WEBVTT - Inconvenient Truths 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.520 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woke f Daily with 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.880 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording once again from the 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.720 Brooklyn Silarium. Folks, it is with such deep sadness that 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.760 as I make my return to woke f Daily after 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.400 taking a week off for vacation, that we are just 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.279 in the midst of another disaster. And sadly, you know, 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:43.600 following this horrific, horrific extreme climate event that took place 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:49.239 in Kentucky, Mississippi across so many states, we continue to 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:55.920 refer to these environmental disasters as natural disasters, when in fact, 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.000 there's nothing natural about what is transpiring to our climate. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.720 I was really upset the other day while I was 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:09.800 watching cable news and listening to the FEMA director, Deanne 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.960 Griswell I believe is her name, yes, Deanne Griswell, and 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.400 when she was asked by a host of a cable 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.640 news show whether or not she felt that what transpired 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.880 across these Midwestern states was related to climate change, her 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.679 response was, I don't know, but what I do know 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.000 is that these events are becoming much more extreme and 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.920 much more frequent. I was really angered by the response 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:46.559 that she provided because we have allowed the radical right 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.440 to politicize every goddamn thing that makes sense, from the 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.840 truth to science, to healthcare to everything in between, so 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.800 much so that what is normal A normal response would 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.639 be yes, this is related to climate change. How else 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.920 could you understand and wrap your mind around again, a 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.680 once in a century storm? Right? How many times have 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.440 we heard that over the past couple of years. Oh, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.639 it's a once in a century storm. It's a once 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.040 in a century hurricane. It's a once in a century tornado. 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:24.600 Except it's not once. It's happening every single season, and now, 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:31.160 outside of the normal tornado season in December, we're seeing 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:37.920 a catastrophe, a catastrophic environmental event that so far has 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.760 claimed the lives of sixty seven people in one state, 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.880 seventy four across the states that have been affected, and 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:49.560 over a hundred people still missing. Right, we can no 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:56.040 longer pretend that this is just God's will. Right, God's 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.640 will is not for us to be cloaked in ignorance 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:06.040 about how we are effectively rapidly changing our climate. You know, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.280 I can remember I was having this conversation the other day. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:15.080 Do you remember an inconvenient truth? Right? Well, Al Gore 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.320 put up the documentary video about how we were going 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.440 to be affecting our climate. That video. Let let's just 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.680 double check here, because I believe that an inconvenient truth 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:33.280 right came out dear friends in two thousand and six. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.920 Two thousand and six, Al Gore was one of the 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.160 only people most famous, I would say, at that time 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.000 that transcended the climate field to be talking about what 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.600 we are doing to destroy our environment and the thing 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.120 that pisses me off, just like what we saw in 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.720 terms of the vaccine rollout and how wealthier high income 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:04.040 nations are not doing their fair share to contribute to 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.880 and to support the lower income nations that they have 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:12.520 had no problem over generations extracting from right, and so 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:20.120 we have omicron right, our latest variants because of vaccine 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.640 what hoarding, I don't even know what you call it, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.960 vaccine greed right, where we didn't do what was necessary 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.880 in order to help lower income nations that were asking right, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.679 asking for the trips waiver so that they could create 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.200 and manufacture their own and not weight on the supposed 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:46.479 benevolence of higher income nations. Well, here's the same thing 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:51.159 with climate change. We know that it is the higher income, 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:56.559 more industrialized nations that have moved us into this place, right, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.120 and yet it will be the lower income, small all 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.400 nations that are situated in the Caribbean that are situated 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.680 on