February 23, 2025 • 50 mins
The episode delves into the concepts of cognitive dissonance and selective outrage, exploring how they shape our political identities and conversations. The hosts discuss the implications of a polarized political landscape and emphasize the importance of understanding differing perspectives as a path to unity and constructive change.
• Examining the impact of selective outrage
• Understanding cognitive dissonance in political discourse
• Critique of the two-party system and its implications
• Analysis of the War on Drugs as a systemic issue
• Discussion on the selective outrage surrounding international conflicts
• Importance of empathy and understanding in political conversations
• Call for community engagement and local activism
• Encouragement to move beyond binary thinking in politics
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to another episode of the
United States of PTSD.
Today I have back with me MikeThibault.
Mike, you were on the episodewe did about examining the
(00:38):
political environment.
Was it post or before theelection?
I can't remember it was afterthe election.
Yeah, we did it on processingthe election and a lot of you
had actually written in andtalked about how much you liked
Mike and there was a couple ofcomments on the Buzzsprout board
about Mike.
So hopefully you know everybodyshould be glad you're back.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm happy to be back.
It's a pleasure and thank youall for your kind words.
Who?
Who wrote or commented or wroteor commented.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So we're going to pick up a little bit, I think,
that first conversation that wehad with Cora and about how
people handled the election.
Afterwards, we're going to talka little bit more detail about
that, because what I havenoticed and you and I were just
discussing this before westarted recording was there's
two things that are happeningright now.
One of them is selectiveoutrage, and I would even say it
borders a little bit on virtue.
Signaling where what that meansis, I think people are
(01:32):
handpicking what they want to beupset about, while ignoring
things that are equallyupsetting, or actually the same,
while then claiming to be onthis virtuous high ground, you
know, saying like, oh, I'm doingsomething.
And that also goes intocognitive dissonance, and for
people who don't know whatcognitive distance dissonance is
, it's a therapeutic word thatmeans when somebody is
(01:54):
experiencing two oppositebeliefs or values that are
conflicting and causingdiscomfort for the person, and I
think we want to highlightthose two specific things
throughout this episode, becauseit's going to be coming up a
lot, I think, in everything thatwe talk about.
Mike, is there anything youwant to add to that?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
dissonance from people who, you know, have
supported or or rather, stood byand and been idle around
certain ideology for, um, themajority of the previous
presidency.
And now that a newadministration propels the same
ideology, uh, suddenly it's anissue, and I I don't mean that
to say that, um, I'm inagreeance with, with the stances
that are in place now or thathave been, but rather that, uh,
(02:46):
it seems as though there, asthough there's an attribute
excuse me that there's.
Oh gosh, I'm sorry, I lost mytrain of thought another.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Another great point if anybody has listened to even
one of our previous episodes, Ithink people would know that
neither one of us support trump.
We both can't stand him.
But the problem is when andI've noticed myself is when you
start to point out that maybethe things that people are
getting upset about oh I don'tknow didn't happen under his
presidency or are things that hedidn't do, you're automatically
labeled a Trump supporter.
This has happened to me likenumerous times now, where people
(03:27):
are like what do you expectfrom like you You're a Trump
supporter.
I'm, like I've been, like themost vocal person against Trump
like forever.
But you can't take a stancewithout, you, can't be neutral
without somebody then trying topush you on one side or the
other, because I mean,previously I got the opposite of
it too where if I criticizeTrump, then suddenly I'm this
like really extreme liberal andit's like, okay, wait, I don't
(03:49):
have to be either.
One of those things to just callout what I'm seeing is not okay
.
I don't care who's doing it, Idon't care what political
umbrella they're under, and Istill firmly believe we have one
party.
I really do not believe that wehave a two-party system.
If you look at who's fundingthem, it's very clear.
I mean 80, 90% of them areowned by one entity and they are
(04:09):
all operating under that oneentity.
So this whole belief that oneside is better than the other is
just, it's an illusion, and Ido want to talk about that a
little bit more as we move onthrough the episode.
So thank you for bringing thatup.
And again, for those of you whoare tuning in for the first
time, we don't, we did notsupport Trump.
We don't support Trump, and Ifeel like I have to say that
(04:30):
every single time because peoplejust they want to believe what
they want to believe.
I think the man is disgusting,but I also think the other
administration was equallydisgusting.
So the benefit of taking aneutral stance is to really
start to see the problems,because when you're too far in
the mud, you can't see what'sactually happening, and that's
by design.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I totally agree.
I think I mean I say it all thetime it's two heads of the same
beast.
When it comes to having a twoparty system, you have to look
at who is benefiting from policyput in place, who's benefiting
from political division betweenparties and between ideologies.
And with that, I think this isa point in history where,
(05:12):
specifically in America, ourideologies have become so
intertwined with our sense ofidentity that when you threaten
someone's political ideology, itis an attack on their identity,
or at least perceived that way.
And with that, to your point oftaking more of a middle ground
stance, I think that makespeople uncomfortable, that you
haven't taken a side and thatyou haven't chosen which head of
(05:34):
the beast you're belonging to.
It's a real shame because itdoesn't facilitate an
environment that's actuallyconducive to real conversation
and real understanding of eachother's perspectives and coming
to actual resolution.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Mike, I love that you say that, because I just saw
that happen recently.
As you know, I do a lot of workin addictions and teach classes
on addiction, and we weretalking about the war on drugs
and how the war on drugs reallyhas been a war on poverty and
how it is systematicallyattacked very specific ethnic
groups, but it's also gone afterthe lgbt community as well and
(06:10):
how they do that and people whoare impoverished, and how it's
really designed to not workright and that that has been
under.
That started under nixon, soit's been under every presidency
since obama being the onlyperson who challenged the whole
cocaine crack penalty, wherepeople who were being charged
with crack cocaine were getting100 times the amount of sentence
(06:32):
that somebody who was beingcharged with cocaine was, even
though it's the same drug, andthat was specifically targeting
low income women of color, withthe whole crack baby thing,
which I think I talked about ona previous episode.
Um, with the whole crack babything, which I think I talked
about on a previous episode.
So I think we just see that inmultiple different arenas
throughout our country andwhat's interesting is so
learning about the drug,learning about the war on drugs,
(06:54):
learning about how thetreatment system has been
epically failing for decades andcontinues to get gutted and
financially gutted.
And then what we love to do iswe love to get rid of programs
that are working.
And then we see a problem whenwe come back three years later,
when we form committee aftercommittee to brainstorm why that
problem is happening, only tocome up with the idea that we
cut in the first place andpretend it's like this novel
(07:15):
idea and then suddenlyre-implement it.
And we have done this over andover and over again.
And I think that that's what'shappening now, right?
So after reading all of thatinformation, one person had then
commented and said so do youthink that under the new
administration coming in, thatit's going to really destroy the
treatment system?
And I was like, did you notlike just like what happened to
(07:37):
all the information we justtalked about that the treatment
system has been failing, it hasbeen gutted under every single
presidency and it systematicallyhas not been working since
Nixon.
And then what the person hearsis, yeah, but what about the new
administration?
They're going to destroy it.
Well, it's already a brokensystem that hasn't been working.
You can't break what's broken.
I mean, I guess you can breakit a little bit more, but the
(08:00):
reality is is that it's just not.
It's fundamentally designed notto work, just like most of our
systems.
So you know, we have to stoplooking at it as blaming Trump
is not the problem.
Trump is a symptom of a biggerproblem.
Trump wouldn't be in office ifwe didn't have a bigger issue
here, and that's what peopledon't seem to want to look at.
They want to just kind of pointto the we need a villain, right
(08:22):
.
So we need to kind of have avillain.
But the problem in the lastelection is we had two villains.
So with two villains you can'tgalvanize support, and that, of
course, was done by design.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Absolutely yeah, and I, um, I think you know, when
you talk about having systematicchange versus uh, like the
figurehead change, um, I thinkit kind of ties into this idea
of virtue signaling or or of um,uh, I'm sorry, what was the
word?
Uh, the type of outrage, oh,selective outrage.
(08:53):
Selective outrage, thank you.
Um, because people are notinherently upset at these
systems that perpetuate these uhuh programs that fail people
and and injustices for everydaypeople on a regular basis,
regardless of what party theadministration is tied to.
People are only mad at theparty that heads the
administration or that heads thesystem.
(09:15):
And so, with that, if it wastrue outrage at what is
happening, it would be at thesystem and there would be a
collective sense of unity to dosomething about it rather than
to simply be mad and yell aboutit on social media.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
One of the areas that I have personally seen a lot of
selective outrage on, andbefore I say that, I want to
give the quote that I hadwritten down by Martin Luther
King, because I think itpiggybacks off what you said,
which Martin Luther King said hewho passively accepts evil is
as much involved in it as he whohelps perpetuate it.
And I think if we keep thatagain in the background when I
(09:50):
say this next part, you'll seethe level of cognitive
dissonance which is that.
I'm sure you mentioned socialmedia.
I've been seeing quite a fewpeople post things like if you
voted for Trump, he's amisogynist, a racist and a
narcissist.
That means you must be amisogynist and racist and
narcissist or you support that.
I can't be your friend, I can'tbe your family member, and they
just start cutting people offand I've been seeing this from
(10:13):
many different people and I willadmit, during his first
presidency I was the same way.
But what stopped me from doingthat was I have family members
who are Trump supporters and, tobe honest with you, they're
some of my the people I'm theclosest to in my family, and I
think what helped about that wasI actually started to
understand their perspective andwhere they were coming from.
(10:33):
Now I doesn't mean I agree withthe stuff that they were saying
, but I was listening to themenough that I could actually
understand them and respect them.
So that helped kind of pull meback off that ledge that I was
on.
But if we go by that standard,if we can say the person you
voted for is a direct reflectionof who you are, then what would
that make you if you voted fora candidate who actively
(10:56):
supported and funded a genocideagainst a racial group, an
ethnic cleansing that was paidfor with your tax dollars, while
60% of the country said stopdoing it?
So if you voted for that, basedon your theory about who voted
for Trump, what does that makeyou then?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Exactly and actually, I first want to address the
point that you made about theidentity of, or rather the
behavior of, you know the kindof black and white thinking of
either cutting off people whodon't believe in what you
believe in or polarizing peoplewho don't align with your
beliefs.
It's something I was actuallytalking about the other day in
(11:36):
one of my classes and I alsoused to participate in that kind
of behavior, and I think it'seasy to, because it's
emotionally charged.
And when you actually take astep back to think about, or
rather to take the time to speakwith these people and try to
consider what is the source ofthis belief?
Where is this coming from?
(11:57):
Why are they thinking the waythey do?
And, conversely, doing the samewith your own beliefs and
behaviors, I think it makes fora lot better of a playing ground
for you to actually have thatkind of conversation with and to
come to some sort ofunderstanding, whether or not
you agree with the actualoutcome of their thoughts.
