Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to bokay f Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody recording from Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Speaker 1: Dear friends, I'm going to tell you ahead of time
Speaker 1: that you may hear children screaming in the background. They
Speaker 1: are not mine, they are not being tortured. I'm visiting
Speaker 1: one of my best friends for her birthday weekend. Um.
Speaker 1: I say all that to say, you know, we need
Speaker 1: to be nimble, kind of the way that you know,
Speaker 1: our society needs to be with regard to COVID and
Speaker 1: the fact that it's not over right. I know that, folks,
Speaker 1: everyone is exhausted, everyone is tired, and everyone wants to
Speaker 1: just move past. Right. This is what the Democratic governors
Speaker 1: are saying as they are rolling back mask mandates, as
Speaker 1: they are rolling back vaccine mandates. Just recently in DC,
Speaker 1: which only had vaccines in place for restaurants for folks
Speaker 1: to show their vaccinations in place for eight weeks. Guess what.
Speaker 1: They've decided that it's no longer politically advantageous for the mayor,
Speaker 1: so they've decided to end that. Folks. You know I
Speaker 1: don't often say to you, well, both sides right, It's
Speaker 1: actually the phrase that I can't stand the fucking most
Speaker 1: both sides, Well, both sides are doing X, and both
Speaker 1: sides are doing why. But I will say this, Democrats
Speaker 1: had a leg to stand on as the party, right,
Speaker 1: the actual political party that was putting public health and
Speaker 1: public safety first. They were the political party that said,
Speaker 1: we're following facts, we believe in science. Right, So for
Speaker 1: anybody who these elusive independence that everyone loved to talk
Speaker 1: about every fucking election cycle, except I've never met an independent,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to believe that, Oh, Democrats are
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, right, Like, it's very clear because
Speaker 1: Republicans are doing everything that they can to be the
Speaker 1: worst people, right. Like everything, it's like after every announcement,
Speaker 1: every headline, it's like, oh, no, hold my beer, here's
Speaker 1: somebody that is worse. Here's an incident that is worse.
Speaker 1: Here's another book banning that is happening. Here's another rollback
Speaker 1: of COVID, here's another lie that's being told. Right, So, Democrats,
Speaker 1: I thought that they're saving grace going into midterms, was
Speaker 1: going to be just that. Where the party that believes
Speaker 1: in public safety, where the party that believes in science,
Speaker 1: Where the party that believes in truth, and so that's
Speaker 1: how we're going to be moving forward. Right. But no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what they're doing. They have decided instead, dear friends,
Speaker 1: that it is going to be more politically expedient for
Speaker 1: them or better somehow in the midterm elections to decide
Speaker 1: to try on republicanism and just say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: people are just fed up with COVID, so we're going
Speaker 1: to end restrictions and mask mandates. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I've been talking a lot of shit about the CDC
Speaker 1: and the way that doctor Willinsky has had such a
Speaker 1: communication nightmare over the past year plus, right, telling people, oh,
Speaker 1: get vaccinated, take off your mask. Oh by the way,
Speaker 1: put your masks back on. Oh by the way, and
Speaker 1: not everybody needs a booster. Oh by the way, you
Speaker 1: may need a fourth one. Right. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: here's what we know to be true. COVID over the
Speaker 1: last two years has followed the same pattern, right, which
Speaker 1: is this, we had alpha, right, so COVID comes out
Speaker 1: of the blue twenty twenty. We have the alpha variant. Right.
