Speaker 1: Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to Look f Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
Speaker 1: So earlier this week, Hunter Biden was found guilty of
Speaker 1: three felony counts as it pertains to the possession of
Speaker 1: a gun when he was still apparently using or had
Speaker 1: been busted for using drugs. Blah blah, blah blah. And
Speaker 1: you know, the Right has been in an uproar over
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden for the last I don't even know how
Speaker 1: many years. And what pisses me off about this is
Speaker 1: that Hunter Biden is like a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the United States that have been addicted to drugs that
Speaker 1: struggle with addiction. I mean, the opioid crisis in and
Speaker 1: of itself has millions of people in this country in
Speaker 1: a chokehold, right. You know, the pharmaceutical companies that started
Speaker 1: the crisis knowing that their drugs were addictive, but you know,
Speaker 1: Republicans allowed them to get off and not be sued
Speaker 1: for the deaths and the addiction of so many. That
Speaker 1: is all on a side. What frustrates me is that
Speaker 1: the Democrats, when given blatant criminality, do not use their
Speaker 1: power and position as folks with the ability to create
Speaker 1: committee hearings, to draw in headlines, to bring America's attention
Speaker 1: to those that are criminals, like the Kushner's. So Jared
Speaker 1: and Ivanka right with no fucking expence, became advisors to
Speaker 1: the president of the United States. You all know that
Speaker 1: if Hillary Clinton had been president, Chelsea would have been
Speaker 1: probably in a different country, right, nothing to do at
Speaker 1: all with her mother's administration. We also know that no
Speaker 1: other Democrat, no other person, frankly, had their children involved
Speaker 1: in their administrations whatsoever, because of the blurred lines, because
Speaker 1: of nepotism, because of a whole host of things that
Speaker 1: don't apply to the Trumps. So following now, which I
Speaker 1: think is ill timing in and of itself, but who
Speaker 1: gives a fuck about ill timing and the way things
Speaker 1: are perceived these days, when you can apparently do whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck you want so long as you're white and
Speaker 1: rich and male, which has always been the case in America,
Speaker 1: But if your name is Trump or attached to Trump,
Speaker 1: you can absolutely do whatever the fuck you want. So now,
Speaker 1: two years following or three years really following the end
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration, if you all remember Jared Kushner,
Speaker 1: who again no experience, couldn't get security clearance, but that
Speaker 1: was waved away by Donald Trump somehow became his Foreign
Speaker 1: Affairs advisor. Don't really know how that happened or why,
Speaker 1: but what we do know is that when Jared Kushner
Speaker 1: walked away from the Trump administration, he didn't walk away
Speaker 1: empty handed. He received two billion dollars from Mohammed bin Salam,
Speaker 1: the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. During his time as
Speaker 1: the Foreign Affairs Advisor, he told his father in law,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally right,
Speaker 1: which should raise concerns for everyone. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: have to remind you, and maybe I do about Jamal Koshogi,
Speaker 1: the Report Order, the writer for the Washington Post who
Speaker 1: was murdered and dismembered by MBS, and Trump didn't care, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, he's not an American, he was NBS
Speaker 1: is a murderer. And that's just like one person that
Speaker 1: we know about, right. We know that he abuses his
Speaker 1: own people all of these things and does dirt, but nonetheless,
Speaker 1: because of his deep pockets, the Trumps love that and
Speaker 1: for whatever it was that he did while he was
Speaker 1: advisor to Donald Trump. He became a very wealthy man
Speaker 1: off of that. So now Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden,
Speaker 1: Democrat from Oregon, has asked Kushner's firm, Affinity Partners, for
Speaker 1: details about its investors on Wednesday, including the two billion
Speaker 1: dollars it received from Saudi Arabian Government Public Investment Fund
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. This is according to the Huffington Post,
Speaker 1: and this is what is said by Chairman Widen quote.
Speaker 1: Mister Kushner's limited track record as an investor, including his
Speaker 1: non existent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raised
Speaker 1: questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seating investments and
Speaker 1: lucrative compensation that Affinity received from the Saudi PIF and
Speaker 1: other sovereign wealth funds. This panel screens investments for the
Speaker 1: Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund warned right warned against investing with
Speaker 1: Kushner given his inexperience in finance, but the full board,
Speaker 1: led by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam, overruled right.
Speaker 1: So even his own even MBS's own people said, don't
Speaker 1: invest with dude because he doesn't have a good track record.