I think having access to thatsource material is really
(12:21):
important for facilitatingunderstanding and that's
something to work with, you know.
I mean, you don't have to agreewith it or compromise on
something that you're reallysteadfast in your beliefs in,
but I think it's important to beable to truly understand that.
Entirely hypocritical to saythat voting for someone like
(12:47):
Trump makes you a racist or ahomophobe, etc.
And meanwhile you're voting forsomeone who has completely
endorsed genocide.
That's the epitome of hypocrisy, because essentially what
you're saying is that youendorse genocide by that same
logic.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Exactly, and some of the other arguments you had
mentioned.
This one earlier too is peoplewould say and these are actual
things I've heard people saywhen I brought up the
discrepancy with genocide,things like oh well, if you're
going to nitpick every issue, oroh, I'm really worried more
about domestic issues, I'm notworried about what's happening
overseas.
Well, of course you know yourmoney is being sent to fund a
(13:21):
genocide, so it is a domesticissue, it's absolutely impacting
your finances, but they, theydo not want to look at that.
And then they'll say, well,it's the lesser of two evils.
Oh, okay, so murdering.
What is it up to now?
I think the didn't Trumpaccidentally give away the real
number and it was over a hundredthousand, which I knew was the
case all along, because thatnumber hadn't changed since,
like March of last year, whereit was 42,000.
(13:44):
And every day, you could signon to anything besides Facebook
that you know, like TikTok orInstagram, and you could see
live videos of people beingkilled and like burned to death
and like children being shot,schools being shot up, but the
number never changed in terms ofhow many people were dying.
So we can say that it'sprobably well over 100,000.
(14:05):
And that's probably even anunderestimate, and I had
questioned that, I think, a longtime ago, because at one point
on one of the episodes I evensaid I believed it was well over
100,000.
Because if you're payingattention, things just make
sense.
It's like the election whenpeople were surprised that
Harris lost.
I mean, if you know this,because we talked about it a lot
, go back and listen to theepisodes.
(14:28):
I did Well, before the electionI knew she was going to lose,
because if anybody was payingattention, it was clear she was
going to lose.
She wasn't listening to theconstituents.
She was actively ignoring theMuslim community.
The support for Trump wasphenomenal I mean, I think it
was actually higher than it wasthe first time but people still
wanted to pretend it wasn'thappening.
And I remember somebody gettingmad at me when I said, well,
I'm going to I'm not voting foreither one of them to vote for
(14:49):
Stein, and somebody wasbasically like you know, then
you are part of the problem andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I mean OK, first of all,third party voters didn't even
make she still wouldn't want.
So you can throw that right outin the garbage.
But the problem, I said back toher is, if you really want her
to win, then maybe you shouldcontact her and tell her to stop
(15:11):
funding genocide and change herplatform, because that's why
she's losing, not because of myvote, but because the large
majority of people are sayinglike, hey, this is bullshit,
like we need to stop doing thisand we can't support it.
So, had she even been payingattention slightly, she would
have seen that, unless, ofcourse, it was by design, unless
the reason why they did it inthe first place was so that this
(15:32):
could happen.
Because, on the flip side of it, we now have Elon Musk was
giving Nazi salutes on nationalTV and people are just
pretending it's not a Nazisalute and then blaming him and
saying he has autism.
But, as you pointed out, youknow, then he's a genius at the
same time who has all thesegreat skills, who can just, you
know, root out all the evil inour government.
I mean, it's just, it's absurd,it's a circus.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Absolutely.
And before I get into that,there's like a crazy squeaking
sound coming from your end.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh, I think it's the table.
Hold on, let me fix it.
Okay, I think it's the table.
Hold on, let me fix it, okay.
I actually don't know what itis, but if you hear it again,
let me know.
I thought it was the table, butI moved the table and it's not
doing anything.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, okay.
Where were you talking aboutElon?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and that his Nazi salute.
Yes, that wasn't really a Nazisalute.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And I mean that sarcastically, because it
clearly was.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right, of course, and so the level of dissonance that
comes from people like I'veseen this a lot on Twitter,
because unfortunately I'm stillon Twitter.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I think it's valuable to see what's going on there.
You are still on Twitter.
Are you kidding me?
I am.
I canceled it the day he tookover, I canceled it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, I stayed on because I kind of wanted to see
what was going to happen, andlet me tell you it is a
hellscape.
I mean, it is just sponsoredpost after sponsored post of
right-wing propaganda, and ontop of that he's created a
United States of America account.
That is just entirelyTrump-sold nonsense.
But with that it's also full ofpeople who constantly defend
(17:06):
him.
You know, something like theNazi salute saying that you know
, oh, he's, he's autistic, he'son the spectrum, so his body
language might not translate tous, but in the same breath say
that he is so hyper aware ofeverything that's going on that
he's competent to overseefederal agencies and to strip
millions of dollars of fundingfrom agencies who need resource
(17:31):
for social service.
I mean, it is absolutelybackwards thinking, and to not
observe the dissonance betweenthose two ideas is pretty insane
to me.
I don't know how to cope withit.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And I know yours.
I just want to clarify what you.
I just want to clarify what yousaid for for people who might
be listening.
So it's not the fact that he'sautistic that means that he
can't do it.
It's the, it's the dissonancebetween the fact that they're
saying that he can do a Nazisalute and not know that that's
an issue, but then he could readpeople well enough in other
scenarios to then do all of thislike government, take, you know
, control and fixing which.
(18:04):
Those two things are clearlynot true, because a lot of
people who are within theautistic community have come out
and been very upset about it,saying like listen, we know not
to give a Nazi salute, likethat's, that's a bunch of BS and
and.
But again, his supporters andthey do it on both sides, you
know, oh, he didn't mean it.
Oh, he didn't know what he wasdoing, much like they did with
Trump in the first election.
He could stand on TV and sayI'm going to shoot somebody in
(18:26):
the middle of, you know,downtown, new York and nobody's
going to care.
Oh, he didn't mean it.
That's not really what he meant, you know.
And it's the same thing withBiden-Harris.
I mean, people were just likethat's not really what they
(19:05):
meant, like they're defendingthese ideologies that are very
toxic, absolutely.
If you want to understand, ifyou want people to understand
you, you have to firstunderstand them, and we are not,
as a society, willing to dothat.
We're becoming more polarized,and each side is just saying,
like you have to understand meand that's it, like my way is
right and there's no otheroption.
But that's not true.
Like if, if you really want, ifyou want unity, which is the
only way we are going to fixthis mess that we are in, that
we have all contributed tocreating, is we have to stop and
(19:28):
say, okay, let's stop fightingagainst each other, let's stop
tearing each other apart onsocial media, let's stop cutting
people out because we don'tagree who they voted for, and
maybe understand why in thefirst place.
And then maybe, if weunderstand why, we can try to
then fix it and come to somesort of resolution, instead of
this nonstop tribalism that, ifyou ask me, starts with sports.
(19:49):
That's a whole, not that's awhole.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Another episode, though oh, I'd love to hear
about that.
But, uh, first of all I want tothank you for clarifying that.
I was not trying to say that,uh, having autism makes him
incompetent to be in theposition that he is, but rather
the excusing his bizarrebehavior with autism is the
issue at hand and what you weresaying after that goes into what
(20:14):
I was saying earlier, withpeople identifying so closely
with their politics.
I hadn't heard that quotebefore, but I really, really
enjoy that because the need tobe right, if that's overtaking
your actual sense of justice andand duty to to find policy or
find ideology that actuallyaligns with your values, rather
(20:36):
than sticking by what youbelieve simply because it's what
you have believed, I mean,you're doing nobody a service,
not even yourself, and so Ithink it's vital for us to
really lose that identification,excuse me, to lose that
identification with ourpolitical ideology, and instead
be willing to new, to accept newideas.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I agree with you, we do have to new to to accept new
ideas.
I agree with you, we do have to.
We have to stop being divided.
We have to really startunderstanding each other.
I wanted to give another exampleof something that I that kind
of prompted me to think what theheck is going on?
How do people not see howabsurd this is?
So you, you and I, have beenvery vocal about the genocide
(21:15):
that's been happening in Gazapretty much the entire time, and
actually I remember when itfirst happened, when everything
happened with October 7th.
Shortly thereafter, I did myfirst episode about genocide on
it and at the time the person,wendy that I was doing the
podcast with, was reallyuncomfortable talking about it
because she didn't.
My assumption is, actually wehadn't talked to her about it,
but she seemed like she did notwant to voice an opinion about
it because she didn't.
My assumption is, actually wehadn't talked to her about it,
but she seemed like she did notwant to voice an opinion about
(21:39):
it being an actual genocide.
And I get that people were verymuch like nervous about it, but
it is what it is and it is agenocide.
You cannot call it anything butthat, and you know I I wish I
was more vocal back then.
I mean, I think even just kindof talking about it was was more
than a lot of people were doing.
But I think I backed downmyself in the beginning because
I was a little bit nervous, butnow like no, I'm not going to be
(22:01):
silent on China side.
But what stood out to me aboutthat was Congressman Al Green in
Texas has put up a bill ofimpeachment against Trump
because quote these came out ofhis mouth Ethnic cleansing in
Gaza is not a joke, unquote.
And then quote injustice toGaza is a threat to the United
(22:23):
States.
Close quote that's what hetalked about in the articles of
impeachment.
So my first question is wherethe hell were you when we were
actually killing people?
Where was he?
Because trump saying he wantsto take over gaza and build
hotels there, whatever the hellhe said, whatever nonsense came
out of his mouth, is certainlyridiculous, but it's not funding
(22:45):
a genocide.
So if funding a genocide wasn'ta big enough bar for you to do
an article of impeachment, butsomebody just mentioning it is
enough, there's a problem there.
So that prompted me to go back,because I don't know a lot
about Al Green.
I don't live in Texas.
So I went back and I said, OK,what was his stance on what was
happening in Gaza then?
(23:07):
Because maybe he did and I justdidn't hear about it.
So he isn't.
He isn't an AIPAC lobbyistrecipient.
I will say that right there.
He didn't take as much as manyof the others, but he did
receive money and in March of2024, he gave a speech which I
thought was very equivalent toI'm writing a very strong letter
to the president, while havinga picture of a child victim in
(23:28):
Gaza in the background.
And he not only mentioned howmuch he respected Benjamin
(23:51):
Netanyahu twice, and actuallykind of alluded to it to a third
time.
He did not seem to.
And you know, yada, yada, yada,and he was going on about, um,
you know that israel's right toexist, where it's really the,
you know, the people have aright to exist, not a country,
but that's a whole other issue,and he really was kind of making
all these excuses, and itwasn't until the very end of his
speech and he actually did sayanother thing.
