Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: I will say this that the decisions that are coming
Speaker 1: out of this administration as it pertains to the continued
Speaker 1: humanitarian crisis that is happening at the hands of the
Speaker 1: IDF in Gaza, the looking away that the United States
Speaker 1: government is doing as we are seeing pictures come out
Speaker 1: that show terror tactics being used on Palestinian men and boys.
Speaker 1: The idea that you would have a US government official
Speaker 1: when asked, and I've posted this exchange in my stories
Speaker 1: on Instagram, when asked by Sky News if they supported
Speaker 1: the images that have been circulating of men and boys
Speaker 1: being stripped down to their underwear and thrown in the
Speaker 1: back of IDF military vehicles and being detained. Understand first
Speaker 1: that the detentions that Palestinian people are put under are
Speaker 1: basically they are held without any type of due process.
Speaker 1: The people that were released in the exchange for hostages
Speaker 1: are people that never even knew in large cases what
Speaker 1: the fuck they were being held for in the first place.
Speaker 1: They never saw a judge, right, they were just picked
Speaker 1: up and put in jail indefinitely. So when the US
Speaker 1: government's response is, oh, we're asking them to look into it,
Speaker 1: and oh, we find the images disturbing. And the follow
Speaker 1: up question from Sky News was so, either you condemn
Speaker 1: the images or you don't. Either you still have leverage
Speaker 1: with the Israeli government or you do not, And you
Speaker 1: could see the growing irritation and frustration from the US
Speaker 1: official who was trying to make it seem as if
Speaker 1: this reporter was, you know, asking a quote unquote gotcha question.
Speaker 1: This is not a gotcha question. Either you are a
Speaker 1: democracy that condemns acts of terror or you don't. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why we need to get a better picture
Speaker 1: of the nuance here. It's bullshit, and it's becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: increasingly fucking difficult to stand up and tell people that
Speaker 1: they need to vote to save democracy when clearly we
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck about democracy elsewhere. One hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty three nations signed on to the UN resolution for
Speaker 1: a ceasefire because eighteen thousand.
Speaker 2: People are dead and a majority of them are children
Speaker 2: and women, because that's how you ensure there are no
Speaker 2: further generations.
Speaker 1: So, folks, you know, I find myself some days in
Speaker 1: absolute tears, in dismay, just you know, weighted by grief,
Speaker 1: and the challenges that we are facing right now just
Speaker 1: feel in some ways insurmountable because we don't seem to
Speaker 1: have a government that actually gives a shit. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how I personally continue on the grounds of
Speaker 1: we have to fight to preserve and sometimes we have
Speaker 1: to fight to hold on because folks, I understand the
Speaker 1: anger and the pain because I feel it. I also
Speaker 1: know that things will get incredibly fucking worse, irreversibly. So
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump is in the White House again, we
Speaker 1: are absolutely between a rock and an hard place. We
Speaker 1: are absolutely not in the place of luxury where we
Speaker 1: get to be excited about and put on T shirts
Speaker 1: for a knock on doors for a candidate who we
Speaker 1: believe in. That's not where the fuck we are, and
Speaker 1: we just have to get over it. It is disgusting.
Speaker 1: It is a hard fucking pill to swallow, and I
Speaker 1: ask you to take in as much water as possible
Speaker 1: in order to do so, because that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm not out here raw ryeing for Biden. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I never have been. I did when he was able
Speaker 1: to usher in the vaccines I did when he was
Speaker 1: able to topple Donald Trump. But that wasn't about Biden.