Speaker 1: Within a short period of time, roughly seven to eight
Speaker 1: months in to alpha, right, then we had what delta
Speaker 1: Delta took over Alpha. Then roughly in another seven six
Speaker 1: to eight month span, guess what came omicron. Right, So
Speaker 1: now we're at a point where the incredible surge that
Speaker 1: we hit. And mind you, I said this on my
Speaker 1: other podcast, Democracy Ish, which if you're not listening to,
Speaker 1: comes out weekly with my friend wajahat Ali. You should
Speaker 1: check that out as well, really interesting in depth conversations
Speaker 1: with the both of us each week. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Sixty thousand Americans died last month, sixty thousand. We are
Speaker 1: still at a place in this pandemic where two thousand
Speaker 1: Americans dying every day. Right, But we've decided as a society,
Speaker 1: as a culture, as a country that we don't really
Speaker 1: give a dam. We don't give a dam, We have
Speaker 1: no empathy. It doesn't matter to us that we are
Speaker 1: putting each other in harm's way, so long as everyone
Speaker 1: gets to pretend that normal still exists, whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: that is, they want to be able to go back
Speaker 1: to it. So we have collectively decided to engage in
Speaker 1: the COVID gaslight and tell ourselves and each other right
Speaker 1: that it's no longer a threat. Well, here's what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. And I'm going to make this prediction. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read the tea leaves in the way that
Speaker 1: polsters tell us how elections are going to go. So
Speaker 1: here is this. In this lull that we will have,
Speaker 1: you will see things feel good and better as spring
Speaker 1: starts to happen, as we enter into summer. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you that before we enter into the fall season, midway
Speaker 1: through summer, there will be another fucking variant, right, because
Speaker 1: that is what the patterns have shown us. So for
Speaker 1: these democratic I don't even care about the Republican governors,
Speaker 1: but to these Democratic governors who think that they are
Speaker 1: making this quote unquote politically smart decision, not the public
Speaker 1: health decision, but a politically smart decision to make these
Speaker 1: changes right before mid terms, I shit you not. That
Speaker 1: we will have a new variant before November, right, and
Speaker 1: if the pattern holds, it will happen by the end
Speaker 1: of summer as we head into the fall. So then
Speaker 1: for those people, right, for these governors who are is
Speaker 1: telling people, oh, it's okay, take off your mass Oh
Speaker 1: we're not going to do vaccine checks anymore. It's just
Speaker 1: on everybody. We're going to decide that this is endemic now,
Speaker 1: even though, let me remind you, sixty thousand Americans died
Speaker 1: last month of COVID, two thousand or dying every single day,
Speaker 1: and before we get to summer, a million Americans will
Speaker 1: have died from COVID. So no, you idiots, this is
Speaker 1: not like the flu, because a million people don't die
Speaker 1: over the course of two years from the fucking flu.
Speaker 1: And if you want to have some type of normal
Speaker 1: ish type of life, then you need to adapt. You
Speaker 1: need to be nimble in this moment and not decide
Speaker 1: to drop all of your COVID protocol in order for
Speaker 1: this rush to normal that doesn't exist. Like, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I know that it is so difficult for us to
Speaker 1: wrap our minds around the fact that two thousand and
Speaker 1: nineteen wasn't that long ago. But our lives are so
Speaker 1: drastically different then they were back then. The problems, the
Speaker 1: issues that even I was talking about on this show
Speaker 1: seem ridiculous now when we're facing global death rates at
Speaker 1: numbers that we haven't seen since the Spanish flu. Right
Speaker 1: that the numbers that we have seen in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two with a vaccine are worse than
Speaker 1: what we saw in twenty twenty. So how is it
Speaker 1: that the party that is supposed to follow science, the
Speaker 1: party that is supposed to be about public safety, has
Speaker 1: decided that they're just too exhausted to keep going. So
Speaker 1: instead you give Republicans the talking points that they need,
Speaker 1: even though they don't do shit. They don't offer America platform,
Speaker 1: they don't offer you any help, they don't offer you
Speaker 1: a direction forward. All they do is offer you the
Speaker 1: word no, right, no, on top of white supremacy, racism, misogyny, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that they are offering to you.
Speaker 1: But now Democrats have given them a gift, right. You See.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is is that I have believed for
Speaker 1: the longest time that Republicans who are going to make
Speaker 1: it easy for Democrats, because it was going to be
Speaker 1: so easy for people to see the writing on the
Speaker 1: wall with Republicans, they want to return to nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 1: They want segregation, They want to make segregation great again.
Speaker 1: They want to whitewash your child's public school curriculum. They
Speaker 1: want to make it impossible to vote. The next thing
Speaker 1: up is going to be we're counting jellybeans again, just
Speaker 1: if you're black and brown, everybody else go to the
Speaker 1: front of the line. They are saying the quiet parts
Speaker 1: out loud, over and over again. So you would think
Speaker 1: then it wouldn't be so hard to combat that narrative
Speaker 1: and to offer up to the American people, here's your alternative,
Speaker 1: people that want to exist in the twenty first century
Speaker 1: with you and recognize that we are living in a
Speaker 1: multiracial democracy, right that requires participation, because you see in
Speaker 1: all the documents that people love to bring up, it's
Speaker 1: said government foreign by the people, not a selected group
Speaker 1: of minority that have made themselves into authoritarianism and enshrined
Speaker 1: with their over takeover of our judicial system, enshrined and
Speaker 1: codified into law, white supremacy. Again. You would think that
Speaker 1: Democrats would be able to figure this out, but no,
Speaker 1: Instead they have offered them a gift, which is that
Speaker 1: you see COVID wasn't that big of a deal anyway,
Speaker 1: because now the democratic governors are finally coming to their
Speaker 1: senses where Republicans have been all along. So now the
Speaker 1: people don't know who to trust and they don't know
Speaker 1: who to believe in because you see all of the
Speaker 1: things that this administration said on the campaign trail that
Speaker 1: they were going to do, right, it's coming out in
Speaker 1: drips and drabs. If at all, we have no voting rights, right,
Speaker 1: we have no climate change legislation. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I want to let you know something. When I
Speaker 1: left New York and headed down to Maryland, it was
Speaker 1: sixty five fucking degrees outside. Now, hey, here's a thing.