Speaker 1: We don't really know what he's up to, and MBS said, nah,
Speaker 1: I got it. It's fine. Right. Goes on to say,
Speaker 1: Kushner advised Trump on foreign affairs, guided his administration to
Speaker 1: embrace Saudi Arabia as an ally, which I mentioned, and
Speaker 1: remained in close contact even after NBS was implicated in
Speaker 1: the dismembering of American journalist Jamal Kushogi. This comes from
Speaker 1: widen quote. The Saudi PIF's decision to invest two billion
Speaker 1: dollars in Infinity so soon after Kushner's departure from the
Speaker 1: Trump White House raises concerns that the investment was a
Speaker 1: reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government,
Speaker 1: including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal
Speaker 1: murder of journalists and American citizen Jamal Kushogi. Folks, this
Speaker 1: should have happened in twenty twenty one. This investigation should
Speaker 1: have been opened, not only by the Senate, right in
Speaker 1: terms of hearings, after hearings of who benefited from the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, who benefited monetarily right namely his fucking kids,
Speaker 1: And it should have been wall to wall coverage there
Speaker 1: should have been an investigation opened by the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice in twenty twenty one. None of these things happened
Speaker 1: because of politics, and this is where Democrats continue to
Speaker 1: fucking fail all the time. Regardless of the actions that
Speaker 1: Democrats were going to take, Republicans were going to say
Speaker 1: that it's political, this is a witch hunt, this is retribution,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. But the fact is that
Speaker 1: multiple crimes were staring the Senate and the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice in the face. When Donald Trump got on that
Speaker 1: helicopter and exited from the White House, Merrick Garland walked
Speaker 1: into the DOJ with the Muelll Report sitting on his
Speaker 1: fucking desk. Ten ways in which that motherfucker had obstructed justice.
Speaker 1: But Merrick Garland decided to look the other way, not
Speaker 1: because it was for the best interests of the American people,
Speaker 1: but because it was about preserving an institution and the
Speaker 1: perception of some type of fucking bipartisanship. If you break
Speaker 1: the law, you should be investigated, you should be tried.
Speaker 1: And so it was politics that stood in the way
Speaker 1: of Democrats getting to work years before we would get
Speaker 1: to this moment. Five months before fucking an election. Those
Speaker 1: cases that had been put on ice right most recently
Speaker 1: would have been moving ahead had they had the two
Speaker 1: year fucking lead that they should have. It is politics
Speaker 1: that has us in this precarious moment about to lose
Speaker 1: our democracy, that rest squarely on the shoulders of timid
Speaker 1: and tepid fucking Democrats who refuse to do their job
Speaker 1: so that they can pretend like they are somehow the
Speaker 1: adults in the room absolute bullshit. But I will keep
Speaker 1: you abreast of where these hearings go. Coming up next
Speaker 1: my conversation with our in house doctor who is back
Speaker 1: with us, doctor Jonathan Metzel. We talk about gun ownership
Speaker 1: in the LGBTQ community and the ways in which these
Speaker 1: arms dealers pray upon fear and racism and bias. That
Speaker 1: conversation is coming up next. It's been a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: but we are welcoming back to the show our in
Speaker 1: house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Jonathan, it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you and have you back.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It is pride here on WOKF, so happy pride, and
Speaker 1: there are so many issues obviously that affect the LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus community, and one that I don't think that we
Speaker 1: talk about enough is the gun issue inside of this
Speaker 1: community and what happens when you have marginalized communities that
Speaker 1: are targeted, which we have seen throughout you know, the decades,
Speaker 1: We've seen horrific mass shootings, We've seen crimes against black
Speaker 1: trans women in particular, that every time there is an
Speaker 1: instance of violence against a particular community, there seems to
Speaker 1: be an opening that gun manufacturers that the NRA see
Speaker 1: to go after a new audience and kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know, I guess capitalize on their fear.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What have you seen in and around you know, the
Speaker 1: lgbtqu U plus community and guns and how this community
Speaker 1: has handled the issue of gun ownership.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of colleagues at Vanderbilt who actually
Speaker 2: work on this issue, and I'm going to reach out
Speaker 2: to them after we talk today and see if I
Speaker 2: can get kind of their more updated research, because I
Speaker 2: know they're working on projects right now. They aren't even
Speaker 2: published yet, but I would say that they did a
Speaker 2: bunch of projects, like during the pandemic that found that,
Speaker 2: for example, gay Tennesseeans were just as likely as everyone
Speaker 2: else to buy guns during the pandemic. The risk of
Speaker 2: guns suicide is really high in queer communities, and so
Speaker 2: this question of suicide, which is an issue anyway, particularly
Speaker 2: for trans communities, when you're in a place where it's
Speaker 2: easier to get guns, you're just basically giving people the
Speaker 2: easiest means of the most effective I hate that word,
Speaker 2: means of suicide. So it's kind of like all the
Speaker 2: regular is shoes, but they're just amplified. And so that's
Speaker 2: kind of what if you're in a place where it's
Speaker 2: easier to get guns, Like we used to think only
Speaker 2: white men did mass shootings, but then it turned out
Speaker 2: white men had access to the guns, and that was
Speaker 2: part of I mean, there are other reasons too, obviously
Speaker 2: that I write about. But when you have marginalized the
Speaker 2: risk communities and easy access to firearms, they then see
Speaker 2: similar or sometimes worse trends than you do in regular culture.