Speaker 1: It was about the people of the United States recognizing
Speaker 1: the stakes that I pray to God that we continue
Speaker 1: to do so in twenty twenty four, because you know,
Speaker 1: what we are seeing is disgusting and indefensible. Because if
Speaker 1: you were to swap out those fucking pictures and put
Speaker 1: it in Ukraine, then this president would be all full
Speaker 1: throated and have a whole fucking lot to say about
Speaker 1: Putin and his tactics and being a war criminal. But
Speaker 1: somehow that is not the case here. And the question
Speaker 1: that we have to keep asking ourselves is why. Coming
Speaker 1: up next my conversation with the founder of Spread the Vote,
Speaker 1: the executive director Kat Calvin, who has joined our show before,
Speaker 1: to discuss the ID crisis in this country and how
Speaker 1: it affects our ability to vote, to move, and for
Speaker 1: people to have a voice in our democracy. That conversation
Speaker 1: is coming up next, folks. I am very happy to
Speaker 1: welcome back to wok F Daily the founder of Spread
Speaker 1: the Vote, which is a nonprofit organization working closely with
Speaker 1: some of America's most vulnerable population, including the incarcerated Cat Calvin,
Speaker 1: welcome back. We are at a precarious time. And I
Speaker 1: say this because while I know that it's eleven months
Speaker 1: out from an election, the rumblings that I'm hearing from
Speaker 1: people who follow me, from people who I am friends with,
Speaker 1: are not good about their feelings about voting right now.
Speaker 1: This is your bread and butter, your you know of
Speaker 1: your business, and so I just want to start off
Speaker 1: with asking you what are you hearing right now?
Speaker 3: Nothing good? I'm you know.
Speaker 4: The situation that we've been in for many cycles over
Speaker 4: the past years, are everyone's sort of feeling forced to
Speaker 4: choose the lesser of two evils, right. We're very rarely,
Speaker 4: particularly in national elections. You may have like a city
Speaker 4: council member or something that you like, really love, but
Speaker 4: for bigger elections, for Congress, for president, I'm you know,
Speaker 4: even obviously a lot of times for governor. For bigger elections,
Speaker 4: it's usually I hate both of these people, but I
Speaker 4: hate this person less writer. I hate both of these people,
Speaker 4: but one of them is want to be fascist, right
Speaker 4: or something like that, And so I'll just vote for
Speaker 4: the lesser of two evils, and like it's exhausting, it
Speaker 4: gets hard. It's also you know, we're at like, what
Speaker 4: is this the fifth election cycle where the message is
Speaker 4: vote or it's the end of democracy?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so that is.
Speaker 4: What we've had over and over and over, and people
Speaker 4: have shown up over and over and over. And the
Speaker 4: problem is on both sides of the aisle, both parties
Speaker 4: have completely failed their voters in every way. I'm for Republicans,
Speaker 4: I mean we even now have Republicans in Congress saying,
Speaker 4: can you give me one thing we've done that I
Speaker 4: can go back to my voters with and they can't.
Speaker 4: For Democrats, not only have they absolutely not done anything,
Speaker 4: but the positions they support are increasingly untenable to more
Speaker 4: and more of their voters, and not just sort of
Speaker 4: young people or the TikTok crowd. My mother, my aunt's,
Speaker 4: you know, my grandmother are all like, what is going on?
Speaker 4: How can they be supporting these issues? What are they doing? I'
Speaker 4: And so now we're at a point where voter it's
Speaker 4: the end of democracy?
Speaker 3: Is it working?
Speaker 4: Because neither side really seems to be standing up for democracy?
Speaker 4: And we keep showing up and voting and working. I mean,
Speaker 4: the American people have worked hard since twenty sixteen, to
Speaker 4: help make elections, you know, fair, to help get people
Speaker 4: to the vote. Have really put their hearts and souls
Speaker 4: into it over and over and over, and they've been
Speaker 4: failed over and over. And I think we're at a
Speaker 4: moment right now where between you know, the many genocides
Speaker 4: happening around the world, between the economy. They keep telling
Speaker 4: us the economy is great, but I don't know anybody
Speaker 4: who isn't a millionaire who doesn't feel the economy is
Speaker 4: absolutely failing them right, and the desperation and failures on
Speaker 4: every front, and everyone's looking around at this you know
Speaker 4: nation burning down around us and saying, well, we keep
Speaker 4: saving democracy and it's not doing anything.
Speaker 3: And I think that we are in real trouble next.