Speaker 1: If we're all going to die anyway, I will absolutely
Speaker 1: enjoy some sunshine and some warm weather. But I want
Speaker 1: us all to realize it's February in the Northeast. It
Speaker 1: shouldn't be sixty five degrees. And last week, right after
Speaker 1: a lovely fifty some odd degree day, it's snowed two
Speaker 1: to three inches the next day. So, folks, what do
Speaker 1: you think is happening here? Right like? This is the
Speaker 1: new normal? The new normal is just abnormal. It is
Speaker 1: all of the things that the scientists had been warning
Speaker 1: us about for twenty years. If you don't do something
Speaker 1: about climate change, it's going to get to a point
Speaker 1: where the damage that is done is irreversible. Well, the
Speaker 1: same thing is true about our fucking democracy right now.
Speaker 1: If you don't do anything to fix right our broken system,
Speaker 1: a system that Donald Trump has now told seventy five
Speaker 1: million people or however many white supremacis decided to vote
Speaker 1: for him, that the election was rigged. And now you
Speaker 1: have a mirrie I mean, just a fucking bevy, right,
Speaker 1: a voter suppression laws now across the country. Like, what
Speaker 1: do you think is going to continue to happen when
Speaker 1: you don't protect what is sacred? So it's the environment,
Speaker 1: and today it's sixty five degrees in February and maybe
Speaker 1: it'll snow in fucking June. Right, what do you think
Speaker 1: that that is going to do to your grocery bill?
Speaker 1: For instance? Where do we think that we get this
Speaker 1: food from? So if you have oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: extreme frost, extreme heat, droughts, right, that is going to
Speaker 1: affect guess what food prices? Because you see the big farms, right,
Speaker 1: how are they going to know when to harvest? Which
Speaker 1: is going to make prices go up? All of this
Speaker 1: is connected, but instead we look at these problems as
Speaker 1: if they are silos. Right, Republicans don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about climate change, but they want to talk about opening
Speaker 1: up the economy. Well, I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: fucking economy you can have right when your basic needs
Speaker 1: like food is going to be disrupted because you're going
Speaker 1: to have to start outsourcing things that we used to
Speaker 1: grow in the United States but will no longer be
Speaker 1: able to grow and no longer be able to predict
Speaker 1: the seasons of And who is that going to fall
Speaker 1: on the consumer? You know? But they want to Even
Speaker 1: the conversation that we have around climate change is one
Speaker 1: that is still sitting in trying to convince people of
Speaker 1: the obvious. And I'm just like, just start to look
Speaker 1: at your fucking grocery bills. That's not just because of inflation.
Speaker 1: Things are going to get worse. And the reality is
Speaker 1: that the one party that I continue to have faith
Speaker 1: in because I thought that, oh hey right, they believe
Speaker 1: in truth, they believe in science. They are for the people,
Speaker 1: at least that that's what they set on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1: But they are for the people, and they are for
Speaker 1: science so long as it is convenient. But that's not
Speaker 1: how this ship works. So here we are. Pandemic is
Speaker 1: not done. News to everybody, especially those folks at Coachella
Speaker 1: that are getting ready to put on their outdoor festival
Speaker 1: for tens of thousands of fucking people with no protocols
Speaker 1: in place, because guess what, right, money over everything else?
Speaker 1: You know. So I don't know, folks, I don't know
Speaker 1: how Democrats are going to showcase to the country right
Speaker 1: when they have no voting rights bill passed, they have
Speaker 1: no police reform passed, they have no climate change measured past.