(24:12):
He said if you choose, be blind,no one can make you see it
which you can apply to what hewas talking about himself,
because he's also kind of beingthis disingenuous person.
He did start to become a littlebit more accountable towards
the end of his speech and hesaid that he recognized that
what was happening there waswrong and that all these people
were being killed, and thentalked about how we should give
(24:33):
them millions of dollars inreparation because our tax money
did fund that, but then endedit with also admitting that he
has he had co-signed giving anexcess of 50 billion dollars to
Israel.
So I think you said earlier itwas going to cost what 50
billion dollars to rebuild Gaza.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I think the UN estimate was 53 billion billion
to rebuild Gaza.
Yeah, I think the UN estimatewas $53 billion.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's interesting that we're going to give them
millions, not billions millionsfor what we did and while it's
actively happening, we're notgoing to throw up articles of
impeachment because that would,I don't know, not make sense to
whoever's funding them, but thenpost that when it's done for
the most part done and maybethat's not a good choice, I
(25:17):
think.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, but when the damage is done.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You're right, when the damage is done and I sort of
again, people know I've beenactively defending God the whole
time so when the damage is done, then we're going to come in
and we're going to be like, ohbad Trump, because of something
he said, let's impeach him.
You know, and again I'm notdefending him, I'm just pointing
out the hypocrisy and theidiocy of, like, what actually
happened and that people don'tsee it.
(25:41):
They're just kind of looking atit and they're being like, oh
look, how great he is forcalling out Trump.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry what?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Right.
I mean you want to talk aboutdissonance.
I mean, in the same speech, topraise Benjamin Netanyahu, and
then go on to say that yousupport giving $50 billion to
Israel, or, sorry, to say thatyou support Benjamin Netanyahu,
want to give $50 billion toIsrael, and also that what you
think is are funding the tragedy.
You are a direct cause of thetragedy, so how can you stand up
there and say with your fullchest that this is something
that you are horrified by?
I?
You had a year and a half to dothe same exact thing while it
was happening, to stop it beforeit got as bad as it did, before
the entire Gaza Strip wasleveled and millions of people
were displaced, hundreds ofthousands of people killed.
(26:49):
It is absolutely appallingbehavior.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, 100% appalling behavior.
You know what?
And it makes me think of thepivotal turning point for me
with Harris and every time Ithink of it it makes me want to
vomit is when she was.
She gave that speech to AIPACand she came out and she was
like good morning, aipac.
And it's like sing songy voice.
I literally wanted to vomitbecause it was at that point
that I realized like no, likeno-transcript, posting things
(28:00):
like when they came for thisperson, nobody paid attention.
When they came for that person,nobody paid attention.
But then when they came for me,nobody was left.
Uh, again the level ofcognitive resistance.
Like you are literally postingwhat you are ignoring and then
pretending that you just can'tdeal with it.
And then, when it happens, whoare you going to blame?
(28:20):
You're going to be blamingeverybody else around you.
Oh, everybody else should havedone something.
It's, it's, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
No, and I've.
I've seen a lot of that onsocial media myself.
Again back to Twitter.
I've seen a lot of people, I'veseen a lot of people who have
been conversely on the left,people who have been saying, oh,
people who didn't vote forKamala, are you happy now?
Are you happy that Trump'sgoing to turn the Gaza Strip
into a billionaire paradise?
(28:49):
And to think that that's notwhat we were saying all along,
as though this isn't exactlywhat we were predicting.
You are missing the pointentirely, which, essentially,
was that both party candidatesare going to perpetuate the same
result, and so, by acting inaccordance with the party
beliefs or party unison, justfor the sake of it, you are not
(29:10):
helping anybody.
I mean, you want to talk aboutharm reduction.
Harm reduction for who?
Certainly not for the people ofGaza.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Exactly.
I don't know how you can thennot call yourself racist if you
are saying an entire group ofpeople don't matter, and not
even the people that are in Gaza, like if you I mean if you can
compartmentalize it and say like, okay, they're over there,
that's not happening here, Idon't, I'm going to pretend I
don't know any of them Then whatabout their relatives that live
here, that you're looking atthem and basically saying, like
(29:39):
your family doesn't matter?
How is that not racist, just initself, saying an entire group
of people don't matter enough towarrant our attention?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Exactly it is.
It is to me a real, uh, scary,real, scary, real life
manifestation of how peopledehumanize black and brown
people around the world.
Because, truly, when you getdown to it, if this were
happening in a white country, ina European country, the outrage
would be astronomical.
If Israel invaded, say, italy,for example, obviously I don't
(30:13):
think that's a real possibility.
Say like italy for, for example, obviously I don't think that's
like a real possibility.
But uh, just as an example, Imean, could you imagine the
collective outrage globally thatwould be, that would, that
would come, and especially fromthe united states.
I mean, this is something thatis is so indicative of the
deep-seated racist ideology thatruns throughout our country
italy is my favorite place inthe world.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I'm just saying I had to say that I can't stop.
Like god.
I want to go back there.
So bad.
If I could move there in aheartbeat, I would.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Oh Italy yeah, I was really just trying to trigger
you.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You weren't no, that's funny.
I actually wanted to add tothat.
I forgot what I wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
There was something I wanted to add to let me think I
said collective outrage if thiswere happening to a white
country.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I actually wanted to add to that.
I forgot what I wanted to say.
There was something I wanted toadd to.
Let me think I said collectiveoutrage if this were happening
to a white country.
Oh, I know what it is, I knowwhat it is, okay, yes, so,
speaking of your favoriteplatform, twitter, the other
thing I've been seeing a lot ofselective outrage with, and I do
think it's virtue signaling andI I'm probably gonna get into a
lot of trouble for this, butthe amount of people that are
angry about dei and thenboycotting companies that are
(31:21):
getting rid of dei but didn'tboycott those same companies for
killing people right.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I mean, well, actually hold on before we get
into that.
What do you mean by by killingpeople?
Genocide, like for like.
Oh, oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
No, no, no.
So, for example, like when Iwas telling people, okay, to
boycott these well, it wasn'tjust me.
But when people were sayinglike, okay, boycott Starbucks
because they're directly fundinggenocide, or Disney, which I
used to support all the time andI haven't been to since, and
people are like, oh, that'sstupid.
Oh, that's stupid, just go,just go.
(31:55):
A DEI program and I'm notarguing for a DEI either way,
but I'm saying getting rid of aDEI program is not committing
mass genocide.
So if your bar is that somebodyis not going to get a job and
that's your bar for boycottingthe company, what happens when
somebody is not getting a jobbecause you're murdering them,
that is suddenly not a bar.
I don't know.
This is what I mean byselective outrage.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
People are picking topics and just saying like, oh,
I'm so against that, I'm goingto fight for that, when in
reality, the biggest thing weshould be fighting, people are
ignoring 100% and it really tome feels like just, uh, you know
, stroking your own ego, making,making yourself feel good for
your own self-righteousness,because, like, uh, it's funny, I
(32:34):
had this conversation with afamily member the other day
where, um, because I, I,personally, I, uh, I, throughout
the week I'll have a couplecoca-colas, usually, uh, and
that's a company that, um, uh,just recently got rid of their
dei policies.
And so, uh, this family membersaid to me, like, oh, you know,
it's time for you to startboycotting.
And I said, said, well, I'veseen you get Starbucks multiple
(32:56):
times over the past year.
I've been boycotting them foryears now, actually prior to the
genocide, simply because I justdon't enjoy what they stand for
as a company.
But with that I think I'm sosorry my dog is freaking out
again.
I'll be right back.
(33:29):
So this that actually reminds meof, you know, a family member
that I was speaking with theother day genocide, and with
that I mean Starbucks is acompany I've been boycotting
long before the genocide, simplybecause I don't really agree
with a lot of their ethicalchoices.
But to your point of thedissonance there, where it's
selective outrage, of whichcompany are you going to boycott
, when one got rid of DEI policyand the other is actively
(33:51):
funding participating ingenocide.
So when you pick and chooselike that, it really I mean to
me there's no credit or merit inwhat you are actually saying,
the point you're trying to make.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you and to me, when I
boycott a company because of amoral issue, I'm done with them.
I don't go back a little bitlater on when they decide to
become moral no, I don't do it.
So I mean I've been boy likeWalmart's another one, really.
People are calling for theboycott of Walmart.
Now I've been boycottingWalmart for I don't know a
(34:25):
decade.
So because they they'reterrible.
I mean they have terriblefamily policies.
I mean they're awful to peoplewith disabilities.
I mean they're a sexist company.
There's so many things wrongwith Walmart that I would never
support them anyway.
But people just pick and choose, like they decide what you know
what is morally outrageous andwhat isn't All, while at the
same time claiming that theyhave moral, moral high ground
and that they're superior toeverybody else.
(34:46):
Because they are.
I mean, I guarantee you, theloudest people on Facebook have
not once contacted their senator, has not once contacted the
congressman, but are sittingthere like keyboard warriors,
flipping out over everything andit's, it's just disheartening.
I remember when I made a commentabout I think I mentioned this
on another episode there was aperson that I was friends with
(35:06):
on facebook, that I actuallydidn't know, but a very
religious person.
I actually think he was apriest or something he was.
He was somehow.
He was in one of the churchunits to begin with, or whatever
.
And um, I had made a commentabout what was happening on the
genocide and he did a laughingemoji that is appalling so I
immediately deleted and blockedhim because I mean that is
(35:27):
something that I'm not going tohave any tolerance for.
I know I earlier I said, youknow, but something like that,
because that's a moral issue,that that isn't a lack of
education.
I mean, if you can laugh atpeople being killed, I don't
want anything to do with you,that is.
That is a point I think you'vehit where education is not going
to fix that.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
That's just a fundamental issue yeah, I I do
agree with that because I mean,to an extent, you know, or
rather I think there is acertain extent to which the the
whole understanding each other'sperspectives uh reaches, and
when you, when you find someonewith murderous beliefs, with
with uh fundamentally bigotedand and really genocidal beliefs
(36:07):
, I mean that's really tough tocome to a moral standing with
all at the same time, whilebeing a good, good christian
who's like leading other peopleright.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I think that was also part of it for me, that I was
like Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Nope, yeah.
And again it ties into the ideaof the self-righteousness you
know.
I mean picking and choosingwhat makes you feel the best
about your beliefs and whatmakes you feel like you are the
most justified.
If your beliefs come down towhat makes you feel the best,
then ultimately you are notserving anybody but yourself.
So so what moral, moral highground do you really have?
(36:40):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I a hundred percent agree with you and I, you know,
I I do believe in karma.
I do think that it, what we do,does come back to you.
And you know I mentioned thequote about Martin Luther King
how he said if you sit back andwatch evil, you're evil.
I think I've mentioned thisbefore as a pagan.