coasts, right, that are situated in areas where they 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.880 were going to experience severe drought, severe flooding. Right. We 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.640 were seeing this happen in a high incombination in Germany, 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.800 right with their massive flooding that happened that wiped out 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.600 an entire fucking town. And so my question is how 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:30.920 much more do we need to see before this nation, 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:35.240 this world wakes the fuck up? Right? We keep convening 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:40.200 the G seven, we keep having these you know, Oh Biden, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.039 one of his first announcements was we're re engaging with 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.400 the Paris Agreement. Well that's great, except what we have 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.479 seen since the initial signing of that agreement is even 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:59.400 more deadly climate events. Think to twenty twenty, we lost 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.920 a bill in animals on this planet. In the in Australia. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.440 Do you even remember that every fire season now is 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.680 lasting longer and burning much more ground. Now we have 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:20.320 tornadoes that are spanning across multiple states. If you just 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.240 think about this from an economic perspective, right, if you 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.960 could care less about the loss of life, the fact 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:31.120 that in Kentucky, Governor Andy Bisheer damn near in tears, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.279 said that we have lost people from as young as 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:41.240 five months old to as old as eighty six thus far, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.600 and that they won't know the extent of the fatalities 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.760 for weeks. Because if you look at the fucking area 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.279 that was hit head on, it looks like a bunch 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.520 of matchsticks that were knocked over, right, that we're built 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.159 up and then just flattened. And I can't believe we 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.919 see these pictures that these were homes, these were schools, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:10.840 these were libraries, right, Whole fucking towns wiped out. And 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:16.320 so when you're directly asked, right as the director of 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:21.920 the federal emergency response, do you think that these climate 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:28.480 events are being caused by our lack of urgency around 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.080 tackling climate change? And you say I don't know, Well, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.880 then you are being intellectually fucking dishonest. And folks can 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.000 say to me, well, it's not her job, Well whose 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.080 fucking job is it? Because it seems not to be 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.560 the President of the United States's job, it seems not 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:49.000 to be Congress's job, right, because once again you've allowed 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.600 the loudest, most ignorant voices to be able to dictate 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.000 the narrative around what it is that we need to 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.360 do in order to prevent these disasters. This country is 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:07.559 going to go fucking bankrupt every season, right hurricane season 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.360 to tornado season to fire season, and then at some point, folks, 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.360 they're just gonna all blur together right where they're just 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.360 going to be popping up, much like this tornado that 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:23.240 is outside of the regular season in December, when we're 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:30.400 not able to prepare. We know that this is happening. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.600 We are seeing it right now. I came back from 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.800 my holiday and I'm looking at the weather in New York, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.760 you know, waiting, you know, assuming that you know, I 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.480 would be returning back to freezing temperatures because it's December. No, 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.679 this whole fucking upcoming week is going to be in 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:56.960 the high fifties and on Sundays sixty degrees. It's December, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.959 we're in the middle of the month, we are days 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:06.319 away from the Christmas holiday, and it was sixty degrees 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.240 over the weekend. Now folks can say, well, you know, 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.120 you might as well enjoy it, but I want you 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.319 to think about the chain reaction that happens. Right. So 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:21.920 you have these warmer climates, right, this warmer weather, So 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:28.559 then you have insects right that would normally die off 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:34.360 for the winter months that are persisting, right, which then 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:39.280 produce infection, right, Carrie disease. You know West Nile was 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.439 back to being a big thing last summer, right, because 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.480 you have mosquito season lasting longer, you have the weather 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:55.280 being damper. Then you look at well, where do we 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.000 get our food from. Many of us think it's just 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.760 the grocery store. Well, the grocery store has to get 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:06.360 that food from somewhere farms. Well, how do you have 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.840 seasonal planting? And how are you able to get food 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:14.280 when you can't rely on the precipitation levels, You can't 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:19.960 rely on weather conditions, on soil conditions, on water conditions. 