Speaker 4: Year because it is again going to be an election
Speaker 4: between two people everybody hates. But this time, I don't
Speaker 4: know what argument can be made, particularly on the dem side,
Speaker 4: that voting for Biden again is going to do anything,
Speaker 4: because we've now seen that's he's not much better than
Speaker 4: anybody else who we could choose.
Speaker 1: I think it's and I hear everything, and those are
Speaker 1: exactly the responses that I'm getting right now from people
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I just want you to imagine
Speaker 1: what could be potentially worse than the four years that
Speaker 1: we experienced under Donald Trump. Like, if you are hurting now,
Speaker 1: I want to know what you think will happen with
Speaker 1: somebody that says that they want to be a dictator
Speaker 1: and they are saying so out loud to rousing applause
Speaker 1: that when they put people in camps like that, they'll
Speaker 1: continue that. And so what should the narrative be if
Speaker 1: it can't be we need to save democracy again.
Speaker 3: I mean, here's the thing.
Speaker 4: Trump at least is saying out loud he wants to
Speaker 4: be a dictator, but Biden is spending our tax money
Speaker 4: funding a genocide, right, and so like this is the
Speaker 4: problem is that you know that I was in a
Speaker 4: meaning today and I got this news alert from The
Speaker 4: Atlantic saying that ty had said out loud that he
Speaker 4: wants to be a dictator, and I sort of like
Speaker 4: saw it to like write it out to everybody, And
Speaker 4: everyone's response was sort of like, I mean, at least
Speaker 4: he's honest, you know, like, at least you know what
Speaker 4: you're gonna get. But we keep voting for these dums
Speaker 4: who we know are a little bit or a lot racist, right,
Speaker 4: who we know are mostly owned by corporations who we're
Speaker 4: not I mean, we're not seeing democracy in action right now,
Speaker 4: and so I think that's the problem. You know, what
Speaker 4: needs to happen on both sides of the aisle is
Speaker 4: both parties need to say we are not going to
Speaker 4: have these same men run as our candidates, right, because.
Speaker 3: We're also now seeing how many I mean now Mansion wants.
Speaker 1: To run a third party campaign.
Speaker 4: Right, Joe Stein hasn't learned a damn thing, right. But
Speaker 4: of course all these third parties. There's these two women
Speaker 4: who are women of color and they're socialists, and they're
Speaker 4: running and they're really taking off on TikTok because young
Speaker 4: people are like, young women of color, who is socialist,
Speaker 4: Let's vote for them? And this is the thing, right,
Speaker 4: there's so many third parties that seem attractive. And what
Speaker 4: the Republicans and what the Democrats need to do is
Speaker 4: going to Trump, who's about to be a convicted fella,
Speaker 4: and go to Biden, who everybody hates, and say, you
Speaker 4: guys aren't running, We're gonna have primaries, we're gonna choose
Speaker 4: someone else. But you can't, you cannot they're not gonna
Speaker 4: do this because it takes balls of the type that
Speaker 4: politicians don't have.
Speaker 3: But no, they are.
Speaker 4: We're now gonna have two nine hundred year old white
Speaker 4: men who have failed this country over and over again
Speaker 4: running And I don't know what the answer is. I
Speaker 4: don't you know, because what what kind of democracy is
Speaker 4: worth saving if it's the kind that we are living
Speaker 4: in now?
Speaker 1: Right, I've had a nightmare the other day as a
Speaker 1: black queer woman in this country that like it's either
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to either I'm gonna need to go
Speaker 1: underground or like be in a cam and like I
Speaker 1: want to tell myself that I'm just making up paranoid
Speaker 1: stories and it and it could never possibly happen. But
Speaker 1: the fact is that all of our worst fears can
Speaker 1: and will happen, particularly if Donald Trump becomes president again.
Speaker 1: But I am someone who does not want to sell
Speaker 1: people fear, right, like I want to sell you hope
Speaker 1: of you know the fact that you do have the
Speaker 1: power to shape this very imperfect democracy. But the fact
Speaker 1: is that you're right. We're looking at what is happening
Speaker 1: in Gaza, We're looking at where our tax dollars are
Speaker 1: going we're looking at what the lives that is ripping apart.