Speaker 1: You know what I find. So I guess shocking to me,
Speaker 1: and I guess this is just based on like the
Speaker 1: universe in the communities that like I'm a part of that.
Speaker 1: When I think about the lgbt Q plus community, I
Speaker 1: think of probably the most progressive set and the most
Speaker 1: left leaning set right. And so when I think about
Speaker 1: progressivism and those that are definitely more left leaning, I
Speaker 1: think about being anti gun right. But then I also
Speaker 1: know that this is a community that is consistently targeted, right,
Speaker 1: that as we've seen over the last several years. I
Speaker 1: mean I just saw a map the other day that said,
Speaker 1: what like forty three states have anti trans policies on
Speaker 1: the books, and that number just continues to rise. That
Speaker 1: the more targeted you feel, the more likely you feel
Speaker 1: that who is supposed to quote unquote protect you doesn't,
Speaker 1: And so there's this need to protect yourself. Can you
Speaker 1: speak to like the way that again, the fear mongering,
Speaker 1: the targeting is kind of this cyclical, you know, feeding
Speaker 1: the monster of feeling like you are so isolated and
Speaker 1: alone that you must then you know, arm up.
Speaker 2: Well, let me just say, because this is really the
Speaker 2: million dark question, right. You never see there's tons of homophobia, transphobia,
Speaker 2: everything else. But I will eat my computer mouse if
Speaker 2: there's ever a law that says that people in those
Speaker 2: groups can't buy guns. Right. In other words, what we
Speaker 2: do is we target people. We people are tribalized, but
Speaker 2: those are great for gun markets. In fact, those are
Speaker 2: how gun markets are constructed. And so in What We've
Speaker 2: Become my book, as you know, I talk about how
Speaker 2: after the George Floyd murder there was a really conscious
Speaker 2: effort to sell guns to black and Latino Americans using
Speaker 2: the tagline that the police are not going to protect you,
Speaker 2: and so you should arm up or the police could
Speaker 2: kill you, or they're not going to come. So they
Speaker 2: kind of use this, and then when Black Americans started
Speaker 2: buying more guns, which they did after the Floyd murder,
Speaker 2: then they had all these pictures of black people at
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter protests with guns, and then that would
Speaker 2: be used to market guns to white people, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: the black people have guns, you the white people need gun.
Speaker 2: So you know who acts like this, They're called arm stealers. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so part of what we see is that this
Speaker 2: is arm stealing. That's usually that's a war, right, But
Speaker 2: here we see it in the in the society. And
Speaker 2: I think I told you this once off record, but
Speaker 2: I'll save here that after October seventh, I was getting
Speaker 2: a ton of social media stuff. I mean, Jews and
Speaker 2: everybody else were really scared and really a tribalizing moment.
Speaker 2: It was a polarizing crisis, and my Instagram was full
Speaker 2: of gun ads and I'm like, what the hell? But
Speaker 2: then I realized, like, oh, like you know, I said
Speaker 2: somewhere I'm Jewish, and like all these Jews went out
Speaker 2: and bought guns and then whatever. So crisis is an opportunity,
Speaker 2: and especially when people are marginalized. And I guess you know,
Speaker 2: the question is does owning a gun bring you equality?