Speaker 1: Now the part of BBB, the human infrastructure that's stalled,
Speaker 1: that's not going to pass. So what is it that
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to be running on for mid terms?
Speaker 1: You tell me if you can think about something in
Speaker 1: the comment section that I am not thinking about, then
Speaker 1: tell me in the comments section of the show, if
Speaker 1: you're thinking about, Oh no, Danielle, they can run on this.
Speaker 1: Please let me know, because I have been begging, banging
Speaker 1: my head against the wall to figure out what is
Speaker 1: the conversation going to be. I can tell you what
Speaker 1: the headlines are going to be. Democracy dies. That's going
Speaker 1: to be the headline. Right America is over. That's going
Speaker 1: to be the headline come following the mid term elections,
Speaker 1: because as soon as Republicans get in charge of the
Speaker 1: House and Kevin McCarthy or whatever piece of shit Republican
Speaker 1: could be. They could anoint Marjorie Taylor Green, for all
Speaker 1: we know, to be the new Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Right, they will reinstate
Speaker 1: the people that were censured, not you know, the ones
Speaker 1: that believe that, you know, the election was free and fair,
Speaker 1: and not the two that they basically booted out of
Speaker 1: the party who sit on the one six Commission. Not
Speaker 1: Chainey and Kissinger, but the Marjorie Taylor Green. Oh well,
Speaker 1: that's the future of the party, she told us herself.
Speaker 1: And by virtue of the fact that nobody ever has
Speaker 1: that racist, anti semite, ever transphobe, ever offer up an
Speaker 1: apology or say that that's not who we are, it
Speaker 1: is not outside of the realm of possibility that someone
Speaker 1: absolutely batshit crazy if Republicans win in midterms, will be
Speaker 1: the new Speaker of the House. So all of the investigations,
Speaker 1: what little is happening, will be done. They will gum
Speaker 1: up the works at the Department of Justice. They will
Speaker 1: gut finally finish right with public education. I mean, folks,
Speaker 1: I just don't think that everyone gets what's at stake.
Speaker 1: And I spend each and every day trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how how do I tell this story better? You know,
Speaker 1: I try, and I scream at the top of my lungs,
Speaker 1: not because I'm doing it for show, but because I
Speaker 1: am really that fucking angry, you know. I just it's
Speaker 1: like Democrats feel to me like they are trying to lose,
Speaker 1: that they are trying to make sure that our country
Speaker 1: is over right. And when I look at this administration
Speaker 1: that again I wanted to give the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt too. I wanted to give them time because they
Speaker 1: were inheriting, right, something that was terrible. They were inheriting
Speaker 1: a catastrophe. But at that same time, right in this
Speaker 1: same moment in Vain, it's been over a year, and
Speaker 1: again I say, what have they done? What have they
Speaker 1: offered us? You can't continue to run on public health
Speaker 1: and safety when your own democratic governors are deciding that
Speaker 1: they are no longer going to listen to you, right.
Speaker 1: You can't run on the success of the vaccine when
Speaker 1: we still have more than a quarter of the population
Speaker 1: that isn't vaccinated. You can't run on the fact that,
Speaker 1: like people's lives got to go back to quote unquote normal,
Speaker 1: even though we knew those with brains that that was
Speaker 1: never really going to happen. But you can't run on
Speaker 1: that either. And now you've turned your back on the virus.
Speaker 1: And you think that because we as a soci say
Speaker 1: COVID is done, the virus is like, oh okay, I'm
Speaker 1: finished too. I guess I'll move on now. It's not
Speaker 1: how it works. So I sit here deeply worried and troubled.
Speaker 1: I am deeply worried and troubled because I feel like
Speaker 1: we are at an a point where the end is inevitable.
Speaker 1: I feel like we are at a point and even
Speaker 1: I just had a conversation with my friend as I
Speaker 1: walked in with my friends and they're like, you know, Danielle,
Speaker 1: sometimes I find it really hard to watch you. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know why, because everything that you say
Speaker 1: is true, and you just say it really fast and
Speaker 1: really straight. But there is nowhere that I can point
Speaker 1: to like it's just not easy to listen to. It's
Speaker 1: not easy to hear the truth. And I said, I
Speaker 1: get it, it's not easy for me to say it right.
Speaker 1: But I feel like we're running out of time, so
Speaker 1: I don't have the time to you know, bullshit around
Speaker 1: and say, oh, well, maybe if we do X, why
Speaker 1: will happen? And I'm like, no, guys, you kind of
Speaker 1: know that that's not true. We can have faith, but
Speaker 1: it is not going to be in the fact that
Speaker 1: Democrats may hold on to power, because they have already
Speaker 1: shown the country that they don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with power once it's given to them. They are a disappointment.
