1 (02:01:28):
How individual preparedness fits into community preparedness, and kind of
about my own journey into prepper stuff or preparedness, which
might be a new term for some people.

Speaker 3 (02:01:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01:40):
I like to call it preparedness over like prepping as
a term sort of because like, I don't know, Like,
if I say I'm into prepping, then people start to
give me funny looks and think, I want to live
in a bunker with a thousand cans of beans and
more guns than I know what to do with. Yeah,
But if I say I'm into preparedness, people are like, oh,

(02:02:01):
I know who to call if I need help with
something or get in a jam, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
And it's kind of exactly that sentiment that I want
listeners to think of when they think of preparedness is
what connections and resources we have for when things go wrong,
and how we are going to respond to disasters of

(02:02:22):
all kinds when we're faced with them, because having a
plan kind of makes things less scary, you know.

Speaker 17 (02:02:30):
Yeah, Definitely, I feel safe for approaching bad things because
I've approached bad things with my friends and we have
gone through them and we've.

Speaker 7 (02:02:40):
Helped other people get through them.

Speaker 11 (02:02:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:02:42):
Yeah. I also think a lot of people engage in
preparedness without really realizing this. I feel like i'd ask
these questions to you on a less rhetorical basis if
I didn't know them to be true. But for instance, listener,
do you keep tools and your car in case you
break down on the side of the road or if

(02:03:04):
your car won't start? Do you have a friend that
will take a look at it for you and help
you fix it. If so, then congratulations, you're into preparedness
for a very specific kind of disaster. And now we
just have to figure out how to apply that to
other disasters, whether it's your car breaking down, the climate
breaking down, or the world as we know it breaking down,

(02:03:27):
because unfortunately, with the world as it is right now,
as Margaret has said before, we're all preppers now. Yeah,
I don't know. It's something that makes thinking about disaster
just less scary. And I think that's ultimately kind of
one of the best reasons of like why we should

(02:03:49):
get into preparedness is because it makes things less scary.

Speaker 17 (02:03:54):
Yeah, definitely, And I think it gives you if you're
doing it right, And I think this is something we
can get into. You realize how much your community can
get through if you will have each other rather than
necessarily the alternative that the other modality that you talked
about is theoretically thinking how much you could get through
whilst never helping anyone.

Speaker 1 (02:04:13):
Yeah, and that's very different things. Yeah, yeah, totally, And
I don't know listeners. We're talking about kind of more
traditional like bunker mentality prepping, which we'll get into yeah, yeah,
a little bit later, but that is my euphemism so
far as more conventional modality.

Speaker 7 (02:04:31):
Yeah, certainly.

Speaker 17 (02:04:33):
Can you give some ideas of like why people might
want to get into preparedness, what they might want to
be prepared for?

Speaker 1 (02:04:40):
Yeah, absolutely, so many things. The list is kind of endless,
which is yeah, which is unfortunate, and I don't want
to overwhelm overwhelm people, but there's just a lot of things,
and new things are emerging every day. But the first
step of preparedness is kind of identify ying what your

(02:05:01):
threat model is, or really just asking yourself, you know,
like what are you personally worried about for yourself or
for your community and some kind of like larger categories
that we can lump that stuff into. Is I feel
like what comes to mind for people immediately probably is
natural disasters. They're ever more frequent, they're growing in intensity

(02:05:25):
and happening in more places. People who never thought they
would become climate refugees are now becoming climate refugees. I
still live on a chunk of land, and like we
got flooded out. We lived in a hundred year floodplain,
and like, yeah, I know it's not once every hundred years,
that's not how it works, but like our time.

Speaker 13 (02:05:44):
Came and we got flooded out. Yeah, there's migration.

Speaker 1 (02:05:49):
This could be due to climate change, political upheaval, economic reasons,
family bigotry. Yeah, and obvious tie into this right now
is everything going on with ice raids where a lot
of people are being displaced and either trying to return
to their homes or find new ones. And there's also,

(02:06:09):
like I don't know, there's like a lot of people,
like in more conservative states in the US who for instance,
are trans or have trans people that are in their
family or in their close friend group and are deciding
whether they need to move somewhere else or at least
come up with an escape plan if things get worse

(02:06:30):
where they are. Yeah, And the same is true for like,
I don't know, maintaining access to abortion. Everything is very
different in very different places or very close spaces. Even
in the United States, And so I think a lot
of people who never thought they'd need to think about
migration are now thinking about it.

Speaker 7 (02:06:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:06:50):
A big problem with how migration is reported on in
America is that like people who migrants have seen as
like some kind of subcategory of humans, you know, totally. Yeah,
if you were a person who can get pregnant, and
you're a person who might consider, in whatever circumstances, accessing abortion,
then in some states you need to be prepared to

(02:07:13):
become a migrant, like a yeah, relatively very short notice. Right,
It's something that we're all closer to you than we think.

Speaker 9 (02:07:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:07:22):
Absolutely. Another big one is kind of like larger economic, social,
or political collapse, you know, simply meaning that like the
structures of the world no longer mean what they used
to mean. This could mean the collapse of capitalism or
capitalism turning more into like literal corporate feudalism. Another big

(02:07:45):
one is, I'm just have this broad category of war.
This could be an invasion, a civil war, a revolution,
a rise in right wing militias, another rise in right
wing militias, whatever. I'm kind of neglecting. Some more fantastastical
apocalypses that I'm sure we can all imagine, but there
are those we might wake up as fungus, you know

(02:08:06):
who can say. And then lastly, there's the current disaster
that is late stage capitalism. And this one is the
one that I spend the most time thinking about because
it's the one that's ever present in our lives currently
and kind of informs and maybe creates a lot of
the other larger threats I just mentioned, Yeah, except becoming fungus.

Speaker 17 (02:08:29):
Well yet yeah, maybe, Yeah, we're doing a lot with
the the old whatever. Rfk's in charge of Ministry of Health.
It's not called that health and Human Services. Yeah, I
think this is the one that, like, this is a
disaster that people don't often like see because it's slow.

Speaker 5 (02:08:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):
It kills us slowly rather than quick and it kills
us quickly.

Speaker 17 (02:08:49):
Yeah, talking of killing us slowly in it, my obligation
to pivot to adverts is slowly killing my soul that
I have to do any Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:09:01):
This is new for me.

Speaker 1 (02:09:02):
We don't have these on a little like the world
is dying.

Speaker 17 (02:09:04):
Yeah, I know, I thought i'd take the first time.
I'm going to leave the second.

Speaker 1 (02:09:07):
One up to you.

Speaker 17 (02:09:09):
You can have a swing at it. All right, thank
you Products and Services for supporting this show.

Speaker 7 (02:09:27):
We are back.

Speaker 17 (02:09:30):
I mean, let's break it down for people in like
a very basic sense. So that's okay, how do we
start being more prepared? Like I imagine the first step
would be to immediately go to a federal firearms license.

Speaker 7 (02:09:43):
Se is that right?

Speaker 3 (02:09:47):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:09:47):
That is that is the first step. It is to
fill your bunker with guns. No, that's that's not the
first time because you can eat them. Yes, and now
jokes aside. So the first step we just talked about
it before that break is determine your threat. You know,
in the case of let's use earthquakes as an example,

(02:10:09):
if you live somewhere with earthquakes, then your threat model
should probably include earthquakes. You might prepare for earthquakes more
than you might prepare for wildfires too. The second step
is make a plan, which means, like, when there's an earthquake,
you're going to do X and Y and meet so
and so at blank. You can also include not living
somewhere with earthquakes anymore as part of your make a plan,

(02:10:32):
because maybe that's just the one thing you don't want
to deal with. The next part is acquire the parts
of the plan, and so like, if your plan includes resources,
which everyone's plan should include a go bag, an escape route,
and any kind of equipment that you need. And at
this point you're mostly ready, I maybe would add to

(02:10:53):
collaborate with others, and then this step gets missed a lot.
But at this point, since you're mostly ready, hopefully you
can let go of some anxiety and despair. You've done
the hardest part, which is to get started, and hopefully
you can. We can feel comfort in that if we
can't forestall a disaster, that we can at least be

(02:11:16):
ready for it, and then act on the plan, do
the thing, and assess what you can do better next time. Yeah,
those are my basic steps. Yeah, it is makes it
seem also simple.

Speaker 11 (02:11:29):
It's so simple.

Speaker 17 (02:11:31):
Yeah, obviously we will spend a lot of time in
the next few months breaking down each of those steps
and explaining them for people.

Speaker 1 (02:11:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:11:38):
But yeah, like, I live in a place where wildfires
are common. In my time living in California, I've been
evacuated for a couple of fires. I've had an earthquake,
you know, I've had a fewer than natural disasters. Of course,
earthquake channels have become fires. It did in San Francisco.
But yeah, it would not make sense if you live
where I live to.

Speaker 1 (02:11:57):
Not have a plan. Yeah for that being naive. Yeah,
it's like.

Speaker 17 (02:12:03):
A story like that for you, Like is there a
thing did you, like, you know, have to evacuate for
a wildfire and you couldn't find your shoes?

Speaker 7 (02:12:11):
Like what?

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):
So one of my funny things was living on this
land project and like we were we were experiencing a flood.
We were experiencing what could have very easily been a
flash flood, and I was trying to just convince people
to leave, and I had a hard time convincing people
to leave. Yeah, like there was like water up to
our chests. And this is my answer now. But my

(02:12:36):
answer that I wrote about for this episode is so
a little bit of preliad. In the first episode of
Live Like the World Is Dying, Margaret talks with Kitty
Striker about anarchist prepping, and Margaret talks about the possibilities
that she's preparing for, which she identifies as kind of
these four possibilities, living like the world is going to end,

(02:12:58):
and that we might not survive. Living like the world
is going to end, and we can try to survive,
living like we can prevent the end of the world,
and then maybe trying to live like the world isn't
going to end after all. And I got into preparedness
for a lot of reasons, some of which evolved over time.