We have the same beliefs thatyou reap what you sow.
So if you sit back and youwatch evil happen, you are just
(37:04):
as evil as the people that aredoing it.
And that is across party lines,it's across beliefs.
I mean, if you see somethingbad happening and you don't do
anything, you are basicallydoing it too.
And I think that doesn't justcarry to things that you like
it's.
It needs to be across the board, like, if you don't, you know
if it's, if it's bad, you standup to it absolutely, and you
(37:28):
know it's funny, this is an ideathat they teach from like grade
school.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
You know, the person who watches the bully is just as
bad as the bully.
That's something that Iremember being taught in like
fifth grade or sixth grade.
And for people to you know now,as adults, stand by a harmful
ideology simply because orrather, to not stand by it, but
to to stand idly by it, simplybecause it makes them
(37:53):
uncomfortable to address it orit doesn't align with other
beliefs that they might have, Imean, you are just as bad as the
person who actively perpetuatesit.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
You actually brought up a great comparison with
bullying.
So think about the hypocrisyand the cognitive dissonance
that goes along with that, andeverybody knows that listens to
this.
I do teach, so I mean Icertainly support teachers and
this is not a dig at teachers,this is a dig at the system.
But you have you just said,like you're told over and over
again, if you see somebodybullying, you stand up to them,
(38:22):
because if you don't, you'repart of the problem.
And then we have the zerotolerance policy for bullying
and in my experience fromworking with lots of families
who had kids that were bullied,it was the victim who was then
perpetrated by the school, notthe bully.
So you have, you know, you havethis message stand up to the
bully, what you do.
If you don't, you're wrong.
(38:43):
But then the system defends theperson doing it, which is the
same system telling people tostand up against it.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, you know, actually, even though I'm the
one who said it, I kind of Idon't think I realized how much
of a microcosm that is of likethe societal issue at hand,
where, exactly like you said,the victim is the one who ends
up under the microscope andexamined and blamed for the
issue at hand, when really wejust need to address the bully.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, I mean, we see this everywhere.
It's like the other one thatpeople have very much talked
about, which is, you know,teaching, instead of teaching
women how not to get raped,teaching men how to not rape
women, right, like it's this.
And we see this in everythingwhere the victim becomes the
object of the change.
Like it's the victim who isresponsible for what's happening
.
Like you think back to when Ithink I might be misquoting this
(39:33):
, but I'm fairly certain it wasben shapiro who makes my skin
crawl.
Some people are just evil.
You can tell they're evil.
He's one of them.
When the whole october 7ththing first happened and
somebody was questioning himabout if he thought babies
babies that were there deservedto be killed, and he said, well,
did they denounce him, us?
And it was like, oh, so it'sthe baby's fault.
Now, right, like so we.
(39:54):
We have this thing where we,where we target the victim as
the problem absolutely, you're,you're totally correct.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Uh, and I feel like you know ben shapiro.
I mean, he's his own can ofworms.
Oh, I think.
I think he's just a deeplycloseted man who's angry at
everyone else for it.
I would, that's another can.
I closeted man who's angry ateveryone else for it?
I would, that's another can Iwould agree with that.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
There were very few people that make me want to
vomit when I look at them.
He's one of them, trump's,another one, mitch mcconnell
because they just, they justexude evil.
It just seeps out of their skin.
Even elon musk does that.
Like there's this.
Just like.
If you you know what they saywhen, when somebody shows you
who they are the first time,believe them, right.
So when somebody comes out andthey literally are wearing a
(40:37):
mask of like something evil,just believe them because that's
who they are.
Don't like second guess it.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Right, absolutely, I mean and that also again goes
back to the cognitive distancethat we were speaking about
because you have these peoplewho show their true colors and
you'll have the people who cometo their defense and say, oh no,
they didn't mean it, they don'tknow what they were doing.
These are people who are not inthe positions that they're in
by accident.
They know very much whatthey're doing and it's very
intentional.
So for the average person tocome running to their defense is
(41:03):
really baffling to me and, Ithink, shows the level of
indoctrination that they've beensusceptible to.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Right and for the people that are listening, I
mean to be fair and I can'tspeak for you, mike I know that
I was also part of thatindoctrination because it's hard
to not be sucked into it wheneverybody around you is kind of
in that same thing.
But there's, we have to reallystart self examining and look at
that and say like, okay, how amI contributing to the problem?
(41:33):
So last night I pulled out um,I have a goddess deck.
I always I pull out cardsrandomly, like once a month, to
give me like a message.
And last night I pulled outkuan yin, and kuan yin is the
goddess of compassion and mercy,and the focus of it was all
about like, if you're notpracticing kindness, like you
have to look at yourself and saylike, how do I, how would
kindness and empathy help thesituation?
(41:54):
And I I think that if we couldall do that and we would be in a
lot better place.
But we just we justfundamentally as a society, are
so broken by design because theonly way to stop power is to
divide it.
I mean, if you think about it,I mean we really are the
majority.
I mean if the if we want tochange as a country we could.
We could create that change ifwe were all, if we were all
(42:17):
united.
But you know, it's interesting,I think everything that has the
word united in it, like UnitedHealthcare, united Airlines,
like you know, like I swear,like the word united now is
almost it's it's like a misnomeron so many levels.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So true, but I mean to your point, I think you are.
You are totally, entirely right.
I think the division that weexperience as a nation and by we
as a nation I do refer to thebottom class of people, the 90
percent of people who don't makemillions or billions of dollars
I think our division is veryintentional and I think it's a
(42:58):
tool.
You know, it serves a purpose,and if we really want to examine
how we can actually fight forthe things that truly are of
common benefit, we need toexamine not just the political
issues that we're faced with,but also the division itself and
why that's there.
I think if we were all unified,that would be a very scary
(43:20):
thing for the ruling class, andso with that, there is this
perpetual need for our division,and I think people need to keep
that in mind when engaging withreally any sort of political
discussion or the viewing of anysort of political action.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
To bring it back to what I'd mentioned before about
tribalism and how it starts withsports, and we don't have to
get into this.
But you see that I think that'sone of the areas where it
started, where people who arefans of sports teams riot and
fight against each other whentheir team wins or loses.
It's a freaking game, butpeople become so feral over it
(43:59):
and so divided and violent overit, Right?
So I mean, I do think it startswith things like that and then
it just becomes increasinglymore insidious.
I mean, think about how muchmoney is made off that versus
how much money goes intoeducation no-transcript by the
(44:40):
way, I do have to say I'mincredibly disappointed with um
the.
So, if you I'm.
I think we talked about this,but you may have listened to the
last episode where we had thelast two episodes.
I'm sorry, no, but threeepisodes where we had
veterinarian students talkingabout what was going on in their
world and how the veterinariancode of ethics was not complying
with stopping genocide.
(45:01):
I'm really disappointed thatthe nasw has not given a stance
on genocide at all.
They've completely been silenton the whole thing, which is the
absolute antithesis of whatwe're supposed to be doing.
We're supposed to be fightingagainst oppression and looking
for justice, but they have saidnothing 100%.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I mean, when you look at the core pillars of social
justice, it's kind ofunfathomable to think that the
National Association of SocialWorkers has not taken a stance
to denounce a genocide.
I mean that should be theabsolute bare minimum.
I mean you think about excuseme while I gather my thoughts
when you think about the idea ofa national association that's
(45:45):
supposed to propel socialjustice and equity, it does not
make any fathomable sense thatthey cannot even acknowledge a
genocide.
And the NASW does have, inhonesty, a shady history in
terms of actually propellingsocially progressive ideology,
even back in the civil rightsmovement too.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Oh, I'm not surprised by that, and that's you know.
When you talk about the followthe stakeholders, I think that
applies in our, in our field aswell.
The stakeholders I think thatapplies in our field as well,
Like I think it applies in allof them.
I mean, they all kind of leadback to very similar sources,
and that's the bigger issue.
But instead of focusing onthose sources, we focus on
fighting against the people whoare being affected by the
(46:26):
problems.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, ultimately, the systemthat we are in is one that is
designed to reap the most amountof resource out of the people
who work to generate it, and so,regardless of what industry or
field that's in, uh, the endgame is is the same, and and the
result will always be the same,unless we actually work to
change the system itself I hadsomebody that was a listener
(46:52):
asked if she had said one of thethings that might be helpful is
if we gave some suggestions atthe end of episodes on to what
you can do or like how you canhelp to change things.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
So the one suggestion I can think of is to go back to
what I said about Kuan Yinearlier, which is that I think
if you can go as a person, ifyou can go out of your way to
try to talk to somebody youdon't agree with and understand
understand their perspectivedon't try to change their mind.
Don't go in there and say, likeI need to prove that I'm right.
If you were to go in there andsay, okay, I really want to
(47:27):
understand you, I think thatwould be one way to impact
positive change.
That's my opinion.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I really agree, and on top of that I would add, this
kind of goes back to, actually,the point that I made at the
end of the post-election episode.
But I think we really need toget more in touch with our
communities.
I think we need to become moreinvolved with local policy and
politics and really work tounderstand at a local level
what's happening with people,because, ultimately, our
(47:56):
communities are a microcosm ofwhat's happening nationally.
And if you can connect withpeople, uh to actually make real
change within your, your levelof um engagement, or rather to
engage with, like your level ofum of government, if that makes
sense, then I think it's it's areally powerful means of
actually being able to createsocial change.
(48:17):
So, whether that looks likegoing to town, town council
meetings, town halls, uh,speaking up to local legislators
, writing to them I mean, thereare so many ways that you can
get in contact with people whoare in positions of power, uh,
and to make your voice heard, uh, and with that, to organize
with other people in yourcommunity in order to advocate
for everyone's best interests.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, I would.
The only thing I would add tothat and I think again,
community action is reallyimportant is because the only
way that because I mean, let'sface it, the politician's job is
to get reelected.
It is not about actually makingchange but if enough people
come together to guarantee thatthey're not going to get
reelected, if they don't makechange, then that's going to
force their hand.
So I think we to your pointabout raising community
(49:00):
awareness we need to do that andwe need to.
But that also means that peoplehave to compromise, because
they can't go in and say, okay,I want community support, here's
what I'm, here's what I want,and that's what I want, and
that's it.
Like that's what I want andthat's it.
Like that's not going to work.
Like you need to be in theresaying like, here's what I want,
but I'm willing to compromiseon these issues to give you what
you want as well.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
That's the only way that's going to happen,
absolutely.
We need to work with each otherto identify our common goals,
common interests and what bestserves us, and so I really think
it's important to look fororganizing opportunities that we
can come together and use thecollective power that we truly
have and are not meant to usewithin the system, to make sure
that the people in power do knowwe are the stakeholders when
(49:41):
you really come down to it, andwe are the ones who will get you
elected or will oust you fromoffice.