Speaker 1: We say that we give a shit about children, and
Speaker 1: clearly we do not, right, But as black people, we
Speaker 1: knew that.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's the thing.
Speaker 4: We don't care about children in this country. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's interesting that this conversation sort of keeps happening on
Speaker 4: so many different levels, because you know, during COVID, we
Speaker 4: magically solved child hunger in America.
Speaker 3: We were like, oh, you know.
Speaker 1: What, as for a beat, well, just for a hot minute,
Speaker 1: we could do that.
Speaker 4: And then the second they could, they were like, never mind,
Speaker 4: way to let kids starve again. Right, Like, we solved
Speaker 4: child hunger in America and then made the active, involuntary
Speaker 4: decision to allow children in this country to starve again.
Speaker 4: So anyone who's surprised that we don't care about brown
Speaker 4: children dying in any other country, right, Like anyone who
Speaker 4: doesn't care about the fact that we're not even talking
Speaker 4: about the genocides in Congo and Sudan has got a
Speaker 4: saying about those. No, but those are all based on
Speaker 4: our and the Western worlds, where we are the biggest
Speaker 4: economic engine of that. It's our fault, right, And I
Speaker 4: think that that's what's frustrating for people. And it's particularly
Speaker 4: frustrating because us as citizens, we would not make these choices,
Speaker 4: and we would gladly make sacrifices to not have those
Speaker 4: things happen. I think probably every millennial Gen z Er
Speaker 4: and Gen x or would happily throw our iPhones into
Speaker 4: the ocean if we knew that that would end a genocide, right.
Speaker 4: And we saw this during apartheid, right when it was
Speaker 4: students who were chaining themselves to their classrooms and shutting
Speaker 4: down colleges saying you have to defund from the businesses
Speaker 4: that are funding a part time right. And it was
Speaker 4: those kinds of movements we see over and over again,
Speaker 4: like if we have the choice of where our taxes
Speaker 4: were being allocated, we'd have the best education systems and
Speaker 4: the best healthcare in the world.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's what's most frustrating is we're.
Speaker 4: Being forced to pay for these things. We're being forced
Speaker 4: to not feed children in this country, which no one
Speaker 4: would voluntarily choose. And I think that's you know, and
Speaker 4: the argument that we always make with folks is eighty
Speaker 4: percent of the decisions that are made that impact your
Speaker 4: life are made.
Speaker 3: By state and local government.
Speaker 4: So even if you hate your member of Congress, even
Speaker 4: if you hate you're the president, whatever, the people who
Speaker 4: are really impacting your life are city council, board of supervisors, right,
Speaker 4: your state, rap et cetera. But even now that argument
Speaker 4: doesn't really wash because we are watching that twenty percent
Speaker 4: impact the world and impact us in ways that are massive.
Speaker 4: I mean, look at you know, it's the eight percent
Speaker 4: interest rate to buy a house right now, right which
Speaker 4: it was impossive for most people. It was two percent,
Speaker 4: you know, and so like it's everything. I think we're
Speaker 4: at a point and everyone sees it, accept the people
Speaker 4: in power, which is unbelievable to me.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not see it. They just don't give a
Speaker 1: damn right because they're projected.
Speaker 3: They don't care.
Speaker 4: We're at this point and we've seen this. We saw
Speaker 4: this in Nazi journey in Germany. Right, We see this
Speaker 4: in every single country where the people voluntarily choose a dictator,
Speaker 4: it's because their country is at this exact point. There
Speaker 4: was a really good opinion piece in Washington Post. I
Speaker 4: think I came out yesterday the day before, but he
Speaker 4: literally broke down like this is actually how Trump can
Speaker 4: easily become a dictator. And he is exactly right on
Speaker 4: every point. And he made the point at the end
Speaker 4: where he was like, you know what, you could say
Speaker 4: that I'm being overreacting. You could say there are a
Speaker 4: million things that could happen, that maybe that this will happen,
Speaker 4: but look at the.
Speaker 3: Reality of the situation. Mean's not wrong.