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.920 Aren't any of that. So then you talk about the 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:28.120 price of food rising, right, because the areas in which 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.320 we were able to grow that food are now ravaged 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.320 by regular climate disasters, whether it be fires, whether it 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:41.200 be floods, whether it be droughts. And that's how you 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.960 create climate refugees. And if we think that that is 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.440 not going to happen in the United States, it's already 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:53.720 happening around the world. And what happens when food becomes scarce, right, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.760 is what violence becomes rampant. Because now we're no longer 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.640 operating from anybody's abundant standpoint. Now we're operating from a 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.800 scarcity model. And what happens when we all take on 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.679 this scarcity, right, this scarcity ideology, which is what has 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:17.319 taken over and consumed the Republican Party, is that we 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.840 start fighting amongst each other, We start ravaging every person 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:27.600 for themselves. Right. This is how war crime, all of 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.600 these things become elevated and increased. So when we're talking 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:37.960 about the climate crisis, it isn't just a crisis of 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.360 changing whether or oh it's warmer in December and shouldn't 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.480 we just enjoy it? It is what the ramifications of 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:53.679 that warming will do across all of our needs. You know, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.320 when I listen and I see these families that are 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:05.080 being interviewed right now on the news, and you know, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.720 I think to myself, how devastated I am for them, honestly, right, 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:16.920 because I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine that everything that 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.880 you've known just being wiped out within minutes. Like, folks, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.600 just think about this. The destruction that occurred across these 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:35.439 states happened in minutes minutes, right, your whole life turned 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.000 upside down. You don't know where you're getting food, you 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.280 don't know where you're getting water, there's no electricity, you 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.040 can't send your kids to school. And oh, by the way, 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:50.440 we're still in a global health pandemic. So what do 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.720 you think is going to be happening in these areas 0:12:52.800 --> 0:13:00.240 now following this outbreak of deadly tornadoes? A right is 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.320 probably in hospitalizations due to COVID on top of the 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:11.120 hospitalizations of those that were already harmed in the tornadoes. Folks, 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.640 we are living in the midst of a perfect fucking 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:20.880 nightmare right now. We're everywhere that you look, there is 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:26.440 something that is going dramatically wrong, and we still don't 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.360 seem to have the political will to do what is necessary. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.200 I mean, Joe Biden, the Biden administration right now is 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.480 still going around selling back, build, back better, which a 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:43.000 part of it is about infrastructure and bracing infrastructure for 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.439 our changing climate. Now, mind you remember Joe Mansion did 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:53.120 not want to include that in the infrastructure bill. Right, 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.679 you're talking about his state, which has also been ravaged 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.920 by quote unquote natural disasters. But what kills me about 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.920 these people that are being interviewed is that I bet 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.600 if you were to do a poll to figure out 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.320 where they fall on the political spectrum, that a majority 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:17.120 of them are fucking Republicans, voting once again against their 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:22.680 own interests, wanting to chuck this up to saying, oh, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.760 you know, this is God, this is God's will. It 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:30.320 is not, you know. I tweeted the other day too 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:38.200 that I am so fucking tired of hearing thoughts and 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:43.480 prayers every fucking disaster, whether it is the mass shooting 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.920 and Oxford, Michigan, whether it is this you know, spat 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:53.080 of deadly tornadoes across the country, everything turns back to 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.720 thoughts and prayers from politicians. And what I tweeted and 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.040 said was this, I don't need your thoughts and prayers. 