(02:13:20):
It went from something that felt scary to something that
feels comforting, and I hope that it can become comforting
for other people. I hope that's where a lot of
you can land who are listening, who are either new
to the concept or think that prepping is only for
people who expect to need to survive for thirty years
in a bunker after a nuclear, zombie, bio apokarev or whatever,

(02:13:41):
eating canned beans. I'm really harping on this image because
I think it's what a lot of people think of
when they think of prepping. You know, beans, bunker, a
little battie and the fourth maybe lesser known one billionaires
or the four bees of the apocalypse, as I want
to think about them. To kind of confront this as

(02:14:02):
like a word, this like apocalypse. There's a lot of
different kinds of apocalypses, and whether we like it or not,
if it isn't already here. It's coming, and for some
people it's coming swiftly, for others it's slowly, but it
is coming, and billionaires are preparing for it. Even if
they want us to think their tech will save the world.

(02:14:23):
They have all the money and resources, and they are
still worried. And while they'll try to use their money
in power to kind of escape the consequences becoming a
billionaire has had on the world. Most people probably don't
have access to those kinds of resources. But what we
all do have access to our social and community ties,
even if it might not seem like that now. And oddly,

(02:14:44):
these social ties are things that billionaires often lack, or
doubt the authenticity of, or just can't comprehend. There's this
article by Douglas Ruscoff. This tech consultant who gets flown
out to the desert to talk to rich people about collapse,
surprised because they don't really ask him about tech stuff.
They ask him about like maintaining social control over the

(02:15:07):
people that work for them when money no longer means anything.
And I'm like, I don't know, do maybe make like
more authentic friendships?

Speaker 2 (02:15:14):
You know?

Speaker 17 (02:15:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe don't rely on having people so
subservient to you. Yeah, but I think this kind of
air quotes conundrum speaks a lot to people's fears about
collapse and is what gets people into a bunker mentality.
You know, everyone's worried about roving bands of armed people
taking what they've prepared for their own survival, and I

(02:15:37):
think that is a fantasy that we don't really see
happen in real life as often as we might think. Yeah,
I've reported from plenty of natural and human creative disasters.
Actually it is the opposite of that. Like, we can
talk about this another time, but it's one of the
reasons I can keep doing it. Like, despite being huge mutumatic,

(02:16:00):
is it's touchingly incredible how much people will go out
of their way when they're thoroughly miserable to help other
people who they see is needing help.

Speaker 7 (02:16:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16:10):
Yeah, it's a really beautiful thing.

Speaker 5 (02:16:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16:14):
To be a little bit of a word nerd real quick.
I feel like everyone who talks about prepping has talked
about the etymological origins of the word apocalypse. But it
is very interesting and I think it's relevant, which is like, Okay,
it's from these two Greek words apo, and collectine, which
means like often to conceal and so like a more
literal translation of it is a revealing And I think

(02:16:37):
that disaster really reveals things. It reveals the ways that
society has really like bailed. It reveals the consequences of
what living in a corporate oligarchy looks like. And it
also reveals like what beautiful and powerful things people have

(02:16:58):
built as communities and prepare it for to give like
a little bit of a positive spin on a grim,
grim grim word.

Speaker 17 (02:17:07):
Yeah, No, Like when I think about that, I think
about like two years ago, I was in the Marshal Islands,
right where like the apocalypse has come, right, the atomic
bomb has dropped on the Marshal Islands, the United States.
We did that, and the sea levels a rising such
that like children born there today won't die there, right,
they probably won't even have their own children there, you know,
twenty thirty forty years left. And I didn't see like

(02:17:31):
people fighting each other for the highest point of land. Yeah,
I saw people taking care of one another, thinking about
how like not just like their individual you know, they
could maintain their assets, but how their community could survive,
how their culture could survive, and how they could keep
the things, the incredible hospitality that's so special to them,

(02:17:52):
which I thought was like very revealing compared to this
sort of mindset that you see more conventionally in like preppers.

Speaker 7 (02:18:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:18:01):
Absolutely, And to finally get to my own kind of
little journey into preparedness. Yeah, I wasn't a prepper until
like not that long ago. Really.

Speaker 7 (02:18:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:18:12):
When I first heard Live Like the World Is Dying,
it was twenty twenty. COVID was still new. There was
like extreme civil unrest because there was an uprising going on,
and the same fascist that's our sitting president now was
our president then, and he was backed up by people
like Kyle Rittenhouse who were gunning people down in streets
for protesting a racist murder. Where I lived in entire

(02:18:36):
Mountain Range was also on fire. Yeah, and the idea
that it was the coolest summer I might ever remember
was still setting in. And then I heard about Margaret
doing Live Like the World Is Dying, and I actually
refused to listen to it because I knew with every
fiber of my body that things were irrevocably different, and
I wanted to stick my head in the sand, you know,

(02:18:57):
like not because I was scared, but because getting prepared
is overwhelming, and I didn't have any clue where to begin.
Like I was a scrappy punk I didn't have like
thousands of dollars to spend on gear and stockpiling food
and guns and shit, you know. Yeah, And so it
felt for a while like preparedness was only for people

(02:19:20):
who had a lot of money, and that I'd be
left behind. But I did eventually listen to the show
because Margaret's my friend and I trusted she had good
things to say, and because it was a show about
beginnings and I needed one. And so as I listened,
I slowly started to warm up to the idea that
preparedness wasn't just necessary, but that it was also very

(02:19:43):
much within my reach, especially in the framework of community preparedness. Yeah,
and you know who can tell you a lot about
community preparedness. Who's said, I think these lovely sponsors or
advertisements or products that were about to hear about.

Speaker 7 (02:20:00):
I sure, hope, so we are back.

Speaker 17 (02:20:12):
That was a fantastic ad transition, first of many. Hopefully
it wasn't like apparently beginning ads for like some kind
of gold company that is also sanctioned by God, God,
that that is just just to be clear, not the
way to go trans the community preparedness that precious metals route.
This one we're not advising here. Can you like explain

(02:20:35):
the difference between those two modalities, because I think, yeah,
like I still when Margaret was asking me if I
wanted to do live like the world is dying, she
was like, oh, because James is like when we did
an episode together and go back, She's like, oh, yeah,
James's a big like like at lefty Prepper a community
prepared And I was like, whoa, that's not me.

Speaker 7 (02:20:53):
I'm not going to be on.

Speaker 17 (02:20:55):
The Discovery Channel show, you know, like where the people
shoot themselves on camera.

Speaker 7 (02:21:00):
Back then they.

Speaker 17 (02:21:00):
Didn't too kill themselves and they handle their firearms in
an unsafe manner and hurt themselves totally. So let's explain, like,
let's break down the good and the bad.

Speaker 1 (02:21:10):
Yeah, and there's kind of a tension between them, yeah,
and between like what i'll call community preparedness and like
bunker syndrome prepping.

Speaker 7 (02:21:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:21:20):
So the image that prepping brings to mind for a
lot of people is like a right wing alpha dude
in a bunker with a dragon horde of preserved food
and more guns than anyone could ever use. It's like
an image of one person against the world. And I'm
kind of like, Okay, your fantasy apocalypse happens. You survive
the nuclear apocalypse, Armed gangs rove the wastelands, food is

(02:21:43):
hoarded and fought over, and you're protecting your bunker. And
then what, you know, what happens next? How do you
build back a world alone? What is the world if
you're alone? Yea, And not only like we've talked about that,
we mentioned this earlier, but like, I don't I think
this is not only like a fantasy, but it's not
what happens I think historically in disasters and the way

(02:22:08):
that we can make it through disasters, I think is
not based on how many resources we have hoarded, but
based on our abilities to make and maintain community, friendship
and connections. You know, it's a trope, but the real
horde in the bunker was the friendship all along, you know.
I don't know, Yeah, but you know, we do need

(02:22:28):
to learn how to produce and preserve food and build stuff.
We just don't have to do it alone. In a disaster.
Our greatest resource is help from people that we care
about in potential new friends. And it's sort of the
overwhelming amount of skills that come with the bunker syndrome
that I think causes a lot of people to become
overwhelmed by starting to prepare and the traditional preppery community.

(02:22:50):
It's very right wing conservative, and it really makes it
seem like every single person has to learn every skill
they could possibly need in order to get for heard. Yeah,
And I think part of that kind of bunker syndrome
is also maybe that you have to learn all that
stuff on your own because you low key think that
everyone you know is going to turn on you, you know.

Speaker 17 (02:23:13):
Right, Yeah, because you've been an odious piece of shit
for your entire life.

Speaker 1 (02:23:17):
Yeah, and again make better friends, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:23:21):
Like I used to think that like preparedness was a
lot of people who'd never really experienced genuine hardship wondering
what it might be like probably is, yeah, a lot
of it is, right because like if you've been just
like poor or otherwise facing like like trans folks right now,
right even like anyone really in their LGBTQAA area, Like

(02:23:45):
it's scary right now, and you've probably found that the
things are keeping you going are other people, yeah, and
not your pile of beans. And like I certainly have
not experienced what transfers are experiencing, but like I've had
some difficult times and I've been poor, and like it's
always been like other people who have come through for me,
not stuff I had or even skills I have. Really Yeah,

(02:24:08):
And I think there's this real divide between like there's
people who are in fantasy bunker land, and then there's
people who are like either too afraid to think about
preparedness or feel too overwhelmed to think about it, or
think that yeah, they can't possibly do it because it's
too far gone already. And I think preparedness is for everyone,

(02:24:30):
you know, like we say start small, put food away
every week, start to get your go back together.

Speaker 1 (02:24:37):
Just start.