Speaker 1: But I mean it's not even like does owning a
Speaker 1: gun bring you equality? It's like does owning a gun
Speaker 1: acquiesced like the year that you have? I think that
Speaker 1: it would amplify it. Right, And so if crisis becomes
Speaker 1: like a money making opportunity for these arms dealers, which
Speaker 1: are one hundred percent right in that terminology, then what
Speaker 1: would the marketing look like on the what is the
Speaker 1: pr on the other side? Right? That disrupts this idea
Speaker 1: that things are so bad you can't trust police, you
Speaker 1: can't trust quote unquote public servants to protect you, so
Speaker 1: you must protect yourself. Like how do folks go about
Speaker 1: disrupting that? To break that cycle?
Speaker 2: The two main things that I advocate for, as you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of what we've become, which people should get.
Speaker 2: It's I hear great things, but I don't think that
Speaker 2: disrupting the gun industry is just it sounds great, but
Speaker 2: I guess should be. The three main things that I
Speaker 2: focus on. Number one is that we have not in
Speaker 2: any way pushed back hard enough on public carry, on
Speaker 2: open can carry of long guns. And so part of
Speaker 2: the issue is it's not just about the shootings. For me,
Speaker 2: the shootings are like microcosms of these much bigger issues,
Speaker 2: which is like the feeling that you need to be
Speaker 2: armed against your neighbor. And so part of what I
Speaker 2: talk about in the book is that we just because
Speaker 2: the mass shootings, I mean, I'm sorry, open carry it
Speaker 2: doesn't register data that links to death or injury. It's
Speaker 2: not amenable to most guns safety regulations, right because it's
Speaker 2: not injuries or death, which is what we're trying to prevent.
Speaker 2: But I think that the it's the it's like the
Speaker 2: end of civic space if everybody's armed and just waiting
Speaker 2: for somebody to do a bad thing. And so what
Speaker 2: I talk about is rebuilding civic space and ways that
Speaker 2: make people feel safe. That's not even really about regulating guns,
Speaker 2: it's more like street lights and green space and jobs programs.
Speaker 2: And so for me, I'm like a structuralist, right that
Speaker 2: in a way, if we if this is an issue
Speaker 2: of public safety, people feeling safe, you know, invest in
Speaker 2: the subways, which is why I'm sorry, like congestion pricing
Speaker 2: didn't happen and stuff like that. But like all these things,
Speaker 2: and if you don't invest in them, like the subway
Speaker 2: feels a lot less safe because the lights are flickering
Speaker 2: and it's.
Speaker 1: Right and every time it rains, like it becomes an
Speaker 1: entire flood.
Speaker 2: As if for me, number one is structure, Number two
Speaker 2: is investing in public space. I just think the barn
Speaker 2: door is long open about people owning guns in their homes.
Speaker 2: That's the Heller decision two thousand and eight. We're not
Speaker 2: going to get that back in our lifetime. But I
Speaker 2: do think that investing in public safety and public space,
Speaker 2: and then the third is having nothing to do with
Speaker 2: the gun industry. It's actually the long game that got
Speaker 2: the NRA in power in the first place, which is
Speaker 2: that they paid attention to the judiciary and so for them,
Speaker 2: they had people who no matter what the headline issue
Speaker 2: was of the day, they were going to vote for
Speaker 2: politicians who going to put judges in place, who were
Speaker 2: going to do their agenda. And so for me, it's
Speaker 2: also that we the right, really had a long game,
Speaker 2: and right now the left needs a long game also,
Speaker 2: which ends with doing something about the Supreme Court and
Speaker 2: all these other courts.
Speaker 1: One of the things too, I get the desire for
Speaker 1: us to say we want to dismantle the gun industry, right,
Speaker 1: But I really like what you're talking about, which is
Speaker 1: really about infrastructure and thinking about how we build community.
Speaker 1: I've lived in, you know, two very different areas in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn since I left Washington, d C. And moved to
Speaker 1: New York. And I will tell you that the quote
Speaker 1: unquote safest communities right that I have ever lived in,
Speaker 1: and that I grew up in on Long Island, I
Speaker 1: never saw police, like unless they were stopping literally at
Speaker 1: the bagel store to get breakfast. I never saw pla
Speaker 1: And this idea that creating environment, yes, like picking up
Speaker 1: food like that was like there was no I had
Speaker 1: no relationship because I and I will say this, I
Speaker 1: lived in a majority white community growing up, and so
Speaker 1: there was sidewalks and parks and you know, golf courses
Speaker 1: and like and the like, and so the cops were
Speaker 1: like not there. In the safest communities that I've ever
Speaker 1: walked around in, whether they're in Brooklyn, on Long Island,
Speaker 1: in Washington, d c. Or in other places, they are
Speaker 1: largely more affluent, white areas where safety is a given,
Speaker 1: and it's not because it's flooded with cops. And so
Speaker 1: I never understand then the other side, which is that
Speaker 1: I'm in a neighborhood that is underserved, that doesn't have
Speaker 1: basic things like grocery stores and banks and what have you,
Speaker 1: and they're like, Oh, this neighborhood is so unsafe, We'll
Speaker 1: flood it with cops. And I'm just like, how does
Speaker 1: that work? Because you see that what does what does
Speaker 1: the community that doesn't need that doesn't require over policing have.