Speaker 4: And if you look at history, this is how it
Speaker 4: Loo came to power because Germans felt this way after
Speaker 4: the war right, and so we I don't know, I've
Speaker 4: been trying so hard to figure out because you know,
Speaker 4: we've got to start our election work in January.
Speaker 3: We start really early, yep. Yeah, and it's already.
Speaker 4: Really difficult to talk to folks who are unhoused, to
Speaker 4: talk to folks who are returning citizens, who are former
Speaker 4: foster youth. You know, the people we work with are
Speaker 4: the people the government absolutely does not care about. You know,
Speaker 4: we just put out a report. We have a national
Speaker 4: program to help incarcerated people vote, and we work really
Speaker 4: hard and we have a seventy nine percent turnout rate
Speaker 4: among acarcerated voters. And it takes a lot of work
Speaker 4: to try to convince folks who are incarcerated to vote right,
Speaker 4: But I don't know what our message is going to
Speaker 4: be because it's it's difficult to find where that hope is.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is like, again, you are working
Speaker 1: with the population of people that on a good day,
Speaker 1: on a great day, people don't care about right, let
Speaker 1: alone elected officials. And so now that we are in
Speaker 1: a series of very good terrible bad days, no good days,
Speaker 1: it's like, how do you convince people that they have
Speaker 1: power to your point when it's just like, aha, and
Speaker 1: I voted the last you know, the sky is falling
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, twenty twenty. You know here I am twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. You know here I am now again on
Speaker 1: the precipice of twenty twenty four. And if I'm looking
Speaker 1: from that span of time, is my life better? Right
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, No, it's not. It's measurably not.
Speaker 4: Who has to go to the grocery store knows that
Speaker 4: it's not right. I and that I know, and that's
Speaker 4: you know, And it's so it's hard to because people
Speaker 4: aren't stupid. And I think that one thing that social
Speaker 4: media and you know, I have a lot of respect
Speaker 4: for the kids on the TikTok which I'm too old.
Speaker 3: I look at it. I'm like, you guys are doing
Speaker 3: You're doing all right.
Speaker 4: I mean some of you maybe not stop trying to
Speaker 4: sell me things I don't want. But you know, they
Speaker 4: put things together and then they now have the medium
Speaker 4: to be able to spread these messages. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: once people started to understand the amount of money that
Speaker 4: gets sent to Israel every year, the amount of money
Speaker 4: that we've spent on the war in Ukraine, right, all
Speaker 4: of these things, and they're putting comparables together. And this
Speaker 4: is the thing I've been, you know, for a long
Speaker 4: time doing because I'm trying to convince Congress to pass
Speaker 4: ability in every one ninety I'm and you know, it
Speaker 4: would cost America about twenty billion dollars to sell homelessness,
Speaker 4: which is a lot less than we spend on a
Speaker 4: lot of foreign worths. It's less than we're spending on
Speaker 4: murdering children in Gaza, right, Like, And people are putting
Speaker 4: this together, and they're like, wait a second. For the
Speaker 4: amount of money we've spent, we could have better healthcare,
Speaker 4: we could have this or that, but I have all
Speaker 4: these you know, I'm credit card debt is at an
Speaker 4: insane hi in America and no one has any savings.
Speaker 4: And you know, their story after story after story of
Speaker 4: all these people working three or four jobs and they're
Speaker 4: having one or two meals a day, and yet we
Speaker 4: have the money.
Speaker 3: To murder people, right I.
Speaker 4: You know, Jeff Bezos is getting into real estate now,
Speaker 4: So good luck to anyone who wants to have a
Speaker 4: roof over their heads in the next twenty years. And
Speaker 4: I think that's that is where we are now. And
Speaker 4: it's hard. It's hard to talk to people, to people
Speaker 4: about building a bench. And you know, oh, well, there's
Speaker 4: these young people of color and they're queer, they're immigrants
Speaker 4: this or that, and they're running and if we vote
Speaker 4: for them in forty years.
Speaker 3: Maybe one of them will be a senator. Right Like,
Speaker 3: it's a hard argument.