Speaker 7 (02:24:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:24:39):
And so to maybe now to find like what community
preparedness is is, I think that it's what we get
when we take a lot of different principles and mash
them together. You know, there's like it's like part mutual aid,
it's part individual preparedness. It's principles of autonomy, solidarity, direct action,
and collective decision making, and it's all synthesized into a

(02:25:01):
kind of a beautiful little alchemy.

Speaker 4 (02:25:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:25:03):
It's kind of the most like anarchistic thing you can do,
which is really fun to me. Yeah, and I think
it really means investing in the people around you so
that you can all invest in collective survival. I know
we mentioned this earlier, but like there's this thing that
happens during disasters that gets referred to as disaster communism. Yeah,

(02:25:24):
have you heard that one?

Speaker 8 (02:25:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:25:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:25:26):
It doesn't mean that like Lenin emerges and leads a
vanguard group to show you where the Pupercachen's at.

Speaker 7 (02:25:32):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (02:25:33):
No, It means that the logic of capital is kind
of temporarily suspended, and people just help each other for free,
not even for barter, for free, and like people like
go out and just give out stuff they haven't excess,
even if they purchased it, and even if they're like,
you don't look like the kind of people I like,
just give.

Speaker 7 (02:25:53):
It out, Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 17 (02:25:55):
Like, yeah, I think, like I can think of a few,
Like I can remember when those of people were being
housed outside in the cold and wet at the border.
House is not the word I would use peralte In
the desert. I was out there with my friends and
like we look like dirty crusspunk people, right, Like we're
not like clean and well put together in that sense, right,

(02:26:17):
Like we just scruffed and that's fine, and I like
being scrubbed.

Speaker 1 (02:26:20):
Yeah that's nice.

Speaker 17 (02:26:22):
But like, yeah, it was amazing to see like folks
who one hundred percent do not have the same politics
as me, like roll out and whatever, like setups you
know they had and like be like, yo, this is
fucked luckily, Like I have some stuff that I was
going to use for a barbecue next week. Some will
drag my barbecue out here and cook for people, or

(02:26:43):
like yeah, you know people who cook for their church's
bake sale, being like yeah, I have a giant ass pot,
Like let me make some beans for you guys. You know,
Like yeah, I think people would be so surprised, and
it's great that people have not experienced that, like because
I think it's quite a traumatic thing to experience, Like
you'd be so surprised how how much or like I

(02:27:03):
remember one time just building shelters with a bunch of people,
and like everyone was pretty miserable rates of cold and windy,
and like there were some Kourdish guys and respect guys,
some Chinese guys, and we're building these shelters together, and
like all of these people who didn't even share a
language and we're going through very difficult times. We're just
like nerding out on knots together rare and just helping

(02:27:26):
each other and then not doing that so they could
sleep inside, doing that so little children wouldn't have to
sleep in the cold.

Speaker 7 (02:27:31):
But yeah, it's that. It's the way humans behave.

Speaker 17 (02:27:34):
In these situations, and capitalism or YouTube might have convinced
you it's not, but it is.

Speaker 1 (02:27:41):
Yeah, And I think like more traditional preppers really like
get into it too, Like they'll show up they're like
I got forty chainsaws or like like it's like every
like chud Truck's time to shine to like Halloway Repigeon,
Like I don't know, you know, it's like I'm making
it sound exciting, but what's exciting is when people collaborate

(02:28:01):
autonomously and collectively for like more good than their own.
And then kind of the problem is that like capitalism
comes back in the initial fallout fades from sight, and yeah,
just because the disaster kind of fades doesn't mean it's gone,
and there's a lot of people who kind of still

(02:28:21):
have to deal with it for potentially ever. Yeah, and
that's kind of like the disaster of light stage capitalism
is similar. We have people who are constantly invisibilized even
though it's part of their regular lives.

Speaker 7 (02:28:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:28:36):
Can I maybe break down some of these terms that
are maybe it can be good for people? Yeah, yeah,
because I think they get thrown around a lot, right, totally. So,
Mutual aid is knowing that any help that we give
our community helps us by strengthening our strengthening our community.
Autonomy is deciding what's best for us based on what
we know about ourselves and our needs. Solidarity is unity

(02:29:00):
through action and knowing that. Like it's like the you know,
I got your back even if you don't got mine.

Speaker 4 (02:29:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:29:08):
Direct action is working directly to achieve our goals instead
of waiting for someone else to do it.

Speaker 4 (02:29:13):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:29:14):
We see this in disasters like don't wait for FEMA.
There's like so many people who are just out there
doing autonomous relief efforts and it's incredible collective decision making,
finding ways to make decisions together in ways where power
isn't being like abused or accumulated. And then there's individual preparedness,
which is kind of the last little thing I want

(02:29:35):
to talk about. So individual preparedness is kind of like
the ways that we prepare individually so that when a
disaster strikes, we have our basic needs met and you know,
there's a lot to learn. So it's like we it's
easy to get lost back in that overwhelm mentality. Yeah,
but I think we can really think about it in

(02:29:56):
terms of disaster since we're on that track. Like, if
there's a disaster d and power goes out, then the
roads are less traversible. If you have all of your
needs met through individual preparedness, then you're in a really
good position to go help others. And if everyone in
your community already has prepared for their basic needs, then
your whole community is prepared to take kind of the

(02:30:17):
next step towards recovery. And it means that your community
can now help other communities that were less prepared or
more impacted by a disaster, even if they thought they
were prepared. Community preparedness is like what happens when we
kind of mash all of these ideas together and start

(02:30:38):
doing it, not just as an individual, but as a community,
and this can look small or it can look big,
you know, And I think a lot of people's biggest
hurdle is just like kind of making a plan, and like,
I don't know, your disaster plan might include you and
the people you live with, It might include you and
your polycule. It might include you and your whole block,

(02:31:00):
and it might include your whole neighborhood. And I think
there's just this like big, beautiful spectrum and to kind
of carry an example through, like some interviews that we've
done on a livef the world is dying. Someone's measure
of individual preparedness might include having a radio when cell
networks go down, and anothers might include building communication infrastructure

(02:31:24):
that they can distribute. And another maybe smaller groups idea
might be agreeing on a place to meet up because
they don't have radios, can't afford them, don't know how
they work, and they've just said when shit hits the fan,
we're meeting at the library.

Speaker 11 (02:31:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:31:44):
That's still a whole lot better than like dashing around
town wondering what the people you love.

Speaker 1 (02:31:50):
Yeah, yeah, and it's that easy. You know, we get
overwhelmed by tech, but there's so many low tech solutions
to a lot of these problems.

Speaker 9 (02:31:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:32:00):
Yeah, that's why we're doing an episode on carry a pigeon. Yeah,
carrier pigeons, aren't they extinct? That's passenger pigeons, different pigeons,
passenger visions.

Speaker 3 (02:32:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (02:32:09):
Yeah, So, like, what are some basic ways we can
we can think about preparedness And we're going to cover
these in more detail, right, we'll do episodes on each
of these. But maybe someone's like, well, shit, I would
like to get on that. What are some things people
can work on?

Speaker 7 (02:32:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:32:26):
I think it does start with kind of individual preparedness.
And when I say individual, I mean, like, you know,
for ourselves. But that doesn't mean we can't do individual
preparedness parallel and like with other people. So don't think
of individual as being alone. It's just we're thinking about
your specific basic needs. And so here's kind of a

(02:32:51):
checklist that we put out in a zine for strangers
in a Tangled Wilderness called Ready for Anything. There's documentation
you know, get or renewed documentation like passports, DOCA, other
status cards whatever. Get a driver's license from your state
if you are undocumented, if you have other kind of

(02:33:13):
permits like concealed carry permits, or medical documentation for you
and your pets. Get all of those together, and you
want to think about having both physical and digital backups
of those things. Yeah, because digital might not work. You
want to do some kind of basic just supply preparedness,

(02:33:35):
which is store three days or three weeks of food,
store three days or three weeks of water, Store enough
portable power to keep your phone and other essentials charged
for three days or three weeks. Build yourself a go bag,
stockpile prescription medication you need, keep your vehicle in good
running condition with at least half a tank of gas,

(02:33:58):
and get kind of any equipment stone that you might
want now because it's going to be wildly unavailable when
a disaster does come.

Speaker 4 (02:34:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:34:07):
And then on the community side, get to know your neighbors,
plan with them, help them with documentation and preparedness components.
Make sure vulnerable neighbors know that you are a potential resource.
Connect with activist groups locally. Build an affinity group. Maybe
you and your friends are really into communication infrastructure, and

(02:34:31):
when a disaster does strike, you just have that ready
to go, while you know some other affinity group is
making sure that everyone's fed Yeah, divide and conquer. I
don't like that phrase, but it works, right Now, make
a plan for securely communicating, and make plans for meeting
up when things go wrong, and even when things kind

(02:34:53):
of go wrong with your plan, you know, have a
backup plan.

Speaker 7 (02:34:57):
Yeah, primary, alternate, contingency and emergency plan if you want
to use the cringe military acronym.

Speaker 1 (02:35:05):
Yeah. And then these are some kind of questions that
I think you can ask your community when you're trying
to think about building resiliency. What disasters are dangerous do
you feel like you're likely to face? How can you
maintain access to food, water, and communication? How will you
interact with other groups? What skills do you currently have?

(02:35:25):
What skills do you wish you had? Can you learn
those skills? How will you foster care and address specific
needs of individuals in your community? How will your community
defend itself? And how can we resist despair and maintain
access to joy? Which I think that last one really
gets lost a lot.

Speaker 17 (02:35:45):
Yeah, yeah, people forget about that one, but it's important
even in like really dark places, like I've attended civil wars, right, Like,
maintaining access to joy is important, Like I've sat with
people in Kurdistan and sung songs and played hambled, which
is like I think the English word is ood, it's
an instrument, and wild drones were vombit and so we

(02:36:06):
didn't want to go outside at night. Golly, And like,
let me tell you, it's a lot better if you
have people to sing songs with and sitting on your own.