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.680 If I wanted thoughts and prayers, I would go to 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.920 a religious institution. As a politician, thoughts and prayers are 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:13.280 not your fucking job. Policy is. But yet we allow 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.440 them to get away with the idea that they can't 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.520 change anything, that somehow their hands are tied and I'm 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.440 confused because I'm like, your hands are not tied. You 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.560 actually have all of the power, but none of the will. 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.400 Joe Biden this week is once again sitting down with 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.200 Joe Manchin, who doesn't want to include dental into the 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.640 Human Infrastructure bill. Meanwhile, people in West Virginia I have 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.680 no fucking teeth. And I don't say that as a joke. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.320 I mean they have serious dental issues. How is it 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.560 a man that is sailing around on a seven hundred 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.280 thousand dollars yacht has the audacity to tell people, oh, no, 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.880 we're not going to cover these basic fucking needs. And 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:03.520 when the government right is not actually acting as your 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:09.600 safety net, that's when desperation begins at all. That's the difference, folks, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:20.360 between democracies, which we are not democracies, right, and autocracies cuctocracies. 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:25.040 We're only the rich right are able to have dental 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.360 and vision and healthcare and all of these things that 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:34.680 everybody else, be damned. And so if we again continue 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.520 to erode our faith and integrity of these institutions that 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.000 are supposed to be our social safety nets, then where 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:49.440 do we end up? It is terrifying to think that 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.400 we are a couple of weeks away from the end 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.040 of this year, and I want to ask you guys 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.680 right now and tell me in the comments section, what 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.800 would you call twenty one when we're referring back to 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.800 this year? You know, the year of this, you know, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.480 the Golden Age, the Age of Enlightenment, blah blah blah, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.359 the year of blah blah, the selfie this saying anything, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.560 What is what characterizes? What are the themes that would 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:23.880 characterize the year of twenty twenty one? I mean everywhere 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:31.560 that you look, from the beginning, the insurrection six days 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:39.320 into the new year, two deadly aggressive climate change, provoked 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.200 tornadoes at the end of the year, and that all 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.880 of the shit that happened in the middle. I mean, 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.399 I will be doing a reflection show, so I'm but 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.800 I'm reflecting in this moment on all that has transpired. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.639 And frankly, you know, I know that this administration is 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:05.000 up against a lot of attacks in the media. Politico, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.600 which was you know, bought out I believe by the 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:14.480 fucking murdocks, has gone after the Vice President with such savagery. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:20.800 It is disgusting. I see that CNN has decided to 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:27.639 lift up former Trump administration officials and bring them on 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:37.040 their network. I just, folks, you know, it's like you 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:42.800 don't face any consequences for doing bad. There's no responsibility 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:48.359 to be had. You just these people just continue to succeed, 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.600 right while the rest of us are left to scrape around. 0:18:55.520 --> 0:19:01.480 You know, there is a there is a piece that 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:07.520 Charles Burlough wrote in the New York Times, and I 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.800 gotta tell you it's really good. It's entitled We're Edging 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:19.800 Closer to Civil War and it begins like this. The 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:24.280 Supreme Court last Friday issued a decision allowing abortion providers 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.119 in Texas to continue challenging a new law that bans 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.359 most abortions in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy. 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.439 But while the conservative majority didn't close the door on 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.120 abortion in Texas completely, the degree to which it's cracked 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.480 open allows in only a sliver of light. For now, 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.280 the law in question SP eight remains on the books. 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.679 Anyone who assists in providing an illegal abortion, from the 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:52.879 provider down to the person who gives a woman a 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.800 ride to the clinic, can still be sued. Roe v. 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.240 Wade has essentially been overturned in the state and soon 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.720 that astonishing reality may not only become permanent there, but 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:08.040 may also spread to other states. A key component of 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.400 women's rights and body autonomy is being snatched away as 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:16.040 we watch in a descent. Last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.119 wrote this, this is a brazen challenge to our federal structure. 