Yeah, if we do that Right If wedo that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Well, thank you again , Mike, for being here.
I really appreciate it, and forall the listeners.
I hope you enjoyed the episodeand, again, feel free to email
me with any feedback or anyepisodes that you want.
So until next time.
Thank you again for listening.
(50:24):
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to another episode of the
United States of PTSD.
Today I have back with me MikeThibault.
Mike, you were on the episodewe did about examining the
(00:38):
political environment.
Was it post or before theelection?
I can't remember it was afterthe election.
Yeah, we did it on processingthe election and a lot of you
had actually written in andtalked about how much you liked
Mike and there was a couple ofcomments on the Buzzsprout board
about Mike.
So hopefully you know everybodyshould be glad you're back.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm happy to be back.
It's a pleasure and thank youall for your kind words.
Who?
Who wrote or commented or wroteor commented.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So we're going to pick up a little bit, I think,
that first conversation that wehad with Cora and about how
people handled the election.
Afterwards, we're going to talka little bit more detail about
that, because what I havenoticed and you and I were just
discussing this before westarted recording was there's
two things that are happeningright now.
One of them is selectiveoutrage, and I would even say it
borders a little bit on virtue.
Signaling where what that meansis, I think people are
(01:32):
handpicking what they want to beupset about, while ignoring
things that are equallyupsetting, or actually the same,
while then claiming to be onthis virtuous high ground, you
know, saying like, oh, I'm doingsomething.
And that also goes intocognitive dissonance, and for
people who don't know whatcognitive distance dissonance is
, it's a therapeutic word thatmeans when somebody is
(01:54):
experiencing two oppositebeliefs or values that are
conflicting and causingdiscomfort for the person, and I
think we want to highlightthose two specific things
throughout this episode, becauseit's going to be coming up a
lot, I think, in everything thatwe talk about.
Mike, is there anything youwant to add to that?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
dissonance from people who, you know, have
supported or or rather, stood byand and been idle around
certain ideology for, um, themajority of the previous
presidency.
And now that a newadministration propels the same
ideology, uh, suddenly it's anissue, and I I don't mean that
to say that, um, I'm inagreeance with, with the stances
that are in place now or thathave been, but rather that, uh,
(02:46):
it seems as though there, asthough there's an attribute
excuse me that there's.
Oh gosh, I'm sorry, I lost mytrain of thought another.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Another great point if anybody has listened to even
one of our previous episodes, Ithink people would know that
neither one of us support trump.
We both can't stand him.
But the problem is when andI've noticed myself is when you
start to point out that maybethe things that people are
getting upset about oh I don'tknow didn't happen under his
presidency or are things that hedidn't do, you're automatically
labeled a Trump supporter.
This has happened to me likenumerous times now, where people
(03:27):
are like what do you expectfrom like you You're a Trump
supporter.
I'm, like I've been, like themost vocal person against Trump
like forever.
But you can't take a stancewithout, you, can't be neutral
without somebody then trying topush you on one side or the
other, because I mean,previously I got the opposite of
it too where if I criticizeTrump, then suddenly I'm this
like really extreme liberal andit's like, okay, wait, I don't
(03:49):
have to be either.
One of those things to just callout what I'm seeing is not okay
.
I don't care who's doing it, Idon't care what political
umbrella they're under, and Istill firmly believe we have one
party.
I really do not believe that wehave a two-party system.
If you look at who's fundingthem, it's very clear.
I mean 80, 90% of them areowned by one entity and they are
(04:09):
all operating under that oneentity.
So this whole belief that oneside is better than the other is
just, it's an illusion, and Ido want to talk about that a
little bit more as we move onthrough the episode.
So thank you for bringing thatup.
And again, for those of you whoare tuning in for the first
time, we don't, we did notsupport Trump.
We don't support Trump, and Ifeel like I have to say that
(04:30):
every single time because peoplejust they want to believe what
they want to believe.
I think the man is disgusting,but I also think the other
administration was equallydisgusting.
So the benefit of taking aneutral stance is to really
start to see the problems,because when you're too far in
the mud, you can't see what'sactually happening, and that's
by design.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I totally agree.
I think I mean I say it all thetime it's two heads of the same
beast.
When it comes to having a twoparty system, you have to look
at who is benefiting from policyput in place, who's benefiting
from political division betweenparties and between ideologies.
And with that, I think this isa point in history where,
(05:12):
specifically in America, ourideologies have become so
intertwined with our sense ofidentity that when you threaten
someone's political ideology, itis an attack on their identity,
or at least perceived that way.
And with that, to your point oftaking more of a middle ground
stance, I think that makespeople uncomfortable, that you
haven't taken a side and thatyou haven't chosen which head of
(05:34):
the beast you're belonging to.
It's a real shame because itdoesn't facilitate an
environment that's actuallyconducive to real conversation
and real understanding of eachother's perspectives and coming
to actual resolution.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Mike, I love that you say that, because I just saw
that happen recently.
As you know, I do a lot of workin addictions and teach classes
on addiction, and we weretalking about the war on drugs
and how the war on drugs reallyhas been a war on poverty and
how it is systematicallyattacked very specific ethnic
groups, but it's also gone afterthe lgbt community as well and
(06:10):
how they do that and people whoare impoverished, and how it's
really designed to not workright and that that has been
under.
That started under nixon, soit's been under every presidency
since obama being the onlyperson who challenged the whole
cocaine crack penalty, wherepeople who were being charged
with crack cocaine were getting100 times the amount of sentence
(06:32):
that somebody who was beingcharged with cocaine was, even
though it's the same drug, andthat was specifically targeting
low income women of color, withthe whole crack baby thing,
which I think I talked about ona previous episode.
Um, with the whole crack babything, which I think I talked
about on a previous episode.
So I think we just see that inmultiple different arenas
throughout our country andwhat's interesting is so
learning about the drug,learning about the war on drugs,
(06:54):
learning about how thetreatment system has been
epically failing for decades andcontinues to get gutted and
financially gutted.
And then what we love to do iswe love to get rid of programs
that are working.
And then we see a problem whenwe come back three years later,
when we form committee aftercommittee to brainstorm why that
problem is happening, only tocome up with the idea that we
cut in the first place andpretend it's like this novel
(07:15):
idea and then suddenlyre-implement it.
And we have done this over andover and over again.
And I think that that's what'shappening now, right?
So after reading all of thatinformation, one person had then
commented and said so do youthink that under the new
administration coming in, thatit's going to really destroy the
treatment system?
And I was like, did you notlike just like what happened to
(07:37):
all the information we justtalked about that the treatment
system has been failing, it hasbeen gutted under every single
presidency and it systematicallyhas not been working since
Nixon.
And then what the person hearsis, yeah, but what about the new
administration?
They're going to destroy it.
Well, it's already a brokensystem that hasn't been working.
You can't break what's broken.
I mean, I guess you can breakit a little bit more, but the
(08:00):
reality is is that it's just not.
It's fundamentally designed notto work, just like most of our
systems.
So you know, we have to stoplooking at it as blaming Trump
is not the problem.
Trump is a symptom of a biggerproblem.
Trump wouldn't be in office ifwe didn't have a bigger issue
here, and that's what peopledon't seem to want to look at.
They want to just kind of pointto the we need a villain, right
(08:22):
.
So we need to kind of have avillain.
But the problem in the lastelection is we had two villains.
So with two villains you can'tgalvanize support, and that, of
course, was done by design.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Absolutely yeah, and I, um, I think you know, when
you talk about having systematicchange versus uh, like the
figurehead change, um, I thinkit kind of ties into this idea
of virtue signaling or or of um,uh, I'm sorry, what was the
word?
Uh, the type of outrage, oh,selective outrage.
(08:53):
Selective outrage, thank you.
Um, because people are notinherently upset at these
systems that perpetuate these uhuh programs that fail people
and and injustices for everydaypeople on a regular basis,
regardless of what party theadministration is tied to.
People are only mad at theparty that heads the
administration or that heads thesystem.
(09:15):
And so, with that, if it wastrue outrage at what is
happening, it would be at thesystem and there would be a
collective sense of unity to dosomething about it rather than
to simply be mad and yell aboutit on social media.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
One of the areas that I have personally seen a lot of
selective outrage on, andbefore I say that, I want to
give the quote that I hadwritten down by Martin Luther
King, because I think itpiggybacks off what you said,
which Martin Luther King said hewho passively accepts evil is
as much involved in it as he whohelps perpetuate it.
And I think if we keep thatagain in the background when I
(09:50):
say this next part, you'll seethe level of cognitive
dissonance which is that.
I'm sure you mentioned socialmedia.
I've been seeing quite a fewpeople post things like if you
voted for Trump, he's amisogynist, a racist and a
narcissist.
That means you must be amisogynist and racist and
narcissist or you support that.
I can't be your friend, I can'tbe your family member, and they
just start cutting people offand I've been seeing this from
(10:13):
many different people and I willadmit, during his first
presidency I was the same way.
But what stopped me from doingthat was I have family members
who are Trump supporters and, tobe honest with you, they're
some of my the people I'm theclosest to in my family, and I
think what helped about that wasI actually started to
understand their perspective andwhere they were coming from.
(10:33):
Now I doesn't mean I agree withthe stuff that they were saying
, but I was listening to themenough that I could actually
understand them and respect them.
So that helped kind of pull meback off that ledge that I was
on.
But if we go by that standard,if we can say the person you
voted for is a direct reflectionof who you are, then what would
that make you if you voted fora candidate who actively
(10:56):
supported and funded a genocideagainst a racial group, an
ethnic cleansing that was paidfor with your tax dollars, while
60% of the country said stopdoing it?
So if you voted for that, basedon your theory about who voted
for Trump, what does that makeyou then?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Exactly and actually, I first want to address the
point that you made about theidentity of, or rather the
behavior of, you know the kindof black and white thinking of
either cutting off people whodon't believe in what you
believe in or polarizing peoplewho don't align with your
beliefs.
It's something I was actuallytalking about the other day in
(11:36):
one of my classes and I alsoused to participate in that kind
of behavior, and I think it'seasy to, because it's
emotionally charged.
And when you actually take astep back to think about, or
rather to take the time to speakwith these people and try to
consider what is the source ofthis belief?
Where is this coming from?
(11:57):
Why are they thinking the waythey do?
And, conversely, doing the samewith your own beliefs and
behaviors, I think it makes fora lot better of a playing ground
for you to actually have thatkind of conversation with and to
come to some sort ofunderstanding, whether or not
you agree with the actualoutcome of their thoughts.
I think having access to thatsource material is really
(12:21):
important for facilitatingunderstanding and that's
something to work with, you know.
I mean, you don't have to agreewith it or compromise on
something that you're reallysteadfast in your beliefs in,
but I think it's important to beable to truly understand that.