Speaker 1 (02:36:14):
Yeah, I'm putting a songbook in my go bag now
that's that's happening.

Speaker 7 (02:36:19):
Yeah. Yeah, these people had a folder like they came
equipped with like laminated shit, like they were ready to rock.

Speaker 11 (02:36:27):
Golly.

Speaker 17 (02:36:28):
Yeah, that's kind of what I got, you know. Yeah,
that's a great place for people to start. We're going
to be covering a lot more of this stuff, so
like you will hear more about water and food and
all the other things.

Speaker 7 (02:36:40):
That we spoke about.

Speaker 17 (02:36:42):
Will try and do at least one of these episodes
a month, and mean, where can people find you if
they have questions, if they want to listen to other episodes.

Speaker 7 (02:36:49):
Maybe you've Live That the World Is Dying or otherwise
reach out.

Speaker 1 (02:36:53):
Yeah, if you want to hear more about anything that
I've talked about, then you can listen to Live Like
the World is Dying. Wherever you get podcasts, where an
entirely listener supported podcast with zero ad breaks. And you
can find more of what our publishers, Strangers in a
Tangled Wilderness does, including books and other podcasts we put

(02:37:14):
out at Tangled Wilderness dot org, or you can support
us on Patreon dot com slash Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness.
And if you want to ask me personally about things,
you can find me on Instagram at Shadowtale Artificery, where
you can see other stuff that I do. That isn't
this beautiful?

Speaker 7 (02:37:32):
Thank you?

Speaker 8 (02:37:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:37:33):
Thanks?

Speaker 2 (02:37:56):
Holy balls, it's executive dysfunction. We call this right, right,
executive disorder, a rectile dysfunction?

Speaker 5 (02:38:06):
Right?

Speaker 7 (02:38:06):
What do we do?

Speaker 2 (02:38:07):
Who are we?

Speaker 5 (02:38:08):
This is?

Speaker 7 (02:38:09):
It could happen here.

Speaker 13 (02:38:10):
Executive Disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the
White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you.
Robert Evans, I'm.

Speaker 2 (02:38:19):
Sorry, Garrison. I thought we were anarchists, and being an
anarchist means never knowing what you're doing or why.

Speaker 13 (02:38:25):
Yeskank of Phim, I'm Garrison Davis, joined by James Stout
and Robert Evans and Sophie Lichterman.

Speaker 4 (02:38:33):
I wasn't planning on being in mic but it was very.

Speaker 13 (02:38:35):
Ap well, it happens very able.

Speaker 17 (02:38:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't plan for shit, Sophie.

Speaker 1 (02:38:42):
It's always chaos here.

Speaker 13 (02:38:44):
This week we are covering the week of July twenty
third to July thirtieth.

Speaker 7 (02:38:49):
Robert Evans, how are you doing?

Speaker 11 (02:38:51):
You know what?

Speaker 2 (02:38:52):
I'm chillin' like Gillan. I'm not because I am not
in a security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, a federal prison.
It's actually not maximum security. So let's let's talk about
friend of the pod Gilan Maxwell. We all love Gillan,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:39:07):
You speak for yourself.

Speaker 2 (02:39:08):
You love her. I lover her. Jeffrey Epstein loved her.

Speaker 11 (02:39:12):
Oh but I don't love her.

Speaker 2 (02:39:14):
So Gilan Maxwell is the daughter of a guy named
Robert Maxwell. We've done it behind the bastards on him.

Speaker 4 (02:39:20):
It was a fun one.

Speaker 2 (02:39:22):
Bartley amazing character, basically a guy who in his early
life was a character from inglorious bastards, like a Jewish
refugee who signed up to fight the Nazis for the
Brits and killed his way across Western Europe, murdering dozens
of ss men and then after the war he became
a financier and destroyed scientific publishing, and also tried to

(02:39:45):
ignite a rivalry with Rupert Murdoch and failed so badly
at it that he stole a billion dollars from his
company's own pensions funds and then killed himself when all
of that was coming out.

Speaker 13 (02:39:54):
So he really is like the average Quentin Tarantino character.

Speaker 2 (02:39:57):
Yeah, what I would describe him as if Quintin for
some reason did a sequel to Inglorious Bastards and it
was just based on Brad Pitt's character becoming like a
crooked finance executive in the seventies.

Speaker 7 (02:40:09):
Coming like the Wolf of Wall Street type guy.

Speaker 2 (02:40:11):
Yes, exactly like that. That's his backstory. Did you use
to murder Nazis? Yeah, but now I'm like foreclosing a
children's hospital.

Speaker 13 (02:40:20):
Anyways, So Gillan.

Speaker 2 (02:40:22):
Had a rough upbringing because like her older brother had
a car accident when she was very young, and he
was in a coma for years. Her mom basically spent
a whole year just at the hospital with him. She
was ignored for a period of time, and then her
parents tried to overcompensate and massively. Anyway, she has the
kind of upbringing you would kind of expect for a

(02:40:44):
socialite who winds up both poor as a young adult
when her dad dies. Not real person poor, but rich
person poor. When her dad dies and the family is
disgraced and all their businesses fail, and she flees to
New York to try to start a new life, and
the thing that makes sense to her, based on her
back ground, being the kind of person that she is,
is to find a rich man and cling to him.

(02:41:06):
And that rich man happens to be Jeffrey Epstein, who
starts off by kind of renting her a luxury apartment.
They begin dating. At some point they stop dating. It's
unclear to me how they would have defined their relationship
at any point internally. The way they would always say
it is they dated for a while, and then Jeffrey
had a thing where he would say, like he never

(02:41:26):
he doesn't have exes. He promotes his exes to friends,
right and Gilan Maxwell was like his best friend and
his business partner. She helped him run not his actual
businesses that made money, the finance stuff, but his life
right like she ordered his houses, she managed his housekeepers,
and she helped recruit girls and women because they recruited

(02:41:50):
both for the stuff that Jeffrey is famous for, right,
both to give him massages and in the context of Epstein,
the massage always means sex. And also recruit the girls
that they flew around on the Lilita Express and you know,
handed off to different prominent men who wanted to have
sex with teenagers or very young women.

Speaker 8 (02:42:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:42:10):
Gillan was intimately involved in all of this. She was
convicted in twenty twenty two after Epstein's suicide and sentenced
to twenty years in prison for all of you know,
the sex crimes that she had a part in. She
was transferred to a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida in

(02:42:30):
July of twenty twenty two. She was initially held in
the normal dorm like in general population, right, and the
prison wing that she was in is was kind of
colloquially known as the snake pit because it was a
very nasty place with quite a lot of violence. To
quote from an article in the Tallahassee Democrat quote, Maxwell

(02:42:51):
created a ruckus when she had a falling out with
several women. After Maxwell reported two other inmates known as
Los Cubanas for trying to extort her Epstein's partner and
crime refused to use the shower stalls, where violent attacks
are more common, and was escorted by a guard to
and from her prison library job. So she has a
kind of rough early time in prison because she's in

(02:43:11):
general pop. She rolls on these other inmates, and that
starts the process of her getting special treatment. She has
since been moved because of her good behavior to an
honor dorm, where there are thirty or forty quarters for
the best behaved inmates. She's we don't really know for sure,
but it's very likely that she has a private room

(02:43:32):
with storage. She's teaching yoga classes at the prison. She
has at some period of time volunteered at the library.
She also teaches etiquette classes. And I want to make
it clear I don't have an issue actually with the
fact that she's teaching yoga or doing etiquette classes. I
think if we're going to have prisons, prisoners should have
access to stuff like that. I think that's all perfectly fine.

(02:43:53):
I think her getting special treatment for good behavior I
don't really love. But I also don't think we should
have prisons that can be described as a snake pit.
So I'm kind of on the mixed end here. Another
thing that's kind of come out during her time in
prison is that she has become a vegan. She was
not for most of her life, but she did when
she came to prison. She's complained a lot about the
quality of the food, which is never spiced and it's

(02:44:15):
just kind of like unflavored tofu, and Peta has advocated
on her behalf, which is pretty consistent for Peta. She's
also said, and there's significant evidence that this prison regularly
serves rotten food that is bad for inmate health. It
is a Florida prison. When Gillan talks about it, she
has in several interviews the bad conditions in her prison.

(02:44:36):
She's not lying or whining. These prisons are not acceptable quality, right,
Like the Florida Department of Corrections and the Federal Department
of Corrections are horrible and they're doing a horrible job
of running these places. The fact that I don't feel
specifically compassion for Gilan Maxwell doesn't mean I want to
like minimize the reality of the conditions in these prisons,

(02:44:58):
because most of the prisoners there not massive sex child
sex traffickers, you know, yeah, sure, so anyway, FCI Tallahassee,
which is where she's at. She's now in the prison's
honor dorm and is still trying to get out of prison.
So she's made a couple of claims prior to the
most recent stuff that is in the news right now

(02:45:18):
that we're talking about. One of the things she's tried
to argue is that the terms of Jeffrey Epstein's when
he was initially prosecuted back in like two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, the terms of his plea bargain
should apply to her basically like she was included in that,
and so she shouldn't be liable for the things that
she got sentenced for more recently, I am not familiar

(02:45:40):
with the exact legal ease her lawyer is using to
make that argument, but that is the gist of the
argument her lawyer is trying to make. It's not going
to work. What might work is her getting a pardon.
So that's probably the thing you've seen about Gillan in
the news most recently is that she is basically asking Congress,
if you want me to tell testify about Epstein and

(02:46:01):
about the client list and everything. I can't talk openly
if I'm in prison, and there's a degree to which, like, again,
I don't support this at all, but she's not wrong
that like, well, yeah, you really couldn't talk total Like
it really isn't reasonable, unreasonable to say, yeah, someone's probably
not going to be able to talk openly about all
of the wealthy, powerful people they saw committing sex crimes

(02:46:23):
while they're locked up in prison. Right, Not that Prayinger
is the right thing to do either. I'm just like, yeah,
I mean, I bet someone could have you killed. I
bet there are people that you have dirt on that
could have you killed in that prison.