Speaker 1: I'm at a point with Democrats right now where I
Speaker 1: really do want to throw up my hands right where
Speaker 1: I'm sitting around and I'm wondering why Donald Trump isn't
Speaker 1: in jail. I'm wondering why white people who continue to
Speaker 1: break the law, who are criminal are able to get
Speaker 1: off scott free. I'm wondering why Democrats keep saying in Unison,
Speaker 1: no one is above the law. But then you have
Speaker 1: an ag that is apparently a mime who has offered nothing,
Speaker 1: no hope that we are restoring anybody's institutions or restoring
Speaker 1: anybody's faith. You know, earlier in the week and I
Speaker 1: spoke about this, but I want to talk about it again.
Speaker 1: You know, I have really started to unpack what is
Speaker 1: happening in Ottawa, in Canada, and you know, we are Americans.
Speaker 1: Let's just be real, right, we're really fucking self centered.
Speaker 1: We don't really give a shit about what is happening
Speaker 1: in other countries by virtue of you know, how far
Speaker 1: away we are with the rest of the world. But
Speaker 1: Canada is right, you know, to our north. And what
Speaker 1: is happening in Ottawa with this vaccine protests and the
Speaker 1: way that they have used these you know, semi trucks
Speaker 1: that apparently can't be moved to essentially block off the
Speaker 1: road to government and shut down the entire city, and
Speaker 1: they are being funded by right wingers in the United States,
Speaker 1: where people reporters are like, why are there so many
Speaker 1: American flags? Like this is not how Canadians are. But
Speaker 1: they have these fucking transplants that are coming around and
Speaker 1: you know, the cops, right, they're not doing anything to
Speaker 1: stop people. And come to find out, guess who are
Speaker 1: some of the people that are in this quote unquote
Speaker 1: protest that is happening in Ottawa active police, active military.
Speaker 1: So we're like, why hasn't anybody been arrested? Right? Oh,
Speaker 1: because they have a quote unquote right to protest. And
Speaker 1: this week Trudeau right has given himself outsized power in
Speaker 1: order to be able to gain control back over a
Speaker 1: situation that they kind of have given over to the protesters.
Speaker 1: Now why is this important? Because what is happening in
Speaker 1: Ottawa is gonna fucking happen in the United States. And
Speaker 1: also where do you think that they got the idea from.
Speaker 1: Do we all forget when white supremacst decided to take
Speaker 1: over the to take over the capitol in Michigan? We
Speaker 1: did we forget that that happened? Do we forget that
Speaker 1: there was a plan to kidnap right and try in
Speaker 1: somebody's people's court. I'm sure in rape and murder the
Speaker 1: governor right and those people were arrested, Like, do we
Speaker 1: not get that the tactics that we are seeing being
Speaker 1: used in being used in other places where the right
Speaker 1: wing is not the majority of people, but they are
Speaker 1: the majority of who is being heard and who is
Speaker 1: being shown. And the more spotlight that they get, the
Speaker 1: more reporting that is done, the more people that come.
Speaker 1: And because once again white people can do no wrong,
Speaker 1: they're able to set up an entire fucking Tailgate protest
Speaker 1: over the course of three weeks. I don't know in
Speaker 1: whose world that that happens in, but all I know
Speaker 1: is that in this upcoming election, if folks are not
Speaker 1: paying attention to what has happened with the insurrection a
Speaker 1: year ago, to what is happening above us in the north,
Speaker 1: to how these right wingers continue to organize and mobilize right,
Speaker 1: because the Department of Justice is doing such a fucking
Speaker 1: poor shit job of actually taking down the people who
Speaker 1: funded the insurrection, who were the architects of the insurrection.