Entirely hypocritical to saythat voting for someone like
(12:47):
Trump makes you a racist or ahomophobe, etc.
And meanwhile you're voting forsomeone who has completely
endorsed genocide.
That's the epitome of hypocrisy, because essentially what
you're saying is that youendorse genocide by that same
logic.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Exactly, and some of the other arguments you had
mentioned.
This one earlier too is peoplewould say and these are actual
things I've heard people saywhen I brought up the
discrepancy with genocide,things like oh well, if you're
going to nitpick every issue, oroh, I'm really worried more
about domestic issues, I'm notworried about what's happening
overseas.
Well, of course you know yourmoney is being sent to fund a
(13:21):
genocide, so it is a domesticissue, it's absolutely impacting
your finances, but they, theydo not want to look at that.
And then they'll say, well,it's the lesser of two evils.
Oh, okay, so murdering.
What is it up to now?
I think the didn't Trumpaccidentally give away the real
number and it was over a hundredthousand, which I knew was the
case all along, because thatnumber hadn't changed since,
like March of last year, whereit was 42,000.
(13:44):
And every day, you could signon to anything besides Facebook
that you know, like TikTok orInstagram, and you could see
live videos of people beingkilled and like burned to death
and like children being shot,schools being shot up, but the
number never changed in terms ofhow many people were dying.
So we can say that it'sprobably well over 100,000.
(14:05):
And that's probably even anunderestimate, and I had
questioned that, I think, a longtime ago, because at one point
on one of the episodes I evensaid I believed it was well over
100,000.
Because if you're payingattention, things just make
sense.
It's like the election whenpeople were surprised that
Harris lost.
I mean, if you know this,because we talked about it a lot
, go back and listen to theepisodes.
(14:28):
I did Well, before the electionI knew she was going to lose,
because if anybody was payingattention, it was clear she was
going to lose.
She wasn't listening to theconstituents.
She was actively ignoring theMuslim community.
The support for Trump wasphenomenal I mean, I think it
was actually higher than it wasthe first time but people still
wanted to pretend it wasn'thappening.
And I remember somebody gettingmad at me when I said, well,
I'm going to I'm not voting foreither one of them to vote for
(14:49):
Stein, and somebody wasbasically like you know, then
you are part of the problem andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I mean OK, first of all,third party voters didn't even
make she still wouldn't want.
So you can throw that right outin the garbage.
But the problem, I said back toher is, if you really want her
to win, then maybe you shouldcontact her and tell her to stop
(15:11):
funding genocide and change herplatform, because that's why
she's losing, not because of myvote, but because the large
majority of people are sayinglike, hey, this is bullshit,
like we need to stop doing thisand we can't support it.
So, had she even been payingattention slightly, she would
have seen that, unless, ofcourse, it was by design, unless
the reason why they did it inthe first place was so that this
(15:32):
could happen.
Because, on the flip side of it, we now have Elon Musk was
giving Nazi salutes on nationalTV and people are just
pretending it's not a Nazisalute and then blaming him and
saying he has autism.
But, as you pointed out, youknow, then he's a genius at the
same time who has all thesegreat skills, who can just, you
know, root out all the evil inour government.
I mean, it's just, it's absurd,it's a circus.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Absolutely.
And before I get into that,there's like a crazy squeaking
sound coming from your end.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh, I think it's the table.
Hold on, let me fix it.
Okay, I think it's the table.
Hold on, let me fix it, okay.
I actually don't know what itis, but if you hear it again,
let me know.
I thought it was the table, butI moved the table and it's not
doing anything.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, okay.
Where were you talking aboutElon?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and that his Nazi salute.
Yes, that wasn't really a Nazisalute.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And I mean that sarcastically, because it
clearly was.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right, of course, and so the level of dissonance that
comes from people like I'veseen this a lot on Twitter,
because unfortunately I'm stillon Twitter.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I think it's valuable to see what's going on there.
You are still on Twitter.
Are you kidding me?
I am.
I canceled it the day he tookover, I canceled it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, I stayed on because I kind of wanted to see
what was going to happen, andlet me tell you it is a
hellscape.
I mean, it is just sponsoredpost after sponsored post of
right-wing propaganda, and ontop of that he's created a
United States of America account.
That is just entirelyTrump-sold nonsense.
But with that it's also full ofpeople who constantly defend
(17:06):
him.
You know, something like theNazi salute saying that you know
, oh, he's, he's autistic, he'son the spectrum, so his body
language might not translate tous, but in the same breath say
that he is so hyper aware ofeverything that's going on that
he's competent to overseefederal agencies and to strip
millions of dollars of fundingfrom agencies who need resource
(17:31):
for social service.
I mean, it is absolutelybackwards thinking, and to not
observe the dissonance betweenthose two ideas is pretty insane
to me.
I don't know how to cope withit.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And I know yours.
I just want to clarify what you.
I just want to clarify what yousaid for for people who might
be listening.
So it's not the fact that he'sautistic that means that he
can't do it.
It's the, it's the dissonancebetween the fact that they're
saying that he can do a Nazisalute and not know that that's
an issue, but then he could readpeople well enough in other
scenarios to then do all of thislike government, take, you know
, control and fixing which.
(18:04):
Those two things are clearlynot true, because a lot of
people who are within theautistic community have come out
and been very upset about it,saying like listen, we know not
to give a Nazi salute, likethat's, that's a bunch of BS and
and.
But again, his supporters andthey do it on both sides, you
know, oh, he didn't mean it.
Oh, he didn't know what he wasdoing, much like they did with
Trump in the first election.
He could stand on TV and sayI'm going to shoot somebody in
(18:26):
the middle of, you know,downtown, new York and nobody's
going to care.
Oh, he didn't mean it.
That's not really what he meant, you know.
And it's the same thing withBiden-Harris.
I mean, people were just likethat's not really what they
(19:05):
meant, like they're defendingthese ideologies that are very
toxic, absolutely.
If you want to understand, ifyou want people to understand
you, you have to firstunderstand them, and we are not,
as a society, willing to dothat.
We're becoming more polarized,and each side is just saying,
like you have to understand meand that's it, like my way is
right and there's no otheroption.
But that's not true.
Like if, if you really want, ifyou want unity, which is the
only way we are going to fixthis mess that we are in, that
we have all contributed tocreating, is we have to stop and
(19:28):
say, okay, let's stop fightingagainst each other, let's stop
tearing each other apart onsocial media, let's stop cutting
people out because we don'tagree who they voted for, and
maybe understand why in thefirst place.
And then maybe, if weunderstand why, we can try to
then fix it and come to somesort of resolution, instead of
this nonstop tribalism that, ifyou ask me, starts with sports.
(19:49):
That's a whole, not that's awhole.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Another episode, though oh, I'd love to hear
about that.
But, uh, first of all I want tothank you for clarifying that.
I was not trying to say that,uh, having autism makes him
incompetent to be in theposition that he is, but rather
the excusing his bizarrebehavior with autism is the
issue at hand and what you weresaying after that goes into what
(20:14):
I was saying earlier, withpeople identifying so closely
with their politics.
I hadn't heard that quotebefore, but I really, really
enjoy that because the need tobe right, if that's overtaking
your actual sense of justice andand duty to to find policy or
find ideology that actuallyaligns with your values, rather
(20:36):
than sticking by what youbelieve simply because it's what
you have believed, I mean,you're doing nobody a service,
not even yourself, and so Ithink it's vital for us to
really lose that identification,excuse me, to lose that
identification with ourpolitical ideology, and instead
be willing to new, to accept newideas.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I agree with you, we do have to new to to accept new
ideas.
I agree with you, we do have to.
We have to stop being divided.
We have to really startunderstanding each other.
I wanted to give another exampleof something that I that kind
of prompted me to think what theheck is going on?
How do people not see howabsurd this is?
So you, you and I, have beenvery vocal about the genocide
(21:15):
that's been happening in Gazapretty much the entire time, and
actually I remember when itfirst happened, when everything
happened with October 7th.
Shortly thereafter, I did myfirst episode about genocide on
it and at the time the person,wendy that I was doing the
podcast with, was reallyuncomfortable talking about it
because she didn't.
My assumption is, actually wehadn't talked to her about it,
but she seemed like she did notwant to voice an opinion about
it because she didn't.
My assumption is, actually wehadn't talked to her about it,
but she seemed like she did notwant to voice an opinion about
(21:39):
it being an actual genocide.
And I get that people were verymuch like nervous about it, but
it is what it is and it is agenocide.
You cannot call it anything butthat, and you know I I wish I
was more vocal back then.
I mean, I think even just kindof talking about it was was more
than a lot of people were doing.
But I think I backed downmyself in the beginning because
I was a little bit nervous, butnow like no, I'm not going to be
(22:01):
silent on China side.
But what stood out to me aboutthat was Congressman Al Green in
Texas has put up a bill ofimpeachment against Trump
because quote these came out ofhis mouth Ethnic cleansing in
Gaza is not a joke, unquote.
And then quote injustice toGaza is a threat to the United
(22:23):
States.
Close quote that's what hetalked about in the articles of
impeachment.
So my first question is wherethe hell were you when we were
actually killing people?
Where was he?
Because trump saying he wantsto take over gaza and build
hotels there, whatever the hellhe said, whatever nonsense came
out of his mouth, is certainlyridiculous, but it's not funding
(22:45):
a genocide.
So if funding a genocide wasn'ta big enough bar for you to do
an article of impeachment, butsomebody just mentioning it is
enough, there's a problem there.
So that prompted me to go back,because I don't know a lot
about Al Green.
I don't live in Texas.
So I went back and I said, OK,what was his stance on what was
happening in Gaza then?
(23:07):
Because maybe he did and I justdidn't hear about it.
So he isn't.
He isn't an AIPAC lobbyistrecipient.
I will say that right there.
He didn't take as much as manyof the others, but he did
receive money and in March of2024, he gave a speech which I
thought was very equivalent toI'm writing a very strong letter
to the president, while havinga picture of a child victim in
(23:28):
Gaza in the background.
And he not only mentioned howmuch he respected Benjamin
(23:51):
Netanyahu twice, and actuallykind of alluded to it to a third
time.
He did not seem to.
And you know, yada, yada, yada,and he was going on about, um,
you know that israel's right toexist, where it's really the,
you know, the people have aright to exist, not a country,
but that's a whole other issue,and he really was kind of making
all these excuses, and itwasn't until the very end of his
speech and he actually did sayanother thing.
(24:12):
He said if you choose, be blind,no one can make you see it
which you can apply to what hewas talking about himself,
because he's also kind of beingthis disingenuous person.