Speaker 9 (02:46:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:46:35):
Well, and she's currently appealing her conviction to this room court,
and she's arguing, yes, that if she were to testifying
for Congress, she would need immunity for anything that she says.

Speaker 2 (02:46:44):
Right, So that's what she's asking for now. That said,
she has already very recently been talking with the Department
of Justice.

Speaker 13 (02:46:52):
Yes, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blank.

Speaker 2 (02:46:55):
Todd Blanche had nine hours of meetings over two days.

Speaker 18 (02:46:59):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (02:46:59):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:47:00):
Now there are no public statements about what she said
during this. We don't know what this was about. We
do know there was some sort of immunity agreement.

Speaker 13 (02:47:10):
A limited immunity agreement for those meetings, and what she
was saying in those meetings, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:47:15):
And we don't know precisely what it covered, but it
probably means that basically, you're already in for twenty years.
If you talk to us about stuff that may implicate
you in crimes you haven't been charged for yet, you
get immunity on That is what I would guess, right,
but we don't actually know precisely, like what was happening here,

(02:47:36):
and yeah, there's Barrett Berger, a former federal prosecutor in
New York, told NBC News that he thinks that the
interviews Blanche did were probably performative. Quote, it may just
be a way of being able to say, look, we
dotted every eye and crossed every t There's value in
being able to say that we've tried to speak to
everyone that we possibly could, including the co defendant. Right.

(02:47:57):
So that's her argument is basically, yeah, Blanche met with
Gillan so that they could say they're talking with her
because she's not going to talk to Congress and they're
probably not going to offer her immunity.

Speaker 13 (02:48:08):
And it's hard to imagine that. Like Donald Trump's own
Department of Justice is going to be investigating Donald Trump's
connection to Jeffrey Epstein. So whatever comes of these meetings,
I do not think that through these meetings she's going
to incriminate Donald Trump and that's going to be handled
in any serious way. If anything, something like the opposite

(02:48:29):
is happening, where she's talking about people who are not
Donald Trump, Yes, and in doing so trying to gain
some sort of favor with the President. As Trump has said,
like last week, that he's quote unquote allowed to pardon her,
not saying that he will, not saying that he plans to,
but that he's allowed to. I can play that clip

(02:48:51):
here for the audience.

Speaker 2 (02:48:52):
Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 1 (02:48:53):
Would you consider a.

Speaker 2 (02:48:54):
Pardon or a commutation for Kelan Maxwell if you love something?

Speaker 7 (02:48:58):
I haven't thought about that really recommending that someone.

Speaker 5 (02:49:01):
I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have.

Speaker 7 (02:49:03):
Not thought of it.

Speaker 2 (02:49:04):
I wouldn't rule it out to her and why. And
in addition to that, he's made a couple of weird
comments about Gillan over the years. When he's asked about
Jeffrey Now, he's pretty negative about him. He tends to
be like, look, we knew for a while, like we
were never close and you know, we had a falling out.
He's a bad guy, right, that's what he said. More recently,

(02:49:25):
He's never really been negative about Gillan. More recently, the
thing that I recall him saying is that, like he
wishes her well when she was sentenced, Yeah, which is
kind of weird, right, And I don't know if it's
kind of a result of the fact that she has
something on him and he's trying to you know, I

(02:49:48):
don't know. That seems unlikely. That seems less likely to
me than like maybe he actually just kind of liked
Gilan Maxwell. But I don't actually know. And anyway, that's
the situation. We don't know. Is Trump going to pardon her.
He hasn't said he's going to. But as Garrison noted,
it's weird of him to insist that he has the
right to just kind of randomly, Yeah, why would you
do that if you weren't thinking about it.

Speaker 7 (02:50:09):
Yeah, you can just say no, Like you can just say.

Speaker 2 (02:50:11):
No, I'm not gonna like, I'm not going to pardon her.

Speaker 17 (02:50:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:50:15):
Well, and Trump has continued to make weird comments about
like Epstein and has elaborated on his falling out with
Epstein the past week, first stating that they broke up
their friendship because Epstein was just poaching hotel staff, which
contradicts Yeah, earlier state was Trump made. And then on
July twenty ninth, he had this much more elaborate conversation

(02:50:38):
on Air Force one about how Epstein was taking employees
from his spa and specifically like naming known victims of
sex trafficking.

Speaker 2 (02:50:50):
Yeah, he specifically named Virginia Jeffrey fairly recently too when
talking about like people.

Speaker 17 (02:50:55):
It was yeah on the twenty nine Yeah, I think
a reporter asked if he was one of the people,
and he said, yes, I believe she was, right, Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:51:03):
He says, I think so he stole her as the quote.

Speaker 17 (02:51:07):
Ye, Yeah, there was a reporter who introduced the name
into the conversation to sweet clear.

Speaker 2 (02:51:11):
So, you know, do I think she's going to get pardoned?
It seems really unlikely to me. And it seems really
unlikely to me in part because how would that Like,
I have trouble imagining even that not causing huge problems
for him. Right, I'm not one of these This is
guys who's constantly like, ah, Trump's Trump's finally, you know,

(02:51:33):
we've got Donnie on.

Speaker 13 (02:51:34):
The road, finally got But this is this is.

Speaker 2 (02:51:38):
A big one, right, this is a big one to
his followers, to just Americans in general. Something like seventy
percent of the country or more is following this story
actively and has a strong opinion on it, and there's
zero electoral gain and pardoning Gillan fucking Maxwell right like
it's a it's a it. It strikes me as unlikely

(02:51:58):
because it seems like a serious damaging risk.

Speaker 13 (02:52:01):
The only thing they might try to do is if
they try to paint like her herself as like a
victim of Epstein.

Speaker 2 (02:52:08):
Right there.

Speaker 13 (02:52:08):
There's been like a Newsmax segment trying to argue this,
so like you can see some sectors of the right
who are trying to like create room for Trump to
maneuver here. But I don't know if that will be
a compelling narrative nationwise.

Speaker 7 (02:52:22):
He's got to lose some people if he does that.

Speaker 13 (02:52:24):
It seems unlikely, And I don't know. He seems annoyed
that this is still a news story. He had this
little Scotland vacation to finish a trade deal with the EU,
which we'll talk more about next week, But throughout this
Scotland vacation, he was quite upset that reporters there were
still asking him about one Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 1 (02:52:46):
Yeah, oldn's normal Jeffreys story.

Speaker 16 (02:52:53):
Kid with.

Speaker 5 (02:52:55):
No had nothing to do with it. Only you would
think that not had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 4 (02:53:00):
That is that why he cheated at golf?

Speaker 13 (02:53:02):
You know, that's a good a good call, Sophie. Maybe
he was off his game because of all of these
Epstein questions and that's the only reason why he cheated
at golf this one time and definitely no other times ever,
truly his most heinous crime.

Speaker 2 (02:53:15):
Yeah, I guess that's kind of where we end off.
I'm not gonna say he wouldn't, right. I'll never say
there's no way Gilan Maxwell gets pardoned because this is
twenty twenty five and be crazy. It's like, there's there's
credible evidence that he is considering a pardon for fucking
p Diddy.

Speaker 9 (02:53:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:53:31):
Deadlin reported that yesterday.

Speaker 2 (02:53:34):
And again, if it is right, it's if he does.
We know why. It's because p Diddy probably has some
shit on Trump, right, and p Diddy has the kind
of resources that he could have like a a dead
fall system set up right that like if something happens
to him, the info gets out like he that that
is not beyond the kind of guy that P. Diddy is,
Whereas I don't know that Epstein ever really prepared for

(02:53:57):
that eventuality.

Speaker 13 (02:53:58):
No, I don't think so like Mark Epstein, Jeffrey's brother
was interviewed by the BBC last week and mentioned how
Jeffrey was talking about like possible information he has regarding
to the twenty sixteen election. But it does not sound
like there was any kind of like system for this
information or that even any other people knew besides Jeffrey.

(02:54:21):
I can play that clip here too.

Speaker 7 (02:54:23):
Did he tell you who he knew things about it? Well?

Speaker 19 (02:54:27):
In the twenty sixteen election, we were talking about the election,
and Jeffrey told me that if he said what he
knew about the candidates, they would have to cancel the election.

Speaker 7 (02:54:36):
That's a quote, It's.

Speaker 9 (02:54:37):
Exactly what he told me.

Speaker 19 (02:54:38):
He said, if I said what I knew about the candidates,
they'd have to cancel the election.

Speaker 11 (02:54:42):
He didn't tell any what he knew, but that's what
he said.

Speaker 2 (02:54:46):
Yeah, in general election, was like a very compartmentalized guy.
And I don't know we'll see what happens with all
of these cases. It's going to be worth following. But
it doesn't seem to be going away the way that
a lot of Trump stuff does, because I mean, it's Epstein, right,
You've gotten too much of your base hooked on this
story for them to just give it up because it's

(02:55:08):
inconvenient now. So I don't know what's gonna happen, but
we'll keep watching and you keep listening to these ads. Beautiful,

(02:55:28):
Oh my god, those ads were so good. I feel
like that picture of Bill Clinton getting a back massage
from Nope, I.

Speaker 13 (02:55:38):
Don't know if we should do that in this episode.

Speaker 2 (02:55:41):
Yeah, yeah, Anyway, what's next? What do we talk about next?

Speaker 13 (02:55:45):
Speaking of pardons and Epstein, I'm gonna I'm gonna play
one other clip from Trump's Scotland vacation where he's trying
to reiterate his whole Epstein hoax narrative and in doing
so invokes something thing that relates to our next topic.
But I'll play this clip here.

Speaker 5 (02:56:04):
So hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion. I
can say this. Those files were run by the worst
come on earth. They were run by Komi. They were
run by Garland. They were run by Biden and all
of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen.