Speaker 1: So all this time has passed, handful of people have
Speaker 1: been arrested, given some slaps on the wrist or being
Speaker 1: able to just go home, right, to give themselves up right,
Speaker 1: So all they're doing is sharpening their knives, polishing literally
Speaker 1: their arsenals, just waiting for the next green light from
Speaker 1: their leaders who are telling you out loud that they
Speaker 1: want another civil war. But once again we're going to
Speaker 1: find ourselves caught off guard. Where did this come from?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, we need a documentary, an investigation into
Speaker 1: understanding how another insurrection could happen because you failed to
Speaker 1: stop the first one and then you didn't hold any
Speaker 1: of those people accountable. So basically giving a blueprint to
Speaker 1: the next round to make sure that it is successful,
Speaker 1: and just you know, to say this success looks different
Speaker 1: to different people. Your ability to storm the Capitol building,
Speaker 1: to be able to shit in the halls of democracy
Speaker 1: and then go home and brag about it on Facebook
Speaker 1: and literally nothing happened to you. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't have kids, but I'm pretty sure that when they
Speaker 1: have poor behavior and you don't course correct it, and
Speaker 1: then they continue that behavior and then guess what, it escalates, right,
Speaker 1: because they haven't been held accountable. So if we thought
Speaker 1: that one six look bad, right, what do you think
Speaker 1: that the next iteration is going to look like? I
Speaker 1: think it's going to look like bullets and tanks, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean tanks on our side, right, Because we're
Speaker 1: again not paying attention. We have allowed our guard to
Speaker 1: fall completely by the wayside because the people who are
Speaker 1: causing the harm are white, and because we don't want
Speaker 1: to address that fact, we're going to be quote unquote
Speaker 1: card off guard by I guess a whole fucking parade
Speaker 1: full of you know, lone wolves folks. As I end
Speaker 1: this week too, I really once again cannot believe that
Speaker 1: it has been four years since the Parkland shooting. There
Speaker 1: has been no good news to report on. If you
Speaker 1: are a person that works in the gun movement right,
Speaker 1: the guns safety movement right, that has been trying to
Speaker 1: pass legislation to make this country more safe. You know
Speaker 1: what New Zealand was able to do after their first
Speaker 1: mass shooting, something that America hasn't been able to do
Speaker 1: in the twenty plus years since Columbine. There was good
Speaker 1: news this week on top of I guess recognizing the
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Parkland shooting is that now several years
Speaker 1: removed from Sandy Hook, which is when I knew that
Speaker 1: any gun policies in America were just dead in the water.
Speaker 1: When we were okay with a classroom of kindergarten and
Speaker 1: first graders and their teachers being gunned down and we
Speaker 1: did nothing, I knew that we were done. Because you know,
Speaker 1: even with the lies that Republicans tell themselves about being
Speaker 1: the party of family values, when they don't give a
Speaker 1: shit about kids, being the party of kids and hope,
Speaker 1: and you know, we need to put our town. What
Speaker 1: about the children? Right Like any time that you wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about sex, said, what about the children? Any
Speaker 1: time that you want to protect them from a global
Speaker 1: health pandemic. No, the children, they can't they can't work
Speaker 1: under with masks. You know, what about this? What about that?
Speaker 1: That's it is the what about ism of Republicans. But
Speaker 1: I thought, as many did, there's no way, right, there's
Speaker 1: no way that after elementary school kids are shot dead
Speaker 1: in their classroom that you wouldn't have bipartisan legislation done
Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye. But no, But the
Speaker 1: families of Sandy Hook did something that had never been
Speaker 1: done before. They sued the gun manufacturer. They sued Remington
Speaker 1: because that was the company that produced the weapon that
Speaker 1: was used to kill their kids, their elementary school children.
Speaker 1: So Remington, for the first time announced, right, it was
Speaker 1: announced this week when news broke, are paying seventy three
Speaker 1: million dollars to the families of those that lost their children,
Speaker 1: their babies. Seventy three million. I thought to myself as
Speaker 1: I saw that number, and again, you know, the headlines
Speaker 1: will say historic, historic, win, And I think to myself,
Speaker 1: there were, if I believe, if I remember correctly, twenty
Speaker 1: four people that were killed twenty four and again I
Speaker 1: say people, because it was teachers and children, twenty four
Speaker 1: seventy three million. I'm not really great at math, but
Speaker 1: I know that the price of a life is more
Speaker 1: than what Remington settled for. And I certainly know that
Speaker 1: every birthday, every anniversary, that the money that these families
Speaker 1: are getting is not feeling any void of loss that
Speaker 1: they will continue to feel for the rest of their lives,
Speaker 1: and then be able to look around and realize that
Speaker 1: their government, their country doesn't really give a fuck about
Speaker 1: them and their loss. That they've joined a club that
Speaker 1: nobody ever wants to join, those of families that have
Speaker 1: been broken apart by gun violence, whether it is a
Speaker 1: mass shooting, whether it is a regular every day shooting,
Speaker 1: that no one should have to live under those conditions.