Speaker 1: It's a hard argument.
Speaker 3: And the Democratic Party is not helping. No you, no,
Speaker 3: I'm the Republicans aren't interested in helping. And so it is.
Speaker 4: I don't know anyone right now who has any sort
Speaker 4: of answer besides the thing we always keep hearing, well,
Speaker 4: you have to save democracy, you know, vote to save
Speaker 4: your vote. It's like, well, I'm voting to save my
Speaker 4: vote for what purpose? Because the vote keeps feeling wasted,
Speaker 4: like it's those those same arguments aren't going to work,
Speaker 4: and there really needs to.
Speaker 3: Be a fundamental shift in how.
Speaker 4: Both parties, but particularly the Dems, choose to operate. I mean, really,
Speaker 4: what needs to happen is, you know, Biden needs to
Speaker 4: not run, right, I'm Trump needs to not run. If
Speaker 4: it's you know, Nikki Haley and and you know one
Speaker 4: of the cash Frow brothers like that, you know, that's
Speaker 4: a race people can get be hided. It's just they
Speaker 4: need to understand that having these same people. You know,
Speaker 4: McCarthy is stepping down now, thank god, maybe McConney.
Speaker 1: I mean, ain't nobody wanted him there in the first camp,
Speaker 1: you know, But now now we're looking at a potential
Speaker 1: one seat majority the Republicans will have in the House.
Speaker 1: So oh dear God.
Speaker 3: More and nothing's gonna happen. You know.
Speaker 4: Look, I hate to say it, but how did we
Speaker 4: just have a whole pandemic that killed senior citizens but
Speaker 4: it didn't kill any of the most evil one suit
Speaker 4: we actually need to die.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The Grim Reaper is off. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Valid question valid not a one of them.
Speaker 1: Oh dear god, it's because they Oh I'm sorry, wait no,
Speaker 1: let me say this. Why didn't happen? Because they have
Speaker 1: the healthcare the rest of us don't. They have the
Speaker 1: access to the platinum health care package that our tax
Speaker 1: dollars are paying for. So that's why.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's funny because I I think a
Speaker 4: lot of people don't know. So there last week. I
Speaker 4: think maybe even were, but there were, you know, all
Speaker 4: of these sort ninety nine year old was very prominent,
Speaker 4: ninety nine one hundred.
Speaker 1: Ye Kissinger, Santadey O'Connor, yeah, passed away yep.
Speaker 4: And you know all of these people are like, how
Speaker 4: are they all living so long? And I and I
Speaker 4: actually saw a TikTok on this and I realized, Oh,
Speaker 4: people don't know that there are wildly expensive, extraordinary health
Speaker 4: care services for the wealthy.
Speaker 1: You know, you can go full body scans yep, the
Speaker 1: executive the executive.
Speaker 4: Executive health memberships and things like that, yep. At all
Speaker 4: of these university hospitals and Johns Hopkins, et cetera. They
Speaker 4: have them, and you can, you know, you pay twenty
Speaker 4: five thousand or something. I had a friend in undergrad
Speaker 4: who came from I had a lot of friends Underrada
Speaker 4: came from very wealthy families. But one of them, her
Speaker 4: grandmother was very sick. But they had you know, the
Speaker 4: executive whatever at Johns Hopkins, and she was telling me
Speaker 4: about what the health services were like, and like they
Speaker 4: have a private suite and they do this and that
Speaker 4: and whatever, and that's how these people live for so long.
Speaker 4: And I think that people are just starting to wake
Speaker 4: up to how drastic the inequality is.