(02:56:25):
Those files were run for four years by those people.
If they had anything, I assumed they would have released it.

Speaker 7 (02:56:32):
The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files.

Speaker 5 (02:56:36):
I was running against somebody that ran the files.

Speaker 13 (02:56:40):
The autopen. That's going to be our first mini mini
story this episode. So, the autopen is this tool that
helps with the signing of documents. It automates the process
by replicating a signature. And this is a machine long
used in the White House. It's for like hundreds of years.
Barack Obama the first one to officially use it to

(02:57:01):
sign led legislation. But this is a regular tool, right
And the past few months, Trump has been increasingly obsessed
with the autopen in trying to attack Biden's administration and
somehow like take some of the blame away from Biden
and onto the people who Biden was surrounded by. In June,

(02:57:21):
Trump ordered an investigation into Biden's alleged use of the
autopen and if other figures in Biden's White House were
using the autopen without Biden's knowledge. Acting as shadow president.
I'm going to play a clip here from Fox News
discussing the possible ramifications of the autopen's use.

Speaker 20 (02:57:40):
Mister Chairman, you mentioned that you're looking at some of
the pardons that were done under President Biden and the
use of the AUTOPEN, doctor Fauci being one of them,
talking about whether they were legitimate or not. Are you
also looking into Biden's judicial appointments as well.

Speaker 21 (02:57:56):
Absolutely everything that was signed with the AUTOPEN, especially in
the last year of the Biden presidency. This is when
all the books that are being written, all the tell
all interviews that are being recorded from his former disgruntled
staffers and staffers who are trying to preserve the reputation
for future employment. They're all saying that Joe Biden was

(02:58:19):
in a deep mental decline. This raises an issue whether
these pardons, whether these judicial appointments, and whether these executive.

Speaker 9 (02:58:27):
Orders are legal.

Speaker 21 (02:58:29):
I believe that if this investigation keeps going in the
way that it's going, that's going to very serious concerns
about whether or not Joe Biden even what was going
on around him, much less whether he authorized the use
of his signature on all of this stuff. I think
all of these are in jeopardy of being declared null
and void in a court of law. And that's a
big deal for the Trump administration because so much of

(02:58:51):
what Trump is up against in court now with these
liberal biased Biden appointed judges is the fact that they're
using and citing some of these executive orders as reason
to to to throw out President Trump's agenda and President
Trump's executive orders.

Speaker 13 (02:59:09):
So that gets into this the scope of things that
we're dealing with here. It's it's it's not just pardons.
This this started by talking about Biden's pardons this past
March on a on a truth on Truth social Trump
claimed that Biden's preemptive partons and members of the January
sixth Investigation House Committee are quote hereby declared void, vacant,

(02:59:30):
and of no further force of effect because of the
fact that they were done by auto pen unquote, And
like this just isn't true that there there is no
constitutional requirement that pardons even be signed. He cannot void
pardons like this allegedly, right, who knows what they'll try
to like do by like enforcement. But according to like
the legal the legal systems currently in place, this this

(02:59:53):
like isn't real. But if they do try to legitimately
go after like judicial appointments and try to create this
conspiracy see of this like shadow cabinet that was secretly
running the government. I will be interested to see where
that goes and the extent to which they think they
can pull that off, especially as a way to like
bypass judges who are blocking various Trump policies from being

(03:00:14):
put into effect.

Speaker 11 (03:00:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:00:16):
I mean, I've just always been of the opinion that
we shouldn't even be allowing these people to use pins,
you know, niform. We already had the perfect way of
putting law on the books, and we need to go back.
We need to return.

Speaker 7 (03:00:29):
Yeah, then to books exists in or is it all
in the clay tablets? As God in.

Speaker 2 (03:00:33):
All clay tablets, James, We've got him, robber the whole
internet clay tablets.

Speaker 17 (03:00:38):
Yeah, because none of these laws are actually written on clay,
and therefore, I for one belief that they do not
apply to me.

Speaker 2 (03:00:45):
That they're not valid. You know, you've heard of e
ink screens. We need eat clay.

Speaker 17 (03:00:50):
That is the only way that a law could be
passed in these United States. Otherwise I retain my sovereignty as.

Speaker 2 (03:00:56):
A citizens that's what it's about.

Speaker 13 (03:00:58):
Trump does pride himself on always using the pen to
sign things himself, except for like fan mail and like
thank you cards, and which he gets his staff to
use the auto pen to sign those toilup orders. But
for all serious matters he prides himself on only using
the pen.

Speaker 7 (03:01:16):
Not just the pen Garrison.

Speaker 17 (03:01:18):
I believe he has a special Trump edition shoppie has
a big bucket of them on his desk.

Speaker 7 (03:01:21):
If a call correctly that he then did, they sell
them off off to it my mistake.

Speaker 13 (03:01:27):
Uses his special sharpie to sign all documents, including the
next two topics, which are some executive orders.

Speaker 9 (03:01:35):
Shit.

Speaker 13 (03:01:35):
So there's been a number of executive orders in the
past few weeks that are forming what's what the White
House is calling the AI Action Plan, which largely seeks
to loosen restrictions and regulations on AI and accelerate the
building of data centers to power AI training so that
American companies can better compete in the global market. But

(03:01:57):
there was another AI executive order signed to last week
on July twenty third, which is titled preventing Woke AI
in the Federal Government. Wow, incredible. I'm going to read
the first two sentences, which are which are long sentences
of the AI Executive Order on woke AI quote. In

(03:02:21):
the AI context, DEI includes the suppression or distortion of
factual information about race or sex, manipulation of racial or
sexual representation in model outputs, incorporation of concepts like critical
race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism, and
discrimination on the basis of race or sex. DEI displaces

(03:02:44):
a commitment to truth in favor of preferred outcomes, and,
as recent history illustrates, poses an existential threat to reliable AI.
For example, one major AI model changed the race or
sex of historical figures, including the Pope, the Founding Fathers,
and vikings when prompted for images because it was trained

(03:03:05):
to prioritize DEI requirements at the cost of accuracy. Another
AI model refused to produce images celebrating the achievements of
white people, even while complying in the same request for
people of other races. And yet another case, an AI
model asserted that a user should not quote unquote misgender
another person, even if necessary to stop a new killar

(03:03:26):
apocaly Official White House Executive Order.

Speaker 17 (03:03:31):
Documentary The last one is one of the fucking funniest
things I've ever heard.

Speaker 13 (03:03:35):
Would you suck off one hundred apes to save one
human life?

Speaker 2 (03:03:38):
Well that absolutely not absolutely happens, but I would do
the reverse.

Speaker 13 (03:03:44):
This is this is like this is crazy stuff, right,
This this is stuff that you would see like daily
wire posters talking about like four years ago.

Speaker 7 (03:03:53):
This is like debate me bro like blue tick twitter stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:03:56):
Now.

Speaker 13 (03:03:57):
Yeah, but even even talking about you know, like how
like things like unconscious bias and systemic racism cannot be mentioned, right,
those are things that specifically Ben Shapiro has like led
their charge on attacking in mainstream in mainstream like political
disagreement for a while now like arguing that systemic racism
is not a thing. Yeah, and now you have orders

(03:04:18):
specifically targeting systemic racism being used in AI outputs. So
part of what this executive order actually seeks to do
is make it so that the government can only use
large language models that are developed with the principles of
quote unquote truth seeking and ideological neutrality, requiring that these

(03:04:39):
are nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor
of ideological dogmas such as DEEI. In effect, the order
seeks to use government contracts as bribes to make companies
ensure that their AIS are not woke, with the Trump
administration serving as the judge of what is and isn't

(03:05:01):
woke and threatening to pull contracts and force companies to
pay cancelation fees if their AI language model is deemed
to be too woke.

Speaker 4 (03:05:11):
I never want to hear the word woke again.

Speaker 2 (03:05:14):
I'm so fucking tired.

Speaker 11 (03:05:15):
That's exhausting.

Speaker 1 (03:05:17):
Yeah, it's Jim Crow for the for the computer these
ways what.

Speaker 13 (03:05:20):
This is like as a part of this AI action plan,
Like they're like third or fourth main principle is quote
unquote upholding free speech in frontier models. Updating federal procurement
guidelines to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier
large language model developers who ensure that their systems are
objective and free from top down ideological bias. That's the

(03:05:41):
opposite of free speech. Yeah, what do you We will
like make sure that they only do the specific thing
that we want, and we're calling that upholding free speech.

Speaker 1 (03:05:51):
Just say you want Mecca Hitler Rock just just.

Speaker 2 (03:05:55):
Just say he has Grock has indeed said.

Speaker 4 (03:05:58):
That I know.

Speaker 13 (03:06:00):
Oh, so that's the first executive order that I want
to talk about. The next one is less brain roddy
and more perrific, actually scary. Like I'm sure the WOKEI
one will turn out to be bad, but this next
one is like extremely extremely fascistic, and I don't use
that word lightly. This order is titled ending Crime and

(03:06:24):
Disorder on America's Streets. I'll start by quoting one paragraph quote,
Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have
made our cities unsafe. Shifting homeless individuals into long term
institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of

(03:06:44):
civil commitment, will restore public order. The Attorney General shall
prioritize available funding to support the expansion of drug courts
and mental health courts for individuals for which such diversion
serves public safety.

Speaker 17 (03:07:02):
Yeah, this is bad, This is yeah some yeah again,
people like to like to use fascism a lot, but yeah,
this is some Nazi shit like this, this is.

Speaker 7 (03:07:11):
A thing that the Nazis did.