Speaker 1: Nobody should have to live in a war zone. Nobody
Speaker 1: should have to be afraid to go to the supermarket,
Speaker 1: to go to church, to go to a synagogue, to
Speaker 1: go to a mosque, right to go to a movie
Speaker 1: theater because of what will happen. You know, my mother
Speaker 1: told me the other day, she goes, you know, I
Speaker 1: haven't really been to a movie theater. And this is
Speaker 1: you know, before COVID obviously, but she's just like, not
Speaker 1: ever since that shooting, people are you're sitting ducks in there?
Speaker 1: And I said, you're sitting duck everywhere in America. There
Speaker 1: are more guns in this country than there are people.
Speaker 1: There were two and a half guns to every single
Speaker 1: person in this country. How fucking sick is that? What
Speaker 1: does it say? But again, we accept it as the norm, right,
Speaker 1: We accept this, this fervent gun culture, as just being
Speaker 1: a part of who this country is. It is blood soaked.
Speaker 1: We expect too much of people, and we always always
Speaker 1: cave to the least among us. The fact that we
Speaker 1: can't agree that no one outside of military personnel, not
Speaker 1: even of the fucking police in this country, who you know,
Speaker 1: are fucked up. No one should have access to an
Speaker 1: AAR fifteen if you are not in somebody's military wearing
Speaker 1: fati eaks, what are you doing with that? But we
Speaker 1: couldn't even agree on that. We couldn't even agree as
Speaker 1: two parties to get rid of high impact magazines. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a slippery slope. Do you know what's a slippery slope?
Speaker 1: Fucking mass shootings and doing nothing about it. I keep
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, twenty years ago, when Columbine happened, what
Speaker 1: would school shootings have become a thing? Would active school
Speaker 1: shooting drills have become a norm for American children? If
Speaker 1: our country had had the fucking courage to do something
Speaker 1: the first time had happened. I can't even count how
Speaker 1: many mass shootings there have been because friends, let me
Speaker 1: just be clear, we can riddle off the ones that
Speaker 1: make the headline news right where there are you know,
Speaker 1: ten twenty thirty people that are gunned down, But a
Speaker 1: mass shooting, it's technically four or more people. Right in America,
Speaker 1: there's a mass shooting like every day, multiple times a day.
Speaker 1: And I said it during work Wednesday. America is a
Speaker 1: dangerous fucking country. It really is. When you are going
Speaker 1: to when you recognize when you kind of look at
Speaker 1: America on paper, right, it's like when you're going to
Speaker 1: set up a dating profile you look at America on
Speaker 1: paper and that it is just one giant red flag,
Speaker 1: Like it would be like, girl, you in danger. This
Speaker 1: America they ain't the one for you, right. They got
Speaker 1: shooting debts all the time, They got the highest fucking
Speaker 1: COVID numbers in the world, They are placing low in
Speaker 1: their public education, socioeconomic measures are falling by the wayside. Girl,
Speaker 1: this person ain't for you. Look away, not even look away,
Speaker 1: run away. And so the joke, right that was made
Speaker 1: was that America is like is like a developing nation
Speaker 1: and a fucking Gucci belt. That is the truth. We
Speaker 1: are nothing but facade, right, And the sad thing is
Speaker 1: the sad thing is is that many of us actually
Speaker 1: believed the lies that we have been told. I know,
Speaker 1: I did. I believe in democracy. I believe that America
Speaker 1: for a lot of people is a great place or was.