He did start to become a littlebit more accountable towards
the end of his speech and hesaid that he recognized that
what was happening there waswrong and that all these people
were being killed, and thentalked about how we should give
(24:33):
them millions of dollars inreparation because our tax money
did fund that, but then endedit with also admitting that he
has he had co-signed giving anexcess of 50 billion dollars to
Israel.
So I think you said earlier itwas going to cost what 50
billion dollars to rebuild Gaza.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I think the UN estimate was 53 billion billion
to rebuild Gaza.
Yeah, I think the UN estimatewas $53 billion.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's interesting that we're going to give them
millions, not billions millionsfor what we did and while it's
actively happening, we're notgoing to throw up articles of
impeachment because that would,I don't know, not make sense to
whoever's funding them, but thenpost that when it's done for
the most part done and maybethat's not a good choice, I
(25:17):
think.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, but when the damage is done.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You're right, when the damage is done and I sort of
again, people know I've beenactively defending God the whole
time so when the damage is done, then we're going to come in
and we're going to be like, ohbad Trump, because of something
he said, let's impeach him.
You know, and again I'm notdefending him, I'm just pointing
out the hypocrisy and theidiocy of, like, what actually
happened and that people don'tsee it.
(25:41):
They're just kind of looking atit and they're being like, oh
look, how great he is forcalling out Trump.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry what?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Right.
I mean you want to talk aboutdissonance.
I mean, in the same speech, topraise Benjamin Netanyahu, and
then go on to say that yousupport giving $50 billion to
Israel, or, sorry, to say thatyou support Benjamin Netanyahu,
want to give $50 billion toIsrael, and also that what you
think is are funding the tragedy.
You are a direct cause of thetragedy, so how can you stand up
there and say with your fullchest that this is something
that you are horrified by?
I?
You had a year and a half to dothe same exact thing while it
was happening, to stop it beforeit got as bad as it did, before
the entire Gaza Strip wasleveled and millions of people
were displaced, hundreds ofthousands of people killed.
(26:49):
It is absolutely appallingbehavior.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, 100% appalling behavior.
You know what?
And it makes me think of thepivotal turning point for me
with Harris and every time Ithink of it it makes me want to
vomit is when she was.
She gave that speech to AIPACand she came out and she was
like good morning, aipac.
And it's like sing songy voice.
I literally wanted to vomitbecause it was at that point
that I realized like no, likeno-transcript, posting things
(28:00):
like when they came for thisperson, nobody paid attention.
When they came for that person,nobody paid attention.
But then when they came for me,nobody was left.
Uh, again the level ofcognitive resistance.
Like you are literally postingwhat you are ignoring and then
pretending that you just can'tdeal with it.
And then, when it happens, whoare you going to blame?
(28:20):
You're going to be blamingeverybody else around you.
Oh, everybody else should havedone something.
It's, it's, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
No, and I've.
I've seen a lot of that onsocial media myself.
Again back to Twitter.
I've seen a lot of people, I'veseen a lot of people who have
been conversely on the left,people who have been saying, oh,
people who didn't vote forKamala, are you happy now?
Are you happy that Trump'sgoing to turn the Gaza Strip
into a billionaire paradise?
(28:49):
And to think that that's notwhat we were saying all along,
as though this isn't exactlywhat we were predicting.
You are missing the pointentirely, which, essentially,
was that both party candidatesare going to perpetuate the same
result, and so, by acting inaccordance with the party
beliefs or party unison, justfor the sake of it, you are not
(29:10):
helping anybody.
I mean, you want to talk aboutharm reduction.
Harm reduction for who?
Certainly not for the people ofGaza.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Exactly.
I don't know how you can thennot call yourself racist if you
are saying an entire group ofpeople don't matter, and not
even the people that are in Gaza, like if you I mean if you can
compartmentalize it and say like, okay, they're over there,
that's not happening here, Idon't, I'm going to pretend I
don't know any of them Then whatabout their relatives that live
here, that you're looking atthem and basically saying, like
(29:39):
your family doesn't matter?
How is that not racist, just initself, saying an entire group
of people don't matter enough towarrant our attention?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Exactly it is.
It is to me a real, uh, scary,real, scary, real life
manifestation of how peopledehumanize black and brown
people around the world.
Because, truly, when you getdown to it, if this were
happening in a white country, ina European country, the outrage
would be astronomical.
If Israel invaded, say, italy,for example, obviously I don't
(30:13):
think that's a real possibility.
Say like italy for, for example, obviously I don't think that's
like a real possibility.
But uh, just as an example, Imean, could you imagine the
collective outrage globally thatwould be, that would, that
would come, and especially fromthe united states.
I mean, this is something thatis is so indicative of the
deep-seated racist ideology thatruns throughout our country
italy is my favorite place inthe world.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I'm just saying I had to say that I can't stop.
Like god.
I want to go back there.
So bad.
If I could move there in aheartbeat, I would.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Oh Italy yeah, I was really just trying to trigger
you.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You weren't no, that's funny.
I actually wanted to add tothat.
I forgot what I wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
There was something I wanted to add to let me think I
said collective outrage if thiswere happening to a white
country.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I actually wanted to add to that.
I forgot what I wanted to say.
There was something I wanted toadd to.
Let me think I said collectiveoutrage if this were happening
to a white country.
Oh, I know what it is, I knowwhat it is, okay, yes, so,
speaking of your favoriteplatform, twitter, the other
thing I've been seeing a lot ofselective outrage with, and I do
think it's virtue signaling andI I'm probably gonna get into a
lot of trouble for this, butthe amount of people that are
angry about dei and thenboycotting companies that are
(31:21):
getting rid of dei but didn'tboycott those same companies for
killing people right.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I mean, well, actually hold on before we get
into that.
What do you mean by by killingpeople?
Genocide, like for like.
Oh, oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
No, no, no.
So, for example, like when Iwas telling people, okay, to
boycott these well, it wasn'tjust me.
But when people were sayinglike, okay, boycott Starbucks
because they're directly fundinggenocide, or Disney, which I
used to support all the time andI haven't been to since, and
people are like, oh, that'sstupid.
Oh, that's stupid, just go,just go.
(31:55):
A DEI program and I'm notarguing for a DEI either way,
but I'm saying getting rid of aDEI program is not committing
mass genocide.
So if your bar is that somebodyis not going to get a job and
that's your bar for boycottingthe company, what happens when
somebody is not getting a jobbecause you're murdering them,
that is suddenly not a bar.
I don't know.
This is what I mean byselective outrage.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
People are picking topics and just saying like, oh,
I'm so against that, I'm goingto fight for that, when in
reality, the biggest thing weshould be fighting, people are
ignoring 100% and it really tome feels like just, uh, you know
, stroking your own ego, making,making yourself feel good for
your own self-righteousness,because, like, uh, it's funny, I
(32:34):
had this conversation with afamily member the other day
where, um, because I, I,personally, I, uh, I, throughout
the week I'll have a couplecoca-colas, usually, uh, and
that's a company that, um, uh,just recently got rid of their
dei policies.
And so, uh, this family membersaid to me, like, oh, you know,
it's time for you to startboycotting.
And I said, said, well, I'veseen you get Starbucks multiple
(32:56):
times over the past year.
I've been boycotting them foryears now, actually prior to the
genocide, simply because I justdon't enjoy what they stand for
as a company.
But with that I think I'm sosorry my dog is freaking out
again.
I'll be right back.
(33:29):
So this that actually reminds meof, you know, a family member
that I was speaking with theother day genocide, and with
that I mean Starbucks is acompany I've been boycotting
long before the genocide, simplybecause I don't really agree
with a lot of their ethicalchoices.
But to your point of thedissonance there, where it's
selective outrage, of whichcompany are you going to boycott
, when one got rid of DEI policyand the other is actively
(33:51):
funding participating ingenocide.
So when you pick and chooselike that, it really I mean to
me there's no credit or merit inwhat you are actually saying,
the point you're trying to make.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you and to me, when I
boycott a company because of amoral issue, I'm done with them.
I don't go back a little bitlater on when they decide to
become moral no, I don't do it.
So I mean I've been boy likeWalmart's another one, really.
People are calling for theboycott of Walmart.
Now I've been boycottingWalmart for I don't know a
(34:25):
decade.
So because they they'reterrible.
I mean they have terriblefamily policies.
I mean they're awful to peoplewith disabilities.
I mean they're a sexist company.
There's so many things wrongwith Walmart that I would never
support them anyway.
But people just pick and choose, like they decide what you know
what is morally outrageous andwhat isn't All, while at the
same time claiming that theyhave moral, moral high ground
and that they're superior toeverybody else.
(34:46):
Because they are.
I mean, I guarantee you, theloudest people on Facebook have
not once contacted their senator, has not once contacted the
congressman, but are sittingthere like keyboard warriors,
flipping out over everything andit's, it's just disheartening.
I remember when I made a commentabout I think I mentioned this
on another episode there was aperson that I was friends with
(35:06):
on facebook, that I actuallydidn't know, but a very
religious person.
I actually think he was apriest or something he was.
He was somehow.
He was in one of the churchunits to begin with, or whatever
.
And um, I had made a commentabout what was happening on the
genocide and he did a laughingemoji that is appalling so I
immediately deleted and blockedhim because I mean that is
(35:27):
something that I'm not going tohave any tolerance for.
I know I earlier I said, youknow, but something like that,
because that's a moral issue,that that isn't a lack of
education.
I mean, if you can laugh atpeople being killed, I don't
want anything to do with you,that is.
That is a point I think you'vehit where education is not going
to fix that.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
That's just a fundamental issue yeah, I I do
agree with that because I mean,to an extent, you know, or
rather I think there is acertain extent to which the the
whole understanding each other'sperspectives uh reaches, and
when you, when you find someonewith murderous beliefs, with
with uh fundamentally bigotedand and really genocidal beliefs
(36:07):
, I mean that's really tough tocome to a moral standing with
all at the same time, whilebeing a good, good christian
who's like leading other peopleright.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I think that was also part of it for me, that I was
like Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Nope, yeah.
And again it ties into the ideaof the self-righteousness you
know.
I mean picking and choosingwhat makes you feel the best
about your beliefs and whatmakes you feel like you are the
most justified.
If your beliefs come down towhat makes you feel the best,
then ultimately you are notserving anybody but yourself.
So so what moral, moral highground do you really have?
(36:40):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I a hundred percent agree with you and I, you know,
I I do believe in karma.
I do think that it, what we do,does come back to you.
And you know I mentioned thequote about Martin Luther King
how he said if you sit back andwatch evil, you're evil.
I think I've mentioned thisbefore as a pagan.
We have the same beliefs thatyou reap what you sow.
So if you sit back and youwatch evil happen, you are just
(37:04):
as evil as the people that aredoing it.
And that is across party lines,it's across beliefs.
I mean, if you see somethingbad happening and you don't do
anything, you are basicallydoing it too.