Speaker 13 (03:07:14):
Yep, let's get more into what this order outlines. So
this executive order directs the Attorney General to reverse quote
unquote judicial precedents prohibiting involuntary institutionalization and to seek the
quote termination of consent decrees that impede the United States
policy of encouraging the civil commitment of individuals with mental

(03:07:35):
illnesses who pose risks to themselves or the public, or
or are living on the streets. It starts by, you know,
if someone's at risk to themselves, and then expands that
to just include everybody if they're deemed to be at
risk to the public or just happen to be living outside. Yeah,
you can now get put in what is essentially Trump's

(03:07:58):
new version of a seen asylums.

Speaker 4 (03:08:01):
Yeah, that's really scary.

Speaker 17 (03:08:03):
Yeah, I think like we shouldn't not mention that a
lot of this shit it's directly downstream from democratic mass
in large cities and especially in California, pushing forrint voluntary
commitment of vunt House.

Speaker 7 (03:08:18):
No, this is like Gavin Newsom's wet dream. Yes, yeah,
this is Todd Gloria shit.

Speaker 2 (03:08:22):
Honestly, this is unfortunately very bipartisan when we are at
least talk about the political elite, and to a sizable extent,
when we're talking about the electorate.

Speaker 14 (03:08:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (03:08:30):
Yeah, this is an issue on which the left has
catastrophically lost just like immigration. Unlike immigration, it is not
an issue in which we're starting to see the pendulum
swing back. Because yeah, number one, I mean, I guess
we have not yet seen the kind of violence deployed
against the houseless by agents of the state at scale

(03:08:51):
in public that we're seeing right now on migrants. Right Like,
there's not a federal agency going to war on the houseless.
It's the same kind of violence that's existed previs But
also like there's a huge amount of propaganda against this,
Like every city business association you know, is constantly complaint
because they see this as like, oh, this is why

(03:09:11):
people don't want to come into stores anymore. It's the houseless,
you know, it's not fucking Amazon or whatever.

Speaker 1 (03:09:16):
Yeah, it's absolute bullshit.

Speaker 13 (03:09:19):
Yeah, I mean some of that might change, though, because
Trump is seeking to mobilize federal resources to start doing enforcement. Yes,
the order direction Trump's cabinet to be giving grants to
state and local governments to help enact civil commitment and
institutional treatment, with the priority of grants being directed to
states and municipalities that already have and enforce strong anti

(03:09:41):
homeless policies. The order allows for emergency federal law enforcement
assistance funds to be used for encampment removal, and directs
the Secretary of Health and Human Services to remove federal
funding from quote unquote harm reduction or quote unquote safe
consumption programs, as well as quote ending support for how
using first policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery,

(03:10:05):
and self sufficiency. So not only are they increasing LA
enforcement capacity to apprehend mentally ill or houses people and
put them into institutional facilities, but they are cutting all
federal funds from programs that are deemed to be harm
reduction or safe consumption, which are programs that have been
shown to work across the globe, as well as ending

(03:10:27):
housing first policies, which is what most homeless advocates actually
push for as a way to solve homelessness.

Speaker 7 (03:10:34):
Yeah, because there're evidence based and they work.

Speaker 13 (03:10:36):
The order also requires that recipients of federal housing and
homelessness assistants to force participants who suffer from substance abuse, disorder,
or serious mental illnesses into quote unquote treatment or mental
health services as a condition of participation unquote, and that
the recipients of these federal funds are now required to
collect quote unquote health related information from everyone who has

(03:11:01):
provided assistance and is required to share that data with
law enforcement quote in circumstances permitted by law.

Speaker 4 (03:11:08):
Don't love that. That's horrible.

Speaker 1 (03:11:09):
Yeah, that's really just not align we went across. That's
so scary, yep.

Speaker 13 (03:11:14):
The weaponization of health data for law enforcement, yes services, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:11:19):
Yeah, And unfortunately it's exactly the thing that like for
years advocates for mental health care have been trying to
get across, like, hey, it's okay to go in to
seek treatment, like this is stuff, isn't going to be
weaponized against you.

Speaker 7 (03:11:33):
And that's not true anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:11:35):
Like the degree to which, outside of the actual danger
of law enforcement getting this data and using it, the
setback to mental health care to people feeling having any
chance of feeling safe to pursue it is like incomprehensible,
Like it's it's so bad.

Speaker 13 (03:11:51):
Yeah, And not only are they seeking to go after users,
the recipients of federal Housing and Homelessness assistance that operate
drug injection sites or quote unquote safe conception sites will
be reviewed by the Attorney General for violation of federal
law and bring civil or criminal action in appropriate cases,

(03:12:12):
literally going after people who try to create environments where
people who use drugs can do so in a method
that will not kill them.

Speaker 9 (03:12:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:12:19):
Yeah, people who are handing out clean needles, you know,
safe injection sites, that sort of thing, any kind of
harm reduction.

Speaker 13 (03:12:25):
Which will now be under investigation by the Attorney General.

Speaker 2 (03:12:28):
Yeah yeah, which is going to get people killed, as
going to imprison people who have been doing nothing but
helping other people. Like, it's just comprehensively a nightmare.

Speaker 17 (03:12:38):
It's going to lead to more communicable diseases spreading that
we don't like. Some of these safe injection sites have
prevented spreading, right, needle exchanges have prevented When we combine
it with our f case stuff like, this is going
to be a major public health issue on top of
everything else.

Speaker 13 (03:12:53):
So on top of expanding drug courts and mental health courts.
I will will end with one final quote the order quote.
They will ensure that homeless individuals arrested for federal crimes
are evaluated to determine whether they are sexually dangerous persons
and certified accordingly for civil commitment. And finally, Trump's cabinet

(03:13:14):
is directed to quote assess federal resources to determine whether
they may be directed towards ensuring that detainees with serious
mental illnesses are not released into the public because of
the lack of forensic bed capacity at appropriate local, state,
and federal jails or hospitals unquote. It remains to be
seen the scale in which this will be implemented. Usually

(03:13:35):
these orders have a series of months in which the
cabinet members will then propose actual implementation policies that then
can be implemented across the country. But certainly what is
in the order itself is incredibly worrying.

Speaker 2 (03:13:51):
Yeah, yep, we probably shouldn't let this guy become president again.

Speaker 9 (03:13:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (03:13:57):
Oh, well, do you know what we should do right now? Oh?

Speaker 2 (03:14:00):
Yeah, yeah, ads, discoda, ads, sure have fun with that.

Speaker 18 (03:14:04):
Everyone talking of shouldn't have let that guy become president again.
One of the reasons that I did become president again

(03:14:25):
is because the Democrats were incapable of fielding a candidate
who could say genocide bad.

Speaker 2 (03:14:31):
Yeah. That might have helped.

Speaker 7 (03:14:33):
I mean, it's a fucking low bar and they failed
to clear it.

Speaker 2 (03:14:36):
It might have helped.

Speaker 13 (03:14:37):
It might have helped. According to new data from New York,
where two thirds or more of New York Democratic primary
voters agree with Zora Mondonney's positions on Israel and arresting
Benjamina Yahoo and the fifty seven percent say that they
might oppost Democrats who do not endorse Mandanni for mayor. Yeah,
because so it seems like, yeah, maybe the Democrats should

(03:14:58):
have done something about that. It seems like the majority
of their base wants that.

Speaker 2 (03:15:02):
Well, I'm not one of those. I always hate it
when people like try to reduce the loss to one thing,
because there's a number of but like one like Michigan.
We can probably blame the loss of Michigan on Pamala's
failures to call Gaza a genocide or to take any
kind of a stance separating her from Biden on that matter. Right, Like,

(03:15:23):
there's a decent amount of evidence to suggest that maybe
other states, you know, other things went wrong, but like this,
that was a significant reason why the Democrats failed.

Speaker 9 (03:15:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (03:15:33):
Look at the way, if we're about to discuss how
the entirety of Canada while we have been recording this
is announced that it is joining the UK and France
and plans to conditionally recognize a Palestinian state. Yeah, and
the reason that is happening is because Israel's genocide in
Gaza is continuing. Yeah, July has been the deadliest month

(03:15:54):
for the past year and a half. One person who's
died every twelve minutes. One hundred and ninety nine people
have died every day, four hundred and one of them
have been injured. We saw this week nineteen people died
of starvation. None of these people are dying because of
a famine that's caused by the weather or some other
natural cause. Right, this is entirely a choice, and it's

(03:16:16):
made by people in the Israeli state, very chiefly by
Benjamin net Yahoo to quote Netyaho. Israel has been forced
to allow some aid into the Strip, but only a
tiny fraction of the required aid has made its way in.
One in five children in Gaza is suffering from acute maultnutrition.
That figure has tripled since last month, according to the

(03:16:38):
World Health Organization. Not only is there not enough food,
but there are also not enough medical supplies to treat
people with acute malnutrition. Right when somebody is acutely malnourished,
you can't just like hand them a sandwich and fix
a problem.

Speaker 2 (03:16:52):
This was a major problem when liberating the concentration camps
at the end of World War Two, American soldiers would
see these peall who were just as I mean, can
you've seen pictures of Auschwitz survivors and stuff and just
act with immediate human compassion and give them whatever they wanted, right,
And then people got sick and died because you literally can't.

Speaker 7 (03:17:14):
You have to.

Speaker 2 (03:17:14):
There's a very specific way when someone is that far
gone that you have to slowly renourish them whatever.

Speaker 17 (03:17:21):
Yeah, refeed them, ensure that they are maintaining adequate hydration levels, right,
therapeutic formula for babies that are malnourished.

Speaker 2 (03:17:31):
It's more, it's I think there's this like mystic understanding
that like, oh, starving people are just hungry, so you
just feed them, and like past a certain point, No,
they're not just hungry. Something else is going.