Speaker 3: I don't think, you know, most Americans.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because actually Canada is also at a
Speaker 4: really bad place right now. And I think most people
Speaker 4: have not understood because it's been all of these secrets
Speaker 4: of the wealthy, like of what actually they have access
Speaker 4: to when you can lose your home because your child
Speaker 4: was in the hospital for a week, right I And
Speaker 4: people have no idea, And now they're starting to figure
Speaker 4: it out, and they're starting to realize, like, wait a second,
Speaker 4: even when it comes to something as basic as just
Speaker 4: surviving COVID, every single two hundred year old in Congress
Speaker 4: came out just fine, and yet my grandparents and parents
Speaker 4: are not and ancles passed away. Why is that is it. Well,
Speaker 4: it's because of the inequality and healthcare. They were always
Speaker 4: going to be fine. They will always be fine.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. I am so grateful for
Speaker 1: you for bringing up that very clear distinction, because it's
Speaker 1: something that I have been thinking and saying privately but
Speaker 1: just not publicly. And that is one hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: It's like every time that I get to notice that
Speaker 1: one of these that one of these hundred year old
Speaker 1: have passed away, my thing is, oh, you know, rest
Speaker 1: in power for you and your platinum healthcare. While we
Speaker 1: have while since COVID, the life expectancy in America fell
Speaker 1: rolled back about two years and for black people rolled
Speaker 1: back about three to five yep, right, And we're just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. And the reality is
Speaker 1: it isn't.
Speaker 3: And you know, even.
Speaker 4: For for seniors who are not wealthy. You know, obviously
Speaker 4: we have this huge divide between like the way boomers
Speaker 4: understand the world and what the rest of us do.
Speaker 4: But you know, so my grandmother is ninety two and
Speaker 4: I'm she was in civil service for her whole career,
Speaker 4: and my grandfather was in the military until he died
Speaker 4: in seventy three. My grandmother has Tricare, which is the
Speaker 4: military health insurance for life. He passed away in seventy three.
Speaker 4: She still has it. She has Medicare, and she has
Speaker 4: a third health insurance. I can't even think of.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: She has access to so much because in the seventies,
Speaker 4: if you were a civil servant, if your husband was
Speaker 4: in the military, or even if you got a pension,
Speaker 4: way you still had all of that. So she's ninety
Speaker 4: two and she'll have it forever. And I am so
Speaker 4: grateful for that because it's my grandmother, and she has
Speaker 4: incredible She has a home blood pressure machine and we
Speaker 4: have to take her blood pressure every day, and if
Speaker 4: it's just a little bit low, somebody calls and asks
Speaker 4: eighty five questions to make sure she's okay. And it's
Speaker 4: not even because she's a millionaire.
Speaker 3: She's not.
Speaker 4: It's just because they had those things set up, and
Speaker 4: those things are dying out. There's probably nobody under fifty
Speaker 4: who has access to those services because they're going to expire,
Speaker 4: as all of these older generations expire, and so then
Speaker 4: they look at us and they don't understand why we
Speaker 4: don't have, you know, four forms of health insurance or
Speaker 4: can't buy a house for fifty two cents, right.
Speaker 3: Or all of these things right. And you know, I
Speaker 3: was just reading an article.
Speaker 4: That the biggest percentage of people buying homes right now
Speaker 4: is boomers buying their second, third, fourth house because they
Speaker 4: have all the equity from the house they bought for
Speaker 4: nothing when they wear a grocery store clerk in sixty four.
Speaker 3: Right. And so there's this.
Speaker 4: Gap because Joe Biden, you know, and anyone in power,
Speaker 4: they have no concept of what the world actually looks
Speaker 4: like right now. Yeah, and so there's no way that
Speaker 4: they even can adjust it or make it work for us,
Speaker 4: even if they wanted to, which they don't, you know,
Speaker 4: And they don't listen. They just dismiss the few young
Speaker 4: people who are in Congress.
Speaker 3: They don't listen to them. They don't care.
Speaker 4: They have no power. You have no power in Congress
Speaker 4: until you've been there for eighty five years. And so
Speaker 4: we you know, And yet they're living longer and longer
Speaker 4: and longer. They're actually I don't know how people aren't
Speaker 4: talking about this. I read this in Scientific Americana, which
Speaker 4: is one of my favorite magazines, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: maybe even one or two. But uh, scientists have actually
Speaker 4: cracked aging. They have figured out how to reverse aging,
Speaker 4: and they can even do it by a certain number
Speaker 4: of years, right, because they could say, well, we want
Speaker 4: to reverse it ten years before you got cancer or whatever.