And I think that doesn't justcarry to things that you like
it's.
It needs to be across the board, like, if you don't, you know
if it's, if it's bad, you standup to it absolutely, and you
(37:28):
know it's funny, this is an ideathat they teach from like grade
school.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
You know, the person who watches the bully is just as
bad as the bully.
That's something that Iremember being taught in like
fifth grade or sixth grade.
And for people to you know now,as adults, stand by a harmful
ideology simply because orrather, to not stand by it, but
to to stand idly by it, simplybecause it makes them
(37:53):
uncomfortable to address it orit doesn't align with other
beliefs that they might have, Imean, you are just as bad as the
person who actively perpetuatesit.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
You actually brought up a great comparison with
bullying.
So think about the hypocrisyand the cognitive dissonance
that goes along with that, andeverybody knows that listens to
this.
I do teach, so I mean Icertainly support teachers and
this is not a dig at teachers,this is a dig at the system.
But you have you just said,like you're told over and over
again, if you see somebodybullying, you stand up to them,
(38:22):
because if you don't, you'repart of the problem.
And then we have the zerotolerance policy for bullying
and in my experience fromworking with lots of families
who had kids that were bullied,it was the victim who was then
perpetrated by the school, notthe bully.
So you have, you know, you havethis message stand up to the
bully, what you do.
If you don't, you're wrong.
(38:43):
But then the system defends theperson doing it, which is the
same system telling people tostand up against it.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, you know, actually, even though I'm the
one who said it, I kind of Idon't think I realized how much
of a microcosm that is of likethe societal issue at hand,
where, exactly like you said,the victim is the one who ends
up under the microscope andexamined and blamed for the
issue at hand, when really wejust need to address the bully.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, I mean, we see this everywhere.
It's like the other one thatpeople have very much talked
about, which is, you know,teaching, instead of teaching
women how not to get raped,teaching men how to not rape
women, right, like it's this.
And we see this in everythingwhere the victim becomes the
object of the change.
Like it's the victim who isresponsible for what's happening
.
Like you think back to when Ithink I might be misquoting this
(39:33):
, but I'm fairly certain it wasben shapiro who makes my skin
crawl.
Some people are just evil.
You can tell they're evil.
He's one of them.
When the whole october 7ththing first happened and
somebody was questioning himabout if he thought babies
babies that were there deservedto be killed, and he said, well,
did they denounce him, us?
And it was like, oh, so it'sthe baby's fault.
Now, right, like so we.
(39:54):
We have this thing where we,where we target the victim as
the problem absolutely, you're,you're totally correct.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Uh, and I feel like you know ben shapiro.
I mean, he's his own can ofworms.
Oh, I think.
I think he's just a deeplycloseted man who's angry at
everyone else for it.
I would, that's another can.
I closeted man who's angry ateveryone else for it?
I would, that's another can Iwould agree with that.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
There were very few people that make me want to
vomit when I look at them.
He's one of them, trump's,another one, mitch mcconnell
because they just, they justexude evil.
It just seeps out of their skin.
Even elon musk does that.
Like there's this.
Just like.
If you you know what they saywhen, when somebody shows you
who they are the first time,believe them, right.
So when somebody comes out andthey literally are wearing a
(40:37):
mask of like something evil,just believe them because that's
who they are.
Don't like second guess it.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Right, absolutely, I mean and that also again goes
back to the cognitive distancethat we were speaking about
because you have these peoplewho show their true colors and
you'll have the people who cometo their defense and say, oh no,
they didn't mean it, they don'tknow what they were doing.
These are people who are not inthe positions that they're in
by accident.
They know very much whatthey're doing and it's very
intentional.
So for the average person tocome running to their defense is
(41:03):
really baffling to me and, Ithink, shows the level of
indoctrination that they've beensusceptible to.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Right and for the people that are listening, I
mean to be fair and I can'tspeak for you, mike I know that
I was also part of thatindoctrination because it's hard
to not be sucked into it wheneverybody around you is kind of
in that same thing.
But there's, we have to reallystart self examining and look at
that and say like, okay, how amI contributing to the problem?
(41:33):
So last night I pulled out um,I have a goddess deck.
I always I pull out cardsrandomly, like once a month, to
give me like a message.
And last night I pulled outkuan yin, and kuan yin is the
goddess of compassion and mercy,and the focus of it was all
about like, if you're notpracticing kindness, like you
have to look at yourself and saylike, how do I, how would
kindness and empathy help thesituation?
(41:54):
And I I think that if we couldall do that and we would be in a
lot better place.
But we just we justfundamentally as a society, are
so broken by design because theonly way to stop power is to
divide it.
I mean, if you think about it,I mean we really are the
majority.
I mean if the if we want tochange as a country we could.
We could create that change ifwe were all, if we were all
(42:17):
united.
But you know, it's interesting,I think everything that has the
word united in it, like UnitedHealthcare, united Airlines,
like you know, like I swear,like the word united now is
almost it's it's like a misnomeron so many levels.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So true, but I mean to your point, I think you are.
You are totally, entirely right.
I think the division that weexperience as a nation and by we
as a nation I do refer to thebottom class of people, the 90
percent of people who don't makemillions or billions of dollars
I think our division is veryintentional and I think it's a
(42:58):
tool.
You know, it serves a purpose,and if we really want to examine
how we can actually fight forthe things that truly are of
common benefit, we need toexamine not just the political
issues that we're faced with,but also the division itself and
why that's there.
I think if we were all unified,that would be a very scary
(43:20):
thing for the ruling class, andso with that, there is this
perpetual need for our division,and I think people need to keep
that in mind when engaging withreally any sort of political
discussion or the viewing of anysort of political action.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
To bring it back to what I'd mentioned before about
tribalism and how it starts withsports, and we don't have to
get into this.
But you see that I think that'sone of the areas where it
started, where people who arefans of sports teams riot and
fight against each other whentheir team wins or loses.
It's a freaking game, butpeople become so feral over it
(43:59):
and so divided and violent overit, Right?
So I mean, I do think it startswith things like that and then
it just becomes increasinglymore insidious.
I mean, think about how muchmoney is made off that versus
how much money goes intoeducation no-transcript by the
(44:40):
way, I do have to say I'mincredibly disappointed with um
the.
So, if you I'm.
I think we talked about this,but you may have listened to the
last episode where we had thelast two episodes.
I'm sorry, no, but threeepisodes where we had
veterinarian students talkingabout what was going on in their
world and how the veterinariancode of ethics was not complying
with stopping genocide.
(45:01):
I'm really disappointed thatthe nasw has not given a stance
on genocide at all.
They've completely been silenton the whole thing, which is the
absolute antithesis of whatwe're supposed to be doing.
We're supposed to be fightingagainst oppression and looking
for justice, but they have saidnothing 100%.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I mean, when you look at the core pillars of social
justice, it's kind ofunfathomable to think that the
National Association of SocialWorkers has not taken a stance
to denounce a genocide.
I mean that should be theabsolute bare minimum.
I mean you think about excuseme while I gather my thoughts
when you think about the idea ofa national association that's
(45:45):
supposed to propel socialjustice and equity, it does not
make any fathomable sense thatthey cannot even acknowledge a
genocide.
And the NASW does have, inhonesty, a shady history in
terms of actually propellingsocially progressive ideology,
even back in the civil rightsmovement too.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Oh, I'm not surprised by that, and that's you know.
When you talk about the followthe stakeholders, I think that
applies in our, in our field aswell.
The stakeholders I think thatapplies in our field as well,
Like I think it applies in allof them.
I mean, they all kind of leadback to very similar sources,
and that's the bigger issue.
But instead of focusing onthose sources, we focus on
fighting against the people whoare being affected by the
(46:26):
problems.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, ultimately, the systemthat we are in is one that is
designed to reap the most amountof resource out of the people
who work to generate it, and so,regardless of what industry or
field that's in, uh, the endgame is is the same, and and the
result will always be the same,unless we actually work to
change the system itself I hadsomebody that was a listener
(46:52):
asked if she had said one of thethings that might be helpful is
if we gave some suggestions atthe end of episodes on to what
you can do or like how you canhelp to change things.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
So the one suggestion I can think of is to go back to
what I said about Kuan Yinearlier, which is that I think
if you can go as a person, ifyou can go out of your way to
try to talk to somebody youdon't agree with and understand
understand their perspectivedon't try to change their mind.
Don't go in there and say, likeI need to prove that I'm right.
If you were to go in there andsay, okay, I really want to
(47:27):
understand you, I think thatwould be one way to impact
positive change.
That's my opinion.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I really agree, and on top of that I would add, this
kind of goes back to, actually,the point that I made at the
end of the post-election episode.
But I think we really need toget more in touch with our
communities.
I think we need to become moreinvolved with local policy and
politics and really work tounderstand at a local level
what's happening with people,because, ultimately, our
(47:56):
communities are a microcosm ofwhat's happening nationally.
And if you can connect withpeople, uh to actually make real
change within your, your levelof um engagement, or rather to
engage with, like your level ofum of government, if that makes
sense, then I think it's it's areally powerful means of
actually being able to createsocial change.
(48:17):
So, whether that looks likegoing to town, town council
meetings, town halls, uh,speaking up to local legislators
, writing to them I mean, thereare so many ways that you can
get in contact with people whoare in positions of power, uh,
and to make your voice heard, uh, and with that, to organize
with other people in yourcommunity in order to advocate
for everyone's best interests.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, I would.
The only thing I would add tothat and I think again,
community action is reallyimportant is because the only
way that because I mean, let'sface it, the politician's job is
to get reelected.
It is not about actually makingchange but if enough people
come together to guarantee thatthey're not going to get
reelected, if they don't makechange, then that's going to
force their hand.
So I think we to your pointabout raising community
(49:00):
awareness we need to do that andwe need to.
But that also means that peoplehave to compromise, because
they can't go in and say, okay,I want community support, here's
what I'm, here's what I want,and that's what I want, and
that's it.
Like that's what I want andthat's it.
Like that's not going to work.
Like you need to be in theresaying like, here's what I want,
but I'm willing to compromiseon these issues to give you what
you want as well.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
That's the only way that's going to happen,
absolutely.
We need to work with each otherto identify our common goals,
common interests and what bestserves us, and so I really think
it's important to look fororganizing opportunities that we
can come together and use thecollective power that we truly
have and are not meant to usewithin the system, to make sure
that the people in power do knowwe are the stakeholders when
(49:41):
you really come down to it, andwe are the ones who will get you
elected or will oust you fromoffice.
Yeah, if we do that Right If wedo that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Well, thank you again , Mike, for being here.
I really appreciate it, and forall the listeners.
I hope you enjoyed the episodeand, again, feel free to email
me with any feedback or anyepisodes that you want.
So until next time.
Thank you again for listening.
(50:24):
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.