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.920 It echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent, 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:30.080 virulent defender of the slaveholding South, who insisted that states 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.000 had the right to veto or nullify any federal law 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.359 which they disagreed. I found the invocation of South Carolina's 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:44.560 Calhoun striking. Charles blow Rights for The Times. Yes, he 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.399 was a strong believer in nullification, the idea that states 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.680 could nullify federal laws. But he was also a raging 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.920 racist who went further than the slave owners who saw 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.760 slavery as a necessary evil, seeing it instead as a 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:02.439 positive good. This is what Calhoun wrote in eighteen thirty seven. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.280 He gave a speech. I'm sorry, he gave a speech 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.280 on the Senate floor that slavery quote quote had grown 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.400 up with our society and institutions and is so interwoven 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.200 with them that to destroy it, to destroy slavery would 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.440 be to destroy us as a people. This is what 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.719 he said, and I want you folks to listen to this, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:37.720 because again the attack on facts, history, truth, the truth 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:43.879 of our founding, the purpose of which is to have 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.040 us continue to repeat the same cycles of white supremacy 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.399 and terror over and over and over again. It is 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.720 to have us believe that this has always been the 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.480 way right, and that how dare any of us challenge 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.040 an institution that would have some one like a Calhoun 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.560 say there is no way for us to give up 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:10.680 holding slaves, torturing, beating, raping, murdering, lynching these enslaved Africans, 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:14.439 because it's just too part of who we are, and 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:19.320 it's for the greater good, the greater white good. What 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:21.919 Blow will go on to say in this piece are 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:26.320 the parallels between Calhoun's sensibility, which is what son Justice 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:31.879 Sonia Sotomayor had said in her descent, and to this 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:37.080 new wave of the white supremacist domestic terror party that 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:41.000 we see morphing bigger and bigger in front of us, 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.919 much in the same way as the tornadoes did across 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:51.480 the Midwest, destroying everything and anything in its path. Calhoun 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:56.399 said this in this floor speech. But let me not 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:01.440 be misunderstood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.960 relations between the two races in the slaveholding states is 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:09.080 an evil. Far otherwise, I hold it to be a good, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.639 as it has thus far proved itself to be both 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.720 and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:21.680 the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:25.000 before has the Black race of Central Africa, from the 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:27.960 dawn of history to the present day, attained a conditioned, 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:32.640 so civilized, and so improved, not only physically, but morally 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:45.280 and intellectually. You ripped poets, engineers, farmers, caregivers, tribe leaders, 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:53.679 people from their homes. You had the audacity of the 0:23:53.760 --> 0:24:00.560 place your Eurocentric white supremacist lens to look at their 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.920 experience their lives as what savagery. But you don't think 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:09.320 the beating, the brutalization, the rape, and the bondage and 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:14.000 captivity that you would place enslaved Africans in for hundreds 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:18.199 of years. You deem that as a necessary good and 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:22.560 not an evil. It is with that lens. It is 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:27.600 with that lens that white supremacs have been able to 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:32.040 justify everything that they do. And it is with that 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:41.520 lens right, that we continue to allow the media to 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:44.800 create a narrative around communities of color, around the black 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:50.480 community in particular. That all comes from this way of thinking, oh, 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:53.359 you see, they're better off in bondage because left to 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:58.639 their own devices, what would they do? This paternalistic, white 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:05.240 patriarchal mess that America is and has always been. And 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:11.840 we don't just feel right the sentiments the residue of 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:17.280 this now it's still in deeply in practice. But to 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:22.000 not understand that history, to not understand the Calhoun sensibility 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.600 that is now occupying the Republican Party and their belief 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.600 they're taking their