Speaker 1: But once you start to peel back that onion, once
Speaker 1: you start to realize that everything is tied to white
Speaker 1: supremacy and racism, every policy, every institution, right, once you
Speaker 1: realize that it was right before my sister was born
Speaker 1: that women were allowed to get credit cards on their own, folks,
Speaker 1: that was in the nineteen seventies. How have we ever
Speaker 1: been able to say that we are better than quote
Speaker 1: unquote some of the parts of the evil of access right,
Speaker 1: that's the axis remembered during the Bush years. It was
Speaker 1: all of these evil Middle East during countries. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that they loved to bring up was
Speaker 1: look at their treatment of women. I'm like, do you,
Speaker 1: motherfucker see what you do here to women in the
Speaker 1: United States where you are about to officially overturn rov
Speaker 1: Wade where women weren't allowed to like have financial independence
Speaker 1: until the seventies and I mean mid seventies. You look
Speaker 1: at America on paper, right, and this is why there
Speaker 1: were such a fight right now to erase and whitewash
Speaker 1: the truth not just about the enslaved population of Africans,
Speaker 1: not just about America's origin an old fucking sin, right,
Speaker 1: but also what they have done to women, LGBTQ people,
Speaker 1: Native Americans, all of it being eliminated to preserve what
Speaker 1: the big lie, the original big lie, American exceptionalism. Pause,
Speaker 1: let me say the you know, with the asterisk white
Speaker 1: American exceptionalism, because on paper, when you see the truth
Speaker 1: out in bullet form, this is not a country that
Speaker 1: most of us, if we were not born here, would say,
Speaker 1: would refer to as anybody's beacon on a hill, as
Speaker 1: anybody's model of any good goddamn thing. We are living in, friends,
Speaker 1: really unsettling times. And you know this, right, you know
Speaker 1: this to be true. And I think that as my
Speaker 1: friend said to me, you know, Danny all, sometimes it
Speaker 1: just find it hard to listen to you. It's not because,
Speaker 1: as you know, what you're saying isn't right. It's just
Speaker 1: because it's just too much truth. Well, my response to
Speaker 1: that is we've been fed too many lies and we
Speaker 1: are running out of time for the truth to actually
Speaker 1: fucking matter and make a difference. That I'm still busy
Speaker 1: out here trying to wake people up to their power
Speaker 1: and to the truth of what this nation is because
Speaker 1: you see, you see that you cannot work on things,
Speaker 1: you can't shape things that you refuse to actually examine,
Speaker 1: right like, you can't make things better when you have
Speaker 1: lied and said, oh but it's great. America is not great.
Speaker 1: It can be a lot fucking better. But you have
Speaker 1: one spineless political party and then the other one that
Speaker 1: is a fascist regime, and the fascists are winning. So, folks,
Speaker 1: you know, I know that each and every day I
Speaker 1: offer hard truths that are difficult to swallow. But I
Speaker 1: got to tell you I don't have time for lies,
Speaker 1: and I don't think any of you do either. I
Speaker 1: just don't want to feel like it's too late. But
Speaker 1: it's how I'm beginning to feel. All right, folks, Now
Speaker 1: for your woke moment of wellness after all of that,
Speaker 1: I am, as I said at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: visiting my one of my best friends for her birthday weekend,
Speaker 1: and I continue to say and to remind myself how
Speaker 1: important community and friendship is, that living in these uncertain
Speaker 1: and unstable times should be a consistent reminder to how
Speaker 1: fleeting life is right, and that we need to make
Speaker 1: time for our friends, for our family to check in right,
Speaker 1: especially with the ones, the folks that you think are
Speaker 1: really strong. Oh, they seem to be able to handle
Speaker 1: everything that can be a facade as well. Right, It
Speaker 1: is important for us to take the time to gather
Speaker 1: still in small groups, still thoughtfully because we're in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: but to gather to share in stories, to kind of
Speaker 1: lean on each other because some days are just too rough,
Speaker 1: and so for this moment of wellness, you know, use
Speaker 1: sometime this weekend, send some text messages to the friends
Speaker 1: or the family that you keep meaning to reach out to,
Speaker 1: but then you get so busy that it doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: and you let more time and more water go underneath
Speaker 1: that bridge. Send a text, do and impromptu face time.
Speaker 1: Let people know the ones who you love and care about,
Speaker 1: whether they are your actual family, blood family, whether they
Speaker 1: are the family that you have put together yourself. Let
Speaker 1: people know in the moments that you are thinking about them,
Speaker 1: that you love them, that you care about them. Never
Speaker 1: get too busy to make space and time for those
Speaker 1: that you love, because you don't know how much time
Speaker 1: any of us have. And if there is one thing
Speaker 1: that has been made clear over the last two years
Speaker 1: of living in this health pandemic, living in the threat
Speaker 1: of our democracy ending, living in all of this, it
Speaker 1: is how precious, how precious the time is, and so
Speaker 1: use it wisely, spend it with those that bring you
Speaker 1: joy as a consistent reminder that life is not about
Speaker 1: the grind, It is about the light, It is about
Speaker 1: the release, It is about love, and we should never
Speaker 1: be too busy for that. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends, recording live from Eastern Shore, Maryland. I wish
Speaker 1: you a happy, healthy, RESTful, joyful weekend and I will
Speaker 1: be back here on Monday. As always, dear friends, Power
Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people. Power, get
Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.