Speaker 17 (03:17:40):
Their bodies are failing and beginning to die, and that
requires medical attention because they have a very serious medical condition.
Those medical supplies are not getting into Gaza. The Integrated
Food Security Phase Classification, generally referred to as the IPC
stud an alert for what it calls, quote the worst
case scenario of famine in Gaza this week. In their alert,

(03:18:03):
they said, quote, Over twenty thousand children have been admitted
for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid July,
with more than three thousand severely malnourished. Hospitals have reported
a rapid increase in hunger related deaths of children at
a five years of age, with at least sixteen reported
deaths since the seventeenth of July. That's not really much

(03:18:23):
that I think we can say about this other than
it's absolutely despicable and disgusting as a result of Israel
carrying out genocide in the open. The UK, France, and
Canada have indicated, as I said, they're willingness recognize a
Palestine new state with some conditions.

Speaker 7 (03:18:42):
Statehood will not.

Speaker 17 (03:18:43):
Feed these children, rightly, these people will be dead long
before the state is recognized in US. Something changes.

Speaker 2 (03:18:51):
Yeah, The whole recognizing statehood for me is less meaningful
because I care about states, than it is as a
symbol of the fact that France, you know, and the
UK and an increasing number of nations who were not
like imagining them ten years ago, like taking the sense
of being as critical of Israel as they are, would

(03:19:14):
have been a stretch, right, would have been difficult to
comprehend and I think what it really does showcase is
how rapidly international opinion has changed and the very dangerous
situation Israel has gotten itself into. Where I don't think
it is a matter of immediate danger because the weapons

(03:19:35):
aren't going to stop flowing and no one is going
to stop them militarily, but they are sabotaging the ground
underneath themselves, and I do think I mean, maybe this
is me being unreasonably hopeful here, but yeah, like this
is I think they're setting up their own downfall here,

(03:19:56):
you know, not quick enough to save any of these lives,
but like this is not a good position for them
to be in a country that's this dependent upon foreign trade,
upon foreign weapons, upon foreign support for its survival. Like
they're sabotaging themselves.

Speaker 17 (03:20:12):
Yeah, they're becoming a parias state, far too slowly given
what's happened over the last couple of years, but it's happening.
I'll just finish, I guess by saying that Israel has
agreed to make tactical pauses, which is I don't know
what that really means to allow AID to enter The
IPC report suggesting media actions to protect life, but it

(03:20:32):
concludes a quote, none of this is possible unless there
is a ceasefire, and there is no sign of that
immediate future. Let's talk about immigration, shall we something something
that is also pretty much a downer. I guess the
State Department is rolled back it's visa interview waiver. This
was a pandemic era thing right that people didn't have

(03:20:53):
to come into the consulate and actually do an interview
with a physical human for their visa. This will result
in assive delays at consulates around the world and will
mean that visas are inaccessible for some people entirely right,
because getting to a consulate alone is a barrier for them.
Rate or another expense, and it's a risky expense if

(03:21:14):
you think you might be turned down. The government has
been canceling hearings, according to NBC Miami, of people in
the Everglades Detention Facility aka Alligator Alcatraz, right, it makes
are also being denied the right to meet with their attorneys.
The government asserted that everyone there has a final removal order. However,

(03:21:34):
at least one attorney with two clients there the NBC
Miami spoke to said that this was not the case
for their clients. They don't have final removal orders, but
nonetheless they are not able.

Speaker 7 (03:21:44):
To access their due process rights.

Speaker 17 (03:21:46):
There is a lawsuit challenging this and many other issues
at the detention center that will be held on the
eighteenth of August. Talking of removals, we are beginning to
see first hand accounts from the Venas Whalen people who
were detained as Scott two hundred and thirty Venezuelan detainees
there were traded with Venezuela in a three way trade

(03:22:10):
for the US citizen ents detained in Venezuela.

Speaker 1 (03:22:13):
Right, three way trade, I.

Speaker 17 (03:22:15):
Mean very clearly the people in Seccot were really under
US custard, yes, right, so it's just a workaround for
a direct trade.

Speaker 2 (03:22:24):
Well, or at least I mean they were under the
custody of a US contractor, right, Like, that's I think
the accurate way to describe this. Yeah, yes, I think
that's probably yeah.

Speaker 17 (03:22:33):
Yeah, Like the US had control over their comings and goings,
as it's demonstrated by this prisoner exchange.

Speaker 5 (03:22:39):
Right.

Speaker 17 (03:22:39):
These reports indicate that the plane landed and immediately Salvatory
and police entered and beat the men so severely that
flight attendants on the plane cried, an ice agent told
them in Spanish quote, this would teach you to enter
our country illegally. Many of the menahed to point out
did not enter the country between ports of entry or
without inspection. They entered via CBP, the only legal way

(03:23:01):
for them to claim asylum at that time. The men
said they were beaten, kicked, and shot with rubber pellets.
They were never allowed outside, and guards would mock them
and refuse to tell them the time when they asked.
Several of them mentioned a fellow detainee who began cutting himself,
writing messages on the wall in his own blood.

Speaker 7 (03:23:21):
Those messages include.

Speaker 17 (03:23:22):
Stop hitting us, we are fathers, we are brothers, we
are innocent people. Shortly before their release, they say they
were treated better, allowed to shower and shave, and given medicine.
When one of the men returned, his neighbors clapped together
to raise twenty bucks for his mother to decorate the
house and make him a meal of chicken, rice and plantains.
That one was particularly hard for me to read for

(03:23:44):
some reason, because that specific meal is one I've eaten
with the people I live with in Kakas, the people
I was with and at Bari and gap.

Speaker 7 (03:23:52):
It just seemed very personal to me.

Speaker 17 (03:23:54):
They also noted that many of the men were detained,
paryed and read the Bible. They used food packaging and
even food to make dice and playing cards to play games.
The things that I read in this are actually, like,
really heartbreaking, because I've seen folks from Venezuela go through
really horrific things. Right, they were in the Daryan Gap
when I was in a Daryan gap. I've seen him

(03:24:15):
in outdoor attention. I've also spent time living in Venezuela
and throughout that like people, Venezuelan people have shown an
incredible capacity to continue to smile and have joy and
have a joke and have a laugh. So like seeing
these men, though thoroughly beaten down by the Salvadarrian state
is really hard. I'd encourage you all to read the

(03:24:37):
pro public apiece, which I will link in the show notes.
But yeah, it's yeah, it's as bad as we expected
it to be. Right Like, I don't think for a
minute that else Albert or expected them to leave. So
it treated them like I'm sure it treats everybody else there.

Speaker 2 (03:24:51):
Yeah, right like that, that's what you have to assume,
and that's why it's important not to limit the discussion
or the anger to the case of you know, the
Garcia and you know this couple of people who are
quote unquote obviously.

Speaker 7 (03:25:08):
In essence individual people.

Speaker 2 (03:25:10):
Yeah, like nobody should be in Seacot and quite frankly,
Hunter Biden's right, you know we should we should invade
El Salvador if that's what it takes to close this
place down. Yeah, like fuck them, like it's it's I mean,
or someone should invade us. I don't fucking know whatever
it takes to stop this shit, but like it's unacceptable.

Speaker 7 (03:25:30):
Yeah, it's inhumane. Like a world where this exists is
not a world we should want.

Speaker 5 (03:25:34):
No.

Speaker 17 (03:25:35):
I guess maybe I'll end with some good news and
a little fundraiser.

Speaker 7 (03:25:39):
I people want to donate. Good news?

Speaker 9 (03:25:41):
Is it?

Speaker 17 (03:25:41):
A judge has ordered the release of kilmar Abrego. I
guess he prefers to just use the first part of
his last name, right, Spanish last names come from your
mother and father.

Speaker 7 (03:25:51):
Some people used both.

Speaker 2 (03:25:53):
Want Oh I hadn't caught that actually, Thank you, James.

Speaker 7 (03:25:55):
Yeah, you are welcome.

Speaker 17 (03:25:57):
Judge Genie ordered that he'd be returned to Mary and
not be immediately detained by ICE on his release, and
the seventy two hours notice be given if they try
to remove him. I have seen reporting that says she
has ordered that he can't be deported.

Speaker 7 (03:26:11):
That's not true.

Speaker 17 (03:26:13):
She ordered that he have his due process rights if
they attempt to remove him right. I've also seen reporting
that he is like out and about on the street.
That is not true. A Tennessee judge did deny the
government's attempts to detain him while he awaits criminal trial,
but at the request of his legal team, his release
has been stayed by thirty days. I believe this is

(03:26:34):
to prevent ICE grabbing him and deporting him immediately when
he's released or thereafter, right until they've got their clarification
from judges.

Speaker 7 (03:26:40):
Enis.

Speaker 17 (03:26:41):
This comes after Trump administration or the DOJ has failed
to persuade any of for federal judges that he was
a leader of MS thirteen. His lawyers have also asked
a judge to stop DHS posting about this and prejudicing
a potential jury pool. So, at least in this one case,
and it is moving closer to being back with his family,

(03:27:02):
Let's talk about a fundraiser and then we can finish up. Yeah,
So I want to talk about Hose Jiron and I
will just read here from the fundraiser page. Jose was
taken from his family and detained O Ti Meser Detention
Center over thirteen months ago. Like many friends, parents and
siblings in prison at OMDC, Josse has received no medical

(03:27:23):
care despite having concerning symptoms for colon cancer. Visibly in
pain during his previous hearing, Jose showed the judge Ajar
with one point five to two inches of blood that
he reported had come out of his rectum. No one
should have to supper these indignities. If you would like
to support Josse, you can go to give butter dot

(03:27:44):
com slash free Horse Jiron. That's fie Jo S E
G I R O N.

Speaker 7 (03:27:54):
I think that's all for us. We reported the news.

Speaker 2 (03:27:58):
Goodbye, we report the news.

Speaker 5 (03:28:05):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (03:28:05):
We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from
now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 7 (03:28:11):
It could happen.

Speaker 13 (03:28:12):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find
sources for it could happen here. Listened directly in episode descriptions.

Speaker 4 (03:28:28):
Thanks for listening,

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Behind the Bastards News

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Robert Evans

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