Speaker 3: This is the thing now that will actually be available
Speaker 3: in pill form in a couple of decades. You know
Speaker 3: who's gonna get it? You and I are not getting
Speaker 3: this now.
Speaker 4: And we're both really relatively privileged black women, and we
Speaker 4: still will not get this.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: But Norman Lear could have lived to two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty if he just waited around until that pill came out. Right,
Speaker 4: McConnell will never well evil.
Speaker 3: It's keeping that man alivee. But like, you know, these.
Speaker 4: People are going to be living longer and longer and
Speaker 4: longer because in their generation, you know, they all Biden
Speaker 4: has literally been running for president since I was born.
Speaker 4: Because back then, when you were in your thirties and forties,
Speaker 4: that's when you got into power.
Speaker 3: But now millennials are in our.
Speaker 4: Thirties and forties and we can't because they're still hanging
Speaker 4: around in their nineties.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's so disheartening. And this is
Speaker 1: I mean, just to bring it back full circle as
Speaker 1: we close out like this, This is the reason why
Speaker 1: people have become disenchanted with voting with the systems, because
Speaker 1: while these people continue to hang on right to their
Speaker 1: lives and are able to do so because of wealth,
Speaker 1: right because of access, the rest of us are just
Speaker 1: left trying to hang on the side of a cliff.
Speaker 1: And that is and that's and that's the reality and.
Speaker 4: Completely connects back to why people don't want to vote
Speaker 4: right now because they are hanging on to old values.
Speaker 3: You know, even Obama, who.
Speaker 4: I frequently have beef with and I particularly have beef
Speaker 4: with now, who was like, ugh, well, you kids are
Speaker 4: only you know, upset about Gaza because you're on the TikTok.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, we're upset about it because children are dying, right.
Speaker 4: But they're so far removed, and so they keep making
Speaker 4: policies and laws and political statements that are based on
Speaker 4: a political world that existed twenty.
Speaker 1: Three twenty years ago, you know, just like you know.
Speaker 4: Biden's entire Democratic Convention when he was running was all
Speaker 4: about how what great Frindsy is with Republicans because he
Speaker 4: did not understand that that work across the aisle stuff
Speaker 4: is not work anymore, right, and so no one wants
Speaker 4: to vote because we're voting for people, or we're supposed
Speaker 4: to vote for people who are fighting for a.
Speaker 3: World that hasn't existed in ages.
Speaker 4: And it's really hard to look at a twenty two
Speaker 4: year old who already grew up in a world where
Speaker 4: they we're taught very clearly the adults in charge in
Speaker 4: this country do not care if someone is going to
Speaker 4: shoot you in your classroom. They're not going to do
Speaker 4: anything about it. They've already been taught that the adults
Speaker 4: in power don't care if you're going to run out
Speaker 4: of water and the polar ice caps are going to
Speaker 4: melt and your entire way of life is going to
Speaker 4: have to change because of climate change, they're not going
Speaker 4: to do anything about it. They've grown up in a
Speaker 4: world where it's been very clear that the adults in
Speaker 4: power don't care whether they live or die. And now
Speaker 4: we're telling them, okay, but now you have to vote
Speaker 4: for those people, even though the world they're trying to
Speaker 4: uphold is a world that is irrelevant to ninety nine
Speaker 4: percent of us.
Speaker 3: And it makes it difficult.
Speaker 4: And I am still, you know, really struggling with what's
Speaker 4: our message going to because we're already hearing it. We're
Speaker 4: going to hear it a lot when we are out
Speaker 4: there trying to get people to vote next year, of
Speaker 4: why should I? What's going to change? And I don't
Speaker 4: have an answer for that right now.
Speaker 1: We will have to come back again figure and figure
Speaker 1: this out. But I so appreciate the work that you
Speaker 1: continue to do at a time when it is hard
Speaker 1: to have hope and you continue to try and spread
Speaker 1: the vote as your organization is aptly titled, because regardless,
Speaker 1: that's what we need to keep doing. So really really
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: a f as always Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.