belief of states rights to supersede that 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:35.280 of the federal government. So the Supreme Court is now 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:41.200 in cahoots with these Republican state governors right, who are 0:25:41.320 --> 0:25:47.959 in cahoots with Republicans at the national level to create 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:51.840 a patchwork. It is no longer the United States, right, 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:59.159 it is the disheveled states of America where you can 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:05.120 get an abortion in California and New York and that's it, right, 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:07.639 So what else do you think that they're going to 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:11.760 be able to institute allow states to decide what it 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:15.200 is that they choose to cherry pick from the Constitution 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:19.240 what they choose to cherry pick right from federal statutes 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:27.399 in law that no longer sit well with them. Charles 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:31.560 Blow goes on to write this, In Calhoun's view, the 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:34.520 states had the right to control and oppress black bodies 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:37.800 as they saw fit, regardless of any actions to the 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:41.320 contrary on the federal level. States, he felt, should be 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:46.359 able to choose whether or not they wanted slavery. I 0:26:46.480 --> 0:26:49.960 see too many uneasy parallels between what is happening nearly 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:53.520 two hundred years ago and what is happening now. I 0:26:53.600 --> 0:26:56.400 see this country on the verge of another civil war 0:26:56.920 --> 0:27:03.359 as the Calhounian impulse is reborn. There are enormous obvious differences. 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:06.440 Of course, the civil war I see is not the 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:08.840 kind that would leave hundreds of thousands of young men 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:12.719 dead in combat. That is not to say that we weren't, 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:16.080 that we aren't seeing spats of violence, but rather that 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:20.800 this new war will be fought in courts, state houses, 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:25.160 and ballot boxes rather than in the fields. And this 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:29.240 war won't be only about the subjugation of black people, 0:27:29.640 --> 0:27:32.879 but also about the subjugation of all who challenge the 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:37.480 white racist patriarchy. It will seek to push back against 0:27:37.520 --> 0:27:45.119 all others, he writes, black people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people, 0:27:45.520 --> 0:27:51.520 and yes, women, particularly liberal ones. You see, I disagree 0:27:52.200 --> 0:27:56.720 with Charles Blow on one account. I do think that 0:27:56.800 --> 0:28:00.560 we are going to see thousandstead Do you think that 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:03.560 we are going to see an escalation of violence in 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:06.760 our streets? I think that the decision in the Written 0:28:06.800 --> 0:28:12.479 House case made that all but certain that white vigilanteism 0:28:13.359 --> 0:28:17.840 will become the norm. That you will be allowed to 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:21.800 roam around with your AAR fifteen slung over your shoulder 0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:28.080 or your nine millimeter guns stuck into your genes and 0:28:28.200 --> 0:28:31.399 be able to stand your ground so long as you 0:28:31.440 --> 0:28:34.920 are white and male and straight wherever the fuck you want. 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:39.600 So what does that say for the safety of the 0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:41.880 rest of us? Because remind you, and we've talked about 0:28:41.880 --> 0:28:44.800 this with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel, there is a 0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:50.680 court case that has the ability to throw out a 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:56.080 hundred year old law in New York that makes it 0:28:56.160 --> 0:29:03.640 illegal for you to carry weapons, and it is going 0:29:04.520 --> 0:29:07.680 and is being heard at the Supreme Court. This comes 0:29:07.720 --> 0:29:12.840 on the heels, folks, of a fifteen year old being 0:29:12.880 --> 0:29:16.600 able to just pull out a draw in his parents' house, 0:29:17.440 --> 0:29:21.320 take a nine millimeter gun and go shoot off twenty rounds, 0:29:21.440 --> 0:29:25.120 killing four of his classmates. This will be the first 0:29:25.120 --> 0:29:28.920 case where parents are actually charged for their fucking reckless 0:29:28.960 --> 0:29:37.320 negligence for four counts of manslaughter each. And I think, 0:29:37.480 --> 0:29:41.680 in all honesty, if convicted, that that may in fact 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:45.480 be the turning point in the gun rights argument in 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:49.480 this country, because if parents much in the same way 0:29:49.560 --> 0:29:52.920 that we have been locking up black and brown parents 0:29:53.480 --> 0:29:57.760 for their children's truancy, because that's who gets locked up, 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:01.400 by the way, it is black and brown parents, because 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:06.160 we love to pathologize them right for their ill parenting, 0:30:06.440 --> 0:30:09.960 But not all of these white motherfuckers like Lauren Bobert 0:30:10.000 --> 0:30:15.400 who posed with her four boys with assault rifles in 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:18.000 front of a fucking Christmas tree. You have got to 0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:23.880 be kidding me. But shit like that, we think it's normal, right, 0:30:26.520 --> 0:30:30.160 that's not endangering the welfare of a child, that doesn't 0:30:30.240 --> 0:30:34.760 that doesn't require child protective services. We think that that 0:30:34.840 --> 0:30:38.040 shit is okay. But we will throw black and brown 0:30:38.080 --> 0:30:41.320 parents in jail for the bare minimum, you know, having 0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:43.719 to work multiple jobs, and it's just so that they 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:45.800 can put food on the table, and then their kids 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:50.720 skip school for a number of reasons, right, and we're 0:30:50.760 --> 0:30:53.160 finding them and throwing them in jail. But you can 0:30:53.240 --> 0:30:56.440