Speaker 1: It has parks, it has sidewalks, it has grocery stores,
Speaker 1: it has community centers, it has like things that connect
Speaker 1: and build a community. So I'm just curious that, like
Speaker 1: when when you see the differences, right, like you live
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn too, you navigate and go around into the cities,
Speaker 1: Like why when we're talking about how to create safe communities,
Speaker 1: does that not translate between racialized communities for our representatives
Speaker 1: and whomever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a book called Dying of Whiteness that talks
Speaker 2: about really and it talks about how people don't want
Speaker 2: to invest in the other, even if it might help
Speaker 2: everybody who they perceive as the other. And I think
Speaker 2: this is another example. Right, the examples you give about
Speaker 2: making neighborhoods feel safe is just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's this great sociologist, Patrick Sharky, I think
Speaker 2: he's at Princeton now, who talks about how when you
Speaker 2: start doing that, those neighborhoods become incredibly economically viable. It's
Speaker 2: actually like it's great economic policy. And then you have
Speaker 2: more taxpayers, more people paying into the system, more people
Speaker 2: paying into public transportation. That's also true, Like there's the
Speaker 2: McKenzie and Black Economic Forum that talks about how companies
Speaker 2: that have the most diversity are the most prosperous and
Speaker 2: all these kind of things. And so they're just as
Speaker 2: zillion examples. And I don't know's the history of the
Speaker 2: color line, right, But it's not just that. It's also anxiety, fear,
Speaker 2: fear that like that bad stuff's kind of spill over
Speaker 2: into your neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So common sense just is not common because the spillover
Speaker 1: would absolutely happen if you don't stop the spread. And
Speaker 1: how do you stop the spread? By putting an investment
Speaker 1: into areas that have been historically underinvested, there won't be
Speaker 1: spillover if they have all of the same things that
Speaker 1: you have over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, I mean considering considering that, that's
Speaker 2: the some argument of like all of my scholarship could
Speaker 2: I could not agree more. And the other thing is
Speaker 2: we get into these binaries that are maybe not helpful,
Speaker 2: like capitalism. Anti capitalism is one example, but like what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about is like incredibly capitalists, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's good to have new markets with new internet
Speaker 2: providers and new supermarket chains. It's good to think about
Speaker 2: guns safety in a way that actually is economically viable.
Speaker 2: I mean, smart guns, technology that only recognizes the hand
Speaker 2: of the shooter, et cetera. And so I just think that,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to think of a term other
Speaker 2: than dying of whiteness for this because it's it's not
Speaker 2: you know, but that's kind of where we're at. But
Speaker 2: I mean, look at this congestion pricing thing, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: it wasn't popular.
Speaker 1: I think we'll explain it because not everybody lives in
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was not handlbil, but they were going
Speaker 2: to tax people who drive into New York because there's
Speaker 2: way too much traffic, and then use that money to
Speaker 2: invest in infrastructure, transit lines, extending public transportation to Harlem,
Speaker 2: fixing the freaking G train, which is need of fixing
Speaker 2: all these things. And this is not the only example,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of like at times where people people
Speaker 2: become irrational when they're asked to pay for something that's
Speaker 2: for somebody else. And the thing is, it's not just
Speaker 2: about race. It is about I mean, it is about
Speaker 2: race a lot, but it's not just about race. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm from Kansas City. They just had this big referendum
Speaker 2: about should we extend to one cent tax on sales
Speaker 2: to pay for the football stadium for the Kansas City
Speaker 2: Chiefs whoever re loves and everybody rallied and said we're
Speaker 2: not spend any money when they are all these billionaires.
Speaker 2: And now the Chiefs are almost certainly going to move
Speaker 2: out of Missouri and so done again, people would probably
Speaker 2: be like, oh, man, we should have vote voted for that.
Speaker 2: But when it's like, oh, people are being asked to
Speaker 2: pay for infrastructure, there's an assumption that the money is
Speaker 2: somewhere else or someone's gaming the system. It just it
Speaker 2: feels like it feels like a weird you know. The
Speaker 2: book I'm writing now is about Amazon not coming to
Speaker 2: New York and that whole thing, and like it's like
Speaker 2: we kind of rally around rejecting or divesting or dismantling things,
Speaker 2: but it's harder to think about, like, Okay, then how
Speaker 2: are we going to build them? So I know this
Speaker 2: is along answer, but it seems like it follows through
Speaker 2: a lot of these stories.
Speaker 1: You know. So basically Americans have no sense of community
Speaker 1: when you look at other areas, right, And I think
Speaker 1: because always popping up on my Instagram, are you know
Speaker 1: what innovations are happening in Japan? What it looks like
Speaker 1: the high speed trains in Switzerland and like all around
Speaker 1: the world. And I think that again, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of the veil lifting from Americans in terms of the
Speaker 1: lie of American exceptionalism, because in nowhere, shape or form
Speaker 1: do people from other countries come here who are not
Speaker 1: from developing countries and look at our infrastructure and think
Speaker 1: to themselves, oh, look at Americas, so ahead of the
Speaker 1: fucking curve, like it absolutely is not. But what you
Speaker 1: have in these other countries is very much a sense
Speaker 1: of pride, connectivity and community in look at what we
Speaker 1: are building and doing together. And I think that the
Speaker 1: rugged individualism that lie that has built a man Erica
Speaker 1: right that everyone is an island onto themselves, has gone
Speaker 1: to a disservice to our being able to actually compete
Speaker 1: in this area.
Speaker 2: Don't tell anybody this is a total secret, but my
Speaker 2: new book, the title is called Dismantle Everything, and it's
Speaker 2: about exactly exactly the point you just made, which is
Speaker 2: that kind of community is structural, right, people see and
Speaker 2: like structure makes people feel like they're not always in
Speaker 2: competition with each other. And so we were not investing
Speaker 2: in the structures that make people feel like they're on
Speaker 2: even remotely on the same side. And then you get
Speaker 2: this crazy tribalism and everything else that's happening. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's led to a lot of innovation.
Speaker 2: I mean, we invented the slurpee at seven eleven and I.
Speaker 1: Don't even think that we invented it, Like, I can't
Speaker 1: even take like, I'm like, did we really Like, I'm
Speaker 1: certain that that was probably stolen too, it's part of
Speaker 1: us reason, You're right exactly. I'm like, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: that was not invented here. But it's just this idea.
Speaker 1: I think that it really does go back to the
Speaker 1: lack of community and the lack of sense of community
Speaker 1: and the responsibility of community. I mean, we can look
Speaker 1: at COVID, right, we had the absolute wrong, maniacal, egomaniac,
Speaker 1: you know, fascist president at a time when Americans needed
Speaker 1: to come together more than ever right to support one
Speaker 1: another and to be and let me just say, outside
Speaker 1: of the diabolical nature of the Trump administration, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of stories of people coming together and people
Speaker 1: doing what was necessary in their buildings, in their community
Speaker 1: to help one another during that really horrible time. But
Speaker 1: with a lack of leadership from the top about the
Speaker 1: responsibility of building community. I honestly, you know, maybe I'm crazy,
Speaker 1: but outside of Obama, I really can't think of another
Speaker 1: president that really was about what really was community minded.
Speaker 1: And as a reminder, Obama was a community organizer, and
Speaker 1: so I don't like maybe efty, but I don't really
Speaker 1: think so, because again that was like largely racist.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you think about like what we
Speaker 2: did as we entered World War One, you know, like
Speaker 2: there were all these community sharing things. You know, people
Speaker 2: didn't eat meat on Friday and weet on Wednesday. We
Speaker 2: created the Federal Reserve, We created all of these regulations
Speaker 2: to help farmers. Then we had like a you know,
Speaker 2: economic collapse after it. But there have been moments when
Speaker 2: we have like a common enemy where we kind of
Speaker 2: come together. But I hope it doesn't take that right
Speaker 2: now because the common enemy is speaking our very own
Speaker 2: language right now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, my friend, we will leave it there today,
Speaker 1: but appreciate having you back.
Speaker 2: It's good to be back. So thank you everybody for
Speaker 2: thank you for this community. Honestly, it's great.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: A app as always power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.